Norms, Values and Cynical Games with Party Ideology

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Party is based on an ideology that was once fundamentally
linked to social norms and values. The original charisma of the party
and its leaders seems to have gone in the direction predicted by Max Weber: that
charisma cannot stand the test of everyday routines; it will eventually be rationalized
and bureaucratized. The party's slogan of 'three representations' seems to
reach out to the 'new social strata,' allowing entry to those who 'became rich first,'
namely the entrepreneurs. At the same time, the party struggles to redefine the
Marxist paradigm of exploitation in a situation where workers increasingly live
under conditions akin to those in England at the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Sweeping changes are being implemented but without any modification to
the verbal baggage of socialist propaganda.