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The Making of a Docile Working Class in Pre-reform China

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The Palgrave Handbook of Management History

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyze how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Mao Zedong attained his status of rightful ruler by embedding the Confucian values in his concept of mass participation to create docile bodies and minds among the Chinese workers. In so doing, this chapter draws on Michel Foucault’s (ed. Rabinow P, The Foucault reader: an introduction to Foucault’s thought. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1984/1991) genealogical (or historicalization) account to trace the key historical events that spiritually and bodily made a docile working class in Mao’s period. The chapter argues that this mindset was a central component in maintaining Chinese workers’ subordination to the Chinese rulers in the past and even in today’s China.

I am indebted to my PhD supervisor Dr. Donella Caspersz in the Business School at the University of Western Australia for her unfailing support, encouragement, and constructive feedback to my work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Elly Leung

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  1. Elly Leung
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Correspondence to Elly Leung .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emporia State University, Emporia, USA

    Jeffrey Muldoon

  2. Faculté des Sciences Sociales, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada

    Anthony Gould

  3. College of Business, RMIT University, School of Management, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Adela McMurray

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Leung, E. (2020). The Making of a Docile Working Class in Pre-reform China. In: Muldoon, J., Gould, A., McMurray, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Management History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62348-1_113-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62348-1_113-1

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