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smurfette
PopStar
Joined: Nov 07, 2003
Posts: 1287
Location: smurf village
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 Posted:
Mar 01, 2004 - 03:26 AM |
 
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| Post subject: China's Class Conciousness--from NYTimes |
Maybe New York Times is well-known for its objectiveness and unbiasness, this time this article was published by them, talking about class conciouness, with the author being a pure Chinese.
I do not think that class conciousness is something new to Chinese society, considering its long and complicated historical and cultrural background. Surely it is nothing new to other countries as well, either developed or developing ones(actually I mean all, for still no clear definition for classifying them yet).
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/weekinreview/29zhao.html?pagewanted= 1
China's Wealthy Live by a Creed: Hobbes and Darwin, Meet MarxBy YILU ZHAO
BIJING — The rich in China these days are moving into the villages of Napa Valley, Palm Springs, Long Beach, Upper East Side and Park Avenue, all in the suburbs of Beijing and Shanghai. When I grew up in Shanghai, places were called New China Road, Workers' New Village and People's Square. Now China's real estate tycoons have chosen American place names, and adorned what they build with Spanish arches, Greek columns and faux Roman sculptures.
But the settings themselves are not bucolic. The vast majority of these new single-family homes, which cost $800,000 on average, are huddled together in walled compounds with 24-hour security guards. The few rich who dare to live on their own in the countryside almost always become targets of burglars, who, in desperate moments, are willing to kill.
This is the dark side to China's new wealth: Envy, insecurity and social dislocation have come with the huge disparity between how the wealthy live and how the vast numbers of poor do. Clear signs of class division have emerged under a government that long claimed to have eliminated economic classes.
China still calls itself socialist, and in an odd sense it is. While the income structure has changed, much that was intended to underpin social order has not.
The criminal justice system, for example, has remained draconian. When caught, burglars invariably receive lengthy sentences. But there is no shortage of burglars, and the reason is clear: 18 percent of Chinese live on less than $1 a day, according to the United Nations. The poor are visible on the edges of any metropolis, where slums of plywood apartments sometimes abut the Western-looking mansions.
The most recent measure by which social scientists judge the inequality of a country's income distribution indicates that China is more unequal, for example, than the United States, Japan, South Korea and India. In fact, inequality levels approach China's own level in the late 1940's, when the Communists, with the help of the poor, toppled the Nationalist government.
In 1980, when the turn toward a market economy started, China had one of the world's most even distributions of wealth. Certainly, China before 1980 was a land of material shortage. When I was a child in the 1970's and 80's, I can recall, every family, equally poor, collected ration coupons to get flour, rice, sugar, meat, eggs, cloth, cookies and cigarettes. Without coupons, money was largely useless. Today, huge Western-style supermarkets offer French wine and New Zealand cheese.
But an odd change has come about in some shoppers' minds. As members of China's business and political elite, they have come to believe that the world is a huge jungle of Darwinian competition, where connections and smarts mean everything, and quaint notions of fairness count for little.
I noticed this attitude on my most recent trip to China from the United States, where I moved nine years ago. So I asked a relative who lives rather comfortably to explain. "Is it fair that the household maids make 65 cents an hour while the well-connected real estate developers become millionaires or billionaires in just a few years?" I asked.
He was caught off guard. After a few seconds of silence, he settled on an answer he had read in a popular magazine.
"Look at England, look at America," he said. "The Industrial Revolution was very cruel. When the English capitalists needed land, sheep ate people." (Chinese history books use the phrase "sheep ate people" to describe what happened in the 19th century, when tenant farmers in Britain were thrown off their land to starve so that sheep could graze and produce wool for new mills.)
"Since England and America went through that pain, shouldn't we try to avoid the same pain, now that we have history as our guide?" I asked.
"If we want to proceed to a full market economy, some people have to make sacrifices," my relative said solemnly. "To get to where we want to get, we must go through the 'sheep eating people' stage too."
In other words, while most Chinese have privately dumped the economic prescriptions of Marx, two pillars of the way he saw the world have remained.
First is the inexorable procession of history to a goal. The goal used to be the Communist utopia; now the destination is a market economy of material abundance.
Second, just as before, the welfare of some people must be sacrificed so the community can march toward its destiny. Many well-to-do Chinese readily endorse those views, so long as neither they nor their relatives are placed on the altar of history. In the end, Marx is used to justify ignoring the pain of the poor.
What the well-off have failed to read from history, however, is that extreme inequality tends to breed revolutions. Many of China's dynasties fell in peasant uprisings, and extreme inequality fed the Communist revolution.
While the gross domestic product has grown at least 7 percent a year in the last decade, the income of the rich has grown much faster than that of the poor. Political and business elites are merging, as state factories are sold at cheap prices to managers who often have government ties.
Wu Jinglian, a senior economist with China's State Council Development Research Center, recently called this "the abuse of power to create income," in an interview with People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, which was once just an official mouthpiece. A December article on the paper's Web site gave examples of China's politician-businessmen buying multimillion-dollar properties, for cash, in and around New York City and Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, as the Communist Party recruits successful businessmen as new members, blue-collar workers have lost their moral and social standing. Millions have lost their jobs, and older laid-off workers have been described in many publications as "historical baggage.''
Often, they are from the generation born just after the Communists took power in 1949.
My mother is of that generation. Born in 1950, she never finished high school because Mao Zedong closed almost all schools during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976. She started work at age 16, at a textile factory, and stayed there until 1999, when the plant closed.
Luckily, I was studying in the United States by then, and soon I began working and sending money home. My mother, unlike some of her colleagues with younger children, didn't have to take a 90-cent-an-hour job as a maid or milk deliverer.
It still puzzles my mother that she has become "historical baggage.'' Weren't her contemporaries the heroes of China's rapid industrialization? Sometimes she notes that she is the unluckiest of three women - my grandmother, herself and me. My grandmother, a daughter of a department store owner in pre-Communist China, went to private schools. I thrived in China's public schools during the economic reform.
The voices of my mother's generation are seldom heard today, because the government puts a lid on news coverage of the layoffs. A mostly compliant press is another holdover from the old days.
Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, is one of the few scholars who openly talk about them. "They are not 'historical baggage,' " he said of the unemployed. "The wealth of the Communist country, the assets of the state factories, were created by the blue-collar workers."
He said the reason that the unemployed are not yet despondent is that "they have put their hopes in their children.''
"So long as their children have a chance to get a good education, they won't completely despair," he said.
Here in Beijing, I rode in the cab of a middle-aged driver who works 14 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, to make $350 a month. "My daughter is bright," he beamed. "She is a college freshman studying interior design. She is our family's hope. When she finishes college, I'll quit this job."
China's leaders have vowed to reduce income disparity, and the press has been eager to cast them as advocates for the poor, much as it once described leaders as exemplars of the proletariat. But they face daunting tasks. They need to build a social safety net and basic medical care with tax revenue equaling 17 percent of the country's G.D.P., according to Anbound Group, a Beijing-based consulting firm. (According to the World Bank, United States tax revenue represents about a third of G.D.P., in a much larger economy.)
There are other ways in which the oddly mixed and cynical legacy of Chinese Marxism presents difficulties for anyone who would try to redistribute wealth. The reform era began with concepts like "truth," "kindness" and "beauty" already devalued; in the Maoist period, people learned to scoff at such notions. For a few decades, Communist ideals like saving humanity from capitalist oppression had displaced Confucian teachings like respecting the elderly. That left a moral vacuum when Communism's grip loosened, and nothing has yet emerged to fill it.
"A lot of people simply don't believe that things like truth, selflessness and altruism exist," said a government researcher in Beijing. "We have a very cynical population."
>>>>
I don't know if the ending words by the government researcher also speak for the writer him or herself.
And I think here, class conciousness has been positioned as an item where more negativeness than positiveness is placed.
But after all, is it really so?
What is wrong with that?
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jenming
FooJay
Joined: Dec 20, 2002
Posts: 1671
Location: Right where you wanna be
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Mar 01, 2004 - 12:40 PM |
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| Quote: |
But after all, is it really so?
What is wrong with that? |
what do you mean by this smurfette? do you mean to ask "what's wrong with class conciousness?" |
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smurfette
PopStar
Joined: Nov 07, 2003
Posts: 1287
Location: smurf village
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| Posted:
Mar 02, 2004 - 12:08 AM |
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Yes, cuz I feel like maybe they don't view this a concept that worhty encouraging. And in many cases, we could see that banning always lead to the opposite direction.
And I'm not sure if there is any link between class conciousness and poverty gap. Maybe the former one lives in spiritual field, while the latter one exists in reality as we can feel and see?
Well, and maybe they both attribute to the factors that would lead to the unstability of the society? So that's how their worries come?
Shown to the world today is a growing China, with ever larger property gap and stronger class conciousness( I assume the latter item), and also comes along the pro and con brought about by these changes. Maybe the government or scholars don't like it, but they could do nothing to ban on them or reverse the development.
My concern is that probably a more suitable attitude could be introduced regarding these classifications based on poverty. Not the word "CYNICAL" mentioned in the article.
Maybe lessons could be learnt from experience of other countries, even learn from failures.  |
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jenming
FooJay
Joined: Dec 20, 2002
Posts: 1671
Location: Right where you wanna be
Status: Offline
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Mar 02, 2004 - 12:30 PM |
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I think the distinction that needs to be made is between class conciousness and class discrimination. I feel like the author is condemning class discrimination mostly. I feel that class conciousness is a neutral thing. People can be aware of their socio-economic class without doing anything malicious to another class.
I also feel that China should take this opportunity to learn from the mistakes and successes of other countries in this area. Sometimes, I find the Chinese government is reluctant to utilize the experience of other countries, though. Quite justifiably, in some cases.
Until recently, China has stayed as far away as they could from taking in outside influences (whether these influneces be active or passive). And even after 20 years of opening up, I find that there's quite a few aspects in which the government is loathe to absorb practices or advice from the outside. I hope that in respect to this huge poverty gap, China can really look outside for guidance, though.
I believe what the author says about the size of the poverty gap here. And from what I know (i'm no social economics expert), the worse it gets, the harder it is to slow down, stop, or turn around. The earlier things like this are addressed, the better. it's interesting that the author uses the comparison of so many previous revolutions occuring in China due to a huge poverty gap. I guess in that respect, the government should also be looking inward at it's own history, too. But, wherever the people/government looks to, i do believe that no good will come of a growing poverty gap in the future.
The author does seem a little bit cynical about the whole matter though. But I don't think (s)he means to connect class conciousness with the income distribution disparity. |
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Cko
Squeeker
Joined: Jan 13, 2004
Posts: 11
Status: Offline
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Mar 02, 2004 - 02:52 PM |
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A good piece and is worth rough translation
for those who learn Chinese...........
China's Wealthy Live by a Creed: Hobbes and Darwin, Meet Marx By YILU ZHAO
中国富豪应验霍布斯，达尔文和马克斯的教条 赵一路著
北京 — 《纽约时报》指出中国大陆的贫富不均状况已经超越美国、日本、南韩及印度。事实上，它已接近1940年国民党统治时期的水平。也就是说，就贫富差距而 言，大陆已经接近「回到解放前」了。
一方面，当代中国大陆有越来越多的富豪们住进一些以美国富人区为名的豪宅中，诸如「纳帕溪谷」（Napa Valley）、「棕榈泉」（Palm Springs）、「长沙滩」（Long Beach）、「向阳东面」（Upper East Side）、「公园大道」（Park Avenue）等，并且大陆富豪们喜欢用西班牙拱门、希腊圆柱和仿罗马石雕来装饰他们的豪宅，而一些大陆旧时流行的名称，如「新中国路」、「工人新村 」、「人民广场」等，已经不再受到欢迎。另一方面，根据联合国的统计，大陆有百分之十八的人口每天生活支出不足一美元，穷人在都市的每个角落中都可以 发现。因此，虽然大陆窃盗罪的刑期一般很长，仍无法吓阻盗贼的横行。文章指出，这是大陆「一部分人富起来」之后的社会阴暗面。由于社会贫富差距的扩大 ，贫富生活方式的巨大反差，造成贫富间羡慕与不安全的复杂心理。
在过去的十年里，虽然中国每年的经济增长率据称在百分之七以上，但富人财富增加的速度远远快于穷人，致使贫富差距越来越大。此外，大陆现今的官商勾结 ，以低价购入国有企业资产而致富，有些财产则被偷偷转移海外。
中国至今仍自称是一个社会主义国家，但中国作为一个社会主义国度所需要的社会架构已经荡然无存。大陆虽然早已经抛弃马克思开立的药方，但在现今中国人 的思想中仍保留着马克思的精神烙印：为了达到新世界的远景，部分人要做出牺牲。只不过，过去的历史前进终点是共产主义乌托邦，现在是物资丰富的市场经 济。此外，为了达到市场经济的远景，马克思理论成为穷人必须受苦的合理化工具。
大陆新富阶级并没有从历史中学到教训，因为过度的贫富差距是革命的温床，回首历史，许多中国王朝贫困阶级的暴动而灭亡，包括中共的革命成功也是一样的 ，同样得益于当时的社会贫富不均。
就在中共极力把资本家吸收入党的同时，大陆广大的蓝领工人则逐渐失去他们的社会地位，一大群失业和下岗的工人开始被称为「历史包袱」。工人阶级领导一 切的说法已经早被抛弃。由于媒体等国家机器掌握在中共手中，这群下岗工人的声音很难被外界听到。清华大学社会学家孙立平就曾经不平地说：“他们不是‘ 历史包袱’。我们国家的财富、国企的资产，都是蓝领工人创造出来的。”
这种严重的贫富差距问题中共统治阶层不是不知道。文章说，中共现今领导层曾经誓言将解决贫富不均问题，但这是一项艰苦的任务，因为他们必须以大陆百分 之十七的国民产值，创建大陆的社会安全保障网络及医疗保健体系，而处理相同的问题，美国几近花费了三分之一的国民总产值。
除了贫富差距，大陆的社会心态也已经改变，多数人把达尔文适者生存的法则应用于社会生活中。当被问及贫富收入差距太大的问题时，一名受访者回称：「如 果我们要达成完全的市场经济，就必须牺牲一部分人」，「为了达成最终的目标，必须经过这样一种阶段」。
大陆的社会心态改变也表现在对社会腐败和缺乏民主的冷漠和无奈。中国的富人阶层只顾闷声发财，两耳好象听不到霍布斯(THOMAS HOBBES)所宣扬的绝对独裁教条(见以下霍布斯小传)的声音在华夏大地的回响。
中国富豪的生活千真万确地应验了霍布斯，达尔文和马克斯的三重教条。 |
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smurfette
PopStar
Joined: Nov 07, 2003
Posts: 1287
Location: smurf village
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| Posted:
Mar 03, 2004 - 03:56 AM |
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Or it is me myself that being cynical?
Poor Smurf has involved herself to this brain-cell-killer-question again 
Just not long ago, I read something about views on India's development, and as you all know, India is also a country facing the problem of huge proverty gap.
WHILE interesting enough, from the article of an American (or some other western country, anyway non-China) scholar pointed this being one of the vital barriers in India's social and economic development and also he mentioned that the trend of the poor has been poorer and rich has been richer never stopped;
on the other hand, somewhere else, a Chinese economist, in an interview, referred the gap as one of the five wheels speeding up India's economy, and the reason for this being "It has reached peak and could not be widened. The main concern of the whole society has swifted from eyes on unfairness in distribution to ways of improving income." Well, the interview was not that detailed(and Smurf was not that smart =p) but I thought hard and guessed that this guy meant that in India, the poor could not be poorer cuz they have already been on the lowest income while the rich could not gain extra fortune dramatically in short term so at present it could be said that the society is in some stable structure, no large ups and downs for individules, EVEN MORE, he also mentioned the role of RELIGION in soothing the lower class of the society, whoo, well, this time, Smurf's little brain really got jammed 
Of course this "famous" Chinese economist is not pressman of the government, but he really sounds not that negative on the big gap, and he has really fairy will that the bottom people are all determined enough to raise their income by hard working and legal approaches rather than other ways. Darwin's rule? |
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Cko
Squeeker
Joined: Jan 13, 2004
Posts: 11
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Mar 03, 2004 - 06:55 AM |
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there is old saying in China:
"冷在风里，穷在债里“ meaning "really cold in wind, really poor in debt."
and new saying:
"债多不愁" meaning "No panic in big debt." (westernized style)
So in China typically, poor people just learnt old saying, so they are not poorer,
and rich people just learnt new saying, so they are getting richer.
while the other people learnt both, so they got average.... |
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