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Inequality, Culture War, and Imperiled Common Good: America and China

Event title and speaker name
Thursday, November 12, 2020
8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Richard Madsen, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UC San Diego
APSI Speaker Series

Despite rising inequality, daily life in both America and China is afflicted more by culture conflicts than class struggle. Richard Madsen (Sociology, UC San Diego) argues here, however, that in both societies, these cultural conflicts are connected with rising inequality, and indeed in their current intensity are a manifestation of it. A simple Marxist explanation for this would be that ruling elites foment conflicts over culture to distract the masses from becoming mobilized against the rich. While he doesn't doubt that this is some part of the story, he will argue that there is another important part, the social foundation for elite manipulation. Rather than drawing on Marx, he will invoke Max Weber's account of the cultural conflicts of modernity.

About the speaker: Richard Madsen is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Adjunct Professor at GPS, UC San Diego. He is also the Director of the UC-Fudan Center on Contemporary China and is the author or co-author of 12 books, in Chinese Society, American Society and U.S.-China Relations.