While class analysis was at the center of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the political mobilizations of Mao’s time, in the reform era class conflict has either been dismissed as insignificant or become somewhat of a taboo in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s official discourse, since a socialist country is supposed to be classless. And yet, class provides a unique lens for analyzing and understanding China’s transition from a planned economy to a market-driven one.
Changes in the class system in China after the CCP took power reveal, first of all, the relationship between the Party-state and society. In
Class by ideology was thought to purify the Party-state under Mao; however, since the reforms in 1978, it has been used to explain away the existence of a capitalist class and increasing inequality in a supposedly classless socialist country. This means, above all, that the working class has been expanded to include all law-abiding citizens who earn their living through some kind of work, be it physical, intellectual, managerial, or entrepreneurial. Furthermore, in order to split from Mao’s legacy of class struggle and a politicized, ideology-driven society, the Chinese state analyzes social inequality not through class differences but through occupational hierarchies, separating one’s socioeconomic status from his/her political consciousness. As a result, the state has played an important role in framing and constructing the meanings of the class structure in China, both during and after Mao.
Despite tremendous geographic differences and local variations, however, Goodman borrows the three-class division framework drawn from industrial societies to analyze China’s class structure today, characterizing it as consisting of “a dominant class based on the ownership of capital, an intermediate class based on the acquisition of education and/or organizational assets, and a subordinate class based on the possession of physical labour” with “constituent classes or subclasses within each of these three main classes and one or more underclasses completely outside of consideration of class position” (29). Within this framework, Goodman highlights exceptions as a result of China still being dominated by the Communist Party-state. For example, property in China is not so much about ownership as it is about the bundle of rights that come with it, including control, income, and transfer. The Chinese economy, Goodman argues, is still largely influenced by the remnants of state socialism (64).
The dominant class, according to Goodman, includes both political and economic elites. He suggests that there are some signs of the embourgeoisement of the political elite (e.g. the formation of interest groups trying to influence policies and local cadres running businesses) and the politicization of the economic elite (e.g. the large proportion of businesspeople joining state-run organizations or becoming CCP members). However, to what extent the two elites overlap and form a coherent ruling class remains an open question to which Goodman does not offer an answer.
Although discussion of a dominant or upper class is often avoided by the Chinese state, since admitting to the existence of such a class may undermine the legitimacy of the Party, the goal of building a middle-class society appears frequently in the official discourse. Nonetheless, “middle class” is defined in such a vague way that it is not clear who exactly belongs to it. Goodman points out that the less-than-precise definition of the middle class makes that category more inclusive. By reviewing the existing literature, Goodman finds that most scholars agree that the middle class in China includes those with a good education, holding high-status occupations, and adopting a certain lifestyle. What complicates the analysis of class in China specifically is the lack of consistency across dimensions that usually define the middle class, such as income, education, occupation, and consumption. Because the concept of a middle class grew out of reforms in the midst of drastic social and economic change, people may meet one or more criteria. Depending on the size and nature of their business, for example, entrepreneurs may belong to the dominant, middle, or subordinate class, as they vary tremendously in terms of knowledge, education, and access to power and resources. Furthermore, the unevenness of development makes it difficult to homogenize standards of living across China. The existence of a substantial number of industrial workers, migrant workers, and agricultural workers additionally renders it impossible for China to become a middle-class-dominated society. Therefore, according to Goodman, the “ever-expanding middle class”, or the middle class making up the majority of Chinese society, seems to be nothing but a myth (103–109). Nevertheless, the pursuit of a middle-class society not only offers political safety, drawing attention away from economic polarization and potential class conflicts, but it also creates a consumer society in which a middle class lifestyle becomes the standard to emulate. It is somewhat ironic that class in a Marxist-Leninist socialist country has become depoliticized, and the grand political narrative of class has largely been replaced by a discourse on lifestyle.
Lianne Yu’s book,
Although Yu paints a picture of Chinese consumers creatively muddling through state control and corporate power in the hope of achieving and expressing their identities, recognizing them as neither victims nor perfectly liberated, it would be beneficial to discuss in more detail the state’s role in the creation of such a consumer society and the relationship between the state and the capitalist economy that both liberates and constrains consumer power. Moreover, consumers in China are not a monolith, not even just neo-tribes, but are embedded in the specific structural locations they occupy with tremendous regional and urban/rural variations. Without such a discussion, the discourse on differences between consumers in China and their counterparts in Western and other East Asian countries—which includes Yu’s invented terms like “conspicuous accomplishment” and “consumer public sphere”—seems to be insubstantial.
Furthermore, Yu takes an overall positive view of consumption as a tool for expressing and negotiating one’s identity and asserting one’s agency, but underplays the social and environmental consequences of consumption in terms of labor, conflict, and justice. In other words, as Yu tries to move away from the Marxist depiction of consumers as passive players and from his predominant focus on the theme of production, she fails to link consumption and production in a critical way.
Although Judith Shapiro’s
So how much does China deviate from the general social theories on social classes, consumption, and environmental activism? Will economic development lead to China’s political change and eventual democratization?
Regarding the first question, while all three authors strive to demonstrate the nuances that the Chinese case displays, especially under the visible hand of the Party-state, none move away from the Western theoretical framework in their analyses, or offer any new insight into China’s political system. Even Shapiro’s book, which tries to include the cultural aspect via a discussion of Chinese national identity and the “superiority-inferiority complex” rooted in China’s encounters with the rest of the world and the communist state’s reinvention of history, does not go beyond a stylized,
As for the second question, none of the authors seem optimistic about any radical political change in China in the foreseeable future, even though there is localized, incident-based, rights-focused activism that most likely works within the system rather than against it, no matter whether such collective actions are based on class or consumption, organized by NGOs or via the internet. Of course, the large variations across demographics and regions make it difficult to predict future political and social change in China.
The middle classes have fewer incentives for a regime change because of their vested interests in the system and the co-optation from the state, even though they do rise up to defend their own interests. Goodman puts more hope on the subordinate classes and discusses the rising protests among workers, including workers in public sectors who usually have more resources for organization, and workers in private sectors consisting predominantly of migrant workers who lack benefits, security, and power. The language of class is often used as a tool for mobilization. However, the broad social categories of workers are by no means forming a coherent class, as a result of variations in the experiences of exploitation and deprivation. Not only aren’t they working together to challenge the regime, public-sector and migrant workers often see themselves as in competition with each other. Peasants, who potentially pose the most challenge to the state, according to Goodman, rarely rely on agriculture alone for a living and are disempowered in the process of urbanization and relocation.
Shapiro addresses the role of environmental NGOs in disseminating information (i.e. information politics), holding governments and corporations accountable for their commitments (i.e. accountability politics), and using symbols and dramatization to mobilize opposition and consumer behavior (i.e. symbolic politics). Even though they often have to work creatively within the boundaries set by the state, rising environmental awareness, which is in line with the government’s call for “sustainable development,” has opened up space for public participation. Although the environment may be an area in which a civil society is more likely to form, regional inequality could undermine the results of civic activism, as pollution and other forms of environmental degradation may simply be passed onto poorer parts of the country where employment and economic growth are taken more seriously than environmental protection and residents lack the power to voice their discontents.
Yu, meanwhile, focuses on the internet and social media as new platforms for consumers to exercise their power, either exposing corrupt officials and government scandals or boycotting greedy corporations. However, such activities may not always oppose or challenge the state; consumer activism can also align with the state’s interests, such as in the case of boycotting Japanese products out of nationalism.
China’s class structure, consumption patterns, and environmental problems are increasingly embedded in the global neoliberal system, yet with the exception of Shapiro’s book, which situates China’s environmental challenges and discourses within that global context, not much analysis of the global dimension or the global-local linkage is offered in this collection of literature. Nonetheless, the three books provide a good introductory overview of Chinese society for undergraduates and professionals new to the field.
In his path-breaking
Elgar’s much celebrated ‘Englishness’ had an Oriental component, Ghuman argues, because the musical materials that Elgar used in
Between late 1907 and the end of July 1909, MacCarthy studied Indian music with several teachers in the subcontinent. Her subsequent lecture-recitals in Britain were not only pioneering but also had an impact on Holst and, of course, Foulds, with whom she fled to India in 1935 (he died there in 1939). Still, Ghuman is too idealistic about MacCarthy’s knowledge of Indian music. Similar to her lecture-recitals, for example, numerous critics also praised those of Ratan Devi and Arnold Bake, the Dutch proto-ethnomusicologist. But can one take these reviews literally, as Ghuman does in MacCarthy’s case? Undeniably, MacCarthy knew more about Indian music than Devi, who only learned some Indian (folk) songs from a local teacher during a few months in Kashmir. Bake, nonetheless, studied Indian music much longer than MacCarthy and, from 1930 onward, gave hundreds of successful lecture-recitals in India, Europe, and the United States. Moreover, recordings of his singing show that there was a great discrepancy between his actual knowledge of Indian music and what he was praised for in reviews, and I suggest this would have been much the same in MacCarthy’s case. The intricate techniques of Indian art music require many years of training, not merely a few. Rather than the performance of
Altogether, however,
Edited by Yenna Wu,
This book gathers together nine thought-provoking chapters regarding Li Ang’s nuanced critique of female sexuality and Taiwan’s politics. Chapter One cleverly connects Taiwan’s political development with Ang’s literary creations, from her early works like “Flower Season” to her 2009 novel
Chapter Three examines another essential topic in Li Ang’s writing: extramarital affairs. This chapter successfully brings into focus how Li critiques the extramarital affair with the support of sociological statistics in her 1992 book,
Chapter Six is one of the most interesting chapters in that it analyzes a profound state of localization as observed in Li Ang’s 1990 novel,
Chapter Seven starts with a political review of the 2012 presidential election in Taiwan and moves on to discuss more holistically the state of women, politics, and national identity with a focus on Li’s 1997 four-story collection,
Chapter Eight underscores the power struggle between China and Taiwan via the cross-strait romance in Li’s
It is surprising to note that this edited volume has not yet been thoroughly reviewed by the academy given the fact that Li Ang is one of the few internationally recognized writers based in Taiwan. The editor and contributors of the book should be applauded for their great contribution to Chinese studies and beyond. To conclude,
The authors have no competing interests to declare.