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

THE MAKING OF THE PHILIPINES’ NEW RICH 291
generation of the old elite continues to be tainted, as well as blessed, by their
ancestry.
It may be that as capitalist development proceeds, and as some members of the
new rich become ensconced in the bourgeoisie, the opportunities for
entrepreneurial mobility will decline and with them the rhetoric of entrepreneurship,
but the elevation of the ideas of achievement and merit over that of ascription could
well continue. For, though the rhetoric I have been discussing here fosuses most
directly on the entrepreneurial capitalist, more generally it is also invoked in
relation to the successful salaried professionals who exercise increasing influence
in the world of corporate capital in the Philippines. The rhetoric of
entrepreneurship, and more widely of meritocracy, represent a shift, not only in
terms of national identity and elite or middle-class identity; increasingly they have
become part of a totalising explanation of the Philippine social order. The idea that
this order is constituted by the principle of meritocracy has long been embedded in
the American-based system of public education and is evident as well in the labour
market, but it has always coexisted with other ascriptive ideas according to which
such factors as ethnic identity and family determine one’s social position. The
current structural reordering and celebration of entrepreneurship have intensified
further the idea that success comes to those who are talented and diligent. The
hegemonic significance of this is the corollary that those who do not rise to the top
do not deserve to. The power of this rhetoric lies in the fact that it contains an element
of experiential truth. But at the same time, its concentration on individual agency
tends to conceal the structural differences that face those who seek wealth and
respectability.
A’nation of entrepreneurs’, in the sense that entrepreneurship is today being
celebrated in the Philippines, is simply an impossibility. While the new rich may be
characterised by the success of their free-wheeling ambitions and hard work, that
success is dependent on the subversion of the ambitions and hard work of a great
many more who have to labour on their behalf, or who, in other ways, are denied
the opportunities for substantial new wealth. For many such people, the derogatory
characterisation of the new rich as biglang yaman still seems more fitting than that
of meritorious entrepreneur. Neither are many within the old elite and intelligentsia
prepared to move aside for the new rich. The principal way in which the new rich
demonstrate their new-found power and privilege, and their separation from most
of those around them, is through conspicuous consumption. This is also the arena
in which members of the old elite are best equipped to assert their cultural
authority.
‘LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL’ 31
The mood that has prevailed through much of Manila and Cebu City in the
mid-1990s is that the Philippines is entering a new era of prosperity, on a par with
its Southeast Asian neighours. Heightened levels of material consumption that can
be witnessed in many parts of the country provide the most tangible evidence that