Origins and Powers of the New Rich

Oxford Bibliographies Oxford University Press

There are major books about the Chinese new middle class, and about governmentality in Western and nonwestern countries. In respect to the latter, Foucault 1982 focuses on how power is progressively elaborate, rationalized, and centralized in the form of, and under the auspices of, state institutions. As such, the neutral meaning of governmentality is about the processes or devices that the state uses to regulate or shape, from a distance, how people (should) behave within its territory to act in the interests of the state. Goodman 2008 argues the new rich emerged from political, economic, and social conditions in post-Reform China. Goodman mentions a rising Chinese wealthy class and its consumption within the property market and global real estate market all over the world-including Africa, North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia-thus forming a new middle-class culture in post-Reform China. Ren 2012 does not offer a precise definition of the Chinese new middle class in Chinese context either by statistical categories or qualitative criteria; rather this book argues the Chinese new middle class is part of a strategy of the Chinese state to establish a harmonious middle-class society in order to manage, educate, and control the rest of the Chinese population. This is soft control rather than hard manipulation and indoctrination. Tsang 2014 adopts a sociocultural perspective to highlight the emergence of the Chinese new middle class in post-Reform China. Her work, as shown throughout this article, is based on interviews with entrepreneurs, professionals, and regional party cadres from a range of age groups, and she argues that Western class categories do not directly apply to China and that the Chinese new middle class is distinguished more by sociocultural than by economic factors. Zhang 2010 argues the emergence of the Chinese new middle class and examines how the rise of private homeownership is reconfiguring urban space in today's China. The author capitalizes on ethnographic data to examine how the middle class in China, such as professionals and entrepreneurs, dominates and influences the consumer culture in China. Pierson 2011 examines the state from the birth of modernity to the current postmodern and highly globalized politics of the 21st century, also mentioning how the state suffered from other crises after the global financial crisis. Joseph 2012 offers an original approach to international relations by analyzing the concept of governmentality in Western countries. Dean 2010 argues governmentality is concerned with the ways the state exercises power over the people by shaping the choices, desires, and lifestyles of individuals and groups instead of imposing prohibitions or controls, known as disciplinary power refers to imposing prohibitions. Jeffreys 2009 outlines the social transformation in the realms of social, cultural, economic, and political life in China; the concept of governmentality in nonwestern and nonliberal settings is introduce, by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, education, religion, and sexual health have been raised in Chinese contexts. Rose 1999 points out that Foucault was not always consistent in his use of this concept, while also arguing there are still merits in building upon and extending the use of Foucault's original conceptualization of governmentality. Chen and Goodman 2013 examines the Chinese middle class from a political science perspective, and its different cultural identities and consumption patterns, lifestyles, and political behavior in today's China. This book argues the new rich emerged from political, economic, and social conditions in post-reform China. This book mentions a rising Chinese wealthy class and its consumption in property markets and global real estate markets all over the world-including Africa, North America, Europe and Southeast Asia-to form a new middle-class culture in post-Reform China. The book focuses more from a political perspective about how the Chinese new middle cass are not active in political participation, but active in economic development. Jeffreys, Elaine. China's Governmentalities: Governing Change, Changing Government. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis, 2009. This book outlines the social transformation in the realms of social, cultural, economic and political life in China. The concept of governmentality in nonwestern and nonliberal settings is introduced by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, education, religion, and sexual health have been raised in Chinese contexts. Joseph, Johnathan. The Social in the Global: Social Theory, Governmentality and Global Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

China 1949–2019, 2019

In Chap. 4 we have seen with what results China has implemented the policy that ‘put people first’ in order to correct the negative consequences created by the strategy of ‘economic development first’ implemented by Deng Xiaoping since 1978. This change of orientation to development toward a policy integrating economic and social development, was possible thanks to the changes in the structure of power, especially of the decision-making process, the development of NGOs, the import of Western technologies, such as shale gas fracking, and the import of Public Private Partnerships, as an example of Western management arrangements.

Modern China, 2012

The driving forces of the Chinese economy since the reforms of 1978 are the subject of intense scholarly debate. Some emphasize the role of private entrepreneurship; others identify the public/collective sector, local or central state as the engine of Chinese growth. This article suggests that the first decade of the Chinese reform was entrepreneurial. During the 1980s, the transformation stemmed “from below.” Since the 1990s, the change has been state-led, “from above.” With the privatization/marketization of the corporate sector the revenues of state-owned/controlled firms increased, but the source of these revenues was the privileged relationship of the public sector to the state, hence state-owned enterprises collected rents rather than earned profits. The “Chongqing model” has used some of these rents to fund welfare provisions with remarkable success, but a sustainable welfare system in a market economy has to be based on taxes collected from market-generated incomes and profi...

ABSTRACT This paper is a monograph written for International Securities Consultancy in 2001. It traces the history and evolution of the private sector in the early reform era in China. The paper explores the definitional grey areas one encounters in the study of the private sector in China in the reforms era.

Contemporary Sociology

Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2009

The China Quarterly, 1995

in Julianne Fürst et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Communism Vol. 3: Endgames?: Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Who created post-Mao China starting at the end of the 1970s? Conventional histories focus on bold national leaders led by Deng Xiaoping, who initiated a major transformation of Chinese society and foreign relations. Others emphasize changes from below, experiments and risks taken first by local farmers, even in secret, and then by mom-and-pop private businesses in the countryside and cities. This chapter attempts to connect top-down and bottom-up explanations, examining the evolving processes through which the state reauthorized and promoted market economy and consumerism. In the 1980s, the heart of revived markets and consumerism was the state-managed creation of a new class of local entrepreneurs, the getihu, and the revalorization of “bourgeois lifestyles.”

Critical Asian Studies, 2019

This article contributes to the debate on the role of the Chinese state in economic transition by shedding light on the relationship between the state and a Chinese domestic capitalist class. The formation of this new class has been a two-way movement between the state and new elites' forces. This two-way movement remains a prominent feature of the relationship between the state and the new class. This relationship has evolved with the dynamics of capital-labor conflicts and contradictions within a regime of accumulation and transitioned from a stage of "great compromise" to a stage of "strained alliance." ARTICLE HISTORY