An Analysis on Class Structure in Contemporary China
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the authors
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Prologue
- Introduction: The Study of Social Stratification and the Transformation of Research Paradigm
- Chapter 1. Class Analysis on Contemporary Sociology: Theoretical Perspective and Analysis Paradigm
- Chapter 2. From “Economic Determination” to “Authority Domination”: Theoretical Turning of Class Analysis
- Chapter 3. The Differentiation of Authority Relations and Class Location
- Chapter 4. The Construction of Authority Class Schema and Relevance Validity Test
- Chapter 5. Construct Validity Test of Authority Class Schema
- Chapter 6. The Value and Significance of Authority Class Schema
- Chapter 7. “Different Ways to Different Types”: Typological Analysis of the Middle Class in Present China’s Towns
- Chapter 8. Middle Class: The Multidimensional Analytical Framework of Political Function
- Chapter 9. The Social Existence of Middle Class in Contemporary China : The Class Cognition and Political Consciousness
- Chapter 10. The Social Existence of the Middle Class in Contemporary China: The Condition of Social Life
- Chapter 11. “Worries about Unevenness, and more about Unfairness”: “Sense of Fairness” and “Sense of Conflict” in the Transitional Period
- Chapter 12. Views on Distributive Equality: The Perspective of International Comparison
- Peroration: The Stratification of Social Structure and the Marketization of Interests Relations: New Challenges Facing Social Management in China
- References
Preface
Currently, there exist many collections including sociology ones, which make us doubt when compiling a new sociology collection entrusted by China Renmin University Press: whether this collection simply contributes to the total number or it should have some qualitative characters? This is the inevitable positioning question we have to face, which, after thorough consideration, contains at least four aspects as follows.
First, it is a research-based collection, which means it only contains research-based and exploratory works. The essence of these works is being new and innovative, so they are different from informative, introductory, translated, and compiled works. The latter, which is also important, should have their publishing channels according to the categories.
Sociological research undoubtedly contains multiple aspects: theoretical research and empirical research, qualitative research and quantitative research, research on real social phenomenon, and on sociology itself. This collection welcomes every research, laying focus on the following aspects based on the requirement of combining international and local sociology, and on the basic reality of China:
- Researches that deepen the cognition of Chinese society in transformation
- Researches that contribute to the sociological theories with Chinese characteristics
- Researches that grasp the new development of global sociology and its direction
Second, it is a high-quality collection. It means that we value the quality of the research-based works. By high quality, we mean that the content of works should meet at least one or more following requirements: (1) It should be able to analyze the commonly concerned social problems and hot topics from a sociological point of view with penetrating judgment that can afford the test of time and history; (2) it contributes to the implementation of the underlying sociological theory of “improving social progress and reducing social cost”; (3) it promotes the development of sociology and its theory innovation; (4) it facilitates the internationalization and localization of Chinese sociology. As for the requirements for the form of these works, it should match the content, be readable, explain the profound concepts in simple terms, and suit both refined and popular tastes.
Third, it should provide a chance for new blood in sociology studies to stand out. These selected researches will raise the popularity of the new and upraising authors to some extent, and introduce them to the academic circle and society, so they can become famous soon. In this sense, this collection works as an effective channel for cultivating sociological talent. It is commonly acknowledged that a lack of new blood in a subject or a field would lead to its end. The current top researchers, of course, who cannot be neglected, are still the most significant ones we need to rely on and are responsible for helping the new blood. I sincerely hope the current and future top researchers will work together and make this master’s collection worthy of its name, and play a more important role in the academic circle and our society.
Fourth, this collection should provide a platform for different schools of thought to present and discuss their views. An academic circle is immature if there are no different schools of thought. I have emphasized that there should be more schools of thought and fewer cliques in sociology academia. Disputes between schools of thought are about academic problems and views judged by academic standards, which can make your faces turn flushed with anger after arguing without damaging your friendship, while disputes between cliques adopt a nonacademic standard, which would unite with those of the same views but alienate those with different views, with the “spirit” of “people who don’t sing along with us are our enemies.” Therefore, disputes between schools of thought, with good intentions, help people exchange views and promote the academic development, while disputes between cliques are malicious and assaultive and would hinder the development. We will be delighted and gratified if this collection plays a positive role in facilitating the formation of sociological schools of thought with different views and in fruitful communication between different schools of thought. This collection will treat all kinds of views from different schools of thought equally.
In brief, we sincerely hope this collection will bring us the “four outcomes,” namely research achievement, high-quality works, famous researchers, and schools of thought. These “four outcomes” are the positioning of the China Renmin University Press sociology collection.
There is an ancient saying, “Aim for the top, you may end up in the middle; aim for the middle, you may end up at the bottom.” With the four-outcome positioning, this collection aims for the top, so we may end up at the top or in the middle. We hope to achieve the former rather than the latter, but it is our audience and time that will conclude.
It should be pointed out that this collection was published at a remarkable time.
First, Chinese sociology is at the best and most promising developing phase considering either the policy environment and institutional conditions or the domestic and international environment. Currently, the increasing importance of sociology as one of the basic philosophies and social science has been widely acknowledged. People have been realizing the significance of social factors, i.e., noneconomic factors, for reform, development, and stability, and thereby the significance of sociology, the study taking noneconomic factors as its starting points, similar to economics, and the study taking economic factors as its research object. The two subjects are both closely related to people’s lives and advance our reform, development, and stability. We have learned that plenty of problems need to be treated and analyzed through a sociological point of view and that theoretical research and empirical research are the foundation of formulating social policies best suited to reality. With the increasing acceptance and the popularization of its terms (community, socialization, vulnerable group, social transformation, benign operation, etc.), some of which are even adopted by the government, Chinese sociology is experiencing a top-down institutional condition and a bottom-up social climate for its development. After fierce competition, the Chinese sociology academia won the opportunity to host the 36th World Congress of Sociology themed “Social Change in the Background of Globalization,” which will be organized by the Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Science. The European and American sociology academia have paid great attention to Chinese social change and its sociological studies, which brings both huge pressure and strong impetus to Chinese sociology studies that are deeply rooted in domestic society since Western sociological researches are in a much higher position than Chinese ones regarding scale, input, or achievement, impact, and other aspects. It is the right time to launch the collection. And we hope such a good environment will not fail.
Second, remarkableness is also embodied in the self-reflection and rebuilding process of global sociology. Such a trend is not without ground but based on realities: the decline of old modernity and the rise of new modernity, which, I believe, would affect the internationalization and localization of Chinese sociology. I will talk a little bit more about this point.
The old modernity is centered on conquering nature and controlling resources, and it is characterized by the inharmonious relationship between society and nature as well as society and individuals, leading to the dual cost of both society and nature. We have witnessed multiple signs of significant changes in global social activities during the transition period from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century: human being’s perversion against nature has incurred increasingly severe “green punishment,” leading to a tense relationship between humans and nature, as far as to “the war we started against nature which becomes a self-destruction”; the contradiction between our increasing desires and limited resources has triggered the fight over the power of resource control, leading to the twist of value standard, the deformation of ethical principles, and the deterioration of the human–nature relationship. The old modernity is evidently deep in crisis. Therefore, it is an imperative trend to explore new modernity for the world and China.
The new modernity is people-oriented. It pursues a harmonious relationship to achieve win–win between humans and nature, humans and society, and minimizes the natural cost and social cost. We can immediately perceive the profound connotations of the pros and cons of the new modernity from the significant social progress and a variety of social costs during the accelerated China’s social transformation.
In regard to the relationship between these two kinds of modernity and sociology, the old modernity formed the old sociology—the range of its perception and imagination, its questions and vision, and even its theoretical ambition and expectation. When modernity faces a significant transition, it is time for social reconstruction, individual remodeling, and rebuilding of the relationship between individuals and society. Sociology has been inevitably involved in the process of the presupposed fundamental change, the great vision adjustment, and the remolding and rebuilding of theories.
The reactions to old modernity are not only new modernity but also postmodernity. If the new modernity is a positive reflection of the old one, then the postmodernity will be a negative one. It is right for postmodernity to criticize the maladies of old modernity, but it is wrong for it to abandon new modernity and thus go to the extreme, rather than just eradicating the maladies. Its so-called deconstruction of social and knowledge basis is not helpful to a harmonious society.
Therefore, Chinese sociology, in a historical period of the decline of old modernity and the emergence of new modernity, has to meet the needs of the times, follow the pace of the rebuilding of global sociology, and exploit new theoretical space combined with domestic circumstances. Influenced by the experience gained during our rapid transformation period, the subjectivity, consciousness, and sensitivity of the Chinese sociology academics have been greatly raised, which will help us to achieve our goals.
We sincerely hope this collection will exert a facilitating effect on the process of pursuing our goals.
The above will serve as a preface to this collection as an encouragement for us all.
Zheng Hangsheng
August, 2003, at Qihewen veranda
Prologue
Over 30 years since reform and opening up, the magnificent market transformation has brought prerequisite and integral profound influence to every aspect of social lives. Regarding social stratification, inequality, and other aspects, the pattern and its decisive mechanism of resource allocation and profit distribution have apparently changed, and the class and hierarchical structure and their standards have been thoroughly adjusted. There have been multiple new forms and changes in social inequality and the structural factors (for example, system, region, and mechanism) leading to which and how these factors work are getting more complicated. The market transformation has provided us with a vivid theoretical “testing ground” and a macro background for us to analyze the new problems, new characteristics, and new trends of social stratification and inequality.
Facing the realities of social transformation in Contemporary China, this book analyzes the structure, characters and influences of social classes in Contemporary China, and reveals the basic situation and changing trends of inequalities in many fields of society in Contemporary China from different points of view on the basis of the new development of the theoretical paradigm of class analysis and the statistics from large-scale social investigations.
The book generally focuses on three core topics. The first is the discussion about class theories and class structure, which brings up a new perspective—power/authority class schema—to analyze the social class structure in Contemporary China by combining and discussing modern Western sociology and the class theoretical paradigm and analytic logic of Chinese sociology. The second is the research on the growing middle class, focusing on its inner composition, types and heterogeneity, social living conditions, subjective cognition, social–political function, etc. The third is the discussion on “subjective social inequality,” revealing objective social change and differentiation reflected through people’s subjective cognizance and values and analyzing people’s cognizance of social inequality, fairness valuation (sense of fairness), strata relation, and the perception of its tension (sense of conflict).
With the drastic social transformation and new presentation of social contradiction since the new century, different from the questioning trend of the class analysis paradigm in international academics since the 1990s, there has been a noticeable trend in Chinese social stratification research. The resurge of the class analysis paradigm. Class analysis is the most fundamental theoretical paradigm on social inequality, contradiction, and conflict. From our point of view, the core of the class analysis is based on the structural position of the definition of social relation, and the structural explanation of the systematization of social inequality, contradiction, and conflict. Class analysis has multiple paradigms in research objects, analytical thinking, explanatory logic, and other aspects. The research objects include macroscopically explaining the large-scale social change and transformation, and microscopically explaining the influence of people’s attitudes, behavior, and life chances. Analytical thinking has a “structure–consciousness–action” mode and a “structure– situation–choice” mode. Explanatory logic includes “the logic of exploitation and interest formation,” “the logic of situation or logic of rational action,” and “the logic of structuration.” The introduction and Chapter One of this book have provided a review and discussion of the theoretical paradigm and analytic logic of class analysis, clarified misunderstandings and biases we had on class analysis, provided a clear definition for class analysis of transformation, and laid a foundation for its theoretical development.
Based on the discussion of class theories and combined with the characteristics and realities of Chinese society, this book puts forward a new frame to analyze the class structure of Chinese society: power/authority class schema. Power/authority, the core variable in sociology, especially social stratification research, is of great significance in both traditional and modern Chinese society. Therefore, adopting the power/authority tradition in stratification and class analysis, and based on the property power relation and authority relations in work organization, especially the detailed and direct measurement of authority relations in work organization, and by four working condition indicators— physical/nonphysical labor, direct supervision, the right to make decision and supervise, and work autonomy—we established a class structural system to reflect the social power distribution and social power structure.
Empirical analysis showed that the frame has enough explanatory power for the reality of Chinese society, providing a new structural variable to explain the social phenomenon (including social behavior, consumption patterns, subjective attitudes, etc.) and a new (systematic) view to understand the Chinese class structure and inequality. In Chapters Two to Six of this book, we conducted sufficient theoretical discussion and empirical analysis of authority class schema from the origin of thought, theoretical basis, logic explanation, experience construction, validity test, and other aspects.
During the process of market transformation, the relatively fixed social structure at the beginning of the reform and opening up has shown a pluralistic development. The basic thesis of “two classes (the working class and peasant class) and one stratum (intelligentsia)” is not enough to reflect the realities, with significant differentiation within both the working class and peasantry. In urban societies, the development and expansion of the middle stratum are surely the most noticeable changes during the process of social structural transformation. A huge middle stratum including administrators, professional and technical staff, office clerks, private entrepreneurs, and self-employed people is expanding. Its inner structure and type, basic living conditions, social–political function, and other aspects have been the key topics continuously discussed these years among academics, and therefore the major issues of this book.
Based on the analytical framework of “redistribution-market” transformation, we first conducted a basic typological division on the Chinese middle class, i.e., the “endogenous middle class” with characteristics of a redistribution system, and the “exogenous middle class” generated and developed in a market-oriented system. The bifurcated frame and other multi-dimensional frames have laid the foundation for us to confirm the basic conditions and diversities of the middle class in inter-generational transition, social activities (residential pattern, social interaction, marital match, and lifestyle), class awareness (awareness of stratification, position, and standards of classification), political and consumption consciousness, and other aspects. They also helped us build a multidimensional frame to analyze the social–political function of the middle class. In this frame, the social–political function of the middle class presents diversity. How the specific social–political functions of the middle class are manifested depends on three basic variables: the stage of economic development, the regime property of a specific society, and the social order, as well as their different combinations. A better understanding of the social– political function of the middle class in this frame will help provide a prospective view of the Chinese social transformation in the future. Chapters Seven to Ten of this book, based on the statistics from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) over the years, reveal the inner structure, basic living condition, subjective cognition, and social–political function of the middle class in Contemporary China .
Since the reform and opening up, two intensive, yet contradictory, trends have been gaining increasing attention at home and abroad. One is the historic achievement of our rapidly developing economy and people’s living standards. The other is the widening gap between the poor and the rich, the intensified stratification, and the increase of social conflicts and instabilities. People are getting disturbed and even dissatisfied with the increasing social inequality. If indexes and tools like the Gini coefficient, Engel coefficient, class and stratum structure, socioeconomic status index, and social mobility chart are adopted to describe and measure objective social inequality, then the analysis of people’s cognition and value judgment on social inequality is the subjective research, which is an innovative starting point of inequality research for domestic and foreign researches.
The research of subjective social stratification and sense of social justice fundamentally reveals the reflection of subjective social change and differentiation on people’s perceptions and values. Compared to the objective inequality analysis, it would reach a more authentic and specific conclusion because it involves people’s subjective perception and value judgment. Chapters Eleven and Twelve depict people’s perception of the income distribution gap and the tension between classes during transformation and compare it to its international counterpart. By researching subjective inequality, this book systematically provides a new view to understanding why Chinese society is relatively stable while its conflicts are getting intense. It presents the trend and characteristics of how people’s subjective “sense of fairness” and “sense of conflict” are changing along with the change of reform, social contradiction, and social focus.
This book ends with the challenges social structure evolution and social construction are facing, revealing the challenges brought by social stratification and marketization to social construction and administration at a certain stage of economic development and system transition. It puts forward the idea of innovating the social management system from three aspects—“publicity,” “participation,” and “balance,” integrating the differentiating class structure, dealing with the increasingly market-oriented conflict of interests between different classes and groups, and regrouping the power structure involving benefit or resource distribution, to form a new social system coordinating interest conflicts.
Details
- Pages
- XVIII, 320
- Publication Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433186479
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433186486
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781433186493
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433185854
- DOI
- 10.3726/b18169
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (November)
- Keywords
- Contemporary China Class Analysis Class Structure Sense of Conflict Authority Class System Sense of Fairness Social Management
- Published
- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2024. XVIII, 320 pp., 32 b/w ill., 61 b/w tables.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
