Class in Contemporary China / China Today Bd.1 (ePub)

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

More than three decades of economic growth have led to significant
social change in the People s Republic of China. This timely
book examines the emerging structures of class and social
stratification: how they are interpreted and managed by the Chinese
Communist Party, and how they are understood and lived by people
themselves.

David Goodman details the emergence of a dominant class based on
political power and wealth that has emerged from the institutions
of the Party-state; a well-established middle class that is closely
associated with the Party-state and a not-so-well-established
entrepreneurial middle class; and several different subordinate
classes in both the rural and urban areas. In doing so, he
considers several critical issues: the extent to which the social
basis of the Chinese political system has changed and the likely
consequences; the impact of change on the old working class that
was the socio-political mainstay of state socialism before the
1980s; the extent to which the migrant workers on whom much of the
economic power of the PRC since the early 1980s has been based are
becoming a new working class; and the consequences of China s
growing middle class, especially for politics.

The result is an invaluable guide for students and non-specialists
interested in the contours of ongoing social change in China.