Everyone in a society wants to maintain a proper standard of living. This is achieved by work. In capitalist societies this work is achieved through persons own free will. People are able to have the entrepreneurial spirit; they can acquire jobs that are meaningful to them. In Communist societies work is achieved collectively and individualism is non-existent. People are assigned to work units through the state. China is a communist country, but during the labor market reforms of the 1980s the people are allowed more job choice, rather than stern job assignment. A person who chooses not to work still has to maintain means for living this is often times done threw begging others. In Popular China the issues of begging and the search for work are examined. In their article, “Beggars in the Socialist market economy,” the authors Leila Fernandez-Stembridge and Richard P. Madsen argue that begging in China is a government accepted profession. Begging in any society represents the mismanagement of government to provide a decent standard of living for all its citizens. Beggars in China choose to beg they think of it as an unapproved means to become rich. Another article in Popular China discusses the other end of the spectrum: young and educated people and the search for work. In her article “The Chinese enterprising self,” author Amy Hanser explains that China’s youth prefer to seek jobs that accommodate the autonomy of the individual. Both of these articles discuss Chinese standard of living on both sides; the undereducated people who choose to beg and the educated that search for work. In reading both articles I can conclude that there are two ways in which the Chinese job seek they can attempt to work hard and beat the competition in job fulfillment or they can doing nothing and become a beggar.
In their article “Beggars in the Socialist market economy”, authors Leila Fernandez-Stembridge and Richard P. Madsen, explain how the roles of beggars have changed...