The Emergence of a Market Society: Changing Mechanisms of Stratification in China

This article examines the effect of institutional change-the shift from redistribution to markets-in altering the mechanisms of stratification. New institutionalists maintain that interests are embedded in institutional arrangements and change as institutions change. China has undergone rapid and extensive household income mobility, incrementally altering the stratification order based on socialist redistribution. The shift to markets causes a decline in the significance of positional power based on redistribution relative to the gains of producers and entrepreneurs. Comparative institutional analysis is employed to examine the effect of regional variation in the extent of institutional change.