Changing Patterns of Class and Status-Group Struggles in Hong Kong: A World-Systems Analysis

Abstract

There are three dominant patterns of class and status-group struggles in Hong Kong in the twentieth century, namely, strikes in the 1920s, urban riots in the 1960s, and democratic protests in the 1980s and the 1990s. The aim of this paper is to examine the nature, the origins, and the transformation of the above three patterns of class and status-group struggles in Hong Kong from the 1920s to the 1990s. Influenced by Webers assertion that class is based on narrow economic interests while status group is based on the sharing of honor and style of life in a community, most researchers adopt a strict differentiation between economic classes and status groups, and they take an either/or approach to study class and status-group struggles. However, a world-system analysis points to the fluidity and transformation between class and status-group struggles. Using such an insight, this paper shows that strikes, riots, and democratic protests in Hong Kong were expressions of both class and status group, and it was exactly the fusion of these expressions that enabled classes and status groups to become agents and intervene in the historical development of Hong Kong and South China.