ABSTRACT
In the introduction to the first volume in the series on the ‘new rich’ in Asia, editors Robison and Goodman (1996) note that the ‘imprecise’ nature of the new rich, both in analytical and empirical terms, concerns the ‘imprecise’ nature of the new rich as an analytical tool (Robison and Goodman 1996:5). Indeed, this conclusion is evident throughout the volume. Moreover, the major component concepts under the rubric of the new rich, namely ‘the middle class’ and ‘the bourgeoisie’, suffer the same problem of imprecision. In fact, some of the contributors go as far as to demonstrate not only the imprecise nature of these concepts but also their elusiveness. After some twenty pages of interpretation on the ‘growth, economic transformation, culture and the middle classes in Malaysia’, one author declares, in a Kafkaesque ending, that: ‘I have here avoided the question of what I mean by “middle classes’” (Kahn 1996: 48-75).
