During the revolutionary frenzy led by Mao Zedong, Chinese landlords were one of the main enemies of the proletariat and were almost completely destroyed by the many mass struggles around the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, but a study cited in the latest issue of The Economist points out that the descendants of the landlords are precisely the talented ones, like the new generation of China’s privileged class.
According to the Economist article, the landlords have been the target of struggle almost immediately since the founding of the Communist Party of China, and the horrific struggles against them during the Cultural Revolution are described in detail by Yang Jijuan, former editor of Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine, in his latest book.
However, according to a working study by scholars from the United States, Great Britain, and China, Mao’s massive project to eradicate the landlords from China seems to have had little effect. Most of the grandchildren of the landlords had already “recovered their lost land” and regained the privileges their families had enjoyed before liberation. Most of them were better educated and wealthier than other families. Their values, as well as their orientation, are different from those of their pre-1949 descendants, who were of low social status. They seem to be less affected by social injustice, are more business-minded, more supportive of the market economy, more inclined to individualism, and believe that hard work makes you rich.
Much of the research, led by Harvard scholar Alberto Alesina (Chinese translation: Alberto Alesina), is based on data from household surveys, population reports, and land records. Their study found that, until 2010, the descendants of pre-liberation landowners or the upper class had incomes 16-17% higher than those of their pre-1949 descendants in the lower class. Most of them had a secondary or post-secondary education. They also performed stronger in mathematics tests.
The group of scholars explains the relatively rapid recovery of lost territory by the descendants of the old upper class, whose relatives abroad helped them collect a fortune, but more importantly, whose families still maintained a strong network within the continent.
The scholars report that most of the descendants of those who managed to turn the tables on their families came from a strong family structure, especially from rural backgrounds. The study notes that although their elders lived through Mao’s revolutionary years, the higher-level ideas and concepts of the previous generation were instilled in the next generation. As a result, only forty-five years after Mao’s death, the upper class, once fought to the death, was able to retake the top rung of the social pyramid.
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