WRITE FROM YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE: Imagine yourself as an employee of a company doing business in another country. Consider some of the misperceptions that could occur, from awkward language translations to colliding customs. Why do you think it is often
To prepare for this assignment, read "The New Capitalism in China" in Essentials of Sociology to obtain background information.
Reading Below
Cultural Diversity around the World
Beijing Hong Kong China Shanghai The New Competitor:
The Chinese Capitalists Socialism has the virtue of making people more equal. Socialism's equality, however, translates into distributing pov-erty throughout a society. Under socialism, almost everyone becomes equally poor. Capitalism, in contrast, has the virtue of producing wealth. A lot of people remain poor, however, leaving deep gaps between wealth and poverty, one that produces envy and sometimes creates social unrest.
Chinese leaders realized the wealth- producing capacity of capitalism and wanted that for their people ( Karon 2011). In the Chinese version they produced- capitalism directed by communists- wealth has increased at an astonishing rate. In all the world's history, this new capitalism has lifted the largest number- a half billion- of people out of poverty in the shortest time.
The poor who are left behind, however, aren't happy when their land is taken from them to help make others wealthy. The anger and re-sentment have kept the Party busy sending out the army to squelch riots. In Beijing, the capital of China, stands a mansion built by Zhang Yuchen. This is no ordinary mansion, like those built by China's other newly rich.
This impos-ing building is a twin of the Chateau de Maisons- Laffitte, an architectural landmark on the Seine River outside Paris. At a cost of $ 50 million, the Beijing replica matches the original edifice detail for detail. The archi-tects even used the original blueprints of the French chateau, and the building features the same Chantilly stone ( Kahn 2004, 2007). Building the chateau and its housing development of luxury homes made eight hundred farmers landless.
But if they get angry, the spiked fence, the moat, and the armed guards- looking sharp in their French- style uniforms com-plete with capes and kepis- will keep the peasants out of the chateau. In most places, you need connections to become wealthy.
In China, this means connections with the Communist Party, for this group still holds the power. Yuchen has those connections. As a member of the Party, it was his job to direct Beijing's construction projects. With his deep connections, Yuchen was able to get the wheat fields farmed by the peasants rezoned from farmland to a " conservation area." He was even able to divert a river so he could build the moat around the chateau, one of the finishing touches on his architectural wonder.
Beneath such ostentatious examples of capitalistic excess lies this irony: China is doing capitalism better than the capitalist countries. Using the state machinery, their leaders have proven themselves more nimble in reacting to competition, in seizing opportunities for profit, and for accumulating vast amounts of capital. The capitalist nations have be-come envious, especially as the Chinese model of capitalism- at least at this historical point- is proving competitively superior ( Bremmer 2011; Karon 2011).
For Your Consideration China has completed its transition to capitalism, what do you think the final version will look like ( that is, what characteristics do you think it will have)? Where will the top Party leaders fit in the class system that is emerging? Why?