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

KEN YOUNG 59
doubt on their commitment to local societies on the grounds that their forebears
were mere ‘sojourners’ (Wang 1996, 1991) with shallow roots in their local
society). I argue that conclusions of this kind are specious. I indicate the difficulty of
establishing a coherent, authoritative understanding of what it is to be Chinese in
the late twentieth century, even in a place like Singapore, let alone in other parts of
the diaspora (see Lee 1996:263f.).
To discuss industrialising Southeast Asia within a single chapter, one must be
selective. I compare four important Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia,
Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore is at an advanced stage of
socioeconomic development. Thailand and Malaysia are moving into more skilland
knowledge-intensive sectors of the global economy, while Indonesia, in spite of
sustained rapid industrial growth in the decades prior to the 1997 crisis, still
depends heavily on the comparative advantage of cheap labour for most of its
industrial growth. Associated with the varying nature of the spread of industrial
transformation are differing configurations of the new rich in each country. Other
historical, political and cultural influences contribute to the variations between each
country, yet there is sufficient similarity between them all to make comparison
fruitful. The comparisons that follow consider selective examples from these
countries. A systematic comparison of each is possible, but not within the confines
of a single chapter. So, too, does the evidence here deal only with part of
industrialising Southeast Asia. There are many strong and interesting parallels
with the Philippines, for example, but a wider range than the ones chosen would be
unwieldy. 2
The new rich are, within and between the countries under consideration,
heterogeneous and varied on most of the criteria I will use. 3 I will not pursue here
issues of definition beyond a brief indication of the main internal groupings a
conventional class analysis would discern within the new rich. Such an analysis
would invoke categories such as the bourgeoisie; the affluent middle classes
(managers, professionals and others in clearly contradictory class locations); the
lower middle classes (structurally closer to the working class); and, cutting across
the boundaries of these middle-class strata, intellectuals. In structural terms, the
middle classes are diverse. That diversity cannot be fully overcome by formulations
–useful as they are–that classify them together as occupants of contradictory class
locations. Rather, if they have unity at all, it does not derive clearly from structural
location within society and economy, but more from subjective self-definition
buttressed by a minimal material capacity to maintain realistically certain petit
bourgeois aspirations, such as those related to social advancement through
education, and a subjective belief (misplaced or otherwise) in their economic
security and life-chances. Working-class people harbour fewer illusions about such
matters.
There are three common threads that are striking in the comparative study of
Southeast Asia’s new rich. One is the variable but consistent importance from
nation to nation of good connections between capitalists and the state, and, less
uniformly, between the middle classes and the state. The second is the