Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

164 ARIEL HERYANTO
Indonesians want to be rich, only a few have attained the desired position and they
endure the stigma and discomfort of being regarded with suspicion.
In the 1990s the new rich are under greater pressure than ever before to protect
and legitimise private ownership of substantial wealth. Negotiating or reconstructing
the already dominant images of wealth, wealth-making and the wealthy becomes a
serious project. They must seek ways to secure their dominant position on a longterm
basis, and to maintain the broader social order that laid the foundation of
their dominance. This security, however, cannot be achieved simply by constant
concealment of wealth, denial of wealthiness or incessant retreat from luxurious
lifestyles.
Like everyone else in a similar position, the new rich need convenient ways to
exercise their economic power and enjoy the material privileges available to them
beyond the economic arena. And they must do this in the face of obvious envy and
resentment from the poor masses. These problems require confidence, creativity
and experimentation. One social space where these experimentations take place is
lifestyle. However, in the course of their development, particular lifestyles can
move far beyond the rational calculation, modern economic principles or ideology
that informed the initial agenda.
Indeed, to speak of contemporary lifestyles among the new rich merely as a
necessary route to a higher level of dominance does not go far from political
economism. Irrationality is occasionally at work in the desire for pleasure in
consumption. It is more socio-psychological than economically motivated or
rationally calculated. ‘What is the point of being a capitalist, an entrepreneur, a
bourgeois’, Immanuel Wallerstein reminds us, ‘if there is no personal reward?’
(1991:146). He asserts that although the logic of capitalism demands abstemious
puritanism, the psycho-logic of capitalism calls for a display of wealth and
conspicuous consumption (1991:148).
Many observers agree that the emergence of a new bourgeoisie in Indonesia is
more a product of political patronage than of market competition, successful rational
planning or hard work. 5 It is not a surprise, therefore, that a large portion of the
abundant fruit of the economic boom goes into excessive consumerism rather than
productive investment. What comes easily, goes away easily. The new
preoccupation of the emerging Indonesian capitalists is no longer how to get rich
and sustain wealth, but how to maximise enjoyment and expand the scope of what
money can buy. Among some of the most successful young professionals too,
consumption has gone beyond the logic of utility or economy (Kompas 1995b).
The rest of this chapter will focus on some of the most salient directions of
meanings in contemporary Indonesian consumer culture. We will begin with two
distinguishable social clusters: middle-class intellectuals and the new bourgeoisie in
their mutually reinforcing effort to build a new bourgeois hegemony through
culturalisation.