Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

More than three decades of economic growth have led to significant social change in the Peoples 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 Chinas 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.

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.

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