LEIDEN UNIVERSITY
Marketized Education
Within Market-Leninism
A motor for social mobility or a reproduction of
exploitation?
Ivo Verhoef – S2180952
5-7-2019
Master Thesis
MA Asian Studies
Dr. Jonathan London
Word Count: 13,790
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Acknowledgement
Academic research is always a group effort, so to this thesis. If the reader finds my work informative at all, it is mostly due to the help of others. Countless books, articles, and conversations with colleagues informs the research done in this thesis. Jonathan London, Freek Dijkstra, Sven Rouschop, Colin Lammertink, and Annika van Bodegraven were at different stages fundamental for the completion of this thesis. Jonathan’s academic work form the building blocks on which this thesis is build. Furthermore, within his role as supervisor he asked critical questions and had useful feedback. Freek helped me by discussing the philosophical nature of both Marxist class theory, and the essence of neo-liberalism, making the abstract theories lively and understandable. Sven, Colin, and Annika helped me in making this thesis readable. Lastly, given the use of cultural capital in this paper, it is appropriate to thank my parents, and grandparents. In particular my oma, she used to work as a cleaning lady at the university at which I got my Bachelor’s degree. Having only attended primary education herself, she encouraged her children and grandchildren to pursue higher education. Her determination to get things done has always been, and still is, an inspiration for who I want to be as a person.
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Table of contents
Acknowledgement ... 2 Abstract ... 4 Introduction ... 5 1. Class ... 10 1.1 An Overview ... 11 1.2 Marx ... 121.3 Bourdieuian class theory ... 15
1.4 Exploitation in combination with Bourdieu ... 17
2. Marketization... 19
2.1 The institutionalist idea-based view of Nee ... 19
2.2 The problems with Nee’s concept of marketization ... 20
2.3 Social Orders ... 22
3. Post-revolution education systems ... 26
3.1 Vietnam ... 26
3.2 China ... 29
3.3 Comparison ... 31
4. Crisis and reform... 33
4.1 Post-Communist Systems ... 33 4.2 Vietnam ... 34 4.3 China ... 36 4.4 Comparison ... 38 5. Post-reform ... 39 5.1 Vietnam ... 39 5.2 China ... 44 5.3 Comparison ... 49
6. Education as reproducer of exploitation ... 51
Conclusion ... 54
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Abstract
In this thesis I examine the interaction between the marketization of education and class in Vietnam and China. I used Marxist class theories in combination with Bourdieuian concepts of class habitus and cultural capital to conclude that marketization of education did not result in changing class relations in Vietnam and China, arguing against Victor Nee’s theory that marketization of education would lead to increased social mobility. Due to marketization the state lost total control over education, however, the new none-state actors and institutions remained subordinate to the state. The dominant class maintained their cultural capital and gained economic capital due to marketization. The working class did not gain the economic and cultural capital needed for access to the marketized education system. This dynamic resulted in a more rigid class divide, making social mobility less likely.
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Introduction
Within the social sciences there is a debate on the effects of marketized education on social mobility. On the one hand, development institutes like the UN and the World Bank argue that education could be a force for more social mobility: via the institutionalization of public education oriented on skill-based learning, lower classes have the opportunity to educate themselves according to the needs of the market, resulting in upwards social mobility. On the other hand, research by the prominent French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues that the cultural capital needed for higher education is to a large degree hereditary, resulting in class stratification. Within this process, the dominant class has a clear privilege both in gaining access to higher education, as well as in excluding lower classes from accessing the education institutions. Therefore, within this discourse marketization of education would not lead to an increase in social mobility.
When considering the broader trends of changing political economies, the Communist World, starting in the last decades of the twentieth century, has seen the most radical process of marketization. Where the Soviet Union and its Eastern European pupped states fell apart and abandoned state socialism completely, in East Asia, the communist countries of Vietnam and China developed in a more gradual way towards a market economy. In name however, both countries remain loyal to the communist cause. This development was initially seen as positive: marketization would lead to a wealthier, richer, and more equal China and Vietnam. An example of this is an article by sociologist Victor Nee written in 1989 named ‘A Theory of Market Transition From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism’. In this article Nee proposes a theory of market transition for socialist economies:
State socialist redistributive economies are characterized by the allocation and distribution of goods through central planning … in reforming socialist
6 economies, the transition from redistributive to market coordination shifts
sources of power and privilege to favor direct producers relative to redistributors. The shift improves incentives for direct producers, stimulates the growth of private markets, and provides to entrepreneurs an alternative path for socioeconomic mobility.1
Through market liberalization, Nee predicted in 1989, there would be an influx of capital to developing nations, resulting in the decentralization of power and privilege from the socialist state to the ‘direct producers’. This, in turn, would result in more opportunities for people to achieve social mobility through gaining economic capital, especially in the case of education: ‘There are also greater incentives for individual effort because rewards are more closely related to individual productivity. This is likely to be reflected in higher returns on education, which is among the best indicators of human productivity.’2
Today, forty years have passed since Nee made his prediction. In the meantime, it has become clear that there has been no significant increase in social mobility between classes in China and Vietnam. Sociologist Jonathan London argues in Welfare and Inequality in Marketizing East Asia (2018) that the way in which marketization has taken place in Vietnam and China resulted in a specific from of political economy different from other countries in East Asia, which he coined to be ‘Leninist’. In addition, market-Leninism seems to be a durable political economy, making it unlikely that further social change would occur any time soon. London’s thesis gives an alternative explanation for the development of social mobility in China and Vietnam. The marketization process privatized the economy, in addition to an influx of investment, resulting in sustained economic growth
1 Nee (1989), 663. 2 Ibidem, 666.
7 in the late twentieth century. However, with the maintenance of Leninist institutions, the class-system remains largely the same.3
Case study & Question
In ‘Education in Vietnam: Historical Roots, Recent Trends’ (2011) London expresses how education can be seen as an institution that has the potential to increase equality: ‘as a pathway to a better life; an avenue to social mobility.’4 However he states that the institution
could do the same for inequality: 'education can also function as an obstacle to such social mobility, as a giant sorting mechanism that generates, reproduces, or transforms existing social inequalities.’ 5 Where London and Nee seem to disagree what the effect of
marketization on social mobility is, they do agree that education is an important institution impacting classes and the mobility in between them. Furthermore, analyzing the marketization of education from a systematic (Marxist) level could give insight to the way in which the education system is part of the broader society. Too often, analysis of education is done from an institutionalist angle resulting in an incomplete perspective in the way in which education systems mirrors the broader society.6
Therefore, this paper will use the case-study of education to ask the question: how has class interacted with the marketization of the education systems in Vietnam and China? This question will be answered by analyzing the effects of the marketization of the education systems of China and Vietnam through a framework of Marxist class-analyses in combination with the Bourdieuian concepts of cultural capital and class habitus. The way in which marketization will be defined is based on the concept of social orders as defined in
3 London (2018), 143. 4 London (2011), 3. 5 Ibidem, 3.
8 the earlier mentioned works by London. In the first two chapters of this thesis, I will explain why these methods are used for the analysis, as well as provide a framework which will be used to answer the research question. After providing this framework, I will answer the main question by answering the following three sub-questions in chapters three, four, and five respectively:
1. How did the education systems of Vietnam and China interact with class under state socialism?
2. How have class-relations based on state socialism affected the marketization process of the education systems of Vietnam and China?
3. How has the marketization of the education systems in Vietnam and China affected social mobility?
In chapter six, I will combine the analyses of chapters three-five with the theoretical framework constructed in the first two chapters in order to answer the main question. In the conclusion, I will compare how useful Nee’s and London’s explanations for marketized education were in the cases of Vietnam and China, providing some final thoughts on the impact of the results of this research for the broader academic field, as well as some suggestions for further research.
Goal
By explaining how marketization of education interacted with class relations in Vietnam and China, I aim to make two contributions within the study of marketization and political economies. The first is contributing to the debate on defining the political economies of Vietnam and China in the post-reform era. The second is using the case-study of this thesis
9 to argue against the assumption that marketization will lead to an increase in social mobility, in particular against the theory that economic freedom would lead to social mobility.
Limitations
It is, however, important to also explicitly state what this thesis is not going to do. Firstly, I will not use new empirical data. The purpose of this paper is to alter the way in which the reform periods in China and Vietnam are explained in relation to social mobility and provide a new framework through which the relation between marketization and class can be analyzed. Furthermore, I will only comment on the quality of the education systems in Vietnam and China in so far as it influences the social mobility between classes.
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1. Class
In this chapter, I will argue that Marxist class-analysis in combination with Bourdieuian concepts of cultural capital and class habitus are most suitable for the analysis of the interaction between education reforms and class in China and Vietnam. I will do this by firstly giving an overview of how different traditions of class-analysis can be used for different kinds of case-studies based on Eric Wright’s Understanding Class. Secondly, I will describe the bases of Marxist class-analyses. Thirdly, I will explain how Bourdieuian concepts on class can be used to remedy the lack of cultural factors within the Marxist tradition. In the last part of this chapter, I will construct the framework of class-analysis used in this paper.
Class is not only an analytical tool to better understand the division of, and struggle for (material) resources among groups, it is also a bureaucratic and cultural term. Governments, both capitalist and communist, use classes to divide the populous in groups in order to divide resources. Individuals often identify with certain classes. influencing how they present themselves culturally. Politicians use the cultural attributes attributed to class to align themselves to these groups. The popularity of the of the concept both within academia, as well as in society in general can be attributed to Karl Marx and the Socialist Movement.7
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1.1 An Overview
Wright argues in Understanding Class (2015) that different traditions of class-analysis can be used for different levels of abstraction. The following framework displays how Wright divides the tradition:
Table 1: Mapping Politics and Class Analysis8
The Marxist tradition evaluates class only from a systematic perspective, focusing on the exploitation of the working class by the dominant class. The Weberian traditionis more interested in the institutional ways in which individuals relate to groups. The Durkheimian tradition rejects production as the main diver of conflict between classes, dividing classes based on other aspects like occupation, race, and gender, making the tradition useful to analyze class on an individual level. Within this thesis, the analysis of class will focus on the systematic change from a Marxist command-economy to a market-Leninist economy, and the effect this has on social mobility within the case of education. It will in particular focus on the conflict resulting from this change in systems. Only the Marxist tradition takes into
12 account class-conflict. Therefore, using the Marxist tradition of class-analysis is most useful. The downside of this method is that Marxist class-analysis does not take into account the cultural aspects that influence class-dynamics.9
1.2 Marx
Since I will be focusing on the change of political economies in China and Vietnam, I will now argue that Marxist class-analysis can be useful in making predictions of the kinds of conflicts that are likely to emerge under certain types of exploitation. In order to do so, I will first briefly explain the basis of Marxist class-analysis. After which, I will explain the concept of exploitation and its benefits as an analytical tool.
The Marxist interpretation of class is based on a dialectic materialist view on political economy. The class of an individual is based on the place within the production process, resulting in two classes: the capitalist/bourgeois class, and the workers/proletariat. The first group owns the means of production and can buy ‘labor power’. The second group does not own the means of production and therefore sells their time and skills known as labor power. Marxists argue that the proletariat is exploited by the bourgeois.10
Wright states that the concept of ‘exploitation’ sets Marxist class-analysis apart from the other traditions, arguing that: ‘an exploitation-centered concept of class provides theoretically powerful tools for studying a range of problems in contemporary society.’11
Wright defines exploitation as ‘the process through which the inequalities in incomes are generated by inequalities in rights and power over resources.’12 The surplus the exploiters
create within the system are then used to keep the system in place.13
9 Ibidem, 122. 10 Wright (2005). 11 Ibidem, 5. 12 Ibidem, 24. 13 Ibidem, 24.
13 For the process of exploitation to occur, Wright identifies three criteria that have to be met, namely:
1. The inverse interdependent welfare principle: The material welfare of exploiters causally depends upon the material deprivations of the exploited. This means that the interests of actors within such relations are not merely different, they are antagonistic: the realization of the interests of exploiters imposes harms on the exploited.
2. The exclusion principle: This inverse interdependence of the welfare of exploiters and exploited depends upon the exclusion of the exploited from access to certain productive resources.
3. The appropriation principle: Exclusion generates material advantage to exploiters because it enables them to appropriate the labor effort of the exploited.14
The extractive system only reproduces itself if all three criteria are met. If only the first two criteria are present, there is apparently no need of the oppressors for the labor of the oppressed to sustain their surplus. If there is no need for the maintaining of exploitation of the oppressed, the system becomes unstable, resulting in the end of the exploitation.15
Wright concludes that there are five pay-offs of using a Marxist conceptualization of class. The first is linking exchange and production. Marxists make the substantive point that the division of right and power with respect to productive resources shapes the place of an individual within the exchange relation and the process of production itself. Secondly, the
14 Ibidem, 23. 15 Ibidem, 24.
14 focus on conflict. Only within the Marxist tradition, there is an understanding that conflict is the result of inherent properties of the capitalist economic system. Thirdly, the concept of power. Within Marxist concepts of exploitation, the oppressed class have a measure of control over the distribution of material resources. Indeed, Marxists see the exploitation of labor as the linchpin maintaining the societal system. Arguing from a Marxist point of view therefore gives exploited classes strategies to alter their position within the system. Building on the concept of power, the fourth pay-off is the concept of coercion and consent. Wright states:
The extraction of labor effort in systems of exploitation is costly for exploiting classes because of the inherent capacity of people to resist their own exploitation. Purely coercively backed systems of exploitation will often tend to be suboptimal since under many conditions it is too easy for workers to withhold diligent performance of labor effort. Exploiting classes will therefore have a tendency to seek ways of reducing those costs. One of the ways of reducing the overhead costs of extracting labor effort is to do things that elicit the active consent of the exploited.16
Using this argument, one can make prediction of the kinds of ideologies that are likely to emerge under certain types of exploitation. Finally, the historical/comparative analysis. Although Marxist theories of historical trajectories have been definitively refuted, Marxist exploitation-centered strategy of class-analysis is still useful in a plurality of predictive analyses. Especially this last point makes the Marxist tradition useful for understanding why Nee’s theory on market transition is incorrect. As I will
15 explain in chapter two, Nee uses an institutionalist approach to predict change on a
systematic level.17
1.3 Bourdieuian class theory
Class-analysis is a fundamental part of the sociological research of the influential post-modernist thinker Pierre Bourdieu. Other than Marx, Bourdieu opposed the separation of theory and research, making it difficult to construct a more universal class-analytic tradition. In fact, he rejects one of the most fundamental aspects of class theory: the assumption that classes can be divided a priori, like Marx does.18 I will argue based on
‘Foundations of Pierre Bourdieu’s class analysis’ (2015) by sociologist Elliot Weininger, that Bourdieu made two important contributions to the study of class, namely: the implementation of cultural factors in the division of class, and the concept of class habitus which can explain the degree through which social mobility takes place.19
In his implementation of cultural factors within class, Bourdieu interprets class as being the material(-economic) division between groups, and status as the cultural division. This in contrast to Marx, who sees cultural factors as a product of material conflict. According to Bourdieu, class can only be analyzed if done on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the cultural and economic division mechanisms creating different classes. This starting point leads Bourdieu to construct three axes through which an individual’s class can be determined, namely: the volume of capital (economic and cultural); the consumption patrons; and the trajectories, or, change within a system.20
17 Ibidem, 29-30.
18 Weininger (2005), 84. 19 Ibidem, 84.
16 According to Weininger, the first axis is the most important. For Bourdieu the volume capital, both economic and cultural, determines the class position of an individual. Economic capital is the money and means of production of an individual, while cultural capital is for instance education and upbringing. 21 The dominant class within the
Bourdieuian system would be for example: private sector executives, industrialists, and college professors. It is important to note that within the ‘dominant class’ there can be fast differences between, for instance, the economic capital of industrialists and college professors.22 This brings me to the second axis: the friction between economic and cultural
capital. Those who hold primarily cultural capital will have other priorities then those who rely on economic capital. This creates a more diverse dominant class with a more diverse political agenda.23 The final axis encompasses the trajectories individuals can follow within
and in between classes. According to Bourdieu, members of professions within the dominant class are offspring of members of that same class. This means that children of capitalist of college professors, are more likely to enter the dominant class than working class people. This results in the hereditary nature of economic- and cultural capital.24 Furthermore, in
Higher Education Choice in China (2014) Xiaoming Sheng notes that throughout numerous studies it was determined that cultural capital is an important variable in determining educational performance.25
21 In other works, Bourdieu also conceptualizes other forms of capital, namely: political capital and symbolic capital. As Sheng (2014) notes on page 30, political and symbolic capital are not suitable concepts within a broader Marxist analysis. Therefore, I will not use them within this thesis.
22 Ibidem, 88. 23 Ibidem, 88. 24 Ibidem, 89. 25 Sheng (2014), 51.
17 Within these classes, groups act according to certain kinds of class habitus, that is the shared cultural practices and habits of a class. According to Bourdieu class habitus creates boundaries between different groups resulting in social strata. Depending on a variety of economic and cultural factors, social mobility between these groups can differ. In addition, class habitus will reproduce itself through intermarriages and intergenerational continuity of economic roles within a system. Indeed, children of members of high society will be far more likely to enter high society themselves compared to those born within lower classes.26
1.4 Exploitation in combination with Bourdieu
At the beginning of this chapter, I set out to combine the Marxist tradition of class analysis with the Bourdieuian concepts of cultural capital and class habitus. In section one I described how exploitation is central to the Marxist perception of class and gave the three criteria for exploitation, namely: the inverse interdependent welfare principle, the exclusion principle, and the appropriation principle. These three criteria can be combined with the concepts from Bourdieu, creating a new framework of exploitation that takes into account the cultural elements:
1. The inverse interdependent welfare principle: the material and cultural welfare of exploiters causally depend upon the material and cultural deprivations of the exploited. This means that the interests of actors within such relations are not merely different, they are antagonistic: the realization of the interests of exploiters imposes harms on the exploited, creating social strata.
2. The exclusion principle: This inverse interdependence of the welfare of exploiters and exploited depends upon the exclusion of the exploited from access to certain
18 productive resources. This creates class habitus in which the exclusion of the lower classes is promoted.
3. The appropriation principle: exclusion generates material and cultural advantages to exploiters because it enables them to appropriate the labor effort of the exploited and create a cultural environment which nudges workers to comply in their exploitation.
As we shall see in the next chapter, this framework of exploitation resembles London’s definition of social orders.
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2. Marketization
In this chapter, I will argue that different views on the process of marketization can lead to different outcomes, showing that Nee’s concept is fundamentally flawed. I will do this by first explaining how Nee viewed marketization. Thereafter, I will criticize this view based on Damien Cahill’s arguments against idea-based understandings of neoliberal policy, and London’s critique on institutionalist approaches to the analysis of marketization. Furthermore, I will describe how London creates a framework for analyzing marketization in China and Vietnam by combining the process with class-analysis. Lastly, I will state how this framework can be used to construct a hypothesis for the analysis of the education systems in Vietnam and China.
2.1 The institutionalist idea-based view of Nee
Building on the market transition theory Nee proposed in 1989, he argues in ‘Market Transition and Societal Transformation in Reforming State Socialism’ (1996)27 for a
theoretical macro-societal framework based on the analysis of institutions for analyzing the effects of marketization on society in post-state socialist countries. Based on this article, in combination with Nee’s theory stated in the introduction, three pillars of thought on which Nee bases his thesis can be distilled, namely: an idea-based conception of marketization, an institutionalist framework that developed into ‘Variants of Capitalism’, and a concept of path-dependency borrowed from Iván Szelényi. In this section, I will elaborate on these three pillars.
To begin with the first, Nee makes a set of idea-based conceptions of marketization. This is most clearly observed in his argument that marketization of production will result in
27 It is important to note that Nee does not use a concept of class to analyze social mobility in China and Vietnam. In state, he uses more ‘economic’ parameters to analyze the phenomenon.
20 the decentralization of production, thus of power resulting in a more equal society. This statement is distinctly idea-based: Nee assumes that the nature of marketization will automatically lead to decentralization of production, and that decentralization will lead to greater equality.
Secondly, the institutional framework is clearly presented in the following quote: ‘that socialism is viewed as a distinctive institutional arrangement in which society, economy, and the state are integrated through society-wide redistributive arrangements. Forces in economic and political change emanate not only from political actors but from economic and social actors as well.’28 In other words, Nee argues that institutional arrangements are
fundamental for the change of political economies. This line of argumentation places Nee’s theory within the institutionalist school.
The third pillar builds upon this institutionalist framework, as well as underlines the first pillar. Nee uses Szelényi’s argument that state socialist economies result, counterintuitively, in less equality. In addition, as will be described in more detail in chapter four, Nee builds upon Szelényi’s argument of path-dependency. Szelényi argues that state socialist institutions influence the way in which capitalist markets are introduced. Nee uses this theory to argue that marketization of socialist economies will not destroy the Leninist institutions.29
2.2 The problems with Nee’s concept of marketization
In this section I will critique the three pillars Nee uses to support his thesis. I will critique the first pillar using arguments made by Cahill in The end of Laissez-Faire? (2014); the other pillars will be critiqued using articles by Johnathan London.
28 Nee and Metthews (2017), 178. 29 Nee (1989), 665-666.
21 Sociologist Cahill argues that this idea-centered approach to understand Neoliberalism is based on two false assumptions, making the approach flawed:
• 'neoliberal changes to the state and economy reflect the normative prescriptions of neoliberal fundamentalists.’30
• ‘the neoliberal policy revolution was driven by the influence of fundamentalist neoliberal ideas.’31
Cahill argues against the first point by explaining that more detailed analysis shows that states were transformed due to the neoliberal era, not retrenched. In addition, states were central to the roll-out of neoliberal policy. Due to these reasons, the state and economy do not reflect the normative prescriptions of neoliberal fundamentalists.32
Cahill falsifies the other assumption in the following quote:
beyond very broad-level correlations between ideas and policies, the [second] idealist assumption is lacking in supporting evidence. Furthermore, contrary evidence has been presented which undermines the plausibility of the idealist assumption as an explanatory framework for neoliberal policy change. In contrast to the idealist thesis it has been suggested that fundamentalist ideas were important in the neoliberal policy revolution, but that they did not directly cause it. Fundamentalist neoliberal ideas provided economic and
30 Cahill (2014) 8. 31 Ibidem, 8. 32 Ibidem, 29.
22 philosophical justification and legitimization for neoliberal agendas, but they
were not the reason policy makers turned to neoliberal solutions.33
London critiques the two other pillars of Nee’s thesis. The first is Variants of Capitalism (VoC), a concept constructed by P.A. Hall and D. Soskice which tries to take into account a broader analytic framework of capitalism. Explaining marketization from an institutionalist standpoint. London argues that although the VoC framework is useful for (Western) capitalist societies, it is less useful for the Leninist societies of Vietnam and China. The second framework is the Post-Communist concept of Szelényi. He argues that the socialist starting point of countries like Vietnam and China make their marketization unique from capitalist marketization. London argues that the model only explains the path-dependency of the political economies of Vietnam and China, not what their current political economy is. However, for the purpose of this thesis Szelényi’s theories will be useful for explaining the background from which marketization of the education system took place.34
2.3 Social Orders
In Welfare and Inequality in Marketizing East Asia (2018), London argues that marketization must be seen in within the broader context of social orders: ‘I seek to move beyond the search for welfare regime types – real or ideal – and explore the development of arrangements governing welfare and inequality in relation to dynamic properties of the social orders that contain them.’35The writer argues that a social order is dependent upon
33 Ibidem, 56-57.
34 London (2017), 403-406. 35 Ibidem, 136.
23 three features:
1. Social domination, which is the basis for social order. London states: ‘Absent domination, coordination, and coordination cease to occur.’36 Domination in this
sense must be understood in the Weberian tradition as a fusing of power and legitimacy.37 This creates a system in which protest against the interest of the ruling
class is made unattractive. In addition, Gramsci’s notion of hegemony is helpful for understanding the willingness of the dominated to support the dominating. Political ideology cannot be separated from power relations: the role it plays in promoting the interest of the dominant group, in combination with, the need for coercive power to maintain dominance.
2. Accumulation: London states: ‘Accumulation and exploitation are an integral part of the maintenance of relations of domination and exploitation and to social reproduction and the reproduction of the social order itself.’38 This is similar to
Wrights explanation for exploitation within Marxist class-analyses, accumulation and exploitation is necessary for maintaining and reproducing social orders. However, London adds that accumulation and exploitation is also part of the social order itself.39
3. Social reproduction: London states: ‘Without a minimum level of needs fulfillment, organized social life cannot be sustained.’40 Again, this argument is similar to the
36 London (2018), 143.
37 Ibidem, 143. See Szelényi (2016) for an analysis of Weber’s interpretation of the different aspects of power.
38 London (2018), 145. 39 Ibidem, 145.
24 foundation’s fount within the criteria for exploitation. London notes that the minimum needed for organized life vary between different case studies.
A combined balance between the three mentioned features lead to a political settlement (political regime), which creates a social order if the settlement remains stable. From this point of view, a political settlement can be seen as the reflection of the dominant interest within a society. Inter-elite struggles and pressure from lower classes make social orders flexible; London states that ‘social life within social orders is all about the reproduction or contestation of the state within its social environment, in which social relations in subaltern spaces figure centrally’.41
Marketization within the context of Vietnam and China resulted in the transformation from state socialism to market-Leninism. Within this context a political economy can be seen as a product of social order. London summarizes the Market-Leninist state in ‘Varieties of State, Varieties of Political Economy’ (2017):
(1) a determined Leninist elite, (2) relative autonomy of the monopoly-party- controlled state from society, (3) a powerful bureaucracy subordinated to the monopoly party, (4) a controlled and mobilised civil society, (5) a subordination of non-state economic interests to state economic interests as the engine of accumulation, and (6) maintenance of the monopoly-party state through repression, and its legitimisation through performance, and in particular through defence of sovereignty against a hostile ‘West’.42
41 Ibidem, 143.
25 In ‘Historical Welfare Regimes and Education in Vietnam’ (2011), London notes that within Market-Leninist regimes redistributive, neoliberal, and communist-corporatist principles create a unique political economy. The continuation of a redistributive state is antithetical to Nee’s prediction of decentralized production.43
Having explained how inequality and social mobility can be understood using Marxist class analysis in combination with Bourdieuian concepts of cultural capital and class habitus in chapter one, and having debated the concept of marketization, and defined the political economy of Vietnam and China in this chapter, I can now construct a hypothesis.
Nee argued that marketization would decentralize power of production, resulting in more equality. Within education this would result in ‘greater incentives for individual effort because rewards are more closely related to individual productivity. This is likely to be reflected in higher returns of education, which is among the best indicators of human productivity.’44
However, based on these two chapters, I hypothesize that, although the party state lost direct control on large parts of the economy, the new none-state actors and institutions remained subordinate to the state. Indeed, the dominant class prior to the reform has gained economic capital in addition to maintaining their cultural and political capital. Within the education system, the increase in funding and marketization has not resulted in increased social mobility. The working class does not possess the cultural and economic capital to have access to the higher education they would need in order to experience social mobility.
43 London (2011), 77-78. 44 Nee (1989), 666.
26
3. Post-revolution education systems
In this chapter, I will answer the question: how did the education systems of Vietnam and China interact with class under state socialism? I will answer the question by first explaining the origin of the post-revolution education systems, in addition to describing which groups had access to education, and to what degree education was important for social mobility in the pre-reform era. Section one will discuss Vietnam, section two China. In the third section I will compare the two countries.
3.1 Vietnam
According to London in ‘Education in Vietnam: Historical Roots, Recent Trends’ (2011), 45
there are two important historical influences on the post-independence education system in North Vietnam, namely: the Confusion cultural influence, and heritage of French colonialism. In very general terms, the fist resulted in the tradition of blending education and normative governance. The second is more important for the topic of this paper. London states that French colonialism ‘destabilized, destroyed, and transformed Vietnamese institutions, including those governing education.’46 However, colonial structures of
domination in combination with European ideological concepts of nationalism, liberalism, and communism, provided fertile ground for the development of a small, young, and radical anti-colonial intelligentsia. 47 Benedict Anderson describes in his famous Imagined
Communities (2006) how the division of French Indochina created a ‘Vietnamese’ education system in which these anti-colonial nationalists met and formed group identities.48
45 London gives a more elaborate description of the historical context in the chapter cited below. 46 London (2011), 8.
47 Ibidem, 12. 48 Anderson (2006).
27 During the First Indochina war (1946-1954), the revolutionary government of Vietnam began educating the masses with what London calls ‘guerrilla-style” (du kích) or blitzkrieg mass literacy courses’49. After the war, the North Vietnamese government began
to transition away from these informal education efforts in favor of establishing a formal education system through a series of reforms. Especially the 1958 reforms resulted in a recognizable state socialist education system. The state would assume the costs for the provision of education, no fees would be charged, and no private schools would exist. In rural areas, education was financed and funded primarily with resources from local economic units (agriculture collectives), supplemented by the central budget when needed. For urban areas, financing was based mostly on the central budget. Therefore, schools in rural areas where more dependent on the performance of local economic institutions.50
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the education reforms can be seen as a success. By the end of the 50’s the number of primary students was triple in North Vietnam compared to the whole of the country before the Second World War. Even when during the Second Indochina War (1955-1975) American bombardments intensified form 1965 onward and destroyed urban schools, they were rebuilt in the countryside.51 In the long run, however, London
argues that the education system faced three important challenges:
First, the combined effects of wars, prolonged economic isolation, and the poor performance of state-socialist economic institutions severely constrained the scope and quality of formal schooling. In most rural areas, going to school consisted of three hours of studies in dirt-floored thatched huts. Second, while education policies were progressive in principle — and
49 Ibidem, 14.
50 London (2011), 71. 51 Ibidem, 71-72.
28 were indeed more egalitarian than policies pursued in many other societies —
they also promoted and reinforced inequality by conferring greater access to better services for urban dwellers over rural ones and, even more pronouncedly, for those with party ties. Finally, after 1975, significant segments of southern Vietnam faced exclusionary practices on the basis of their families’ past political allegiances.52
In short, although the creation of an education system in North Vietnam resulted in the improvement of literacy of the population as a whole, it also created inequalities within the population: education within urban area’s was prioritized at the expense of rural areas, and those who supported the revolution got preferential treatment. After the end of the Vietnam War, the communist government implemented similar education reforms in the south of the country.
Education, however, does not seem to be an essential factor for social mobility in Vietnam before the reforms. In Tuong Vu’s Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology (2017), he describes how in the decades following the independence of North Vietnam, a substantial part of the leadership within the communist party had little or no education. In 1963 during the Ninth Central Committee Plenum prominent party member and First Secretary Le Duong criticized the ‘intellectuals’ within the party for arguing that education is needed for a successful revolution. Instead, Duong argued that the aim of Market-Leninism is to change the world, not to understand it. Therefore, education is not needed to be a successful party member. Although this evidence is anecdotal, there are numerous examples of important party figures between 1946-1986 that had no serious educational background. Far more important factors determining class hierarchy were the
29 ideological and geographical background of an individual. In other words: if one was a communist and whether one was urban or rural. 53
3.2 China
Similar to North Vietnam, China started rebuilding its education system after the end of the Civil war in 1950. Indeed, in the 50’s the communist leadership even undertook literacy campaigns to educate the working class. In addition, the Chinese government committed itself in the long term to building more schools and increasing the number of children enrolled in secondary school from 20% in 1949 to 85% in 1965. Next to this, the number of tertiary educational institutions in China doubled from 210 in 1950 to 434 in 1965.54
In the first two decades of communist rule before the Cultural Revolution, two factors where important in gaining access to this education system, namely: designated class, and geographical origin. The population was divided in four classes: the workers, the peasants, the urban petite bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. The workers got the political leadership, with support from the peasants. The petite bourgeoisie got some rights, and the national bourgeoisie were deemed ‘exploiters’. For education, this meant that, at least theoretically, those who were labeled as ‘workers’ or ‘peasants’ had a better chance of gaining access to higher levels of education. In reality, however, peasants rarely entered higher education. This was due to the second factor: geographic origin. Much like other developing nations, China’s educational facilities where mostly centered in the urban areas near the coast. In the rural area’s education was either heavily underfunded, or non-existent. This
53 Vu (2017) 173-174.
30 meant that, although peasants technically had a favorable class-label for gaining access to social services, in reality they could not access those services.55
An important way in which Mao maintained his regime was by creating a constant class struggle within which he positioned his regime as the protector of the peasant and working class against a reactionary enemy. Examples of these efforts are: the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961), Never Forget Class Struggle (1961), and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).56
In particular the last campaign had a fundamental impact on the education system in China with regard to social mobility. In A Social History of Maoist China (2019) historian Felix Wemheuer describes how during the Cultural Revolution university students and other elites where imprisoned in favor of empowering the uneducated workers under the slogan: ‘the working class should lead everything’. Students who could enter university due to class labeling before 1965 were imprisoned, or sent to the countryside 1966, when the Mao regime closed the universities all together. Especially within China’s urban centers – i.e. the places of education – were heavily affected by the new order.57
In some ways, the Cultural Revolution provided an opportunity of social mobility for the lower classes. In ‘The Impact of Cultural Revolution on Trends in Educational Attainment in the Peoples Republic of China’ (1997) Zhong Deng and Donald Treiman analyze the impact of the revolution on the social mobility using the same Bourdieuian concepts as this thesis. They conclude that, at least for Han-Chinese males, the hereditary nature of cultural capital decreased dramatically, equalizing access to education. Deng and Treiman state that the revolution can be seen as ‘the most dramatic attempt the world has
55 Goodman (2014) 17-20. 56 Ibidem, 21-22.
31 yet seen to reduce the intergenerational transmission of advantages.’58 In Education and
Society in Post-Mao China (2017) by Edward Vickers and Zeng Xiaodong also note that the Cultural Revolution gave a significant boost to rural educational development. 59
A cynical footnote to this conclusion is that the Cultural Revolution was mostly successful in its destruction of hereditary privilege, in that it destroyed the (cultural) wealth of the elite, impoverishing everyone. Wemheuer places another footnote by arguing that the revolution did not do much for gender and ethnic equality in China, placing the revolution primarily as a factor for male Han-Chinese.60
3.3 Comparison
When the education systems of Vietnam and China are compared, we see a similar development in the way the education systems are built, and their importance for gaining access to the upper class. In both countries geographical location was the most fundamental determinant for access to education. In Vietnam, urban schools were better funded, creating better schools. In China, a similar situation resulted in a bureaucratic divide between the peasantry and the urban workers, creating a class-system in which the urban populous got access to social services, where the peasantry did not. Ironically, within the government ordained class-system, the peasantry was the highest class, but in practice had the least amount of access to social services until the Cultural Revolution.
A stark difference between China and Vietnam were the changes due to the Cultural Revolution. In Vietnam the education system remained more or less the same from 1958 until the reform period starting in 1986. In China however, the Cultural Revolution starting
58 Deng and Treiman (1997), 424-425. 59 Vickers and Xiaodong (2017), 27. 60 Wemheuer (2019), 195-196.
32 in 1966 broke down the class-divide described above. Especially higher education, arguably the most important for social mobility, came to a complete stop.
The analysis in this chapter is compatible to Nee’s argument that state socialist regimes result in less equality between rural and urban areas. As discussed in chapter two, Nee claims that state socialist economies exploit the production of the rural areas in order to develop the urban industry. This, in turn, answers the question at the beginning of this chapter, namely: how did the education systems of Vietnam and China interact with class under state socialism? Under state socialism, the governments of Vietnam and China (re)built their education systems in order to promote social mobility. Both governments claimed to be especially interested in helping rural areas. In practice, however, government policy resulted in the increase of inequality in both countries, resulting in education centers mostly in the urban areas, creating a difference of social mobility between urban and rural areas.
33
4. Crisis and reform
Although the countries had a similar trajectory of marketization, the respective crises that caused it where very much different. In Vietnam, the war in Cambodia (1978-1989) in combination with the fall of the Soviet Union (1991) resulted in an economic crisis. This forced the communist leadership to adapt itself to a new world. In China the opposite happened: the end of the Cultural Revolution in combination with the death of Mao resulted in the collapse of the left-wing of the communist party and the rise of the liberal reformist faction.
In this chapter, I will explain in more detail the historical reasons for the marketization of the education systems in China and Vietnam, but first I will give a broader framework of marketization in these countries based on ‘Post-Communist Economic Systems’ (2005) by Lawrence King and Szelényi. In chapter two, I argued that Szelényi’s vision on marketization is useful for understanding the origin of marketization in Vietnam and China. The goal of this chapter is to explain how the crises of the late 20th century affected the political economies of Vietnam and China. This analysis can be used to answer the question: How have class-relations based on state socialism affected the marketization process of the education systems of Vietnam and China?
4.1 Post-Communist Systems
King and Szelényi argue that marketization within Communist systems differs from the creation of a market economy from a Feudal or Post-Colonial society mainly in that Communist societies have industrial institutions. The scholars argue that within China and Vietnam marketization developed ‘from below’, meaning: capitalism was created ‘by the creation of a new, market-integrated private (and “hybrid”) sector in the shadow of the old socialist redistributive economy. In this scenario, a new capitalist class emerges from actors
34 that emerged in the non-planned sector of the economy.’61 Based on the scholar’s logic,
‘capitalism from below’ does not significantly change the dynamic of extortion within a society. This is because the role of economic capital for one’s status within the dominating class increased, however the old political and cultural class before the reforms claim most of the economic capital created by the marketization. Foreign investors who have the potential to break into the class-dynamic would need local experts in order to invest in the Post-Communist countries, making it unlikely that they will ever have a significant influence on the system.62
4.2 Vietnam
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Vietnam experienced a crisis. An important cause for this crisis was the changing international framework. This change had effect on three aspects of Vietnam’s international relations. Firstly, while the Chinese experienced economic growth due to the reorientation of the US in the 1970’s, the Vietnamese gradually lost support from the Soviet-Union in the same decade. In addition, the victory of the communists over the US in 1975 meant that Vietnam could not expect the same rapprochement process Washington started with the Chinese. Lastly, the series of conflicts with China starting in 1979 until 1991 completely bankrupted Vietnam’s economy.63
In ‘Historical Welfare Regimes and Education in Vietnam’ (2011) London describes how the larger economic crisis resulted in a crisis within education, arguing that after 1975 ‘war damage, international isolation, and economic scarcity undermined the viability of state
61 King and Szelényi (2005), 206. In the same article the writers describe two other ‘ideal-types’ for post-Communist marketization, namely: ‘from above’, and ‘from without’, Russia being an example for the first and Hungary for the second.
62 Ibidem, 208-209. 63 Vu (2017), 260-263.
35 socialist developmentalism.’64 In his article, London describes two reasons for the crisis of
the education system in Vietnam both resulting in lack of resources to fund education, namely: the economic crisis as a result of the conflict with China, and the lack of resources within the state due to decentralization.
Firstly, prolonged economic distress resulted in the evaporation of the state budget and hyperinflation during the 1980’s. This resulted in declining wages for education sector workers affecting the morale of teachers and the quality of education. London states that many teachers left the profession in search of better wages in the newly developing private sector.65
Secondly the marketization: in the 1980’s, Vietnam began to decentralize economic production resulting in the gradual abandonment of the planned economy. The expansion of markets and especially the liberalization of agriculture resulted in economic growth. However, the decentralization also drained the central government of resources to fund its social services. Due to this lack of funding, the state lacked the resources to realize its educational development goals in any substantial way. For instance, the government legislated a constitutional amendment to develop compulsory education throughout the country in 1980, but between 1980 and 1990 there was no significant increase in enrollment of students within the system, even though the country had gained millions of school-aged children. In particular the disintegration of schools in rural area’s was severe. London argues that: ‘As the dissolution of agricultural collectives gathered pace, so did declines in school resources.’66
On the whole, we can see that the economic crisis and the resulting marketization created a transitional period in which education in Vietnam grinned to a halt. In chapter five,
64 London (2011), 73. 65 Ibidem, 74.
36 I will explain what the effects of the new post-marketization education system in Vietnam were on the way in which the system provided opportunities for social mobility for the lower classes.
4.3 China
In the previous chapter I explained the effect of the Cultural Revolution on the social mobility, and social order as a whole. Within this system of constant struggle, the educated youth became class enemies, because they were seen as unproductive parasites that ate for free, were sent to the country. Especially higher education grinned to a halt during the first half of the Cultural Revolution.67
According to Wemheuer, the Revolution came to an end in the period between 1972-1976. In February of 1972 the American president Richard Nixon visited the Peoples Republic. During this visit, the US accepted the communists as the legitimate China, ending over 20 years of economic isolation, including embargoes and threats of war by the US. The re-entering of the communist regime within the international community created a political struggle within The Party. This struggle was between the reformers (for liberal style marketization) and the old Maoists. The reformers gradually gained power at the cost of the leftists. In order to maintain the stability of his regime, Mao tried to maintain a new balance between the two factions. A result of this new power dynamic was the rehabilitation of economically liberal political leaders, like Deng Xiaoping in 1973. The final end of the Cultural Revolution came with the death of Mao on September 9th, 1976.68
Post-Mao, official documents of the new Deng-era show a clear willingness to break with the policies of the Cultural Revolution. Between 1978 and 1982 one slogan ‘boluan fanzheng’ can be translated to ‘set right things which have been thrown into disorder’. This
67 Wemheuer (2019), 232-233. 68 Ibidem, 235-236.
37 is also illustrated by the systematic dismantling of class categorizations by the Chinese government between 1977 and the mid 1980’s.69 In the following quote, Wemheuer
describes how communist leadership viewed these post-Mao reforms:
The leadership argued that the Cultural Revolution had damaged China on almost every front, from the party apparatus and the planned economy to the United Front with intellectuals and ethnic minorities, the education and legal systems, and the correct understanding of Mao Zedong thought. Now the party would remedy that damage and return to the order and progress of the state’s early golden age.70
In other words, although the market reforms post-Mao are often seen as a break from state socialism, it is important to keep in mind that the leadership of the Communist Party also saw the reforms as a way of stabilizing their rule. The rehabilitation of party members that had been banned during the Revolution is one of the examples underlining this point. Another point is that the new leadership could never fully denounce Mao, resulting in, at least in name, the continuation of the same regime. Wemheuer argues that Mao resembles both Lenin and Stalin for China, being Lenin in that he was the founding father of the communist state, and Stalin in that he terrorized his own people.71
When analyzing the reforms of the education system after 1976, we see a similar pattern. In the first decades of China following the end of the Cultural Revolution the government rebuilt the education system focusing on providing state-funded access to at least first and secondary education in the urban areas. This resulted in the accomplishment
69 Ibidem, 283-287. 70 Ibidem, 283. 71 Ibidem, 282.
38 of universal education in the urban areas.72 Furthermore, in the earlier cited Education and
Society in Post-Mao China (2017) the writers note that in 1978, when the government started with the program ‘Reform and Opening’, thousands of rural schools were closed, enrollment was capped, and the reinforcement of stratificational institutions was continued.73
After the ‘reconstruction’ China began to build a more market-oriented education system focusing on skill-based learning similar to what Vietnam would do a decade later. In chapter five, I will discuss the effects of these reforms on social mobility.
4.4 Comparison
At the beginning of this chapter, I set out to answer the following question: how has class formed by state socialism affected the marketization of the education systems of Vietnam and China? In section one, I explained based on King and Szelényi how the introduction of capitalist elements within Vietnam and China differed from other capitalist societies. The writers state that important Leninist institutions will remain in place resulting in maintenance of the pre-reform dominant class. When analyzing Vietnam and China, we see that this hypothesis is correct. In Vietnam marketization, in combination with the economic crisis of the 1980’s, resulted in the collapse of social services. Especially education in the rural areas of the country were hit by budget cuts. Meanwhile, urban centers were less effected, and could reap the economic benefit from the new markets and industries that formed in and around the urban centers. In the case of China, the end of the Cultural Revolution resulted in the reestablishment of class hierarchies. Class dynamics favoring urban elites shaped the marketization of education reinforcing this inequality.
72 Vickers and Xiaodong (2017), 24. 73 Ibidem, 27.
39
5. Post-reform
In this chapter, I will answer the last sub-question: how has the marketization of the education systems in Vietnam and China affected social mobility? Nee argues that, due to marketization, production will be decentralized, resulting in a decrease of the importance of cultural capital, and an increase of the importance of economic capital. If we relate this to the argument that cultural capital is highly hereditary compared to economic capital, this would lead to better accessibility for lower classes to higher education, resulting in higher levels of social mobility. However, chapters three and four have shown that only the Cultural Revolution had any impact on social mobility in China, and that in Vietnam the early steps in marketization resulted in the destruction of education infrastructure in rural areas.
Nee was right in foreseeing the rising importance of economic capital for gaining access to education. In China for instance, the rigid class system that was in place under Mao, resulted in class stratification within which social mobility was all but impossible. In practice however, the new class-divide based on status and capital is made up of the same groups that were dominant before the reform. Therefore, I will argue in this chapter that, although factors determining class-status have changed due to the market reforms, there is no substantial change regarding which classes have access to education. On the contrary, as I shall explain in this chapter, (higher) education has become an important prerequisite for gaining access to high-paying jobs, potentially making social stratification even more rigid.
5.1 Vietnam
After the breakdown of the economic system in the 1980’s, the Vietnamese governments harnessed market economic institutions to revitalize economic accumulation by attracting foreign direct investment and increasing trade. This led to the stabilization of the economy.
40 The rising importance of economic capital within Vietnam, did not mean the country changed completely. As noted earlier, London argues that within Vietnam, important legacies of state socialism remain, writing: ‘state planning institutions remain strong, state agencies (from business enterprises to schools) remain thoroughly interpenetrated by party cells and, “grassroots democracy” and freedom of the press lay a harmonious façade of accountability over what remains an illiberal and secretive polity.’74 Furthermore, although
the economy has marketized, London argues that the essential duality remains, meaning: surplus from agriculture is redirected to the rapid growth and industrialization of urban areas, mostly centered around Hanoi and Ho Chi Mihn City.75
When considering the marketization of education in Vietnam, London detects two trends. Firstly, the creation of private education, shifting the part of the responsibilities of the government regarding education towards the private sector. Secondly, as a consequence of privatization the state also shifted an increasing share of the education costs towards households.76 In the remainder of this section, I will analyze the effect of this marketization
on the social mobility in Vietnam, considering the two groups within Marxist class-analysis, namely: the dominating class and the working class. Within the last group, I will discuss both the urban and the rural poor.
The dominant class
In chapter three and four, I have described how the urban populous, especially the elite, had access to education. Due to the crisis period of the 1980’s and subsequent marketization of the education system, these inequalities became more severe. Indeed, the lack of state funding resulted in rising costs for citizens. In addition, the new private education was only
74 London (2011), 79. 75 Ibidem, 79-80. 76 Ibidem, 83.
41 accessible for the wealthiest Vietnamese. Conveniently for the Vietnamese political elite, the marketization kept important Leninist political institutions in place, resulting in the opportunity for the dominating class to have access to the economic capital whereas the working class had not.77
State education became underfunded due to lack of resources. the new skill-based education that replaced it, added to the weakened state education. Simultaneously, to gain access to better jobs, both in terms of cultural and economic capital, one needs higher education. This resulted in the creation of a vicious circle: to have access to higher education people need economic and cultural capital, while in order to gain economic and cultural capital people need education. I will present three trends underlining this argument.
Table 2.78
Firstly, the above table supports this argument. In the first decade of the twentieth century, education expenses rose across the population. However, the income of middle and rich households rose substantially more than poorer groups, suggesting that richer citizens have more disposable income to spend on education.
77 Nguyen and Chen (2017), 233-234. 78 London (2011), 25.
42 Secondly, another development signaling the rising inequality within Vietnam’s education system is made by London: ‘Various forms of “non state” schools (such as “people-founded schools” and private “self-sufficient schools”) are almost always organized and operated by people within or closely associated with networks of state power and can draw substantially on state resources.’79 In other words, the dominating class within Vietnam
creates a series of private educational institutions resulting in the stimulation of class habitus.
Thirdly, the incompetence of higher education to meet the increasing demand for skilled labor. According to London, Vietnamese universities are underfunded, and underperforming compared to the need for highly skilled workers in the country. Where the dominating class has the economic capital to educate their children via private or international institutions, poorer groups are dependent on state support making social mobility problematic.80
The working class
Building on the previous section, I will first describe how marketization of the education system could be used for upwards social mobility for the lower classes in Vietnam. Thereafter, I will argue how marketization in fact lowered chances of social mobility. I will conclude this section by discussing the urban-rural divide for access to education.
Beginning with the promise of social mobility: according to Nee the decentralization of production would provide opportunities of social mobility for the working class. Indeed, the marketization in Vietnam resulted in the need for skilled laborers, equipped for the new economy. In ‘WTO Accession, Socio-Economic Transformation, and Skills Development in
79 Ibidem, 27. 80 Ibidem, 39-40.
