Full Description
Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015
More than three decades of economic growth have led to significant social change in the People�s Republic of China. This timely book examines the emerging structures of class and social stratification: how they are interpreted and managed by the Chinese Communist Party, and how they are understood and lived by people themselves.
David Goodman details the emergence of a dominant class based on political power and wealth that has emerged from the institutions of the Party-state; a well-established middle class that is closely associated with the Party-state and a not-so-well-established entrepreneurial middle class; and several different subordinate classes in both the rural and urban areas. In doing so, he considers several critical issues: the extent to which the social basis of the Chinese political system has changed and the likely consequences; the impact of change on the old working class that was the socio-political mainstay of state socialism before the 1980s; the extent to which the migrant workers on whom much of the economic power of the PRC since the early 1980s has been based are becoming a new working class; and the consequences of China�s growing middle class, especially for politics.
The result is an invaluable guide for students and non-specialists interested in the contours of ongoing social change in China.
Contents
Tables vii
Maps viii
Chronology x
Preface xiii
Abbreviations, Measures and Note on Chinese Names and Transliteration xvi
1 Introduction: Understanding Class in China 1
Understanding China and class 5
Revolutionary class analysis 9
The bourgeoisie within the Party 17
Class by ideology; class by occupation 22
Analysing class in contemporary China 28
2 Social Stratification under Reform 34
Markers of change 35
Rural-urban relations 40
Reform and inequality 45
Stratification and class 54
The emergent class structure 58
3 The Dominant Class 64
The political elite 67
The economic elite 74
Power and wealth 82
4 The Middle Classes 92
Considering the middle class 94
Size and wealth 100
The aspirational middle class 109
The intermediate middle classes 116
5 The Subordinate Classes 122
Public-sector workers 128
Workers in the non-public sector 135
Peasants 143
6 The Political Economy of Change 149
Market transition 149
Democratization 153
A new working class 160
Peasant activism 166
Inequality and regime legitimacy 172
7 Conclusion: Inequality and Class 177
Inequality 181
Class 186
Bibliography 191
Index 221
