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the "lower level" of society
Jan. 13th, 2022 11:47 am I'm editing a text on Chinese government and policy relative to rural needs. This paragraph stood out to me and raised some questions and stirred some ponderings on what we value and how it plays out in the US (text contains my emphasis, with the thought-stirring phrases numbered for ease of making a brief commentary). Nothing particularly profound, just the sheer obviousness of how head-on-backward we are:
On the one hand, from a long-term and comprehensive perspective, [1] peasants, as lower strata of society, will benefit less and less from modernization, becoming more discontent on a psychological level. It is unlikely that their income will increase significantly in the near future, that ordinary villages will urbanize, or that the overwhelming majority of peasants will become urbanites. Under conditions where it is difficult for the peasant economy to modernize, it is an empirical fact that [2] the standard of living for Chinese peasants will freeze at a level of mere subsistence. In other words, [3] the common condition throughout contemporary rural China, where people “have enough food to eat but are not yet moderately prosperous,” will continue for years into the future. However, [4] current high-consumption lifestyles have come to dominate the whole society’s values, stimulating peasants’ desire to consume, while the “poverty-generating” socioeconomic structure lacks the conditions of domestic demand necessary to satisfy this desire, creating a very contradictory tension.
[1] - what if, instead of considering them "lower," we considered "primary producers" as foundational? Here I mean not just "peasants," which are hard to come by in North America, but agriculturalists, animal-husbandry-folk, makers of food and fiber, and building materials and tools, etc.... all the actual literal producers. Not that we see these people and their roles the same way they're viewed in China, but we certainly don't accord them the important social place they and their contribution deserve. Imagine if these activities, for which we all owe our lives and comfort, were promoted/celebrated/supported (and if we were educated to join in actual production rather than the simulated productivity that's promoted in its stead).
If the producers benefit "less and less from modernization," then don't we all ultimately benefit less and less? Modernity, it seems cannot support life if this is the case.
That said, [2] the standard of living "freezing" for the producers of real goods and services is evidence of the absolute backwardness of the way we do things.
Consider this in terms of the general US populace (because ultimately I am critiquing the US way of doing things) - the common (and becoming more common) condition for many to not have enough food while many do have food and prosperity; we're living in a time of both abundance and deficiency. This is mostly because of [3] high consumption lifestyles that "dominate the whole society's values," stimulate the desire to consume, and the "need" for higher income, etc.
So, what's wrong with living on a subsistence level (with some bit of resilience worked in, so you're not one step away from starvation). Remind me why we are marketing ourselves into a consumption frenzy (other than to enrich some at the expense of others). To fill some sort of deep need that ultimately can't be filled by acquisition but that can most probably be filled by activities of foundational production and the meaning such activity generates - were we to actually accord it honor.
(edited to take care of typeface confusion, and to clarify a few sentences)
On the one hand, from a long-term and comprehensive perspective, [1] peasants, as lower strata of society, will benefit less and less from modernization, becoming more discontent on a psychological level. It is unlikely that their income will increase significantly in the near future, that ordinary villages will urbanize, or that the overwhelming majority of peasants will become urbanites. Under conditions where it is difficult for the peasant economy to modernize, it is an empirical fact that [2] the standard of living for Chinese peasants will freeze at a level of mere subsistence. In other words, [3] the common condition throughout contemporary rural China, where people “have enough food to eat but are not yet moderately prosperous,” will continue for years into the future. However, [4] current high-consumption lifestyles have come to dominate the whole society’s values, stimulating peasants’ desire to consume, while the “poverty-generating” socioeconomic structure lacks the conditions of domestic demand necessary to satisfy this desire, creating a very contradictory tension.
[1] - what if, instead of considering them "lower," we considered "primary producers" as foundational? Here I mean not just "peasants," which are hard to come by in North America, but agriculturalists, animal-husbandry-folk, makers of food and fiber, and building materials and tools, etc.... all the actual literal producers. Not that we see these people and their roles the same way they're viewed in China, but we certainly don't accord them the important social place they and their contribution deserve. Imagine if these activities, for which we all owe our lives and comfort, were promoted/celebrated/supported (and if we were educated to join in actual production rather than the simulated productivity that's promoted in its stead).
If the producers benefit "less and less from modernization," then don't we all ultimately benefit less and less? Modernity, it seems cannot support life if this is the case.
That said, [2] the standard of living "freezing" for the producers of real goods and services is evidence of the absolute backwardness of the way we do things.
Consider this in terms of the general US populace (because ultimately I am critiquing the US way of doing things) - the common (and becoming more common) condition for many to not have enough food while many do have food and prosperity; we're living in a time of both abundance and deficiency. This is mostly because of [3] high consumption lifestyles that "dominate the whole society's values," stimulate the desire to consume, and the "need" for higher income, etc.
So, what's wrong with living on a subsistence level (with some bit of resilience worked in, so you're not one step away from starvation). Remind me why we are marketing ourselves into a consumption frenzy (other than to enrich some at the expense of others). To fill some sort of deep need that ultimately can't be filled by acquisition but that can most probably be filled by activities of foundational production and the meaning such activity generates - were we to actually accord it honor.
(edited to take care of typeface confusion, and to clarify a few sentences)
