1st Edition
Chinese Entrepreneurs Between Power and Dependency Marginal Elites
1: INTRODUCTION.
The tale of a marginal and dependent elite.
The uses of history.
2: INTERPRETING THE ROOTS OF THE CHINESE PAST.
The roots of Chinese economy, philosophy, and statecraft.
The absent industrial revolution and the history of Chinese entrepreneurialism.
Political and ideological pushback against industrial breakthrough.
3: VOICES OF THE ENTREPRENEURS.
In the shadows of dependency and marginality.
On the “selective enforcement of law”.
On the entrepreneur’s “bloody sin” and the strategies and virtue of being cautious.
On the strategy of finding and utilizing the loopholes in the system.
On the anxieties of entrepreneurs: The strategies of fleeing or staying.
On playing the game: “Emotional intelligence” and “micro-sociological” awareness.
On the entrepreneurs as “fall-guys” and scapegoats for the faltering economy.
On nationalism, “wolf culture” and “Marxist metaphysics”.
On politics, fake propaganda, the media, and the failing economy.
On rights, citizenship, residency, and “the people”.
On money worship and power, family and gender.
On “middle-class” status.
“It doesn’t matter – things are just what they are.”
The entrepreneurs’ poor attitudes about the poor.
4: SELF PERCEPTIONS AND “ORIGINAL SIN”. PRELUDE TO LIMINALITY.
Self-perceptions, myths, and history.
A story of “original sin”.
Moralizing Marx: Demonizing the entrepreneurs.
Heroes and villains.
Revisiting the debate on democracy and the entrepreneurs.
5: THE LIMINAL RICH, HIDDEN NORMS, AND LEGITIMACY.
On the theory and practice of liminality.
Liminality and China’s private entrepreneurs.
Hidden norms and the cost of power.
The logic of governance and legitimacy.
6: “RED RICH” AND “NON-RED RICH”.
Defining the “red rich” and the “non-red rich”.
The marginalized insider – the lower end of the cadre system.
A Chinese code of “omertà”?
The nomenklatura: Red heritage and political lineage.
“Political blood lineage” and “red genes”.
Traps of routinized charisma. “Followers’ conviction” and “emperor’s paranoia”.
Aspiring to get “red rich”: The loophole of charity activity.
“Conspicuous giving”.
7: LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARDS
The winds of change.
The private entrepreneurs in the era of uncertainty.
Biography
Jasmine Wang holds a PhD in anthropology from the Department of Anthropology, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.
"A truly insightful book. Wang finds that entrepreneurs are a marginal group largely dependent on those in power, exercising little influence over public affairs, and holding few hopes for themselves or their country. Her interviews go beyond these particular findings to reflect on the nature of society and the structure of power in China, through the lens of its business elites. The result is a book that paints a comprehensive picture of political relations within elite society in contemporary China.”
- John Fitzgerald AM, Emeritus Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne
“Jasmine Wang's ground-breaking book demonstrates an impressive familiarity with the literature in anthropology, history, political economy, comparative politics, and sociology on private entrepreneurship, state-society relations, economic transitions, and authoritarianism. Besides her theoretical insights, Wang's empirical evidence — interviews with private entrepreneurs — has significantly enriched our knowledge of the experience, concerns, calculations, and values of Chinese private entrepreneurs."
- Minxin Pei, author of The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism
