At This Stage The Social Class Hierarchy Analysis

As a new attempt in the practice of the Chinese socialism emerging at the end of 1970s, the restructuring of the social and economical system in China has tremendously changed its social class and stratum structures in the past twenty years. The issue of social class and stratum has grown into one of the hottest topics of academic interest in today 'China. This dissertation, with an adoptation of the Marxist class theory and class analysis methodology, aims at, in the first place, present an elaborate description of the social class and stratum structure in contemporary; and then ,in the light of this, to conduct a careful anatomy of the characteristics of each social class and stratum and there tendencies and evaluate there impact on the Chinese society in its progress toward modernization; finally, to observe the existing contradictions between and among them.The dissertation comprises nine parts: an introduction and eight chapters.hi the Introduction, the dissertation provides, in addition to a casual analysis of the context in which the issue of social class and stratum has emerged, an observation of theoretical and practical significance of writing the dissertation, and an exposition of the methods adopted in the process of the author' study. Chapter One reviews in a diachronical manner the development of the class theories, with an emphasis on the class theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Chapter Two discusses the background and overall features of the structural changes in the contemporary Chinese social classes and strata, and suggests the criteria in the categorization of the classes and strata in today' China. And therefore, the dissertation clearly illustrates the structure of the contemporary Chinese social classes and strata. In Chapter Three and Four the author expounds the fundamental features of the various strata of the proletarian .Chapter Five offers a presentation of the basic features of the various strata of the intermedium class.Chapter Six expounds the fundamental features of the various strata of the capitalist. Chapter Seven anatomizes the developing trends of the different social classes and strata in the foreseeable, and their potential impact on the social progress in China. The final chapter of the dissertation elucidates the contradictions between and among the different classes and strata in the contemporary Chinese society, and the principles of understanding and handling these contradiction correctly, with some of the author' elaborate thinking upon the issue of the classes and strata.