I write, teach, and speak on the history and contemporary implications of Chinese consumerism and capitalism. At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), I am a Professor of History and the Hsiu Endowed Chair in Chinese Studies. My latest book, Unending Capitalism: State Consumerism and the Negation China’s Communist Revolution, investigates the impact of consumerism following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. I am also the author of As China Goes, So Goes the World: How Chinese Consumers Are Transforming Everything, which explores whether Chinese consumers can rescue the economy without creating even deeper global problems and China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation, a history of economic nationalism in early twentieth-century China. After receiving a PhD in from Harvard in 2000, I taught at the University of South Carolina, Oxford University, and moved to UCSD in 2013. My non-academic life focuses on outdoor activities, especially rowing in a single scull and hiking. See my personal webpage for more: www.karlgerth.com
Here's a book description: Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the... more Here's a book description: Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the-death during the Cold War. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party aimed to end capitalism. Karl Gerth argues that despite the socialist rhetoric of class warfare and egalitarianism, Communist Party policies actually developed a variety of capitalism and expanded consumerism. This negated the goals of the Communist Revolution across the Mao era (1949–1976) down to the present. Through topics related to state attempts to manage what people began to desire - wristwatches and bicycles, films and fashion, leisure travel and Mao badges - Gerth challenges fundamental assumptions about capitalism, communism, and countries conventionally labeled as socialist. In so doing, his provocative history of China suggests how larger forces related to the desire for mass-produced consumer goods reshaped China.
Chinese people should consume Chinese products! This slogan was the catchphrase of a movement in ... more Chinese people should consume Chinese products! This slogan was the catchphrase of a movement in early twentieth-century China that sought to link consumption and nationalism by instilling a concept of China as a modern nation with its own national products. From fashions in clothing to food additives, from museums to department stores, from product fairs to advertising, this movement influenced all aspects of China's burgeoning consumer culture. Anti-imperialist boycotts, commemorations of national humiliations, exhibitions of Chinese products, the vilification of treasonous consumers, and the promotion of Chinese captains of industry helped enforce nationalistic consumption and spread the message--patriotic Chinese bought goods made of Chinese materials by Chinese workers in factories owned and run by Chinese. In China Made, Karl Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world--nationalism and consumerism--developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century,...
in Julianne Fürst et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Communism Vol. 3: Endgames?: Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017
Who created post-Mao China starting at the end of the 1970s? Conventional histories focus on bold... more Who created post-Mao China starting at the end of the 1970s? Conventional histories focus on bold national leaders led by Deng Xiaoping, who initiated a major transformation of Chinese society and foreign relations. Others emphasize changes from below, experiments and risks taken first by local farmers, even in secret, and then by mom-and-pop private businesses in the countryside and cities. This chapter attempts to connect top-down and bottom-up explanations, examining the evolving processes through which the state reauthorized and promoted market economy and consumerism. In the 1980s, the heart of revived markets and consumerism was the state-managed creation of a new class of local entrepreneurs, the getihu, and the revalorization of “bourgeois lifestyles.”
in Sherman Cochran, ed., The Capitalist Dilemma in China’s Communist Revolution: Stay, Leave, or Return?, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015
Gerth's chapter examines what happened to China’s consumer culture and to its “patriotic producer... more Gerth's chapter examines what happened to China’s consumer culture and to its “patriotic producers” after the China’s Communist Revolution in 1949. Through the case of one industrialist, Wu Yunchu, this chapter illustrates how the state destroyed the power, absorbed the wealth, and discredited the lifestyles of capitalists in the early 1950s.
Past & Present 218: 203-232 (Spring), pp. 203-32., 2013
In the middle of the twentieth century, China's transnational connections flowed through the inte... more In the middle of the twentieth century, China's transnational connections flowed through the interaction of two ideologies that throughout the postwar era were at times in direct competition: consumerism and communism. In industrializing countries and their colonies, consumerism had actually begun to take hold during the first third of the twentieth century, as the spread of thousands of new consumer goods, the proliferation of discussions about them and the reorientation of social life around them had contributed to the formation of distinctive consumer cultures in urban settings around the world. But this new culture created tensions with other ideologies. Over the course of the century, ideas of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and ultimately communism were often directly opposed to new consumer lifestyles and individual consumer choices, leading governments to seek to impose limits on choice, a central pillar of consumerism, in the name of a purported higher ideology. In the early twentieth century, for instance, as the new notions of national belonging were applied to commodities, products were labelled 'national' and 'foreign,' and a nationalistic consumer culture developed around commodities themselves. Across the globe, through mass campaigns urging consumers to buy domestic products, consumption became a politicized act that brought suspicion upon-and even sanctioned attacks against-'unpatriotic' consumers who knowingly or even unwittingly bought imports. In ‘Compromising with Consumerism in Socialist China,’ Gerth addresses the question: What happened to Chinese consumer culture after the Communist victories in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China?
What forces shaped the twentieth-century world? Capitalism and communism are usually seen as enga... more What forces shaped the twentieth-century world? Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the-death during the Cold War. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party aimed to end capitalism. Karl Gerth argues that despite the socialist rhetoric of class warfare and egalitarianism, Communist Party policies actually developed a variety of capitalism and expanded consumerism. This negated the goals of the Communist Revolution across the Mao era (1949–1976) down to the present. Through topics related to state attempts to manage what people began to desire - wristwatches and bicycles, films and fashion, leisure travel and Mao badges - Gerth challenges fundamental assumptions about capitalism, communism, and countries conventionally labeled as socialist. In so doing, his provocative history of China suggests how larger forces related to the desire for mass-produced consumer goods reshaped the twentieth-century world and remade people's lives.
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, t... more In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world.
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
This slogan “Chinese people should consume Chinese products!” was the catchphrase of a movement i... more This slogan “Chinese people should consume Chinese products!” was the catchphrase of a movement in early twentieth-century China that sought to link consumption and nationalism by instilling a concept of China as a modern “nation” with its own “national products.” From fashions in clothing to food additives, from museums to department stores, from product fairs to advertising, this movement influenced all aspects of China’s burgeoning consumer culture. Anti-imperialist boycotts, commemorations of national humiliations, exhibitions of Chinese products, the vilification of treasonous consumers, and the promotion of Chinese captains of industry helped enforce nationalistic consumption and spread the message—patriotic Chinese bought goods made of Chinese materials by Chinese workers in factories owned and run by Chinese.
In China Made, Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world—nationalism and consumerism—developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century, nationalism branded every commodity as either “Chinese” or “foreign,” and consumer culture became the place where the notion of nationality was articulated, institutionalized, and practiced. Based on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language archives, magazines, newspapers, and books, this first exploration of the historical ties between nationalism and consumerism reinterprets fundamental aspects of modern Chinese history and suggests ways of discerning such ties in all modern nations.
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, G... more In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China’s competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China’s rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world. This change is already well under way. China has become the world’s largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
Here's a book description: Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the... more Here's a book description: Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the-death during the Cold War. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party aimed to end capitalism. Karl Gerth argues that despite the socialist rhetoric of class warfare and egalitarianism, Communist Party policies actually developed a variety of capitalism and expanded consumerism. This negated the goals of the Communist Revolution across the Mao era (1949–1976) down to the present. Through topics related to state attempts to manage what people began to desire - wristwatches and bicycles, films and fashion, leisure travel and Mao badges - Gerth challenges fundamental assumptions about capitalism, communism, and countries conventionally labeled as socialist. In so doing, his provocative history of China suggests how larger forces related to the desire for mass-produced consumer goods reshaped China.
Chinese people should consume Chinese products! This slogan was the catchphrase of a movement in ... more Chinese people should consume Chinese products! This slogan was the catchphrase of a movement in early twentieth-century China that sought to link consumption and nationalism by instilling a concept of China as a modern nation with its own national products. From fashions in clothing to food additives, from museums to department stores, from product fairs to advertising, this movement influenced all aspects of China's burgeoning consumer culture. Anti-imperialist boycotts, commemorations of national humiliations, exhibitions of Chinese products, the vilification of treasonous consumers, and the promotion of Chinese captains of industry helped enforce nationalistic consumption and spread the message--patriotic Chinese bought goods made of Chinese materials by Chinese workers in factories owned and run by Chinese. In China Made, Karl Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world--nationalism and consumerism--developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century,...
in Julianne Fürst et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Communism Vol. 3: Endgames?: Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017
Who created post-Mao China starting at the end of the 1970s? Conventional histories focus on bold... more Who created post-Mao China starting at the end of the 1970s? Conventional histories focus on bold national leaders led by Deng Xiaoping, who initiated a major transformation of Chinese society and foreign relations. Others emphasize changes from below, experiments and risks taken first by local farmers, even in secret, and then by mom-and-pop private businesses in the countryside and cities. This chapter attempts to connect top-down and bottom-up explanations, examining the evolving processes through which the state reauthorized and promoted market economy and consumerism. In the 1980s, the heart of revived markets and consumerism was the state-managed creation of a new class of local entrepreneurs, the getihu, and the revalorization of “bourgeois lifestyles.”
in Sherman Cochran, ed., The Capitalist Dilemma in China’s Communist Revolution: Stay, Leave, or Return?, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015
Gerth's chapter examines what happened to China’s consumer culture and to its “patriotic producer... more Gerth's chapter examines what happened to China’s consumer culture and to its “patriotic producers” after the China’s Communist Revolution in 1949. Through the case of one industrialist, Wu Yunchu, this chapter illustrates how the state destroyed the power, absorbed the wealth, and discredited the lifestyles of capitalists in the early 1950s.
Past & Present 218: 203-232 (Spring), pp. 203-32., 2013
In the middle of the twentieth century, China's transnational connections flowed through the inte... more In the middle of the twentieth century, China's transnational connections flowed through the interaction of two ideologies that throughout the postwar era were at times in direct competition: consumerism and communism. In industrializing countries and their colonies, consumerism had actually begun to take hold during the first third of the twentieth century, as the spread of thousands of new consumer goods, the proliferation of discussions about them and the reorientation of social life around them had contributed to the formation of distinctive consumer cultures in urban settings around the world. But this new culture created tensions with other ideologies. Over the course of the century, ideas of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and ultimately communism were often directly opposed to new consumer lifestyles and individual consumer choices, leading governments to seek to impose limits on choice, a central pillar of consumerism, in the name of a purported higher ideology. In the early twentieth century, for instance, as the new notions of national belonging were applied to commodities, products were labelled 'national' and 'foreign,' and a nationalistic consumer culture developed around commodities themselves. Across the globe, through mass campaigns urging consumers to buy domestic products, consumption became a politicized act that brought suspicion upon-and even sanctioned attacks against-'unpatriotic' consumers who knowingly or even unwittingly bought imports. In ‘Compromising with Consumerism in Socialist China,’ Gerth addresses the question: What happened to Chinese consumer culture after the Communist victories in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China?
What forces shaped the twentieth-century world? Capitalism and communism are usually seen as enga... more What forces shaped the twentieth-century world? Capitalism and communism are usually seen as engaged in a fight-to-the-death during the Cold War. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party aimed to end capitalism. Karl Gerth argues that despite the socialist rhetoric of class warfare and egalitarianism, Communist Party policies actually developed a variety of capitalism and expanded consumerism. This negated the goals of the Communist Revolution across the Mao era (1949–1976) down to the present. Through topics related to state attempts to manage what people began to desire - wristwatches and bicycles, films and fashion, leisure travel and Mao badges - Gerth challenges fundamental assumptions about capitalism, communism, and countries conventionally labeled as socialist. In so doing, his provocative history of China suggests how larger forces related to the desire for mass-produced consumer goods reshaped the twentieth-century world and remade people's lives.
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, t... more In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world.
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
This slogan “Chinese people should consume Chinese products!” was the catchphrase of a movement i... more This slogan “Chinese people should consume Chinese products!” was the catchphrase of a movement in early twentieth-century China that sought to link consumption and nationalism by instilling a concept of China as a modern “nation” with its own “national products.” From fashions in clothing to food additives, from museums to department stores, from product fairs to advertising, this movement influenced all aspects of China’s burgeoning consumer culture. Anti-imperialist boycotts, commemorations of national humiliations, exhibitions of Chinese products, the vilification of treasonous consumers, and the promotion of Chinese captains of industry helped enforce nationalistic consumption and spread the message—patriotic Chinese bought goods made of Chinese materials by Chinese workers in factories owned and run by Chinese.
In China Made, Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world—nationalism and consumerism—developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century, nationalism branded every commodity as either “Chinese” or “foreign,” and consumer culture became the place where the notion of nationality was articulated, institutionalized, and practiced. Based on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language archives, magazines, newspapers, and books, this first exploration of the historical ties between nationalism and consumerism reinterprets fundamental aspects of modern Chinese history and suggests ways of discerning such ties in all modern nations.
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, G... more In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China’s competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China’s rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world. This change is already well under way. China has become the world’s largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
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6 评。然而，我希望读者们可以跟随我的脚步，重新审视当代世界史，尤其是 1949 年以来的中国历史。简单地说，我希望我可以为毛泽东时代（从 1949 年起到 1976 年毛主席去世）提供一个非常不同的解释。但如果更进一步，我希望向读者们解 释一下我对毛时代做出重新解释的价值，包括以下五个方面：
第一，我认为现在是时候重新考虑我们用以理解毛时代的基本框架了。就在 近些年来，我们一直认为的“共产主义”对阵“资本主义”的冷战已经结束了。 随着冷战结束，我们对一些基本概念，尤其是“资本主义”一词的运用，进行重 新认识是很有价值的。美国和西欧的历史学家们一直在扩展资本主义的概念范畴。 而且我认为，世界其他地区的历史学家，尤其是在那些如中国一样被资本主义国 家压迫并被迫加入工业资本主义世界体系的地方，人们确实应该重新考虑，中国 是如何成为世界资本主义发展中的一部分的。
第二，当我们用“不断变化的工业资本主义变体”这一概念来看待中国，就 可以解释清楚之前一些矛盾的例证。即如果通过工业资本主义的概念来看毛时代， 就可以更多地解释历史，而不只是解释那些极端的事件。
我的解释并不是我的出发点。一开始，我采用了传统做法，试着把 1949 年 后中国发生的所有事都解释成“建设社会主义”的一部分。我甚至把我看到的贴 上“社会主义消费主义”的标签。但是有太多的事情不能被框进“社会主义中国” 的标准解释中。用“资本主义的变体”来解释这些历史材料更加合理。
另外，不管是在中国国内还是在世界范围内，都有太多关于毛时代政治经济 的一手和二手资料，指向了与我此处相似的解释。不可忽略的是，一些中国和外 国的观察家一直都在质疑“中国是一个社会主义国家”的解释。毕竟，将苏联以 及其他所有自称为“社会主义”的国家解释为各种资本主义形式的观点，已经有 了长达一百多年的历史。基于我掌握的历史材料，我认为这类评论为拼凑起更多 毛时代的历史，而非只关注历史中那些最极端的部分，提供了一个非常不同的、 更有说服力的思路。
本书提倡的方法论是，在研究中要尽量涵盖更广泛的人群和更多摘取自档案 文件、新闻、回忆录和网络博客等各个层面的例证。并且如果我们把中国的国家 政策理解为，这个国家一直沿着“国家—私人”的资本主义变体光谱反复地移动， 那么与“社会主义中国”论述相左的那部分历史，就会显得更加合理。
7 那些资本主义变体中的移动变化并没有在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后停止。我 的方法论还谈及了一个主要的历史学和政治问题：在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后的 那些年究竟发生了什么？当共产党的理论家高举“市场社会主义”和“中国特色 的社会主义”时，共产党抛弃了社会主义吗？1959 年中共在《共风》上宣称他们 离共产主义的目标只有几个月的距离。然而，当中共把这一时间表拉长至几个世 纪后，并继续宣称中国在“建设社会主义”时，我们仍应该相信中国在“建设社 会主义”吗？
本书认为，中国并不是直到 20 世纪 80 年代，邓小平支持扩大运用产品和劳 动的市场时才抛弃了共产主义革命。邓小平仅仅是比其他人，比如说 60 年代初 期和“文化大革命”之前做出尝试的决策者，在工业资本主义的制度安排里做了 更大和更长久的调整：他将制度安排从更多地依靠国家计划调整为更多地运用市 场，同时在所有制层面从更高比例的公有制转向增加私人对资本的控制，以此来 促进资本主义的无限制扩张。
第三，我还要质疑“社会主义中国”的解释，因为旧的“共产主义与资本主 义”的二元对立的概念，过分强调了双方的民族国家和政治精英都想灌输给人们 的东西。如果仔细思量，我们就会发现人们其实对共产党实际在进行的“社会主 义建设”早已心存疑惑。本书将揭示出，处于社会各阶层的人们都认识到了，共 产党的“平等主义”和对剩余的民主控制等社会主义论调，与它实际推行的资本 主义政策以及因此产生的更多不平等的现实之间，存在着矛盾。因此，我重新梳 理历史资料，并据此得出了新的结论。如今我们可以辩论“资本主义”和“社会 主义”概念的意义，但是我认为，去理解当时的人们是怎么想的也是十分重要的。
在我的研究过程中，我发现了弥漫在中国社会各地的怀疑。这些疑惑促使我 去质疑标准的解释。挖掘这些疑惑有助于我反驳标准解释里的预设，即无论实际 的政治经济如何，走在大街上的中国人民始终认为他们在“建设社会主义”。有 时人们的行为也传达了他们的疑惑：在工厂里罢工的工人们，或者在公有工厂里 节省自己体力只为之后在私人工厂里卖劳力的工人们。我们可以在这里发现受到 高度剥削的农村弱者通常采用的武器：藏匿、吃掉或偷窃粮食。所有这些行为都 表达了疑惑。其他时候，这些疑惑是直接的：例如 1965 年毛主席告诉著名的美 国记者斯诺，孩子们正在“否定”共产革命，“复辟资本主义”。
8 第四，将国家主导下的工业资本主义变体纳入工业资本主义的范畴，有助于 拓宽我们对工业资本主义的理解，并得到对资本主义更新一步的认识。
无论是在具体的哪一年，20 世纪的 50、60 和 70 年代的中国，都丝毫不像 我们认为的“资本主义”或是“消费主义”的状态。那时的中国是一个极度贫困 的国家。然而，尽管资本主义总是随着时间和地点不断变化，但是有一点永远不 变：资本主义总是需要新鲜和自由的输入，需要一个可以随意掠夺而不产生后果 的环境，需要大多数由成年和未成年女性承担的无薪家庭护理工作，需要被奴役 的人们，以及亟待被征服并整合进全球资本主义的新地方。如果忽略了在如纽约 和伦敦之类的全球资本主义中心之外的资本主义的非市场方面，那就忽略了维持 资本主义持续扩张的要素：新的输入。
除了把中国看作全球资本主义的一部分以外，我试着将资本主义的另一半内 容（需求或消费）涵盖进来以拓宽“资本主义”。从这个角度来看，我们更能看 到工业资本主义的不平等是如何展现出来的。
第五，我们知道，资本主义的无尽扩张，或者说发展主义，正在毁灭我们的 生物圈。好的历史学总是包括关于种族、社会性别、阶级和族群的类别分析。但 是面对当代史，现在的我们还必须再增加考虑气候危机及其对人类的生存威胁。
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
In China Made, Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world—nationalism and consumerism—developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century, nationalism branded every commodity as either “Chinese” or “foreign,” and consumer culture became the place where the notion of nationality was articulated, institutionalized, and practiced. Based on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language archives, magazines, newspapers, and books, this first exploration of the historical ties between nationalism and consumerism reinterprets fundamental aspects of modern Chinese history and suggests ways of discerning such ties in all modern nations.
6 评。然而，我希望读者们可以跟随我的脚步，重新审视当代世界史，尤其是 1949 年以来的中国历史。简单地说，我希望我可以为毛泽东时代（从 1949 年起到 1976 年毛主席去世）提供一个非常不同的解释。但如果更进一步，我希望向读者们解 释一下我对毛时代做出重新解释的价值，包括以下五个方面：
第一，我认为现在是时候重新考虑我们用以理解毛时代的基本框架了。就在 近些年来，我们一直认为的“共产主义”对阵“资本主义”的冷战已经结束了。 随着冷战结束，我们对一些基本概念，尤其是“资本主义”一词的运用，进行重 新认识是很有价值的。美国和西欧的历史学家们一直在扩展资本主义的概念范畴。 而且我认为，世界其他地区的历史学家，尤其是在那些如中国一样被资本主义国 家压迫并被迫加入工业资本主义世界体系的地方，人们确实应该重新考虑，中国 是如何成为世界资本主义发展中的一部分的。
第二，当我们用“不断变化的工业资本主义变体”这一概念来看待中国，就 可以解释清楚之前一些矛盾的例证。即如果通过工业资本主义的概念来看毛时代， 就可以更多地解释历史，而不只是解释那些极端的事件。
我的解释并不是我的出发点。一开始，我采用了传统做法，试着把 1949 年 后中国发生的所有事都解释成“建设社会主义”的一部分。我甚至把我看到的贴 上“社会主义消费主义”的标签。但是有太多的事情不能被框进“社会主义中国” 的标准解释中。用“资本主义的变体”来解释这些历史材料更加合理。
另外，不管是在中国国内还是在世界范围内，都有太多关于毛时代政治经济 的一手和二手资料，指向了与我此处相似的解释。不可忽略的是，一些中国和外 国的观察家一直都在质疑“中国是一个社会主义国家”的解释。毕竟，将苏联以 及其他所有自称为“社会主义”的国家解释为各种资本主义形式的观点，已经有 了长达一百多年的历史。基于我掌握的历史材料，我认为这类评论为拼凑起更多 毛时代的历史，而非只关注历史中那些最极端的部分，提供了一个非常不同的、 更有说服力的思路。
本书提倡的方法论是，在研究中要尽量涵盖更广泛的人群和更多摘取自档案 文件、新闻、回忆录和网络博客等各个层面的例证。并且如果我们把中国的国家 政策理解为，这个国家一直沿着“国家—私人”的资本主义变体光谱反复地移动， 那么与“社会主义中国”论述相左的那部分历史，就会显得更加合理。
7 那些资本主义变体中的移动变化并没有在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后停止。我 的方法论还谈及了一个主要的历史学和政治问题：在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后的 那些年究竟发生了什么？当共产党的理论家高举“市场社会主义”和“中国特色 的社会主义”时，共产党抛弃了社会主义吗？1959 年中共在《共风》上宣称他们 离共产主义的目标只有几个月的距离。然而，当中共把这一时间表拉长至几个世 纪后，并继续宣称中国在“建设社会主义”时，我们仍应该相信中国在“建设社 会主义”吗？
本书认为，中国并不是直到 20 世纪 80 年代，邓小平支持扩大运用产品和劳 动的市场时才抛弃了共产主义革命。邓小平仅仅是比其他人，比如说 60 年代初 期和“文化大革命”之前做出尝试的决策者，在工业资本主义的制度安排里做了 更大和更长久的调整：他将制度安排从更多地依靠国家计划调整为更多地运用市 场，同时在所有制层面从更高比例的公有制转向增加私人对资本的控制，以此来 促进资本主义的无限制扩张。
第三，我还要质疑“社会主义中国”的解释，因为旧的“共产主义与资本主 义”的二元对立的概念，过分强调了双方的民族国家和政治精英都想灌输给人们 的东西。如果仔细思量，我们就会发现人们其实对共产党实际在进行的“社会主 义建设”早已心存疑惑。本书将揭示出，处于社会各阶层的人们都认识到了，共 产党的“平等主义”和对剩余的民主控制等社会主义论调，与它实际推行的资本 主义政策以及因此产生的更多不平等的现实之间，存在着矛盾。因此，我重新梳 理历史资料，并据此得出了新的结论。如今我们可以辩论“资本主义”和“社会 主义”概念的意义，但是我认为，去理解当时的人们是怎么想的也是十分重要的。
在我的研究过程中，我发现了弥漫在中国社会各地的怀疑。这些疑惑促使我 去质疑标准的解释。挖掘这些疑惑有助于我反驳标准解释里的预设，即无论实际 的政治经济如何，走在大街上的中国人民始终认为他们在“建设社会主义”。有 时人们的行为也传达了他们的疑惑：在工厂里罢工的工人们，或者在公有工厂里 节省自己体力只为之后在私人工厂里卖劳力的工人们。我们可以在这里发现受到 高度剥削的农村弱者通常采用的武器：藏匿、吃掉或偷窃粮食。所有这些行为都 表达了疑惑。其他时候，这些疑惑是直接的：例如 1965 年毛主席告诉著名的美 国记者斯诺，孩子们正在“否定”共产革命，“复辟资本主义”。
8 第四，将国家主导下的工业资本主义变体纳入工业资本主义的范畴，有助于 拓宽我们对工业资本主义的理解，并得到对资本主义更新一步的认识。
无论是在具体的哪一年，20 世纪的 50、60 和 70 年代的中国，都丝毫不像 我们认为的“资本主义”或是“消费主义”的状态。那时的中国是一个极度贫困 的国家。然而，尽管资本主义总是随着时间和地点不断变化，但是有一点永远不 变：资本主义总是需要新鲜和自由的输入，需要一个可以随意掠夺而不产生后果 的环境，需要大多数由成年和未成年女性承担的无薪家庭护理工作，需要被奴役 的人们，以及亟待被征服并整合进全球资本主义的新地方。如果忽略了在如纽约 和伦敦之类的全球资本主义中心之外的资本主义的非市场方面，那就忽略了维持 资本主义持续扩张的要素：新的输入。
除了把中国看作全球资本主义的一部分以外，我试着将资本主义的另一半内 容（需求或消费）涵盖进来以拓宽“资本主义”。从这个角度来看，我们更能看 到工业资本主义的不平等是如何展现出来的。
第五，我们知道，资本主义的无尽扩张，或者说发展主义，正在毁灭我们的 生物圈。好的历史学总是包括关于种族、社会性别、阶级和族群的类别分析。但 是面对当代史，现在的我们还必须再增加考虑气候危机及其对人类的生存威胁。
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
In China Made, Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world—nationalism and consumerism—developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century, nationalism branded every commodity as either “Chinese” or “foreign,” and consumer culture became the place where the notion of nationality was articulated, institutionalized, and practiced. Based on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language archives, magazines, newspapers, and books, this first exploration of the historical ties between nationalism and consumerism reinterprets fundamental aspects of modern Chinese history and suggests ways of discerning such ties in all modern nations.