ABSTRACT

The economic take-off of Asian countries has given rise to new wealth and the emergence of new middle classes whose formation process differs distinctly not only from that of their European counterparts. (Evers and Gerke 1994:5; Lev 1990:25; Robison 1996:8) but also from nation to nation within Asia; as Crouch (1984:116) suggests, the Indonesian class structure is quite different from that of Thailand and Malaysia. Although the new rich and the newly established middle classes have been collapsed often into one category, as the bearers of ‘modernity’, their socio-economic backgrounds differ, making it difficult clearly to identify who has joined the middle class and who is still excluded. The terms ‘new rich’ or ‘new middle class’, therefore, describe, in broad terms, the new wealthy social groups that have emerged from industrial changes in Asia, with their social power based either on capital and expertise or rent and/or position in the extensive state apparatus.