ABSTRACT
A recent passionate defence of social democratic ideals states that ‘Thirty years of growing inequality have convinced the English and Americans in particular that this is a natural condition of life about which we can do little’ (Judt 2010: 21–2). Inequality, economic and social, is a major if not raging issue everywhere and is in no way confined to the People’s Republic of China. Having said that, the shape and size, the particular shaping forces and manifestations of inequality in China seem to many to place it in a class of its own. Specific forms of inequality are widely acknowledged, not least in the PRC itself, to have emerged as a direct consequence of the market-oriented reforms of the reform era that started in 1978. A statement like the following by Philip Huang is representative:
the root of the distinctive pattern of economic development of the Reform era, [is] one in which cheap ‘informal economy’ labor from the countryside and relative disregard for environmental protection have been used for higher rates of return to invested capital, to make up the ‘secret’ of attracting outside investments. The result has been both stunning GDP growth and mounting social inequalities and environmental degradation.
(Huang 2010: 10, original emphasis)