China's Changing Economy Is Changing Everything

I agree with Chen Zhiwu (quoted in Rechtman's piece linked to above) that as China's market economy develops, people become increasingly free, but I would qualify this by also pointing out that people are also becoming increasingly less free. More freedom means less freedom - that is the paradox of capitalist (post)modernity.

As people become increasingly integrated into the economy, they gain the ability to access a greater range of commodities, and are able also to access a greater variety of lifestyle choices. Shopping can in fact be experienced as a liberating force, as the ability to furnish new homes to suit individual tastes for example, can allow individuals a greater level of autonomy, as well as enhancing feelings of personal pride.

But this increased freedom comes at a price - less freedom. Consumerism is generally experienced by most people in contradictory ways - more variety, coupled with the freedom to choose, results also in increased integration, and hence loss of freedom. As Herbert Marcuse argued in his 1964 classic, One Dimensional Man, "advanced industrial societies" create false needs, which integrate individuals into the system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.

As Robert Woods has argued in his essay on Marcuse's thought, "Establishment sanctioned forms of sensual release, what Marcuse calls repressive desublimation, complete our enslavement on the instinctual level. Vicarious enjoyment of violence (through TV and movies), relaxed social mores and commercialised forms of mass culture (professional sports, concerts, etc.) tie us libidinally to the system. After a weekend of such sensual release we return docilely to our work stations. We sin for pleasure and work for redemption." (- a phenomena that reaches extemes in the major cities of Japan, not surprsingly, considering Japan's global status a the quintessential consumer society).

Essentially, libidinally manipulated to consume, individuals become conditioned to experiencing (enjoying?) more desublimated forms of pleasure - which is inherently repressive. For China, as with all of other advanced consumer societies, one of the results will be an increase in psychological disorders, like depression, bi-polar disorder, ad infinitum.

Already, numerous Chinese social analysts (like Peking University's Yue Daiyun for example) are criticisng the new China as a society that is increasing people's sense of alienation, with consumerism "withering away their spirits" and making them "forget what it means to be a human being." Clinical depression, she notes, is, not suprisingly, sharply on the rise.

Still, as Marx always argued, the freedoms that market economies allow are historically progressive, with the benefits outweighing the negatives.

All I am saying here, is that while I agree with Chen Zhiwu's assertion that the market economy is generally making the people of China freer, I think a more nuanced, more dialectical approach ought to be taken when assessing the effects of market economies on the lives of human beings, because the overwhelming weight of empirically-verifiable evidence shows that most individuals experience market economies in contradictory and complex ways, and that through the act of working and consuming (through the act of working TO consume), they experience both gains and losses of freedom.

MAJ,

ummmm....

MAJ: How does Yue Daiyun describe the period of 1949-1980? As spirit-enhancing? Were people more greatly enjoying, or even "feeling" their humanity, than now? Because everyone was poor, and equality reigned (with the exception of the higher-ranking cadres), the human spirit soared? Has Yue compared figures of suicides and deaths through state-caused famine and illness of that period with 1980-present? Get a grip.

Todd - I can understand your scepticism - why you have asked me to "get a grip" - but the empirical reality is that the number of mental health problems effecting the wider mainland community is on the rise. As far back as 2001, the World Health Organisation led a study that showed that mental health problems in China were on the rise, and at an alarming rate. This has remained the trend ever since. "The increase in mental health problems is drawing the attention of the Chinese government," the People's Daily reported back in 2001. "The Ministry of Public Health said last month that 16 million Chinese citizens suffer from mental health problems with the incidence rising to 17.4 percent....More competitiveness and the collapse of traditional social relationships due to drastic social changes are blamed for the increasing mental health problems."

By 2004 it was reported that the number of people aged under 17 alone who were suffering mental health problems had increased to 30 million. The Ministry of Health again expressed their concerns over the "growing trend of mental disease", particulalry among children and teenagers (the group now suffering the most).

In 2007, The Economist had this to say: "The need for care has presumably long been there. After all, life in pre-reform Communist China was undeniably stressful, with widespread poverty and a series of cataclysmic political campaigns. Yet Zhang Jianxin, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Psychology in Beijing, says that urban Chinese now face tremendous pressure to make money and, most importantly, compete with their neighbours for status. The result is a rise in disorders such as anxiety and depression. China's National Centre for Disease Control estimates that 100 million Chinese suffer from one form of mental illness or another."

Others analysts are now starting to point the finger at the effects of advertising on people's sense of self, as well as on some of the other alienating effects of consumerism (the psychological effects of the internet is now in particular attracting a great deal of attention in China, especially in regard to its impacts on teenage mental health) - no surprises in any of this, since psychologists and mental health researchers throughout the Western world have for a long time very often identified consumerism as having a causal link to a large percentage of cases.

The link to consumerism, and to consumer culture, is not surprisingly becoming an increasingly common theme in Chinese literature too, just as it did (and still does) in Japanese literature. Think of Banana Yoshimoto's classic postmodern novel, "Kitchen" for example, which hit such a strong accord among the residents of Hong Kong that a movie production team there bought the rights to make the film. The novel explored the way that many people today fetishise consumer products to such a degree that they find it difficult to relate to human beings. The protagonist in Yoshimoto's novel for example, related to her kitchen appliances to such a degree that she was unable to maintain meaningful relationships with other human beings. "Kitchen" was written before the age of the internet, a commodity that has alienated huge numbers of people, trapping them in a so-called "virtual" reality. It's true, that the internet can also facilitate meaningful dialogues between people, that it can bring people together. It's a very useful tool, when used sensibly. Young people are certainly the most vulnerable to its dangers.

Todd, I don't quite understand your point about suicide rates: they remain very high in China, mainly in the impoverished rural regions, though the vast majority of such suicides have little to do with the psychological effects of consumerism. At no time did I suggest otherwise, right? And at no time did I compare the psychological well-being of today's mainland Chinese with those who lived during the Maoist era - correct? The causes of mental health problems among the general urban population today are quite different from the causes of such illnesses 30-50 years ago. That goes without saying, surely.

What I DID say is that China's market reforms are historically progressive, that China today is a much better place (on most measures) than it was prior to the introduction of market reforms, that the market-driven economy does enhance and facilitate the growth in many kinds of freedom, but that we ought to recognise that market economies impact on people's lives in complex and contradictory ways - aside from the growth in the social and economic inequality that the market has produced, consumerism can enslave just as much as it can liberate (as Marcuse, I think, quite correctly recognised). It's not that it effects people either one way or the other, but that it effects people in both ways, simultaneously - that it frees us at the very same time that it entraps us.

I brought all of this up in my initial comment for a reason: to say that the market economy makes people freer is true, no doubt about it. But it also makes people less free - no doubt about that too in my opinion. Rather than proclaiming one or the other, I think that it is worth recognising that market-drivin economies impact on human beings in contradictory ways.

"the empirical reality is that the number of mental health problems effecting the wider mainland community is on the rise."

Do we have suicide statistics for the period before 1980? If not, how are we to interpret data for just 27 years? That doesn't make good social science.

"The causes of mental health problems among the general urban population today are quite different from the causes of such illnesses 30-50 years ago. That goes without saying, surely."

It couldn't agree more.

As Frederick Teiwes said about the anti-rightist campaign of 1957-8: Altogether some 550,000 were labeled rightists, the psychological pressures of struggle sessions resulted in a significant number of suicides, and reform through labor was apparently meted out on a large scale.

Amban: you say, "how are we to interpret data for just 27 years? That doesn't make good social science."

I think that 27 years is quite a lengthy period of time - certainly enough to establish whether or not there is a current trend, or pattern, in place. I'm sure more social scientists would agree with me on this. Remember, I'm not comparing today's China with pre-reform China when it comes to suicide rates, or to the incidence of mental health problems in general. There simply isn't enough data available to make such a comparison, and at any rate, my argument doesn't rest on the need for such a comparison.