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.
Innehållsförteckning
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
Om författaren
David S. G. Goodman is Academic Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, where he is Professor of Chinese Politics. He is also Professor in the School of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Nanjing University.
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