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Utilitarianistic Familism

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In the last few decades, scholars produced some works in attempt to give a picture of the social structure of Hong Kong. For the first part, Lau Siu-kai’s utilitarianistic familism thesis, the class analysis work done by Thomas Wong and Lui Tai-lok, and the works of Annie Hau-nung Chan and Eric Kit-wai Ma will be outlined. For the second part, the extent to which Lau’s thesis and class analysis can be used to understand the social structure of Hong Kong will be assessed. The ideology of utilitarianistic familism suggests that the hierarchical structure with the power elite at the top, and the mass of isolated familial groups in the bottom formed the minimally integrated social-political society of Hong Kong (Lau 1978, 29). The thesis mainly …show more content…

As stated previously, family served the function of social integration and services and assistances are exchanged within family. Nowadays, various social services, including childcare, tutoring, domestic helpers, etc., are available in the society; these services free up the time of parents, and have taken over some of the functions of the family. As a result, the working parents will have more time spent with their colleagues with similar background instead of contributing all their time to the family. The whole family is then integrated with the society and is no longer isolated. In this sense, one of the essential parts, i.e. the mass of isolated familial groups, no longer exist, or at least, isolated familial groups have become the minority of the society. Furthermore, in 2003, 500 thousand marchers joined the 1 July protest opposing the Basic Law Article 23. 1 July marches were organized in every subsequent years, mainly demanding for democracy. This is a significant evidence proving that Hong Kong people started to participate in social movements; they protested and protected the value of themselves. More than often, conflicts occurred within family due to different political …show more content…

The aforementioned examples showed that the class analysis is more applicable and better reflects the thoughts of Hong Kong people. It is very likely that class differences will remain in the future, hence to a large extent class analysis can be considered as the better alternative to the utilitarianistic familism thesis in understanding the social structure of Hong

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