Re: <nettime> From Deng & Thatcher 1984 to the Hong Kong 2014 OCCUPY

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 10/04/2014 11:48 AM, Tjebbe van Tijen wrote:

> 'Rule of law' did not only benefit big business, but also functioned
> as social leveller for the less affluent citizens of Hong Kong,
> because a successful economy is only hampered by too blatant social
> unequally in its direct realm.

Dear Tjebbe, despite the due respect which is considerable, I read the 
above and said, "Huh?"

Hong Kong is the city that Milton Friedman once proclaimed the most pure 
experiment in liberal free-trade economics. It has 114,000 billionaires, 
including the four richest men in Asia. Housing prices have doubled 
since 2009. A fifth of the population lives below the poverty line 
(calculated as 50% of median income). Hong Kong's Gini coefficient, 
measuring the degree of inequality, stands currently at 0.537, around 
six points higher than that of two very unequal societies which set 
unfortunate benchmarks for the rest of the world: China (0.474) and the 
United States (0.477).

The question of what democracy could mean for Hong Kong and the world is 
an interesting one. To appreciate its many dimensions I recommend a book 
by a fellow named Hai Ren, called "Neoliberalism and Culture in China 
and Hong Kong." He analyzes the 1997 handover - or, as the Chinese would 
say, return - of Hong Kong as the culmination of Deng Xiao Ping's policy 
aiming at the "synchronization" of China with the West. This was 
perceived to be necessary as the failure to keep in step with Western 
development had led to China's humiliation in the nineteenth century, 
beginning with the loss of Hong Kong itself. Those enamored of the 
visual history of societal development would be fascinated by the vast 
cultural programs of "countdown" toward the day of return that were 
deployed by the Chinese Communist state in order to dramatize the 
progress toward synchronization.

The question is, what does synchronization entail on the social level? 
Hai Ren tackles that in his next book, "The Middle Class in Neoliberal 
China," where he shows that after the death of Mao and the purging of 
the Gang of Four, there was a crisis of political representation in 
China. What this meant, however, is not what you might think. It meant 
that the Party was unable to represent, i.e. create an image or profile 
of, the ideal citizen. Hai Ren maintains that the essence of Deng's 
policy and the resolution of this crisis can be found in a shift away 
from the figure of the proletarian and toward that of the "middle 
strata," as defined by very extensive sociological studies which 
deliberately abandoned the earlier category of class. Ten distinct 
strata were identified, from the destitute to the billionaire, and on 
that basis, five strata were identified as the components of the ideal 
synchronized society. The aim was to produce this idealized range of 
income distribution, which obviously includes the very wealthy - 
because, according to Deng, "To get rich is glorious," and "Someone must 
get rich first."

Once again, the book attempts to trace the deliberate processes of 
social and cultural engineering that produced what we might call 
cognitive capitalism with Chinese characteristics. One the one hand, 
these processes included the institution of "the rule of law," to the 
exact extent that it is indeed necessary for the successful conduct of 
business. And on the other hand, they included all sorts of cultural and 
educational transformations aiming to produce the right entrepreuneural 
and consumerist subjectivities. Of course the return of Hong Kong was 
crucial to this whole policy, as the former British colony included not 
only the desired billionaires, but also the educated, talented, 
technically adept and creative "middle strata" on which China's 
synchronization with the West would depend. (Plus they have such a nice 
movie industry, good universities, great restaurants, Canto-pop, you 
name it.)

Now, the primary "Chinese characteristics" that the Party has insisted 
on maintaining throughout its progress toward synchronization are 
obviously centralized decision-making and authoritarianism. According to 
the sociologists of inequality, these become necessary for social 
control in any country at some point after you cross the threshold of 
0.4 on the Gini scale. And indeed, we have seen authoritarianism and 
oligarchical centralization of decision-making on a distinct rise in the 
US itself, ever since inequality began its dramatic intensification in 
the 1980s. To that extent, China's synchronization with the West will 
not really be threatened by the, alas predictable, but perhaps not 
inevitable repression of Occupy Central in Hong Kong. After all, the US, 
in its way, also cracked down on its Occupy movement, which was 
demanding substantial democracy in the face of massive inequality and 
oligarchical rule. (Somewhere in the above I should have skillfully 
inserted the number of billionaires you actually now find within Party 
ranks in China, to make the point that they are just as oligarchical as 
the US - but hey, this is a nettime post, so I can just do it like this.)

The US and now increasingly, the EU, are examples of what political 
scientist Sheldon Wolin calls "managed democracy," and to achieve full 
synchronization, China would have to be too. Again, Hong Kong seems to 
be the perfect place to experiment. "Managed democracy" is something a 
bit more detailed than what Guy Debord called "the spectacle perfected," 
but anyway, so far it's the most advanced reconciliation of oligarchical 
control and rapid economic growth. In other words, managed democracy is 
what you really need for a so-called "successful economy." It does 
require figureheads and sham elections, so China seems to be on the 
right track with its HK policy. Wolin also refers to managed democracy 
as "the specter of inverted totalitarianism," which is really 
interesting when you want to make the comparison between the Western 
societies and China.

I reckon that the achievement of substantial democracy in Hong Kong 
would have significant political and economic consequences. Maybe not 
only for the island and the adjacent peninsula, but for the whole world. 
Experiments on the order of the one being carried out in the streets of 
Hong Kong right now are great and powerful things. May our hearts and 
acts be with all of those who have joined Occupy Central.

best, Brian

PS: Those interested in Hai Ren's first book might fish around in a deep 
pool called lib.gen-dot-org. Just google the second book and with a 
little persistence you may also get access to it without having to make 
an investment that your precarity would not necessarily allow. As for 
all the details on inequality in Hong Kong, I was lazy so I took 'em all 
from a single Bloomberg article that tallies with everything else I have 
been reading for the past week:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-29/hong-kong-poverty-line-shows-wealth-gap-with-one-in-five-poor.html



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