Ken Hanly snarked:
The Chinese working class is growing by leaps and
bounds and is confident that eventually it will
achieve the American dream with Chinese
characteristics.
John Gulick sez:
Well, yes... and no.
The widespread embrace of consumer capitalist values
in China is stunning, but I think there is a tendency for
the "Western" (I hate that term) media and "Western"
observers to generalize from limited observations that
suggest this is the case, because it satisfies their smug
belief that deep within every alien soul is an inner
American (as if there is anything peculiarly American
about consumer capitalism, another provincial conceit).
On the other hand, China has a long and proud tradition
of the "right to rebel"... and since the Taiping Rebellion
this has been aimed at not only toppling illegitimate regimes,
but also illegitimate social systems. Of course for reasons
both laudable and suspect, Mao celebrated and stoked this
tradition. For a civilization imbued to a greater or lesser
degree with Confucian values, there is a tremendous amount
of conflict, dissension, and fighting in China. That is what
gives me hope that the bad shit will not last forever in China.
But then again... what really troubles me is that even those
of us who know better, those of us who factually know and
emotionally intuit that global accumulation cannot and will
not proceed apace in the face of ecological stresses, too
often forget to factor this immutable reality into our consideration
of China's hegemonic ascent. This recent winter of discontent
episode (railway bottlenecks/energy shortages/food price
inflation) is just a taste of the nasty future.
_________________________________________________________________
Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging. You IM, we give.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join
