On his book Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution
Cover Interview of March 10, 2021
A close-up
My book invites readers to contemplate the larger significance
of easily overlooked mass produced things. If they were to skim the book, they
would encounter dozens of photos and illustrations of such things. I use these
images to provide an accessible entry point into the arguments of the book.
For instance, I include photographs of people wearing wristwatches
and an illustration of someone on a bicycle. Such illustrations showcase the
spread of consumer desires for industrially produced consumer products and document
how the state both deliberately and inadvertently contributed to building
consumerism and negating the Communist Revolution. After all, not everyone was
able to obtain the three most sought-after items of a wristwatch, bicycle, and
sewing machine at the same time. The distribution of these things created and
reinforced the inequalities associated with industrial capitalism. Conveniently
for the researcher, these sources were easy to find. People remembered their
acquisition—or not—of these things even more clearly than more high-profile
national events in the era.
Assortment of Mao badges Collection of Karl Gerth
I also include many photographs of Mao badges because China experienced the largest consumer fad in history when the country produced billions of badges of Chairman Mao for people to wear over their hearts during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. The badges were produced in thousands of varieties, sizes, images, and materials. The assortment depicted above includes a glow-in-the-dark badge in the lower right as well as, above it, Mao looking right, a potentially risky image for the maker for suggesting Mao was endorsing right-wing politics. Who got the latest, biggest, and most desirable badges reflected the growing material inequalities accompanying industrial capitalism. I use these images to illustrate the three defining aspects of a
spreading consumerism: the unprecedented scale of industrial production of
consumer products, the spread of discourse about such products in mass media
that taught people to have new needs and wants, and the growing use of
products, including badges, to create and communicate different, often
hierarchical, identities. Even Mao and Zhou Enlai saw the badge fad as creating
the opposite social values from the socialist ones intended.
I have no doubt that many also felt they were demonstrating
loyalty to Mao and faith in the Revolution. But their action (using badges as a
substitute currency, collecting them to demonstrate connoisseurship and
connection, and countless other uses) had a larger impact. The badge fad—and
indeed most activities associated with the Cultural Revolution such as house
ransacking and student travel throughout the country—facilitated the “negation”
of the Communist Revolution by expanding desire to use mass produced products
for social differentiation. So, the badge fad helped manifest the expanding inequalities
of industrial capitalism.
These are just two examples of the many aspects of
consumerism illuminated by the illustrations. I also include advertisements
from the era because few associate advertising and other forms of product
promotion with “Maoist China.” And I do the same by highlighting periodic state
promotion of clothing fashions. Likewise, I included photos of department
stores and service workers to discuss how consumerism operated in retailing.
Though such commonplace topics, seldom included in standard histories of the
Mao era, we can reconsider the larger history of the era.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
A close-up
My book invites readers to contemplate the larger significance of easily overlooked mass produced things. If they were to skim the book, they would encounter dozens of photos and illustrations of such things. I use these images to provide an accessible entry point into the arguments of the book.
For instance, I include photographs of people wearing wristwatches and an illustration of someone on a bicycle. Such illustrations showcase the spread of consumer desires for industrially produced consumer products and document how the state both deliberately and inadvertently contributed to building consumerism and negating the Communist Revolution. After all, not everyone was able to obtain the three most sought-after items of a wristwatch, bicycle, and sewing machine at the same time. The distribution of these things created and reinforced the inequalities associated with industrial capitalism. Conveniently for the researcher, these sources were easy to find. People remembered their acquisition—or not—of these things even more clearly than more high-profile national events in the era.
I also include many photographs of Mao badges because China experienced the largest consumer fad in history when the country produced billions of badges of Chairman Mao for people to wear over their hearts during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. The badges were produced in thousands of varieties, sizes, images, and materials. The assortment depicted above includes a glow-in-the-dark badge in the lower right as well as, above it, Mao looking right, a potentially risky image for the maker for suggesting Mao was endorsing right-wing politics. Who got the latest, biggest, and most desirable badges reflected the growing material inequalities accompanying industrial capitalism. I use these images to illustrate the three defining aspects of a spreading consumerism: the unprecedented scale of industrial production of consumer products, the spread of discourse about such products in mass media that taught people to have new needs and wants, and the growing use of products, including badges, to create and communicate different, often hierarchical, identities. Even Mao and Zhou Enlai saw the badge fad as creating the opposite social values from the socialist ones intended.
I have no doubt that many also felt they were demonstrating loyalty to Mao and faith in the Revolution. But their action (using badges as a substitute currency, collecting them to demonstrate connoisseurship and connection, and countless other uses) had a larger impact. The badge fad—and indeed most activities associated with the Cultural Revolution such as house ransacking and student travel throughout the country—facilitated the “negation” of the Communist Revolution by expanding desire to use mass produced products for social differentiation. So, the badge fad helped manifest the expanding inequalities of industrial capitalism.
These are just two examples of the many aspects of consumerism illuminated by the illustrations. I also include advertisements from the era because few associate advertising and other forms of product promotion with “Maoist China.” And I do the same by highlighting periodic state promotion of clothing fashions. Likewise, I included photos of department stores and service workers to discuss how consumerism operated in retailing. Though such commonplace topics, seldom included in standard histories of the Mao era, we can reconsider the larger history of the era.