China Constructing Capitalism: Economic Life and Urban Change (International Library of Sociology) Book

Dominant theorists of globalization take on the assumptions of a 'Washington Consensus' which presumes the centrality of neo-liberal American individualism. For them at stake is America's globalization. Scott Lash and his colleagues argue that there is a new global driving force: a new logic that is 'Global China'. Here Washington neo-liberal individualism is displaced by the collective relationality of a 'Beijing Consensus'. This relationality harks back to Taoism and Confucianism yet is a motor of Chinese global hypermodernity. This book analyses China as a 'risk culture', embracing the boundless opportunity and adventure of Beijing's Olympic architecture, Shenzhen investment bank young traders, Shanghai property developers and art markets. It examines the risk-sharing of intergenerational family mortgages, wage-pooling microfinance and regimes of collective saving. It scrutinises the ever-present shadow of the risk-averse (yet uncertainty-creating) state. Global China is a must read for social scientists, policy makers and investors.