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

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regulating’ (Sullivan 1992:198). This is one of the factors providing high legitimacy
to the New Order regime.
In the new global culture, the ‘home’ has become a celebrated object of nostalgia,
a model of the pre-modern past (Hannertz 1990:248) where one does not have to
prove oneself, and where face-to-face relations prevail. So too in Indonesia.
‘Tradition’ is also an important part of the self-identity of the new rich. Very few
would say that they are breaking with the past (although socially they are oriented
up-and not downwards). Thus, in the fancy homes of some OKB, one can also find
‘traditional’ objects, such as the keris (Javanese daggers) but now as objects of
glorification without any practical meaning. The keris has become a part of the
national heritage, and can be understood only as such, not as a thing with a local
meaning. It is just like the refrigerators the first batch of 1970s OKBs had in their
living rooms. While there was no electrical power to which they could be
connected, they were still highly valued objects.
There is also another reason why the new rich do not simply embrace a
rational, market-oriented, liberal ideology. This has to do with constraints within
the Indonesian form of capitalism itself, where it is more profitable (and hence
economically rational) to maintain ‘traditional’ relations. The patronage of
sharecropping relations, in which landowners give privileged access to selected
sharecroppers, is used as a mechanism by rural capitalists to tie up a loyal
clientele. The opening up of the economy has thus, in many cases, led to restricted,
eye-to-eye labour relations rather than the expected ‘pure’ capitalistic employeremployee
relationships.
TENSIONS AND RESPONSES
The new rich are therefore not simply agents of change or promoters of modernity.
They also reconcile themselves with the community spirit, because it is the main
way through which the government can continue to rule, and because in many
cases it is more efficient in terms of their own interests. Although the new rich and
the elite may wish to evade their local obligations, and although the suppression of
political activities has made their position more secure and their new lifestyle more
viable, a limitation on their position and local legitimacy is set by community
allegiances and state ideology. There is a realm of what could be called community
morality, in which the wealth and power of the village elite must be acknowledged
by their neighbours. The new rich cannot simply convert their wealth into
authority. Cutting across economic and political hierarchies, tradition continues to
influence social interaction. If a village-based state client lets his community
authority assume the upper hand, he might lose the crucial support of higher
authorities. If a community leader lets his administrative authority assume the
upper hand, he might lose the support of his neighbours and relatives. Because
many new rich in rural Java are state clients, they must also conform to state
ideology.