W10.1Hatred of the rich in a sociological perspective.

 Today, our society is in a period of transition and hatred of the rich has become a very common social phenomenon. The academic community has different opinions on the nature of hatred of the rich. According to Mao Shulong, a professor at Renmin University, "the current so-called hatred of the rich in China is not really hatred of the rich, but hatred of injustice. Although there is injustice in being poor, the poor are often the victims of injustice, passive, and poor by necessity. The rich, however, are the beneficiaries of injustice, are active, and are rich by necessity." Professor Qian Wenzhong of Fudan University believes that hatred of the rich is a strange phenomenon, hatred of the rich can be summarized as follows: employees hate their bosses, students hate their teachers, patients hate doctors, and people who receive social help hate people who do charity. Professor Xie Jing has a novel perspective, linking the phenomenon of hatred of the rich with the different images of the rich and the poor in the media, arguing that the poor in the media images are usually positive images, while the rich are mostly negative images, which is also essentially a phenomenon of hatred of the rich. All of these arguments are valid, but the essence of hatred of the rich is actually hatred of the unfair distribution of social resources and the illegitimate accumulation of wealth. This statement captures the essence of the problem, and is also a general summary of the above-mentioned views. According to some social hotspots in recent years, the phenomenon of hatred of the rich is mainly manifested in the following types:

(i) Terrorist actions

This is the most extreme type of hatred of the rich, caused by the long accumulation of inner anxiety and anger. Beijing airport bombing case is a very typical example, the man who detonated the bomb is called Ji Zhongxing, the family's economic difficulties, had worked in Guangdong to live, because he felt treated unfairly petitioned for more than ten years, he complained through complaints, network blogs and other ways to no avail, so he had to take extreme actions to retaliate against society, but also ended his own life. These socially disadvantaged groups have accumulated too much sense of injustice in their hearts, and have lost their trust in the law because they are unable to vent their anger in time.

(2) Disturbing social security

There are also many people who express their hatred of the rich by disturbing social security. For example, they smash or scratch the high-grade vehicles such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the parking lot of the rich people's residential district; they specifically steal and rob the wealth of the rich people; they gather and beat the rich people; and they maliciously spread rumors about the rich people. The most important feature of these behaviors is organization. They are usually gangs of three or five or even more people, and act according to a plan. The individual's hatred of the rich coupled with the influence of the irrational factors of the group will make them more audacious.

(C) Internet opinion

Through the network to express the psychology of hatred of the rich is the most common phenomenon of hatred of the rich, especially in microblogs, blogs, WeChat and other emerging network communication platform, posting a few sentences of hatred of the rich comments have been more than normal behavior. Some people specialize in publishing some rich-hating articles to expose the negative behavior of some rich people and win the attention of the public, so as to express their own inner sense of injustice, but also played a driving role, causing many netizens to resonate.

Second, the social causes of the phenomenon of hatred of the rich

(A) social system level

First of all, after the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China formally established the socialist market economy system, emphasizing that the market plays a fundamental role in the allocation of resources. Market economy optimizes the allocation of resources on the one hand, but on the other hand, if it is left to develop naturally, it will cause imbalance in social development. Under the unitary system, everyone belongs to one unit, and the allocation of resources follows almost egalitarianism, with little disparity between the rich and the poor. However, the market economy differs from the planned economy era in that it is oriented to wealth creation, and more and more people can earn huge wealth using investments, stocks, etc., thus creating a situation where the wealth of these people is not equal to the labor they put in. In the transition process, we have largely adopted an approach that promotes market development and overemphasizes economic development. In this way, administrative and market forces have combined, both of which have become factors in generating social inequality.

Second, there are many systems in the state that invariably reinforce or protect the interests of the rich.

The institutional reason behind the hatred of the rich is that there is a system in which power is not checked and balanced and capital is not harnessed. For example, in the reform of the economic system, the state pays more attention to the priority economic development of the southeastern coastal region; among the three major industries, the state strongly supports the development of the secondary and tertiary industries. China's current personal income tax system was originally intended to narrow the income gap, but the low starting point and the lack of a necessary "high limit" policy have defeated the original purpose. The education system also contains an inequitable distribution of educational resources. China's legal system is not perfect, and many laws and regulations are not clear enough, so many people can take advantage of these legal loopholes and make huge profits opportunistically.

(II) Social structure level

First, the phenomenon of hatred of the rich has a lot to do with poor social class mobility.

According to Yang Jijian, "after the mid-1990s, the role of antecedent factors has become increasingly important, and the role of postecedent factors has weakened. The antecedent factors have strengthened, the post-causal factors have weakened, and social stratification has occurred." China has seen a trend of elite consolidation in recent years, and power and money have begun to unify, which will reinforce the flow of social resources to the elite. In today's China, even those who get master's or doctoral degrees find it difficult to improve their social status and become more of an "ant family," while those born into powerful families can easily become upper-class figures in society even without putting in the effort. According to Li Youmei and others, "China's social structure is severely polarized while forming a 'spire-like' social structure with a large underclass." Yet everyone wants upward mobility, and when the path to upward mobility is open, it is conducive to resolving class conflicts. However, today's society lacks such a smooth channel, and efforts are not rewarded, a situation that will inevitably cause people at the bottom to hate and resent those at the top.

Second, the gap between the rich and the poor in China is too large.

With the development of the market economy, China's income gap continues to expand, which is an important symptom of the unfair distribution of wealth and unbalanced adjustment of interest relations, but also one of the important reasons for the socially disadvantaged groups to generate anti-rich mentality. In recent years, China's Gini coefficient has risen sharply, reaching 0.46 in 2006, which shows that the fruits of China's rapid economic growth over the years have not been shared by all social classes, but gathered in the hands of a few people, which is obviously against social justice. People or regions with lower incomes feel injustice for the inferior position they are in, so they will develop a hatred mentality towards higher income groups. However the gap between the rich and the poor is not equal to the loss of social justice, but our contemporary society has not yet found a balance between economic efficiency and social justice. So many disadvantaged groups harbor dissatisfaction with the existing income distribution system and regional income disparity.

(III) Level of social interaction relationship

First, the unequal interaction between the rich and the poor is an important factor in the formation of the phenomenon of hatred of the rich. This is especially reflected in the modern status inconsistent consumption behavior. We often encounter the phenomenon that when a customer walks into a high-end brand clothing store, the store attendant will first look at the customer's dress from head to toe, and then decide whether it is necessary to serve him seriously according to his existing dress. In public places, the rich are usually treated with more respect and attention than the poor. These phenomena speak volumes about the natural tendency to treat the rich differently from the poor in social interactions.

Second, the rich class has serious misbehavior.

From the nationwide sensation of Guo Meimei and the recently exposed incidents of officials' extravagance to the ostentatious behavior of many rich people in their daily lives. China has entered a perverse consumption mechanism represented by ostentatious consumption. The frequent news reports in recent years about ultra-extravagant weddings held by the rich are indeed a shock to the public. The misbehavior of the rich class is also manifested in the lack of benevolence for the rich. For example, the "My father is Li Gang" incident, using his father's position to do whatever he wants in public. However, the value of a person is not measured by how much money he has and how many villas he owns, but whether he can use his wealth to contribute to society, but nowadays there are only a few rich people who can donate more than one third of their wealth to society like Li Ka-shing.

Third, how to view the phenomenon of hatred of the rich and its impact on social development

(A) Are the rich really hateful?

Everyone has been struggling to live a rich life since childhood. We can not deny that many rich people are due to their own unremitting efforts to become rich, they pay behind the hard work and hard struggle has been covered by the glory of wealth, and after getting rich want to live a superior life than others is also normal psychology. So while we see the scenic side of the rich, we should think back to what their means of getting rich are, and what spirit is worth learning and advocating. Although some rich people do do some things that are harmful to God, there are still many rich people who always keep in mind the basic moral principles of being human. Of course, people with the psychology of hatred of the rich do not hate all the rich people, such as Yuan Longping, Li Jiacheng and other rich people who have made great contributions to society, but the general public's respect and support, so the truly sensible people are not hatred of "rich", but hatred of social injustice.