Effects of economic change on Chinese values and worldview

Abstract

The introduction of a commodity economy has altered Chinese society profoundly and permanently. The evolving process that brought China to the present economic resolution finds roots in past and recent events which promise the irreversibility of the current trend The response to this economic decision has transformed the structure of family, education, and communities. The new set of values the Chinese haw adopted to pursue, "Socialist Modernization," attempts to meld the needs of the community with the individual's striving for material wealth. This new socio-economic experiment illustrates a command economy tempered by individualism. This paper analyzes the present transition front command to commodity economy and its effect on social interaction in China by probing the continuity in the pattern of government pressures on the life of its citizens from historical times to the present. It verifies the permanence in values and beliefs by ascertaining the historical constants of Chinese worldview. It illustrates the restructuring impetus which I witnessed and its chaotic implications. It depicts the fermenting of today's society by including excerpts from the lectures about social issues I audiotaped at Shanghai Teachers University, as well as impressions from visits to Shanghai institutions. The Chinese arc striving to find a harmonious balance between the needs of the individual and those of society, starting from the Far Left, the total anarchy of the Cultural Revolution of the late Sixties, without a sudden jolt to the Right as it has happened in the aftermath of many European populist rebellions. They are therefore covering a ground never explored before. This new perspective promises additional hope for social harmony.