The Problem of Greed in Economic Anthropology:
Sumptuary Laws and New Consumerism in China
Joseph Bosco
Dept. of Anthropology
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Consumerism is not simply the development of the capitalist economy, but a particular
form of capitalism. Consumer capitalism took its full form between the 1880s and 1920s, when
the ability of manufacturing to mass produce changed the problem of industry from production to
marketing: how to get consumers to buy more. While economic development involves an
increase in consumption, in consumer capitalism (or simply “consumerism”) consumption takes
a primary role in creating personal satisfaction and identity. Fashions and styles change rapidly,
and shopping becomes an important activity. Malls become the sites of sociability and spiritual
fulfillment, replacing voluntary associations and churches. Perhaps more importantly,
consumerism has led to unsustainable levels of resource exploitation. While markets can help
balance the competing uses of iron and rare earth metals, markets do not seem able to address
problems of deforestation, fish stock depletion, and carbon emissions causing global climate
change. This paper seeks to examine how consumerism was kept in check historically in Chinese
society. It then examines the consumer revolution in China to try to understand what drives it
and how it emerged so rapidly. It considers the role of greed, the rapacious individual consumer,
in what is a complex and global problem.
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Greed
George Lakoff has referred to greed as “the G-word”, a word that is “still not said in
polite company” (Tasini 2009: back cover). The word is awkward because morality has been
removed from economics since the time of Adam Smith (i.e. 1776). One of Smith’s contributions
to economics was to undermine the notion of a “just price.” He argued the most efficient price
was achieved where supply met demand.1 Calling economic behavior—at least legal economic
behavior—“greedy” is overly moralistic by the logic of neoclassical economics. This is best
illustrated by the famous speech in the movie Wall Street, in which the investment banker
Gordon Gekko argues, “Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” This speech is infamous in
popular culture as a summary of market fundamentalism, restating the neoclassical economic
idea that the best possible good can be achieved by each individual pursuing his or her interests.2
Economists have argued that allowing economic actors to pursue their self-interest brings the
most benefits to all, though few have been as direct as Walter Williams (2001) in arguing for
“The Virtue of Greed.”
1
The pre-modern critique of luxury and greed was first weakened when Bernard
Mandeville (1670-1733) presented the paradox that “private vices are public benefits,” arguing
that the pursuit of luxury was not a vice but was the engine of the economy that kept the poor
employed and created growth.
2
Often forgotten is that in the movie, Gekko is using this rhetoric to hide his deceitful
and illegal activities. Surprisingly, the movie is widely seen as endorsing this economic ideology,
and few see it as a challenge to the idea that greed is natural and even good for society.
3
Greed is used as a term of attack. It accuses others of claiming too large a share of the
economic pie. It is thus a political term. Today it is common to hear CEOs accused of greed, and
there are many free market advocates who agree that excessive executive compensation is
endangering corporate capitalism (see e.g. corporate governance scholars John Nofsinger and
Kenneth Kim 2003). Accusations of greed do not only occur between labor and management, but
even within different sections of management. When Lehman Brothers was still a partnership in
1983, the CEO Lewis Glucksman accused senior bankers of greed for demanding a larger share
of the firm's profits. Bankers accused Glucksman of “greed for power” for trying to keep a larger
share of profits as partnership capital. Traders accused the bankers of greed for angling to sell the
firm, converting it from a partnership to a listed company. Bankers said the traders were greedy
for taking a larger share in bonuses than they brought in as profits (Auletta 1986:138). Each
group accused the other of greed as a tactic for increasing its share of firm profits, seeking to
portray itself as moral and concerned with the good of the group while the other was selfish. The
accused typically claims that higher compensation is simply required by the market, and is not
the result of individual greed at all but just “reality.”
Greed has a long pedigree as a concept for describing individual acquisitiveness, the
character or personality that drives a person to strive more than others consider proper in their
society. Individual variation is of minor interest to us anthropologically, however. Greed does
vary by individual, but it is the degree to which it is fostered and encouraged by society, or
dampened and discouraged, that is of primary interest. All societies seek to control greed in some
way, because excessive individual striving undermines solidarity. But all hierarchical and class
societies condone greed in the sense that they allow and justify vast differences in wealth, be it
by claiming the wealth is a divine right or that it is necessary for investment and as an incentive
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for others to work hard. Weber (1958:172) showed, for example, that according to in the
Protestant Ethic, wealth used for investment and further production was good, but if sought for
its own sake and used for enjoyment it was evil and amounted to avarice or greed.
Neoclassical economics assumes individuals have insatiable desires. This assumption
makes the concept of greed problematic, since, given insatiable desires, how is one to identify
what is excessive desire or greed? “Desire” is the positive flipside to greed. Individual desire
drives acquisition and growth. In general, economists only use the term “greed” for the irrational
frenzy of bubbles and binges that periodically beset capitalist markets (see e.g. Morris 1999).
The economist’s concept of “self-interest” has no moral connotation; greed implies excess,
seeking more than one’s needs, but this has no definition, no meaning, even, in neoclassical
economics. To mainstream economists, the invisible hand should prevent or reign in greed.
Indeed, one cannot be greedy since “excessive” returns should attract competitors and thus
reduce the marginal profit to the market level.
Thus, greed cannot exist in the logic of neoclassical economic theory. Every individual is
assumed to have insatiable desires, and pursuing these desires is assumed to bring the greatest
benefit to the largest number of people. Greed, for economics, is a pre-capitalist moralizing term
that has no basis in the modern world. Only morality or religion can say whether someone is
claiming a share of the economy that is “too large.” Short of assuming everyone is only entitled
to an equal share, it is impossible to assign a “fair” share.
One can, however, use the term “greed” at the level of entire societies, to describe
societies that are expansionary and are thus viewed as greedy by their supplanted neighbors.
Examples include agriculturalists who supplant foragers, and European colonial nations. The
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term still has a moral meaning, but because expansionary polities have clear victims, it seems
easier to label them as greedy.
By the same logic, economies that are not environmentally sustainable, that consume so
much that they jeopardize future generations’ survival, can also be viewed as greedy. It is
tempting to point to corporations or CEOs as greedy, but we can only move to a sustainable
economy by recognizing that capitalist consumerism is unsustainable and that all of us who
enjoy its benefits today are also greedy. When we buy cars, fly in airplanes, and buy food that
does not include the environmental costs (so-called “externalities”), we are taking more than our
fair share, and are greedy.
Limits on Consumption
Legal and social restrictions on consumption are increasingly emerging as topics of
serious consideration. Global warming has made more people concerned that consumption on the
level of the industrialized world is environmentally unsustainable. In addition, rising food and
commodity prices have been connected to increasing consumption in India and China, and so
have also raised questions about the sustainability of the capitalist world economy. Jared
Diamond (2005) captures the sense that the modern consumer capitalist system may be
unsustainable. Finally, the banking crisis has revived the idea that greed is a problem, and that
the excessive profits and consumption of a few may be destroying the economy for the rest of the
world.
Economists and commentators are proposing that there be legal limits to greed. The
socialist economist Moshe Adler (2010:194-5) argues, for example, for limiting executive pay by
law to a multiple of the lowest worker’s wage, and for setting a maximum share of profits that
can go to shareholders. Even mainstream figures like Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, are
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beginning to argue that managerial capitalism has created distorted incentives, under which
CEOs and mutual fund managers can prosper at the expense of shareholders (Bogle 2005). Bogle
has noted that democratic capitalism has produced greater wealth for more people around the
globe, but also excess.
We see the excesses most starkly in the continuing crisis (that is not an extreme
description) in our overleveraged, overly speculative banking and investment banking
industries, and even in our two enormous government-sponsored (but publicly-owned)
mortgage lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to say nothing of the billion-dollar-plus
annual paychecks that top hedge fund managers draw and the obscene (there is no other
word for it) compensation paid to the chief executive officers of our nation’s publicly
held corporations—including failed CEOs, often even as they are being pushed out the
door. (Bogle 2009:1-2)
Increasingly, even mainstream economists describe the behavior of capitalist CEOs and
financiers as “greedy.”
Laws to limit to consumption have existed in many societies through history, and are
known as sumptuary laws. A sumptuary law is “A statute, ordinance, or regulation that limits the
expenditures that people can make for personal gratification or ostentatious display” (Garner
2009). Allan Hunt (1996:7) notes that a distinctive feature “of sumptuary law is that it always
involves some combination of social, economic and moral regulation.” The laws often included
in them the justification that they were necessary to limit greed and excess. In pre-modern
Europe, it was understood that society would be undermined if everyone sought to consume
better clothes and food, rather than content themselves with simple products and leave the better
products (and economic surplus) for their betters. In general, sumptuary laws were characteristic
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of ancient states and of Medieval Europe, though Hunt shows that they in fact increased in
importance with the rise of modernity and peaked in frequency in the 17th and 18th centuries.
This increase in the frequency of such laws reflects attempts by the old feudal order to maintain
the old hierarchy and to limit the power of the rising bourgeoisie.
Most scholars have viewed sumptuary laws as doomed to failure and so they have
attracted relatively little scholarly interest (Hunt 1996:8), and yet calls for such laws persist to
today. In general, sumptuary laws died out in the late 18th century, but they can be seen to have
continued in modified forms in luxury taxes and in protectionist legislation, which seek to
discourage or prohibit excessive consumption, especially of foreign goods (Hunt 2004). Hunt
(1996:9) also argues that “sumptuary laws have lived on in the ubiquitous quest for moral
regulation that found expression in the social purity and Prohibition movements of the 19th and
early 20th centuries and is today alive and well in the contemporary purity movements and
projects of moral regulation.”
Sumptuary Law in Imperial China
Despite contact with Western merchants and products in the 18th and 19th centuries,
consumerism was slow to arise in China for a number of reasons, including the general poverty
of the population and the fact that China already produced nearly everything. Wealthy families
did buy homes, clothes and food that reflected opulent lifestyles, but styles changed very slowly
and tended to be based on traditional forms (Stearns 2001:85). Confucian values dampened
conspicuous consumption both to protect the social hierarchy and because such display was
viewed as extravagant and decadent. Sumptuary laws were the expression of these concerns.
Imperial China changed in many important ways over the centuries, but certain
characteristics remained constant through much of its history. Chinese society was divided into
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three major social classes from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 265 CE) to the end of the Qing in
1911. These classes were the officials, the commoners, and the “mean people” (jianmin).
Officials had passed various levels of the imperial exams, and formed the ruling class. They had
privileges, and despite differences in rank, had a sense of themselves as a distinct, superior, and
prestigious group, and were accorded respect and prestige by others. Once they achieved the
status of official, they kept it for life, even after retirement. The status of official, and the
sumptuary rights that came with it, extended to the wife and parents of the official, and his
children and grandchildren were allowed to continue living in his house, and to wear garments
exclusively designed for family members of officials (Ch'ü 1961:152-3). The Confucian system
was hierarchical and assumed the official class would be wealthy. But the pursuit of wealth for
itself was unbefitting of a gentlemen, who should be more concerned with scholarship and social
obligations. Spending befitting his rank was expected, but conspicuous spending was disdained
(Stearns 2001:4).
Commoners included scholars (who were potential officials), farmers, artisans, and
merchants, in declining order of formal prestige. Within the common people, differences in
income and wealth were significant and created additional subclasses, though there was mobility
both legally and in practice. Sumptuary laws, however, treated commoners as a group (except for
some cases, where artisans and merchants were singled out for specific restrictions.)
“Mean people” referred to slaves, entertainers, prostitutes, government runners and low
level yamen service personnel, plus some regionally specific groups such as beggars and
boatmen (Ch'ü 1961:128-130). They were considered ritually polluted, and the pollution
remained for three generations, meaning, for example, that descendants were not eligible to take
the imperial exam. The category gradually died out during the Qing Dynasty, but in earlier times
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members were required to wear certain head cloths or other articles or colors of clothing to mark
them apart (Ch'ü 1961:137-8).
Sumptuary laws served to mark the three groups apart, especially the officials from the
commoners. In addition, ranks within the official class were distinguished clearly. The model of
an ideal society, in the imperial period, was one where everyone followed the proper role and
displayed these roles in their attire and behavior. “Different styles of life, corresponding to
different statuses, were regarded as prerequisites for maintaining the social and political order;
and an administration was judged good or bad according to its success in maintaining these
differences” (Ch’ü 1961:136).
Sumptuary laws in China involved everything from food to clothing, and from home
architecture to carriages. High ranking officials might not be able to afford the luxury to which
they were entitled, but a wealthy man could not build a house or use a carriage to which he was
not entitled (Ch’ü 1961:135).
Some sumptuary laws were similar in Europe and China. Both areas had laws specifying
which elite classes were allowed to wear various types of fur and what types of bird they could
use for falconry (Hunt 1996:23). The biggest difference between Chinese and European
sumptuary legislation was their greater scale and scope in China:
Whilst in Europe dress, and to a lesser extent food, were the primary targets, in China
sumptuary law addressed almost every aspect of the style of life, prescribing standards
for food, clothing, architecture, furnishings, domestic animals, attendants, boats, carriages,
utensils, hats, clothing, houses, carriages, and, after death, coffins, funeral clothes and
graves. Architectural regulation was most precise. Not only was the size of houses, in
particular the number and size of courtyards, prescribed by rank, but so also were the
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proportions of archways, doors and other entrances, and many other details of their
decoration (for example, the use of tiles with animal motifs), and the style of entrances
and gates, including such matters as use of lances at gates, bird’s head door-knockers.
(Hunt 1996:86)
Obedience to sumptuary laws waxed and waned. In the late Qing, for example, while
laws relating to imperial crests and colors may have been followed strictly, laws forbidding
commoners from using silk or cloth umbrellas (in contrast to umbrellas covered with oil paper)
were among many sumptuary laws that were disregarded (Gray 1972:375-6).
Sumptuary laws suffer from an inherent contradiction in that by making certain items of
food or clothing forbidden to some people and permitted only to a few, these items become even
more prestigious and desirable (Hunt 1996:102-3). Sumptuary laws were possible in Imperial
China because most accepted a hierarchical social order. (It is clear, however, that not everyone
accepted the natural superiority of the dominant classes or there would not have been a need for
sumptuary laws [Hunt 1996:104]). The Chinese social order had mobility, and small farmers
could hope to improve their economic and social standing over their lifetime. Wealthy merchants
and landlords could educate sons in the hope of a son passing the imperial exam. The
mandarinate was selected by merit, a surprisingly achievement-based system for a pre-industrial
society. Despite this mobility and achievement-based society, the social order was hierarchical
and the Mandarin elite were set apart, and ranks within the elite were clearly marked. Only in
such a society could sumptuary laws persist.
Chinese sumptuary laws were designed principally to make everyone’s status clear. An
underlying assumption was that common people should be temperate in their wants, and accept
their place in the social order. Status was to be primarily determined by achievement in the
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imperial exams. Wealth itself was not officially recognized as a source of status, though in
practice it did provide status. Confucians did not despise or reject wealth, only the pursuit of
wealth for its own sake. Wealth allowed one to enjoy leisure and the arts, so was good. But
pursuing wealth itself, as merchants did, was demeaning. Sumptuary laws thus sought to
maintain the dominance of the mandarins, as well as to regulate their behavior so as to maintain
order, and to prevent ruinous material competition among them, since the laws provided clear
guidelines on what they could and could not own.
In modern societies, which are more egalitarian, sumptuary laws are less feasible.
Commercialization allows anyone with money to buy luxuries, and fashion pushes the limits of
sumptuary laws to the point that such laws are widely ignored. Laws that name food or clothing
as prestigious make these products become especially tempting, and commercial profit tempts
merchants to make them available to many who might not be legally entitled to them. One way
of resolving the contradiction that sumptuary laws make luxuries even more attractive has been
for the laws to apply to all, that is, to limit everyone’s consumption. We see this approach in
luxury taxes, but also in the common dress of Puritans and of Mao’s China.
Dressing in Mao’s China: Political Equivalent of Sumptuary Law
Political and social pressures led the masses in Mao’s China to dress virtually alike.
Though there were significant, albeit small, variations in clothing among urban residents, the
apparent homogeneity in consumption was not due to legal rules but to political commitment to
the socialist ethos that valued austerity, simplicity and functionality, as well as to the fear of
being labeled politically deviant.
The “Mao suit” emerged from the impulse and logic as imperial sumptuary laws. In 1929,
the Nationalist government, then headed by Chiang Kai-shek, sought to control clothing by
12
passing a regulation “stipulating that the Sun Yat-sen suit was to be worn as official dress for
civil servants” (Roberts 1997:18), and this suit became very common. The Sun Yat-sen suit was
intended to be modern and egalitarian, yet different from the Western suit. It was a modification
of Japanese school and cadet uniforms, which themselves were based on German uniforms, and
was part of the militarization of civilian dress during the late Qing and early Republican periods
(Finnane 2008:75-7). This became a common suit worn in the 1940s by Nationalist Party
members and civil servants, and was what both Mao and Chiang were wearing when they met
and posed for pictures in Chungking in 1945.
In 1949, at the time of China’s “Liberation,” the coastal cities had a wealthy minority that
wore Western suits and leather shoes for men and qipao (literally “Manchu Banner robe, a gown
with a Mandarin collar and splits on the sides, also known by its Cantonese name, cheongsam)
and high heels for women. These styles were viewed as “bourgeois” and colonial, however, so
were quickly abandoned. In most of the interior of China, “people still wore traditional long
robes and mandarin jackets” (Hua 2004:95). These were viewed as traditional or “feudal” by the
more politically aware. On October 1st, 1949, when Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the
People’s Republic of China atop Tiananmen Gate, all the several hundred political leaders
(except the few non-CCP dignitaries) wore Sun Yat-sen suits (zhongshan zhuang) or People’s
Liberation Army uniforms for the men, and the blue or mustard-colored Lenin suits for the
women. All styles viewed as examples of the old “feudal society” were quickly abandoned in
favor of newer revolutionary styles based on the clothes of farmers and workers.
What is known as the “Mao suit” in the West became the standard attire of the PRC from
the mid-1950s on. It became the national dress, and in Chinese it was known as “the uniform,”
zhifu. It differed from the Sun Yat-sen suit in having an open neck collar, hidden pockets rather
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than patch pockets, and the flap covering the top of the pocket did not have a button (Garrett
2007:219; Roberts 1997:22-3). The colors of all clothes were predominantly blue and grey,
though city women sometimes used flower patterned cotton cloth in the inside lining of their
jackets (Hua 2004:95-97). The zhifu was worn by men and women, all year round (by adding or
removing layers underneath) and by people of all ranks. The green cotton uniform was for the
People’s Liberation Army, though it became common civilian clothing during the Cultural
Revolution. The blue version was for workers and peasants.3 Civilian cadres wore a grey uniform,
with the style varying only slightly (with more pockets for higher level cadres) and the material
clearly indicating the rank of the wearer (Roberts 1997:22-23). The uniform remained the
national dress until Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang was shown on national
television on 21 October 1984 chairing a the Third Plenary Session of the 12th Central
Committee in the Great Hall of the People wearing a dark blue Western-style suit (Sang
1997:43). The sight of the CCP leader wearing a Western suit caused a sensation that people still
remember today.
Though the zhifu uniform symbolized frugality and egalitarianism, it still communicated
style and fashion, but the rules of fashion were based on politics. Women in the 1950s often
wore what was known as a “Lenin suit,” a double-breasted pant-suit with a straight collar and a
belt. This style was inspired by the Soviet Union’s styles, but Soviet women wore skirts while
Chinese women wore it with pants. This suit symbolized agricultural and industrial work and
thus national renaissance (Hua 2004:97; Chen 2009:21-22). It became common for female cadres
3
The association of blue cotton as the cloth of the masses dates back to the Qing Dynasty
sumptuary laws (see Gray 1976 [orig. 1878]:368).
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until the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s, after which it was viewed as politically inappropriate
and disappeared. During the Cultural Revolution, mustard-green military uniforms were the rage.
Young people sought to look like soldiers, and military clothing was highly desired, but since
uniforms were hard to obtain, many made their own, something that was made easier by the fact
that in 1965, the PLA removed all rank insignia from uniforms (Finnane 2008:235-7).
No government edicts or formal sumptuary laws forced the wearing of revolutionary
styles (Steele and Major 1999:57; Hua 2004:95). Still, throughout the collective era (1949-1979),
various political movements enforced the proletarian and peasant style of dress. Many authors
note that there was still some variety of clothing in the 1950s until the Anti-Rightist Campaign
(1957) and the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) created an ideological fervor that made most
people afraid to wear non-proletarian styles. On the other hand, the lack of differentiation in
clothing was notable even before 1957; in January 1956, the Youth Daily urged young women
not to dress so gloomily and grey (HC360.com 2009). A cartoon in the 11 March 1956 issue of
the Changjiang Ribao satirized the uniformity of dress by drawing six persons, male and female,
young and old, all dressed similarly in Sun Yat-sen suits for men and Lenin suits for women (see
Finnane 2008:207). In the 1960s there was a high degree of conformity, even before the Cultural
Revolution. In May of 1964, a tailor shop on Shanghai’s Nanking Road refused to narrow the
pant legs for a customer, claiming that it would be too revealing of the butt and that a socialist
enterprise could not sell a product that damaged social fashion (Chen 2009:70).4 During the
4
Note that in this case, the tailor was behaving in accordance with tradition: Ch’u
(1961:151) writes of imperial China that “The artisan or tailor who made articles for a commoner
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Cultural Revolution (1966-76), any traditional or Western dress was viewed as one of the “Four
Olds” (old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits). Red Guard “‘search and destroy’
activities were conducted ‘to promote proletarianism and eliminate bourgeois ideology’.
Pedestrians found wearing bourgeois clothes were waylaid on the street and had their clothes cut
to shreds on the spot. Others suspected of hiding ‘feudalist and capitalist black goods’ had their
homes ransacked and their clothes confiscated or destroyed” (Sang 1997:43; see also Steele and
Major 1999:59-61). There was even a term for clothes that did not follow the political orthodoxy:
they were known as “bizarre outfits and strange clothes” (qizhuang yifu). In December 1966,
during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards held an exhibition in the former Soviet Union
Exhibition Centre showing over two million “outlandish outfits” captured in the previous four
months from Beijing residents (Sang 1997:43). “Only army uniforms, modified Sun Yat-sen
suits and work uniforms (zhifu)” remained as acceptable clothes (ibid.).
Desire and Fashion in Political Campaigns
The Chinese during Cultural Revolution were derided by some in the West as “blue ants”
while others imagined that China had “shed the shackles of fashion and overturned the cult of
personal appearance” (Steele and Major 1999:62). Neither view was correct. While the Mao suit
was intended to be classless and appears to outsiders to be uniform, there were important
differences that indicted rank. These differences were introduced in the early 1950s, when
officials were not paid in cash but received goods from the government, including clothing. The
material differed, with coarse cloth for the lowest officials, polyester drill for middle-ranking
to which his status did not entitle him was punished with fifty strokes, unless the former reported
the case to the authorities before it was discovered.”
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cadres, and wool for the top leaders. The number of pockets also varied, with the top cadres
having four covered patch pockets instead of just the lower ones. Higher level cadres had better
fitting uniforms, at the same time that the mass-produced and poorly fitting military-style
uniforms emphasized socialist values of equality of sex and rank. Paradoxically, then, a uniform
that symbolized egalitarianism also indicated rank, at least to those who knew how to read it.
Also striking is that while all China was wearing drab and baggy clothes, official
representations showed style and color. The costumes of the “model revolutionary ballets”
promoted by Jiang Qing featured women in uniforms modified to “become a stylish ensemble of
tight-fitting shorts and closely tailored tunics” (Steele and Major 1999:61). Peasant, students and
workers in posters are often shown wearing colorful jackets. Steele and Major (1999:61-62)
argue that this disparity can be explained as due to the posters representing an idealized world
that was close to being realized. In the new society just around the corner, “colorful clothing will
be untainted by individualism, purged of the cult of appearances, cleansed of the stain of fashion;
it will be colorful in the bright colors of revolutionary purity” (ibid. 62).
The apparent homogeneity in consumption was as much the result of the failure of the
state industrial system as of political commitment. Cloth was limited in quantity, and came
primarily in a few solid colors, particularly blue, grey and green, and plain white for shirts.
Despite the simplified needs of the collective era public, the state was unable to provide light
industrial goods (what we can anachronistically call consumer goods). The state took over the
production of all yarn and textiles in 1951. The National Cotton Produce Company had a
monopoly over the cotton industry, from the purchase of raw cotton to the manufacturing of
clothes (Sang 1997:42-43). By early 1961, Beijing residents had to use ration coupons to obtain
all cotton products (Sang 1997:43). It bears remembering that the CCP’s claim to legitimacy
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came not from producing more goods for consumers, but for eliminating poverty and destitution.
Peasant frugality was extended to the entire country. There are varying reports on how much
cloth each person was entitled to annually, but they are all low (4.5 m according to Chen
[2009:67] and an informant in Foshan, 2.5 m. of cloth and 500 grams of cotton according to Sang
[1997:43]). Clothes needed to be used for many years, leading to the expression “New three
years, old three years, repair for another three years” and the well-known complaints of younger
siblings that they never could wear new clothes, because families could only afford to give them
hand-me-downs (Chen 2009:66).
Despite the political pressures of the Cultural Revolution and the fanaticism of the Red
Guards, styles still emerged, both promoting “red” orthodoxy and resisting or ignoring it.
Orthodox “red” styles were austere and considered more in keeping with socialist principles. The
popular “Mao suit” and cap and the military uniform were both patriotic and proletarian. Patches
were viewed as more in keeping with the austere socialist style, and it became popular to have
patches on clothes. “Photographs of Mao wearing worn clothing were used extensively as a
propaganda tool to foster nostalgic feelings of heroic deeds and the achievements of earlier
times” (Garrett 2007:218). Before the reforms of 1978, young women would make their pants
more beautiful by boiling the deep blue cloth to make the cloth fade in color, then would put
square patches of non-faded blue cloth on the knees and on the derrière. This was considered
both beautiful and durable (Chen 2009:108). Patches on the elbows and on the shoulder, the
latter suggesting the clothes wore out from excessive work using a carrying pole, were popular in
Foshan.
In addition to these “red” styles, there were also tendencies that subverted and resisted
the “red” orthodoxy. There are many stories of people getting into trouble, even losing their jobs,
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because of the way their re-cut blouses showed a narrow waist and shapely figure. Even during
the height of the Cultural Revolution, youth in cities like Shanghai had slight differences in their
clothing, such as the shape of their lapels, which they felt made them more fashionable and
sophisticated. Even in these extreme times, the drive for fashion could still be found.
The frugal and functional clothing of Maoist China was in part inspired by political
idealism, but was also imposed by political propaganda and terror. The press repeated
government calls to “combat self-interest” (e.g. People’s Daily 1967). Western observers at the
time believed a “new man” was being created, and though this view has been thoroughly
repudiated, it bears remembering that aside from the horrible excesses of the Great Leap and the
Cultural Revolution, the collective period did offer an alternative economic and political system.
It was not able to grow and to produce enough for China’s population, but it transformed the
society in many ways. And the consumer revolution that came after was, in many ways, a
reaction to the limitations and constraints of the collective period.
The Consumer Revolution in China
Consumer spending in China has grown dramatically since the reforms of 1978.
Economic growth since 1979 is estimated to have averaged close to ten percent per annum
(compared to six percent before 1978 [Hu and Khan 1997:1]), which is often noted as the fastest
ever in world history, bringing more people out of poverty than any previous period of time. This
has been done by ending central planning, making state-owned enterprises compete on the world
market, inviting foreign investment, and allowing rural residents to move to cities and industrial
zones for work. These policies, sometimes called the “Beijing model,” allow free enterprise and
follow the neoliberal ideology but maintain strong state leadership and political control to assure
stability and labor quiescence. Most Chinese feel the system has worked well; each year,
19
incomes rise and consumer choices are greater and more attainable. China’s consumers have
wide choices in clothing today, and are also buying expensive items such as homes and autos.
China’s automobile market is now the largest in the world.
China’s new consumers have several motivations, from the functional (e.g. physical
comfort and a better life) to social (expressing identity and conspicuous display). China in 2011
is estimated to have a “middle class” elite of 250 million, one million of whom are active luxury
brand product buyers who collectively spend US$7 billion per year. At the same time, there are
230 million migrant workers who have left rural areas for urban and industrial jobs. Many
migrants are men or couples who leave their children behind in the village. They earn and
consume more, and improve their family’s economic position, but at considerable personal cost.
They mostly live very frugally and are not generally part of China’s consumer revolution.
China has rapidly gone from a socialist system that focused on production (but not on the
consumer) to a state-led capitalist system that, like other capitalist economies, produces more
than it can consume. While as recently as the 1980s there were widespread shortages of
consumer products that could only be overcome with guanxi connections, by the late 1990s
marketing was necessary for any consumer products company to sell its goods and remain
competitive.
Soap and Desire
One of the first and more revealing mass consumer products in China was shampoo,5
which has only been available to consumers since the reform era. Chinese consumers have taken
5
This research was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council (RGC)
of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project no. CUHK4348/01H).
20
to foreign brands of shampoo with alacrity. Workers in the early 2000s were willing to buy
foreign brands of shampoo that cost up to ten percent of a month’s wages for a 100 ml bottle.
Since shampoos are mostly alike in their ability to clean hair, and since one cannot know what
brand of shampoo others are using, the success of foreign brands of shampoo in making their
products essential is surprising. Using shampoo is viewed as “modern” in Post-Reform China,
and consumers who cannot buy a car or other expensive appliance can participate in modernity
by using shampoo. A brief summary of the expansion of demand for shampoo helps reveal the
dynamics of consumer capitalism.
China’s history is sobering for critics of capitalism. The collective system was unable to
produce enough to satisfy demand. Even soap was in short supply and needed to be rationed with
coupons. The technology of soap and shampoo is very simple, and the raw materials are not
difficult to obtain or produce. The failure of the state-owned factories to produce enough soap is
indicative of a basic weakness of the collective, “state capitalist” system. At the same time,
consumer capitalism--the system that has replaced it--produces in excess, and needs marketing
and “innovation” to fuel desire and to continue growing. If the old system left the Chinese with
unfulfilled desires, the new system creates insatiable desires, and possibly an unsustainable
world economy.
History of Soap and Shampoo in China
Shampoo is a rather new invention, and humans have cleaned their hair with other
products such as alkali rinses for centuries before shampoo’s invention. Shampoo was only an
urban luxury in China before WW II. In the 1980s, many domestic shampoo brands emerged.
Most famous, perhaps, is the Bee and Honey brand (Fenghua) made in Shanghai. One informant
remembered how in about 1982 her husband had gone to Shanghai for a business trip and
21
brought her back two bottles, and explained to her how to use the shampoo to wash her hair and
then the conditioner to make the hair shiny. Bee and Honey brand shampoo and conditioner are
still sold (it represents 2 percent of the shampoo market), but only at supermarkets where older
people shop, and their placement is on the bottom shelf, out of the way. One department store
manager said that they only have it for the old people who would otherwise complain, and that it
does not sell very well because it is not promoted. The few loyal customers will buy it no matter
where they put it, she said.
In 1987, Procter and Gamble (P&G) began producing Head & Shoulders in a joint
venture plant near Guangzhou, China, and it quickly became popular and very profitable. With
advertising that made consumers aware of dandruff and that told them their shampoo was
effective against it, P&G was able to make Head and Shoulders China’s best selling shampoo in
three years. P&G has added two more brands, Rejoice and Pantene, both anti-dandruff, and
clever advertising has brought huge success, with the three brands taking a 57 percent market
share in a 1995 survey of three cities, even though they cost three times more than local brands
(Kahn 1995). Unilever also set up joint ventures just a year after P&G, in Shanghai. Both P&G
and Unilever have been successful in China, though it is difficult to know the profitability of
their China operations. In 2003, Nielsen estimated P&G’s shampoo brands controlled 29.2
percent of the market and Unilever brands 6.1 percent (by volume; it would be higher by value
because multinationals’ brands are more expensive).
Marketing
Soap and shampoo are typical “fast moving consumer goods”: they are marketing
intensive products. In 1999, P&G spent $250 million per year in advertising in China (Flagg
1999) on revenues of $1 billion (Tuinstra 2000) from brands like Head and Shoulders, Vidal
22
Sasoon, Safeguard, and Tide. P&G’s success has come thanks to heavy marketing, including
advertising, wide distribution, and free samples.
In developed countries, soaps and shampoos are basically all of good quality (Consumer
Reports 2001). In China, however, the P&G and Unilever soaps and shampoos were initially
better than many Chinese brands. For example, some Chinese shampoos are too harsh and strip
off all the oil on the hair, leaving the hair feeling stiff and rough. Some producers add salt as a
thickener to prevent the shampoo from being too watery, and this can also be harsh on the hair.
Thus, while in developed markets the differences in quality between brands of shampoo are not
significant, it turns out that the differences in China can be important. It is therefore not
surprising that many consumers prefer the foreign brands.
The chemistry of manufacturing soap and shampoo is quite simple and very well known.
Thus the barrier to entry is very low, which in part explains why there are hundreds of shampoo
brands in China. The materials that go into soaps and shampoos are also mostly relatively
inexpensive. The most expensive ingredients in most soaps and shampoos are the essential oils.
Locally made products will have less expensive essential oils, and some may have strong
unpleasant smells
Nevertheless, we found that very few consumers actually could tell the difference
between the brands. Sophisticated young urban consumers claim they can detect a fake shampoo
by its smell, by how watery it is, or by the look of the bottle. Less knowledgeable consumers and
most rural informants admit that they cannot be sure they are buying the real thing. In other
words, though there is some difference between brands, most consumers cannot tell the
difference between “good” and “bad” shampoo.
23
As a result, many families told us that they bought their shampoo in department stores
and supermarkets when they went window shopping in town on the weekend. They assume these
large stores will have a reliable supply from the manufacturer. Many consumers fear that they
will mistakenly buy fake shampoo if they buy from neighborhood shops. This partially explains
why department stores and supermarkets have large shampoo displays at their entrances:
consumers buy shampoo from vendors they can trust.
There is another reason that consumers buy shampoo on their visits to the supermarkets
and departments stores. Rural and working class consumers are going window shopping to see
the new products offered by the consumer revolution. Most of the products are, of course,
beyond their economic reach. Shampoo, however, is a modest expense: it is a luxury product
families can afford. Indeed, P&G ads have made shampoo one of the cornerstones of modern life
for Chinese consumers.
The Appeals of Advertisements
Proctor and Gamble can be said to have introduced modern advertizing to socialist China.
Their ads were far more sophisticated than previous ads, in their technical quality and in their use
of aspirational themes. Even though interviewees often denied being influenced by advertizing,
many admitted that they bought advertized brands because they saw them as the “popular
brands.”
We can identify several themes that are used by P&G ads. Most obvious is the emphasis
on beauty, especially feminine beauty; in contrast to socialist images of women workers with
short hair or hair tied in braids, soap and shampoo ads focus on women with long, flowing black
hair. The previous image of glistening (even oily) hair has been replaced by dry, bouncy hair as
an ideal of beauty.
24
Another theme is the notion of prosperity and affluence. Many of the beautiful women
are placed in domestic settings of great affluence. The woman is portrayed as the homemaker,
especially taking care of the family’s child. Large TVs, picture windows, white furniture, and
yards with lawns (the latter virtually unheard of in China) are common images in commercials.
A third theme of the ads is science and modernity. Many commercials have pseudoscientific explanations of why that brand is good for the hair. After the science lesson is over and
the dryness or dandruff is solved, the model is portrayed in modern settings. Often the setting in
the advertisements is glamorous and modern, such as a movie set (for actor spokespersons) or
office, and unusually lit (either very brightly or with spotlights and shadows). The shampoo is
associated with not just cleanliness but with beauty, affluence, and modernity.
Modernity is one of the key ingredients that consumers seek through soap and shampoo.
This is shown by how avidly consumers take up any innovation that is portrayed as more
“modern.” For example, shower gel has rapidly replaced bar soap as the preferred body cleanser
in China. Many people in Shanghai, especially university students, use gel because they think it
is more modern; several informants told me that they assumed that all Americans and Europeans
use body gel, and that China was just catching up with the West. Similarly, middle-class
urbanites, including men, have taken to using face cleaning soaps and creams (ximiannai) and
many informants were surprised that I said it was not standard in the US. They assumed this was
part of scientific and modern grooming.
Thus, we can say that in each bar of soap and bottle of shampoo, consumers are seeking
not only beauty, but the prosperity and modernity of consumer society. Changes in consumers'
practices and tastes that took 120 years in the US and Europe have taken place in 20 years in
China, but the meaning of soap is different in China. Instead of simply being a way to clean the
25
body and make hair beautiful, Chinese consumers buy soap, gel, and shampoo to participate in
modernity and to live in affluence--at least in one corner of their life. This image of shampoo as
modernity has been shaped by commercials.
Contemporary consumerist modernity is very different from earlier visions of what it
meant to be modern. The generation of women who came of age in the 1950s and early 1960s for
example viewed modernity as involving liberation, including gender equality, incorruptibility,
sacrifice in collective work for the good of the nation (Rofel 1999:128-137). The cohort of
women who came of age from about 1964 and during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) had a
more antagonistic view towards the state and viewed class status, party bureaucracy, and
connections (guanxi) as obstacles to modernity (ibid.:175). Like the first socialist cohort, they
also believed in an egalitarian and prosperous future and accepted an austere present for the sake
of the future, but showed resistance against managerial authority. The post-Reform generation,
on the other hand, has focused much more on individual self-fulfillment, on family, and on
gendered identities. Femininity has been re-cast as “natural,” something that Maoism had
unnaturally sought to suppress (ibid. 218).
Desire
Shampoo and toilette soaps are among the most obvious improvements in the lives of
Chinese. Products that were nonexistent in the case of shampoo, and scarce and of poor quality
in the case of soap, have become, for many, inexpensive daily necessities. While it may seem
that there should be a more rational way to distribute soap and shampoo than the wasteful
consumer culture system of advertizing and marketing, the system China had before 1978 failed.
Chinese consumers thus tend to view the current system as not only a great improvement, but as
modern and scientific.
26
The new consumer culture urges people to buy soap and shampoo, and to use more of it
by washing hair daily; it does this by creating brands and linking them to dreams. Soap and
shampoo commercials create the idea that by using the product one can be as beautiful,
successful, modern, and happy as the people in the commercials. To make a profit in the
competitive market of “fast-moving consumer goods,” companies are forced to apply the model
of heavy advertizing to create brand awareness, or to cut corners, creating cheap imitations of big
brands. Both involve tremendous waste: one in marketing, the other in bad products.
The alternative “third way” is illustrated by Bee and Flower, the early Chinese brand
mentioned above. Bee and Flower makes a good product, but does not advertize it. A manager of
Bee and Flower explained that their brand did not make enough money to allow them to
advertize. If they borrowed money to mount a marketing campaign and the campaign did not
succeed in raising sales, they would be ruined. They could not afford to take the chance. They
were, at the time, selling a shampoo and conditioner that was widely recognized as of good
quality, and it sold for less than a quarter the price of P&G products. In fact, their conditioner
had become a surprising favorite of many young urbanites who used it with P&G’s “2-in-1”
shampoos because they did not believe that the “2-in-1” products really did condition the hair.
But because Bee and Flower did not do marketing and did not pay for shelf space in
supermarkets and department stores, its products were placed on the bottom shelf in stores.
Though its owners had been quick to adopt the technology and develop a Chinese brand, they
had been slow to understand consumer capitalism and the importance of marketing. In
manufacturing terms, they made a fine product, and were profitable. But they were pushed out of
the market by marketers who knew how to create desire. The result is a wasteful system, driven
by—distorted by—created desire.
27
Greed Revisited
Greed is impossible to define in economics, yet every religious tradition recognizes it and
warns against it. Some critics of neoclassical economics try to argue against the notion that
humans are self-interested, but it is better to acknowledge that desire and self-interest are part of
the human condition, but nowhere are these emotions viewed as natural and allowed to operate
unchecked—except in modern consumer capitalism. In all other societies, individual desires
have been checked by social norms and rules and by cultural values.
We have examined two forms of non-religious restrictions on consumption in China, the
sumptuary laws of the imperial period and the dominance of the austere “Mao suit” of the
collective period. Both experiences have implications for any attempt to impose controls on
consumerism. Sumptuary laws reflected a Confucian distain for waste and excess, but were
primarily concerned with maintaining the social hierarchy. It is difficult to say how well
enforced the sumptuary laws were; we have examples that some were not much enforced by the
end of the Qing, but we also know that Qing China was very slow to adopt Western consumer
culture, in part because of the Confucian spirit behind sumptuary laws. The laws assume a
society that is static and accepts hierarchy as natural; such laws are not feasible in modern
democratic societies.
We also examined how restrictions on clothing emerged during the collective era in
Mao’s China. Though no laws were passed forcing people to wear Mao suits, political pressures
led to widespread uniformity of clothing by 1956, before even the first of the severe political
movements—the Anti-Rightist movement of 1957—attacked supposed enemies of the state. In
later years, fear of criticism led most Chinese to wear politically appropriate clothes. Colors were
few anyway, but the young in particular internalized the values of the Cultural Revolution and
28
sought to wear military green to show their patriotism. Colored and patterned cloth was available,
but was only used for bedspreads or baby clothes, since they were considered politically
inappropriate for adults.
The post 1979 hyper-consumerism has swept aside all traditional restrictions and
reservations on conspicuous display. Today China is one of the largest and fastest growing
markets for brand-name luxury goods. Those who have wealth are not afraid to flaunt it. The rise
of shampoo, a minor consumer product, helps us understand how consumer desire is created,
because it is used in private and no one can tell what brand they used. Consumers are willing to
pay more for brand-name shampoos because they have been educated by frequent commercials
that dry, bouncy hair is beautiful and modern. Visits to supermarkets and department stores to
see the most recent consumer products frequently became occasions to buy shampoo, which is an
affordable piece of modernity.
Thus, sumptuary law controlled greed, but only because it was part of a Confucian
context that valued hierarchy and devalued merchants and the pursuit of profit for its own sake,
and disdained striving that would contradict the appropriate social ranking. The political
environment of the collective era pushed Chinese to maintain austere and simple clothes, but the
idealism that inspired these simple styles was also accompanied by political terror. Nearly all
Chinese, even those nostalgic for the certainties, egalitarianism and idealism of the 1960s, are
unwilling to go back to the political repression and conformity of that era. In most people’s
minds, the inability of the collective period to provide consumer products, and the use of ration
coupons for soap, testify to the failure of the system. Today’s hyper-consumerism is in part in
response to the privations and lack of choice of that era, as well as to the growth in income and
29
the new spirit expressed in Deng Xiaoping’s famous but apocryphal quotation, “To be rich is
glorious.”6
Consumerism is in some ways a form of individual freedom and does allow individuals to
express their identity, as argued by some of consumerism’s defenders (see Twitchell 1999). We
have seen how in transgressing imperial China’s sumptuary laws and stretching the boundaries
of what was permissible in Mao’s China, individuals were trying to express their individuality,
beauty and sexuality, as well as status. But seeing contemporary consumerism as simply free
choice is sociologically naïve, since consumption is shaped by our economic and social system.
Defenders of consumerism typically ignore its ecological costs (see Twitchell 1999, 2002). There
is considerable evidence that consumerism, especially in its more frenzied forms, is also a way
many compensate for their alienation. Boring factory work paid more than traditional skilled
artisans, but did not have the social prestige or status and support of traditional craft or guild
membership. New and vivid clothing could compensate for the loss of traditional status, and
could demonstrate achievement in this new type of work (Stearns 2001:31). This has been
especially important for people living among strangers in the city, where one is more likely to
judge and be judged on appearances.
Without the social and cultural constraints of tradition, consumption in China has a much
higher element of conspicuous consumption than in the West. Indeed, while Europeans often
find Americans crass consumers and resist American style advertizing and marketing, Americans
in turn often find Chinese consumption patterns surprisingly driven by brand consciousness and
6
He actually said that “To become rich is not an offence” (zhifu bushi zuiguo), which is
much milder.
30
conspicuous consumption. The nouveaux riches in America have more influence on fashion and
consumption levels, being less restrained by a smaller “old money” elite than in Europe. In Asia,
however, not only have the old elites in many cases been swept aside by previous revolutions,
but rapid economic growth makes everyone with money nouveau riche, and spurs them to
consume to display their identity and cultural competence through consumption.
Many observers have noted that voluntary measures against consumerism are not likely
to have a major impact. Many endorse voluntary measures mostly to educate the public and to
publicize environmental issues. It should be clear that limiting consumption through social and
political measures, as were used in China, are not acceptable.
Conclusion: What to Do
And yet, doing nothing is not acceptable either. Jared Diamond (2005:358-77) has
detailed the environmental challenges China is facing. The critiques of Diamond’s book (see
McAnany and Yoffee, eds. 2010) raise serious doubts about whether humans in Easter Island,
Greenland, the Maya rainforest and other areas actually caused an environmental disaster and
whether it is correct to view their societies as having “collapsed.” But the editors of Questioning
Collapse do not seek to question the danger facing the environment and humanity today, a
danger that has been increasingly apparent and known to humans over the past decades
(McAnany and Yoffee 2010:15). In China, the country’s population density means that pollution,
erosion, water shortages, drought, and other environmental problems are already recognized as
undermining the nation’s development. Because of the country’s population size and density,
China has a greater need to develop an alternative to the high energy development model of the
West (Nair 2011:76). Thus, while 1980s and 1990s development was based on the assumption of
31
an automobile society,7 China’s recent emphasis on highways and cars is shifting to more
sustainable alternatives, from high speed trains to mass transit, and even to restoring the bicycle
which had been viewed as an embarrassing symbol of backwardness rather than of sustainable
development.
Despite obvious signs of global warming, it is difficult to bring about change. Many in
the developed world choose to doubt the evidence, perhaps because action would require them to
consume less. International conferences like the Copenhagen Climate Conference have ended in
failure; politicians from nearly all countries find it difficult to agree to an image of the future that
would involve less consumption. Restrictions on China’s growth are impossible. Not only is
China not willing to agree to consumption levels lower than those in the developed world, but
the growth of the consumer economy is essential to the government’s legitimacy.8 There is,
furthermore, the strange disconnect of economists asking Chinese consumers to consume more
to “save the world economy,” when increasing consumption is destroying the environment.
American consumers have hollowed out their economy by spending excessively, causing a
speculative bubble and government budget deficits as well as a trade deficit that now sees China
own 1.2 trillion dollars in US debt. At the same time that Americans are being told they have to
7
Shenzhen’s wide roads and highways are reputedly based on those of Houston, Texas,
as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s trip there in 1979, when Shenzhen was being planned. I have no
evidence for this, but the two cities have been sister cities since 1986.
8
Latham (2002) argues it is not the ability to provide consumer goods that keeps people
politically docile but the idea of transition, that things will be better. “It is not so much
consumption that works as a social palliative but the notion of transition itself” (ibid.: 231).
32
save more (and consume less), Chinese consumers are being urged to consume more. Yet, if
Chinese consume more, the carbon emissions and other impacts on resources are going to be
environmentally disastrous for China and the entire planet.
Expecting individual action to solve environmental problems is not practical. For
example, the “life-cycle analysis” approach advocated by Daniel Goleman (2009), which
provides more information to consumers and expects them to use it to make environmentally
sound choices, is unlikely to put a dent in consumption when millions of new consumers are
being added each year and the model of consumption is still the developed world. At best such
approaches help educate consumers of the costs of their consumption.
Equilibrium models of neoclassical economics do not help us understand how to address
shortages or scarcity of many resources. In the case of fish, for example, depletion of a species
raises its price, rewarding those who continue to capture the scarce fish and providing an
incentive for fishermen, especially for poachers, to continue catching and depleting the stock
(Clover 2004; Pauly 2009). Such perverse results make bad situations worse, and show that we
cannot rely on markets to regulate supplies of all products.
The discourse of greed and excess focuses on individual motivation, as is common in the
thinking of individualizing capitalism (and the disciplines of psychology and economics that
provide much of its ideological support). I have argued that modern consumerism, like past
restrictions on consumption, is based not on individual motivation or personality, but on the
cultural logic of the system itself.
Though we cannot expect the market to solve the environmental crisis, governments can
use the market to shift towards resource conservation and more sustainable development.
Because of Asia’s high population density and high levels of pollution, many of the necessary
33
changes are likely to develop there. Specifically, governments need to see that resources are
limited, that they must be husbanded for future generations, and that by re-pricing them (via
taxes, for example), they can lead to sustainable societies and economies (Nair 2011:119). Such
taxes are likely to be impossible in the US, for example, where taxes are anathema, but taxes on
gasoline are common in the rest of the world (we have long paid US$8 per gallon in Hong Kong,
of which 40% is a government tax). China’s strong state is beginning to take steps to redirect
development in more sustainable directions. Asian societies that are more collective and are
familiar with state leadership in the economy may have an easier time adapting. It remains to be
seen whether the frontier individualism, libertarianism and market fundamentalism that is
common in the US will allow Americans to choose to survive or to fail.
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