The Making of an Ideal Class

Abstract

This chapter argues that since the end of the 1990s, Chinese researchers—in connection with political leaders—have started to talk about middle social strata and contributed to popularizing the idea that the modernization process cannot but create middle classes in China. Members of the middle class are defined in a certain way, as providing new moral values and new standards of behavior. They are supposed to facilitate the achievement of the modernity process in all aspects of social life. They are perfect consumers and perfect citizens, open, well-educated and honest people, ready to defend their rights but moderate protesters. In other words, they constitute an ideal class. Beyond this consensus, however, opinions diverge over whether this class exists or is about to emerge.

Appendix 1

Table 3.1 Number of articles published with middle property class (Zhongshan jieji), middle property stratum (Zhongchan jieceng) and middle stratum (Zhongjie jieceng) in their keyword list, abstract and title