Capitalist market values in East Malaysia and China

Abstract

This article discusses the ecological and political bases of values, and their significance in our understanding of cultural life, through an ethnographic reflection of an indigenous minority in East Malaysia, the Badeng Kenyah’s, encounter with capitalist markets. In addition, post-Mao China’s encounter with the global capitalist market is also discussed to show the nature of values and social change and the need to reinvent values and create institutions to reinforce relevant values that will shape new cultural forms. Human values, including values that emphasize social welfare and harmony with nature, have their roots in the principle of reciprocity in egalitarian small-scale societies. However, values embedded in human cultural traditions are swept away by market forces in an increasingly globalized world. Ecological humanism is an emerging new worldview that influences the reinvention of values and fosters the formation of new cultural forms.