The Gilded Cage

Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China

Ya-Wen Lei

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English

Princeton University Press
28 February 2024

Social discrimination; Sociology; Sociology: work & labour; Political economy; Technology: general issues

How China's economic development combines a veneer of unprecedented progress with the increasingly despotic rule of surveillance over all aspects of life

Since 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.

By: Ya-Wen Lei
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780691212838
ISBN 10: 069121283X
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 28 February 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Ya-Wen Lei is professor of sociology at Harvard University, where she is affiliated with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She is the author of The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China (Princeton).

Reviews for The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China

"""Winner of the Bronze Medal in International Business / Globalization, Axiom Business Book Awards"" ""Honorable Mention for the Max Weber Book Award, Organizations, Occupations, and Work section of the American Sociological Association"" ""Winner of the Asia/Transnational Book Award, American Sociological Association"" ""Winner of the Best Book Award, Communication, Information Technology, and Media Section of the American Sociological Association"" ""[A] good guidebook for China’s holistic development, not just within the last two decades but also in the decades to come""---George Hong Jiang, London School of Economics"