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

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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.
Copyright:
2023

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
416 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780691249254
Related ISBNs:
9780691212838, 9780691212821
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Princeton University Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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