The Gilded Cage Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China
Synopsis
How China&’s economic development combines a veneer of unprecedented progress with the increasingly despotic rule of surveillance over all aspects of lifeSince the mid-2000s, the Chinese state has increasingly shifted away from labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing to a process of socioeconomic development centered on science and technology. Ya-Wen Lei traces the contours of this techno-developmental regime and its resulting form of techno-state capitalism, telling the stories of those whose lives have been transformed—for better and worse—by China&’s rapid rise to economic and technological dominance.Drawing on groundbreaking fieldwork and a wealth of in-depth interviews with managers, business owners, workers, software engineers, and local government officials, Lei describes the vastly unequal values assigned to economic sectors deemed &“high-end&” versus &“low-end,&” and the massive expansion of technical and legal instruments used to measure and control workers and capital. She shows how China&’s rise has been uniquely shaped by its time-compressed development, the complex relationship between the nation&’s authoritarian state and its increasingly powerful but unruly tech companies, and an ideology that fuses nationalism with high modernism, technological fetishism, and meritocracy.Some have compared China&’s extraordinary transformation to America&’s Gilded Age. This provocative book reveals how it is more like a gilded cage, one in which the Chinese state and tech capital are producing rising inequality and new forms of social exclusion.Book details
- Author:
- Ya-Wen Lei
- ISBN:
- 9780691249254
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780691212838, 9780691212821
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- Pages:
- 416
- Reading age:
- Not specified
- Includes images:
- Yes
- Date of addition:
- 2023-11-21
- Usage restrictions:
- Copyright
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Copyright by:
- Princeton University Press
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Categories:
- Business and Finance, History, Nonfiction, Politics and Government, Social Studies