"To get rich is glorious"
About this Quote
To get rich is glorious captures Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic break from the ideological rigidity that dominated China under Mao. After the Cultural Revolution's suspicion of commerce and wealth, Deng reframed economic activity as a noble, patriotic endeavor. Prosperity was not a sign of bourgeois decadence but a tool for national rejuvenation. The turn was emblematic of his ethos: it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. Results trumped dogma.
The slogan functioned as both policy signal and moral permission. It told cadres, farmers, and entrepreneurs that experimenting with markets, creating enterprises, and attracting foreign capital were not only allowable but admirable. In practice this meant decollectivizing agriculture, empowering township and village enterprises, establishing Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen, and inviting foreign investment and technology. Deng called it socialism with Chinese characteristics: harnessing market mechanisms within a socialist framework to lift hundreds of millions from poverty and to restore China's strength.
There was also a deliberate sequencing. Deng often paired the thought with let some people and some regions get rich first, anticipating a diffusion of benefits that would eventually yield common prosperity. That sequencing came with risks and trade-offs. Inequality widened between coast and interior, cities and countryside; corruption flourished in the gaps of rapid reform; environmental costs mounted. The glory of getting rich demanded a new social contract in which political legitimacy flowed from rising living standards rather than ideological purity.
Culturally, the line rehabilitated the pursuit of wealth as a respectable ambition after decades of asceticism. It helped normalize private initiative and reoriented aspirations toward education, enterprise, and consumption. Globally, it marked China's pivot from isolation to integration, reshaping trade, supply chains, and development models worldwide. The enduring tension between dynamism and equity remains, but the phrase still frames a core lesson: growth, pragmatically pursued, can be a transformative moral and political project.
The slogan functioned as both policy signal and moral permission. It told cadres, farmers, and entrepreneurs that experimenting with markets, creating enterprises, and attracting foreign capital were not only allowable but admirable. In practice this meant decollectivizing agriculture, empowering township and village enterprises, establishing Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen, and inviting foreign investment and technology. Deng called it socialism with Chinese characteristics: harnessing market mechanisms within a socialist framework to lift hundreds of millions from poverty and to restore China's strength.
There was also a deliberate sequencing. Deng often paired the thought with let some people and some regions get rich first, anticipating a diffusion of benefits that would eventually yield common prosperity. That sequencing came with risks and trade-offs. Inequality widened between coast and interior, cities and countryside; corruption flourished in the gaps of rapid reform; environmental costs mounted. The glory of getting rich demanded a new social contract in which political legitimacy flowed from rising living standards rather than ideological purity.
Culturally, the line rehabilitated the pursuit of wealth as a respectable ambition after decades of asceticism. It helped normalize private initiative and reoriented aspirations toward education, enterprise, and consumption. Globally, it marked China's pivot from isolation to integration, reshaping trade, supply chains, and development models worldwide. The enduring tension between dynamism and equity remains, but the phrase still frames a core lesson: growth, pragmatically pursued, can be a transformative moral and political project.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wealth |
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