(Re) Framing Class Theories: Class Analysis in Post-Reform China

Abstract

The model of traditional class theories in the West is not completely appropriate for conducting a class analysis of contemporary Chinese society. I argue that Western class categories are not directly applicable to the Chinese situation and that the Chinese new middle class is distinguished more by sociocultural than by economic factors. The Chinese new middle class is more diversified and heterogeneous than it appeared at first. The cultural and social identification of the Chinese new middle class operates mainly through cultural practices and consumption patterns. Hukou creates spatially distributed inequality. Danwei continues to be significant in considering class and class distinction in urban China. Both hukou and danwei create differences in work situations by forming guanxi networks inside the boundaries of the new class. This explains why hukou and danwei manifest themselves in sociocultural rather than economic differences. Significant effects on the new class also come from institutional changes in the framework of property ownership and the dominant role of the cadre in society. Therefore, ‘class’ in the Chinese context is a relatively sociocultural term rather than solely an economic one.

…China’s new middle class is a term without a single identifiable social interest or propensity to action. It encompasses not only the owners of capital, but also the managers and bureaucrats, as well as the professionals who service and support capitalist entrepreneurs and the modernizing state…

(Robinson & Goodman 1996: 40)