XIN REN is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University at Sacramento.

Foreword by Marvin Wolfgang
Preface
Editorial Notes on Pinyin Transliteration
Abbreviations
Introduction: Law, State, and Social Control in China: Marxism or Confucianism?
Tradition of the Law
The Chinese Legal Tradition: Law and Morality
The Rules of Punishment
Law of the Tradition
Political Power and Judicial Independence: Marxist Ideology, the Communist Party, and the Role of Law
The Class Division and Equal Rights before the Law
Punishing for Thought: Counterrevolutionary Crime in Chinese Law
The Principle of Voluntariness in Chinese Law and Morality
Conclusion: Chinese Law under a Socialist Mantle
Appendix: Chronology of Chinese History
Bibliography
Index

Traditionally, social theorists in the West have structured models of state social control according to the tenet that socialization is accomplished by means of external controls on behavior: undesirable actions are punished and desirable actions result either in material reward or a simple respite from the oppressive attentions of an authoritarian state. In this volume, the author presents the tradition of law in China as an exception to the Western model of social control. The Confucian bureaucracy that has long structured Chinese social life melded almost seamlessly with the Maoist revolutionary agenda to produce a culture in which collectivism and an internalized adherence to social law are, in some respects, congenital features of Chinese social consciousness. Through her investigation of the Maoist concept of revolutionary justice and the tradition of conformist acculturation in China, the author constructs a fascinating counterpoint to traditional Western arguments about social control.