New Social Classes, Old Visions of Hierarchy: the Novel Chronicles of Du Lala’s Promotions as an Example of Middle Class Virtue in the Chinese “Socialist Market”

This article focuses on the reading of the popular Chinese novel Chronicles of Du Lala’s
Promotions, a bestseller published in 2007 and soon followed by numerous spin-offs,
to observe how the novel constructs its vision of social hierarchy in the context of the
emerging market economy and of the new social stratification brought about by the
capitalist division of labour. The article argues that this vision of social hierarchy, although
formulated in response to the new capitalist reconfiguration of the Chinese society, draws
upon and is structured by a pre-existing traditional understanding of social hierarchy, one
which is steeped both in the Confucian and the Maoist constructions of the social order. In
particular, after having compared the ideal social structures painted by the Confucian and
Maoist doctrines and by the current Chinese government, the article illustrates how the
novel, reverberating the current governmental ideology, presents the middle class as a sort
of moral elite entitled to enjoy privileged status thanks to its meritorious achievements in
the market.