ABSTRACT
Since the start of the reform period private entrepreneurs have struggled
against public prejudice which portrayed them as uneducated greedy indi-
viduals, and sometimes even as criminals. Popular images of these entre-
preneurs, however, have changed dramatically over the past twenty years, as
socially-upwardly-mobile private entrepreneurs constitute themselves into a
new wealthy class. Their newly gained status has been aided by an ideolo-
gical shift within the CCP, by which private entrepreneurs are recognized to
be an important pillar of China’s economic and social development. Social status is usually as much a result of wealth display (through conspicuous
consumption) (Veblen 1939), as it is of other more subtle forms of capital,
such as cultural values and knowledge of specific taste cultures (Ollivier and
Friedman 2004). In China, another dynamic is added to the equation; that
is, the use of population quality (renkou suzhi) discourses, which serve as
another marker of social distinction. These discourses have been used to
differentiate between small-scale and often of rural origin individual
business people (getihu) and more substantial business people (qiyejia), the latter regarded as educated entrepreneurs developing highly sophisticated
enterprises (Hsu 2006).
