Bringing politics into class analysis: state power and class formation in post-Mao China

Traditional class theories invariably embrace the ‘proposition of economism’, either extruding politics from the causality of class formation or treating politics as epiphenomenal. Similar ideas of class inform much of the literature on class in the People's Republic of China (PRC). This article contends that social stratification and class formation in post-Mao China cannot be fully understood without recognising state power as a critical determinant of life chances and a major organising principle in the country's class map due to the authoritarian nature of the Party-state and the ubiquity of state power in the economic sphere. It proceeds to illustrate the part that state power plays at the macro and micro levels in the production and reproduction of class.