Overview

This powerful book presents a fresh and compelling set of portraits that bring to life the human dimension of the vast and growing social and economic divides in urban China. Leading scholars explore the increasing rigidity of class and social boundaries, focusing on two new “castes” in contemporary China’s cities—the immensely wealthy and the abjectly poor. Much has been made of the rise in incomes, the elimination of much rural poverty, and the expansion of an urban middle class over almost forty years of spectacular economic growth. But what often has been overlooked is the polarization, exclusion, and exclusiveness in cities that have accompanied this rise, along with the threat that these trends will extend to future generations. The book considers five cases that emblematize these castes and depict their varying degrees of agency. Highlighting the social groups at opposite ends of the social hierarchy, the contributors illuminate the growing inequality in urban China today.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dorothy J. Solinger
Publisher:   Rowman & Littlefield
Imprint:   Rowman & Littlefield
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.00cm
Weight:   0.322kg
ISBN:  

9781538116487

ISBN 10:   1538116480
Pages:   208
Publication Date:   14 September 2018
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction: State Policies, Castes, and Agency Dorothy J. Solinger Part I: Polarization: Scope, Causes, Manifestations 1 China’s Uphill Battle Against Inequality Wang Feng 2 Convergence and Divergence Among the Rich and the Poor Li Zhang Part II: Portraits of the Urban Poor 3 Banish the Impoverished Past: The Predicament of the Abandoned Urban Poor Dorothy J. Solinger 4 The Passionate Poor: Foxconn Workers Invited as Volunteers Mun Young Cho 5 On the Rough Edge of Prosperity: Informal Migrant Recyclers in Beijing Joshua Goldstein Part III: The Upper Reaches of the Urban Rich 6 China’s Party Kings: Shanghai Club Cultures and Status Consumption, 1920s–2010s Andrew David Field and James Farrer 7 Corruption, Anti-Corruption, and the Dynamics of Class: Formation in Post-Mao China John Osburg Urban Polarities: Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Role of the State David S. G. Goodman About the Contributors

Reviews

Dorothy Solinger, who has brought much attention to the plight of China's urban poor, here assembles a distinguished group of scholars to throw light on an underside of that country's vaunted economic miracle: the hardening of inequalities of income and wealth to form an increasingly polarized society. This revealing book explores the lives of both the ultra-rich and the destitute and makes clear that the state itself has played a large role in fostering polarization. -- Carl Riskin, Columbia University Going beyond the statistics on expanding social inequality, this important book, authored by world authorities on urban China, provides a stunning account of drastic social contrasts. The portraits of the rich and poor reveal not only their monumentally disparate lifestyles but also variegated agencies and life opportunities. Solinger’s marvelous conceptual design brings the two social extremes under the same scrutiny. -- Fulong Wu, University College London This richly researched volume shows that, even though China's four decades of economic growth have lifted tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty, they have also created rigid structures of inequality and diverging mobility opportunities. China has also been rapidly urbanizing in recent decades, and today more than half of all Chinese live in cities. The dramatic contrasts between the fabulous and flaunted wealth of urban elites and the struggles of rural migrants and the urban poor documented by researchers in this volume will add fuel to debates about whether socialism any longer has meaning in contemporary China. -- Martin K. Whyte, Harvard University This is an important book, tackling the most salient feature of Chinese society today: its polarization between the wealthy and the poor. Solinger's insights into the caste-like ‘hierarchy of agency’ in contemporary China are fresh and illuminating, and the case study chapters provide fascinating—and unsettling—details about the daily lives of Chinese citizens from across the socio-economic spectrum. -- Teresa Wright California State University, Long Beach

Dorothy Solinger, who has brought much attention to the plight of China's urban poor, here assembles a distinguished group of scholars to throw light on an underside of that country's vaunted economic miracle: the hardening of inequalities of income and wealth to form an increasingly polarized society. This revealing book explores the lives of both the ultra-rich and the destitute and makes clear that the state itself has played a large role in fostering polarization. -- Carl Riskin, Columbia University Going beyond the statistics on expanding social inequality, this important book, authored by world authorities on urban China, provides a stunning account of drastic social contrasts. The portraits of the rich and poor reveal not only their monumentally disparate lifestyles but also variegated agencies and life opportunities. Solinger's marvelous conceptual design brings the two social extremes under the same scrutiny. -- Fulong Wu, University College London This richly researched volume shows that, even though China's four decades of economic growth have lifted tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty, they have also created rigid structures of inequality and diverging mobility opportunities. China has also been rapidly urbanizing in recent decades, and today more than half of all Chinese live in cities. The dramatic contrasts between the fabulous and flaunted wealth of urban elites and the struggles of rural migrants and the urban poor documented by researchers in this volume will add fuel to debates about whether socialism any longer has meaning in contemporary China. -- Martin K. Whyte, Harvard University This is an important book, tackling the most salient feature of Chinese society today: its polarization between the wealthy and the poor. Solinger's insights into the caste-like 'hierarchy of agency' in contemporary China are fresh and illuminating, and the case study chapters provide fascinating-and unsettling-details about the daily lives of Chinese citizens from across the socio-economic spectrum. -- Teresa Wright California State University, Long Beach

Dorothy Solinger, who has brought much attention to the plight of China's urban poor, here assembles a distinguished group of scholars to throw light on an underside of that country's vaunted economic miracle: the hardening of inequalities of income and wealth to form an increasingly polarized society. This revealing book explores the lives of both the ultra-rich and the destitute and makes clear that the state itself has played a large role in fostering polarization. -- Carl Riskin, Columbia University Going beyond the statistics on expanding social inequality, this important book, authored by world authorities on urban China, provides a stunning account of drastic social contrasts. The portraits of the rich and poor reveal not only their monumentally disparate lifestyles but also variegated agencies and life opportunities. Solinger's marvelous conceptual design brings the two social extremes under the same scrutiny. -- Fulong Wu, University College London This richly researched volume shows that, even though China's four decades of economic growth have lifted tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty, they have also created rigid structures of inequality and diverging mobility opportunities. China has also been rapidly urbanizing in recent decades, and today more than half of all Chinese live in cities. The dramatic contrasts between the fabulous and flaunted wealth of urban elites and the struggles of rural migrants and the urban poor documented by researchers in this volume will add fuel to debates about whether socialism any longer has meaning in contemporary China. -- Martin K. Whyte, Harvard University This is an important book, tackling the most salient feature of Chinese society today: its polarization between the wealthy and the poor. Solinger's insights into the caste-like `hierarchy of agency' in contemporary China are fresh and illuminating, and the case study chapters provide fascinating-and unsettling-details about the daily lives of Chinese citizens from across the socio-economic spectrum. -- Teresa Wright California State University, Long Beach

Dorothy Solinger, who has brought much attention to the plight of China's urban poor, here assembles a distinguished group of scholars to throw light on an underside of that country's vaunted economic miracle: the hardening of inequalities of income and wealth to form an increasingly polarized society. This Revealing book explores the lives of both the ultra-rich and the destitute poor and makes clear that the state itself has played a large role in fostering polarization. -- Carl Riskin, Columbia University

Author Information

Dorothy J. Solinger is professor emerita of political science at the University of California, Irvine.

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