What is it about?
China is a laboratory for the study of social class patterns in a developing economy self-identifying as socialist but which has undergone extensive capitalist reforms. It's status as a developing economy has saddled it with a large peasant population. China's identification with socialism is maintained by its ruling Communist Party whose members have gotten obscenely wealthy through capitalist-like practices. The working class finds itself disciplined both by capitalist business profit strategies and by a state run labor union.
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Why is it important?
This article is important because the development paths of so-called BRICS - including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are being touted as really existing alternatives to the predominating neoliberal development narrative peddled by the US, EU and other advanced economies now trapped in a numbing austerity.
Perspectives
Though this paper was researched and written a few years ago its arguments have only been further validated by time.
Dr Richard Westra
University of Macau
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Social Class in China Today, Historical Materialism, December 2018, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/1569206x-00001479.
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