The ‘Good’ Neoliberalism: E-Commerce Entrepreneurship and the Search for a Good Life in China

Abstract

Neoliberalism has been widely criticised in the anthropological literature. While acknowledging its negative impacts, this study argues that the adoption of neoliberal mechanisms and ethos may contribute to the betterment of individual wellbeing in certain circumstances. Drawing from a group of Chinese rural migrant e-commerce traders’ entrepreneurial experiences, this study finds that they have acquired material benefits, techno-cultural capital, and a certain degree of political independence by taking advantage of the growing neoliberal e-commerce market and by practising a neoliberal ethos. The acquired resources enable these traders, formerly considered lower-class, to assert their status and dignity in Chinese society, and ultimately help them achieve a good life. In exploring how neoliberal elements may work to improve ordinary people's life conditions, this study offers a more balanced assessment of neoliberalism in its everyday manifestations.

Keywords:

• Neoliberalism
• E-commerce
• Entrepreneurship
• Good Life
• China

Rethinking a Good Life Under Neoliberalism

Sherry Ortner (2016, 47) famously summarised the anthropological literature on neoliberalism since the 1980s as ‘dark anthropology’, focused on the harsh dimensions of social life (e.g. power, domination, and inequality) and on the subjective experience of those dimensions in the form of depression and hopelessness. A decades-long critic of neoliberalism, James Ferguson wrote in a piece that he was struck by the growing literature on neoliberalism whose conclusions were almost the same: ‘a conclusion that might be expressed in its simplest form as: “neoliberalism is bad for poor and working people, therefore we must oppose it”’. He said he did not disagree with this conclusion, but sometimes he wondered ‘why I should bother to read one after another extended scholarly analysis only to reach, again and again, such an unsurprising conclusion’ (2010, 166). It is true that not only anthropologists, but also many other social scientists and public intellectuals, have regarded neoliberalism as a harmful force in the contemporary world, as it has reinforced regional, gender, and racial inequalities, undermined social justice, strengthened political authoritarianism, and more (e.g. Comaroff & Comaroff 2001; Monbiot 2016; Springer, Birch, & MacLeavy 2016).¹

In reaction to ‘dark anthropology’, Ortner (2016, 58–60) suggests that recent scholarship has started examining positive life experiences in different parts of the world under the name of the anthropology of the good (life). This trend is important for us in considering our subjects’ world beyond suffering, depression, and hopelessness, as well as respecting their desires, aspirations, and endeavours for a meaningful and happy life. Yet in many such studies, neoliberalism seemingly does not constitute the major socioeconomic background or the ideological setting of given societies, or it merely plays a vague role (Chua 2014; Mattingly 2014; Robbins 2013). In studies where authors do highlight the prominent role of neoliberalism in shaping the life experiences of their informants, they and their informants tend to look for alternative ways of understanding the world and of living a tenable life beyond neoliberal logic and mechanisms (Fischer 2014; Rajković 2018). In other words, the dark nature of neoliberalism remains unchallenged.

Is neoliberalism nothing but bad? Although he himself has been a critic, Ferguson (2010, 174) reminds us that it is only when we stop treating ‘neoliberalism’ simply as a synonym for ‘evil’ and become more open to the innovative forms of new politics in the contemporary world that we may realise the ‘polyvalent’ potentials of the neoliberal arts of government. As far as I can see, not many scholars have started to reflect on this aversion and note the positive impact of or experiences with neoliberalism that probably exist in different societies and among different social groups.

Writing about the post-Soviet transition in Russia, Stephen Collier (2011) suggests that the country's neoliberal reforms provided a justification for redistribution, and helped preserve the norms and forms of social modernity, instead of destroying the social safety net and conventions established by the previous socialist state. Marek Mikuš (2016) also finds that in post-socialist Serbia, neoliberalism was employed by local populist elites as a moral project to criticise the corrupt public sector and to redress the unjust redistribution of societal resources in their society. If those studies still focus on the positive outlooks of neoliberalism held by elites, then more recent scholarship has turned to commoners or even marginalised groups. Emily Yeh (2022) notes that some Tibetan entrepreneurs in China consciously adopted the neoliberal discourse of self-improvement to build their careers before using their business to empower their ethnic community. In another case, Sandya Hewamanne (2020) finds female workers in Sri Lanka utilised the neoliberal practice of self-fashioning to reconfigure local gender norms and social hierarchies. While recognising its existing harmful effects, this revisionist literature reveals the potential of appropriating neoliberalism for the common good.

This study finds a similar appropriation of neoliberal elements—albeit even more for individual wellbeing—among a group of Chinese rural migrants conducting e-commerce businesses in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province. From 2015 to 2019, I undertook a 16-month period of fieldwork in the city to investigate the lived experiences of e-traders in light of the booming Chinese e-commerce economy, conducting interviews with 106 e-traders and participant observations in 15 e-shops.² Of those e-traders, many are rural migrants from inland provinces, such as Jiangxi, Hunan, Anhui, Henan, and Shanxi. Although pressured by market competition, these migrant e-traders see e-business as an effective path to happiness, and it was common to hear them narrate how e-business had changed their lives. It helped them escape poverty, shake off the pain and trauma of working as migrant workers, and equipped them with the advanced Internet knowledge and skills that are admired by new migrant workers and urban blue-collar workers. Moreover, it improved their communication skills and made them more confident in self-presentation. Such economic and techno-cultural capital improved their self-esteem and self-respect, two crucial components of leading a happy life. Last, but not least, the e-traders highlighted the way e-business helped them gain autonomy from the state, thus establishing their dignity in Chinese society.

Underlying the improvements in their material, cultural, and, to some extent, political life are various neoliberal ideas, practices, and mechanisms. They believe that to do well in e-business, one should possess basic entrepreneurial qualities such as self-reliance, self-motivation, and a strong work ethic. To succeed, one needs to be more calculating, more flexible to market demands, more willing to take risks, more confident about branding oneself, and, above all, more enterprising. All these entrepreneurial qualities are perceived as characteristics of neoliberal subjects (Rose 1996; Gershon 2018). Nevertheless, given that their rural origin, class background, and education level grant migrant e-traders little access to the public sector, what undergirds their entrepreneurial qualities or even success is the e-commerce market established and sustained by the private sector. Because the Chinese state mainly relies on e-platform giants for market management and does not impose strict regulations on small- and medium-sized e-business—an approach resembling the neoliberal state strategy of ‘governing at a distance’ (Rose 1996)—many migrant e-traders gain a sense of autonomy with limited state intervention.

Drawing from these traders’ entrepreneurial experiences, this study attempts to expound upon the aforementioned revisionist literature by showing how, in certain circumstances, the adoption of neoliberal mechanisms and ethos may contribute to the betterment of individual wellbeing, including one's acquisition of material benefits, techno-cultural capital, and a certain degree of political independence, which ultimately helps some formerly lower-class people assert their status and dignity in society. These happy-ending stories, as an effort of anthropological ‘respair’ (Gibson 2019), deserve special attention from scholars of dark anthropology, other social scientists of neoliberalism, and the public trapped in dark times. It also contributes to the anthropology of the good (life) by bringing neoliberalism back in and materialising it in people's everyday lives. It is by observing the latter that we can explore how its complexity and fluidity may open new opportunities for individuals to exercise their agency and achieve life goals.

I shall note that what this study proposes is distinct from neoliberal thinkers like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. It does not advocate for neoliberal ideologies, nor does it support the universal applications of neoliberal logic and mechanisms. Its purpose is to reveal how neoliberalism is perceived and experienced locally, and to suggest that some neoliberal elements may benefit ordinary people in specific contexts. In doing so, it aims to demystify neoliberalism by bringing it into a quotidian setting and offering a third-party perspective that transcends the antagonistic views of the left and the right. Moreover, a ground-level ethnographic recording of the quotidian performances of neoliberalism with positive outcomes is a worthwhile project in itself, given that previous scholarship often suggests that neoliberalism is more likely to generate precarity than wellbeing and that ordinary people's search for a good life under neoliberalism is just an action of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant 2011; see also Allison 2013; Standing 2016). Again, while recognising the harmfulness of neoliberal precarity (Hann & Parry 2018), this study contends that ordinary people may appropriate neoliberalism to advance their lives. This practice diverges from the dichotomous responses (accommodation or resistance) to neoliberalism that scholars have noted (Enriquez 2022), and constitutes a more constructive exercise of neoliberal subjectivity.

‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’ in China with Spatial and Industrial Specificities

Numerous scholars have argued that China's post-socialist transition follows a neoliberal path. Like their counterparts in other parts of the world (Ganti 2014), studies of Chinese neoliberalism fall into three strands: one concerns political economy, another focuses on the mode of governance, and the third intersects the first two. In terms of political economy, Chinese state policies—such as rural decollectivisation, marketisation of labour, privatisation of the state sector, and deepening of trade liberalisation—are all taken as evidence of the country's neoliberal turn (e.g. Harvey 2005; Li 2020). For the mode of governance, Chinese individuals’ articulation of responsible and enterprising selves, expression of desires, and capacity for making autonomous choices are regarded as indicators of their emerging neoliberal subjectivity (e.g. Hoffman 2010; Rofel 2007; Zhang 2017). Aihwa Ong and Li Zhang (2008) integrate these two strands by examining both the process of economic neoliberalisation and the formation of Chinese neoliberal subjectivity.

However, this neoliberal thesis does not go unchallenged. Some scholars reject this view because the Communist party still exercises controls over the Chinese economy, and the current mode of governance in Chinese society inherits many legacies from its ancient traditions and socialist past (Kipnis 2008; Nonini 2008). Others propose parallel development models to interpret the country's post-reform transformation, such as state developmentalism (Beeson 2017) and state capitalism (Naughton & Tsai 2015). In light of the complexities of Chinese political economy and governmental practices, I do not suggest that China has been completely neoliberalised but contend that there is ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner & Theodore 2002) in some specific localities and industries where neoliberal measures are contextually embedded while interwoven with other non-neoliberal measures.

Ong and Zhang (2008, 4–5) have noted the spatial diversities of neoliberal assemblages and suggested the need to distinguish neoliberalism on the national and local scales. Taking the existing neoliberal examples in China and Southeast Asia as a point of departure, Ong (2006) proposes that there are multiple forms of neoliberalism that can be utilised by different regimes in different ways to compete in the global economy. Within China, there are also significant differences in the adoption of neoliberal socioeconomic measures and in the cultivation of neoliberal mentalities in different localities. In general, coastal provinces appear to be more neoliberal because their local economies are more privatised and because market mechanisms have greater impacts on the everyday dispositions of individual citizens. That also explains why ethnographies on Chinese neoliberalism are often based on fieldwork conducted in coastal metropolises (e.g. Hoffman 2010; Rofel 2007), although Emily Yeh (2022) finds a similar neoliberal ethos in entrepreneurs living in Tibet, Sichuan, and Qinghai.

Yiwu is one of the localities embracing actually existing neoliberalism in China. Located in the centre of Zhejiang Province (known as the cradle of China's private business), the city was among the first places to embrace market mechanisms since the reform. Central planning mechanisms dominated the local economy during the Maoist years, but underground marketplaces had already emerged as early as 1974. In 1982, the local government formally legitimised trade and then endorsed the establishment of the first physical marketplace two years later. Yiwu's private sector has developed most of the local economy over the past four decades, with the local government playing a facilitating role. Today, the city is renowned for having the largest wholesale marketplace in China, with extensive global business networks (Li, Wang, & Cheong 2016). Owing to the advantages brought by the marketplace, Yiwu has also developed into a major e-commerce hub over the past two decades. In 2019, the city had more than 200,000 people working in various private e-business across Taobao, Tmall, Pinduoduo, and other e-platforms, generating 280 billion yuan (44 billion USD) (Yiwu City Bureau of Statistics 2020).

If the local government still had a role in fostering Yiwu's wholesale industry, it was almost absent in the development of local e-commerce industry prior to the 2010s. Many informants told me that the local government neither provided them with any support in conducting e-business nor imposed regulations. Several e-traders described the attitude of local government towards e-commerce as ‘dismissive’. A widely circulated story was that Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, had reached out to local government about cooperating in 2006. The local officials refused because they thought e-commerce was nothing compared to Yiwu's wholesale marketplace, which was already China's largest at that time. This attitude also led them to overlook e-traders. It was not until 2010 that officials started to realise Alibaba was creating a business miracle online and that the local e-commerce industry was expanding to overshadow the wholesale industry, at which point the government began paying attention to the e-commerce economy. However, so far it has focused on recruiting large e-commerce enterprises and constructing e-commerce industrial parks (Qian 2021a). While the previous state of neglect and the current inattention both contribute to the lack of state support for local e-business, these dismissive actions also create a less regulatory environment in Yiwu, in which e-traders can retain their own agency in conducting e-business.

The Chinese central government's neoliberal-styled management of the e-commerce market is also important. Unlike many other industries where state-owned enterprises have an apparent presence, the Chinese e-commerce industry is fostered and predominated by private e-platform giants, such as Alibaba and Jingdong. The central government did not pay substantial attention to the new industry until the late 2000s, and only twenty years after its creation did China pass an e-commerce law in August 2018. In those two golden decades, as the e-traders named the period, the Chinese e-commerce market exemplified what some scholars called ‘laissez-faire’. E-traders did not need a license to start an e-business; they needed only an identity card for e-platform registration. Nor did they have to pay taxes. They could even fake sales volumes to attract customers and sell counterfeits for bigger profits, with little chance of being punished by the government. The absence of state regulations, as Lizhi Liu and Barry Weingast (2018) noted, was because the central government had off-loaded many of its regulatory responsibilities to private e-platform giants who were protective of their subordinated e-traders. It had also authorised the giants to create formal laws by experimenting with their e-platform rules. By governing the e-commerce market at a distance, the central government hoped to stimulate market vitality and realise continuous economic growth.³ Situated in this environment, the e-traders gradually became adept at solving problems in their business and in everyday life via market mechanisms through which they experienced, learned, and internalised a neoliberal ethos.

The following sections examine three aspects in which the actually existing neoliberalism in Yiwu's e-commerce industry has benefited migrant e-traders. First, the neoliberal e-commerce market mechanisms have helped many of them build careers and accumulate wealth. A career with monetary success is a key component in the e-traders’ vision of the good life, since earning money strengthens their sense of financial security and establishes the material foundation for their overall wellbeing. Second, knowledge of the neoliberal e-commerce market and the articulation of a neoliberal ethos have helped them cultivate techno-cultural capital. Since e-commerce is considered as a cutting-edge endeavour in China, the e-traders’ mastery of the so-called Internet thinking and related technical skills, as well as more general entrepreneurial values and practices (e.g. self-branding and communicative personality), earn them considerable social recognition. This respect from others is crucial for the e-traders’ subjective wellbeing. Lastly, the neoliberal e-commerce market has reduced e-traders’ dependence on state resources and shaped their indifference or even resistance to state intervention in the e-commerce economy, which have ultimately whetted their desires for autonomy both as market players and as citizens. Through enjoying or striving for autonomy, they have improved both their job and life satisfaction while asserting their dignity as rightful citizens. By exploring how neoliberal elements may work to improve migrant e-traders’ material, cultural, and, to some extent, political life, this article concludes by offering a more balanced assessment of neoliberalism in its everyday manifestations.

Building Careers and Wealth

Many migrant e-traders I interviewed shared similar family backgrounds, economic statuses, and education levels. They were born into poor rural families and few had received higher education. A number of them became migrant workers after finishing high school and had worked for several years in other industries before shifting to e-commerce. Some had associate degrees from colleges. After graduating, they moved to Yiwu to run e-business or work for other e-shops before starting their own. Despite slight differences in entrepreneurial paths, none of these e-traders have ever worked for government agencies or state-owned enterprises. Some informants had experiences in private companies, but none of them achieved what they considered to be a successful career e.g. reaching middle management. They all considered that switching to e-commerce had created their careers and improved their economic conditions, to varying degrees.

E-traders with lower education levels and working experiences as migrant workers tended to view their e-business as a career more fiercely, believing it had changed their lives. One example is Mr Zhang. He decided to forgo higher education in 2006 after testing poorly on the college entrance exam and, unwilling to return to his rural hometown in Anhui Province, opted to search for work elsewhere. A fellow villager was working in Yiwu, so Zhang moved there and found a job at a hardware factory. He described factory work as arduous, often logging 14 h a day and overtime on weekends. Yet, the income was inconsistent. While he could earn up to 4,000 yuan (620 USD) a month when they had more orders, it could drop to only 2,000 yuan (310 USD) during low-order seasons. As Zhang had nearly nothing left after paying for living expenses, he thought about switching jobs. But given his limited education and skills, he had little chance of finding a better-paying job.

Zhang said his fate began to change in 2008 when he met another fellow villager in Yiwu. From that person, he learned about the profits that could be made from Taobao e-business. There were no fees for starting an e-shop at that time, nor did traders have to apply for a business license. All that was required for registration was their Chinese central government-issued ID documentation. Once registered, there was no need to stock up because Yiwu's wholesale market offered greater product varieties with affordable prices. Zhang later took a handful of product photos in the marketplace and uploaded them online. After receiving his first order a few days later, he returned to the marketplace, purchased what he needed, and resold it. That one sale brought in more customers. Using the tech skills he had acquired from playing online games and the e-business management techniques he learned from a training agency, Zhang started to build up his shop. He earned nearly 400,000 yuan (62,000 USD) in 2015, enough to buy an apartment and a car for his nuclear family in Yiwu. Additionally, he was able to use savings to renovate his parents’ house in their home village, for which he was praised as a filial son by other villagers. Zhang was happy that he could improve his family members’ life conditions through his efforts, and hoped for even better prospects in the future, including raising a child capable of studying in a top university. Ultimately, e-commerce bore Zhang and his family's ‘intergenerational aspirations’ (Bulloch 2021).

Aside from personal effort, Zhang attributed his success to e-platforms and Yiwu's wholesale market. He believed that without the Taobao e-platform, it would have been difficult for a grassroots person like him to find another entrepreneurial path with such low barriers to entry. He explained,

Many migrant e-traders like me come from poor families and receive little education. We aren't aware of any options beyond labour until we find e-commerce. [I asked about jobs in government agencies or state-owned enterprises.] These jobs are out of the question. Even university graduates struggle to land one, [so] we don't stand a chance. Foreign businesses also impose high job requirements, so we’re basically left with private companies. But that's hard work too. You have to do whatever the boss wants you to do. You’re made to suffer, and the money isn't great. So, as soon as we save up enough, we want to do business. Compared to traditional industries, e-commerce has lower barriers to entry, which suits young people with limited capital.

To that end, Yiwu's wholesale market gave a boost to their entrepreneurial efforts. Zhang believed that without the market, it would have been difficult for him to find that many products with cost advantage. He might not have even considered doing e-business. It was because the wholesale market brought so many e-traders to the city that, through them, he was able to learn about the industry. Another effect of this industrial agglomeration was the growth of industries complementary to e-commerce in Yiwu, like logistics and e-commerce training, which formed a market ecosystem for nurturing aspiring entrepreneurs. Zhang elaborated,

Yiwu is one of the best places in China to do e-business. You can find anything at the wholesale market and then resell it. If there's a logistics company that you think is expensive, then you can always find a cheaper one. If you want to learn e-commerce skills, you can take classes through training agencies. If you don't have enough funding, you can get a loan from micro-finance companies. And that's not to mention renting houses, hiring people, or buying computers.

From products, logistics, skills, funding to other facilities, Zhang found he could purchase everything necessary for his e-business from the market. The integration of online and offline markets in Yiwu allowed migrant worker-turned-entrepreneurs to establish their own careers. Likewise, migrant e-traders who entered the industry directly out of college also experienced that positive impact. While they had never experienced the hardships of migrant work, these informants with slightly more advanced education also felt that e-commerce was their best option.

Miss Zhou came from a rural village in Henan. After graduating from a vocational college, she moved to Yiwu in 2010 and worked at an e-shop. Three months later, she quit and started her own e-business. Six years later, she was earning 250,000 yuan (38,900 USD) from her two Taobao e-shops. As she admitted, that figure not only exceeded her expectation but also gave her the confidence to continue pushing forward in her career and achieve financial freedom. Zhou insisted on the importance of financial freedom as a means to get rid of her patriarchal family and become a ‘footloose’ person. Growing up in a family favouring sons, Zhou said she had to beg for toys and tuition throughout her childhood, while her younger brother got everything easily. That urged her to make efforts to achieve economic independence. Since succeeding in e-business, she has travelled overseas every Lunar New Year and posts photos on her social media. Zhou explained, ‘I travel outside to avoid going home; more importantly, it is an annual show of my financial freedom to my relatives, “I am living a good life on my own, and that is none of your business”’.

Recalling her entrepreneurial motivation, Zhou mentioned how her classmates ranked vocational college graduates below university graduates (cf. Woronov 2015). They could not land good jobs and had to work in manual work sooner or later, so a number of her classmates tested to transfer into universities in the hopes that they could take the civil servant exam and work in government agencies. But that path was strewn with obstacles. Even if they tested into a university and earned an undergraduate degree, it would only be from a second-tier institution. Still they were unable to measure up to graduates from top universities. Zhou admitted that her grades were average and that she had no way to obtain entrance into a university, but she also did not want to do manual work, so she set her sights on entrepreneurship. She said,

I had opened a Taobao shop when I was a student, but that shop didn't get far with the sub-par supplies and my weak e-business skills. So I decided to come to Yiwu. In the beginning I had thought about taking training classes, but the prices were expensive, like 1,200 yuan (186 USD) for 10 classes. It was better to work for another shop and learn the skills. In doing so, I could also make some money to cover my living expenses.

Although Zhou also referred to her stints at other e-shops as ‘migrant work’, she had a clearer goal than people like Mr Zhang who worked in traditional industries: she was acquiring the skills for starting an e-business by selling her own labour in the market. During fieldwork, I found that most of those with experience working in other e-shops shared the same motive. Additionally, when these workers, who became e-traders, subsequently hired others, the turnover rate was high—four months or less. Both employers and employees knew that most workers were there to gain skills. Some workers might not go into the job with that goal but soon realised that they could make more money by starting their own business. As a result, the employment system of e-shops became another market mechanism for reproducing e-commerce labour in Yiwu in addition to training agencies, which assist rural migrants gain relevant skills at a low cost.

Cultivating Techno-Cultural Capital

Nearly all the migrant e-traders I interviewed said they had experienced contempt from urbanites owing to their rural backgrounds, economic conditions, and education levels. While a few consequently suffered from lower self-esteem, the vast majority believed that the urbanites’ attitudes stemmed from their biases. The e-traders had thus become determined to defend themselves. Yet their efforts have had limited impact, with their economic standing and technical capabilities continuing to flounder behind their urban counterparts. This section demonstrates that the prospering e-commerce economy has boosted many migrant e-traders’ economic power and elevated their techno-cultural capital, eventually winning them social recognition. That techno-cultural capital encompasses many neoliberal elements, including believing in market principles and recognising individual self-worth.

During fieldwork, I noticed that e-traders not only relied on the market to acquire resources, they also longed to master the workings of the market. Those with higher sales can easily build a reputation in local e-commerce circles because people believe that they have a deeper understanding of the market and have developed a smarter business strategy. Consequently, such e-traders are sought out by aspiring entrepreneurs in search of experience. They also receive invitations from local e-commerce associations and e-commerce training agencies to deliver talks and counsel future entrepreneurs.

One such industry leader is Mr Huang. Born in a village in Jiangxi Province, he graduated from a college in Yiwu and then worked for a Tmall e-shop (another e-platform of the Alibaba Group). He later left to start his own business selling car accessories. At one point, his shop crept into the top three rankings on Taobao for that product category, rocketing him to fame. Afterwards, he expanded into other products that sold considerably well and brought him more prestige. Although the deluge of lecture invitations kept him busy, the recognition implicit in those invitations made Huang happy. Meanwhile, he viewed that recognition as a new business opportunity and established a members-only club for e-traders with services like e-commerce training, supplier sourcing, and building relationships with e-platforms. I met Huang through a mutual friend and heard him speak on many occasions. It was during those talks that I kept sensing how he and his audience wanted to grasp and leverage market principles.

At a talk titled ‘Internet thinking: doing business in the digital age’, Huang shared his philosophy and methods for generating large sales with hundreds of attendees. He emphasised that e-traders should possess ‘Internet thinking’, a mindset corresponding with online market trends. He gave two examples of this thinking. First, owing to the online market existing as a virtual space without geographic boundaries, e-traders are selling to customers across the country. With fewer direct interactions between both sides, customers may not even click into a shop if its photos are not appealing. That makes product presentation even more paramount for getting customers to linger more in a shop and make a purchase. Huang remarked,

Doing business in the digital age means that marketing is more important than the product itself. How appealing the photos look, the amount of information in the text, how the visuals and texts match up, all these aspects affect customers’ decisions. So our success or failure is determined by our marketing strategies. If you ask me to name the hardest part of doing e-business, I would say it's having to brainstorm good marketing plans again and again.

Huang's second example of Internet thinking concerns big data analysis. Previously, offline vendors struggled to grasp the demand for their products, but the emergence of big data technologies has enabled e-traders to better understand the market. Huang stressed,

Internet thinking is actually a kind of big data mindset. Competitive entrepreneurs in this age are those who can collect and analyse data. Why has Alibaba succeeded? Because of its incredible ability to collect and analyse data. They can understand your finances through Alipay, your consumer habits through your Taobao purchase history, and your purchase intentions through your browsing history in search engines. Then they recommend to you the products you’re most likely to buy through various channels. Many e-traders fail because they lack this mindset or the ability to analyse the market through data.

Every time Huang gave talks, I would note his audience's reactions. They always concentrated on listening to his speech, with some breaking into applause at more riveting moments. When Huang started sharing how to use data software to analyse market trends, they would snap photos of the powerpoint presentation on their phones. Those sitting at the back of the venue would even rush to the front to get a picture. At one of Huang's talks in August 2015, I met a newcomer to the industry, Mr Chen, a rural migrant from Shanxi Province. After the event ended, he approached Huang and asked to be his mentee. Huang was receptive to the request, agreeing to let him join his staff as an unpaid member. The skills Chen gained from the subsequent two months far exceeded his expectations, not only about how to play the market game but also about how to be communicative.

Chen said that as a result of his family's socioeconomic status and his poor grades, he had always had an inferiority complex and struggled to interact with others. Because of this personality, it took him significant courage to ask Huang to mentor him. He felt like the most junior person in the room after joining Huang's team, so he generally kept quiet during meetings. Meanwhile, he was surprised that the other members could speak as easily as Huang about market trends and marketing strategies. Huang and his team seemed even more at ease when hosting factory owners and distributors who visited on business matters.

Huang noticed Chen's reticence, so he once made a point of calling on him during a meeting. With all eyes on him, Chen felt an unprecedented amount of pressure. Still, he shared his thoughts based on the lessons he had learned from the team, earning nods from others in the room. After the meeting, Huang pulled him aside and reminded him that the e-commerce industry heavily emphasised self-expression. Industry insiders were constantly using self-branding to gain exposure and thus easier access to resources. In that way, e-commerce success comes down to one's self-promotion in addition to knowing market principles and technological skills. Later, Huang asked Chen to assist him in hosting factory owners and distributors as a method of fostering his communication skills. Chen felt grateful,

I’ve always known that those with the gift of the gab are better off in society, but I also thought it would be hard to become like them. Huang gave me that opportunity. He told me that doing e-commerce was not just about selling products but also marketing oneself like a business. Knowing technological skills is not enough, we need self-branding skills to establish ourselves in the industry.

In modelling Huang, Chen subsequently sought more opportunities to broaden his knowledge of the market and learn effective business strategies while nurturing his communication skills. When I returned to Yiwu in 2019 for follow-up research, he had become a frequent speaker at local entrepreneurial events. Chen, Huang, and their colleagues’ reverence for market principles and their pursuit of compliant business strategies reveal the spread of neoliberal logic within the e-commerce industry. Their appreciation of communication skills also underscores the deep roots of a neoliberal ethos in the hearts of members of this professional group (see also Qian 2021b), while working with peers exposes them to the sort of self-improvement techniques offered in specialised training programs (Hizi 2018). E-traders can then easily convert those skills into techno-cultural capital that will win them social recognition. Exploring market strategies and cultivating various skills thus become meaningful activities in e-traders' everyday lives.

Negotiating Individual Autonomy

In the previous sections I have demonstrated that many migrant e-traders used the market to access resources for their business and everyday lives. As the central government adopted a neoliberal-styled management of the e-commerce market, the e-traders were largely able to sidestep taxes and other forms of state monitoring. This section further suggests that the neoliberal e-commerce market has not only reduced e-traders’ dependence on state resources but also fostered their indifference or even resistance towards state intervention in the economy, eventually whetting their desire for autonomy both as market players and as citizens. By struggling for and enjoying that autonomy, they have grown more satisfied with their work and life.

Mr Zhu was one of the informants who reminded me of the Chinese government's remote governance over the e-commerce market. A rural migrant from Shaanxi Province, Zhu moved to Yiwu in 2007 after finishing high school, starting his e-business in 2011. While he initially sold low-quality goods because of limited funds, and Taobao pulled his shop offline several times, no government officer had ever sought him out. Moreover, Zhu always used fraudulent transactions (shua dan) to boost his shop. Having relatives, friends, or professionals place fake orders at their shops and write positive reviews is a tactic for e-traders to increase their sales volumes and ratings, which will then help their shops move up in the e-platforms’ search results and generate more traffic (Qian 2020). Despite years of practising this illegal tactic, Zhu had never been penalised by the government. Those experiences led him to think that the state never actually involved itself with the e-commerce market.

Given the losses incurred when Taobao took down his products, Zhu started selling higher-quality products in 2013 after acquiring enough capital, but he continued using fraudulent transactions. In 2018, the E-Commerce Law took effect, laying out harsher penalties for fraudulent transactions and for selling shoddy products. Numerous e-traders, including Zhu, grew nervous for a time, but then they realised that the government's intensity in cracking down remained as minimal as before. Based on their scrutiny, they believed that the government meant to drag its feet on intervening as a way of sustaining the e-commerce market's prosperity. Zhu noted,

China's economic growth is far slower than before. National leaders often speak of e-commerce as a new engine, but it's really their last hope. They need impressive figures to maintain citizens’ confidence in the national economy, so any drastic move will be harmful to market stability.

Zhu depicted the Chinese government as a reasonable vendor whose decisions align with market logic. In considering its own political-economic interests, the government chose to turn a blind eye to the e-commerce market. We have no way to ascertain what the Chinese government was actually thinking, but Zhu's thinking illustrates how neoliberal logic has entered his and his colleagues’ heads, compelling them to project their own thoughts onto the government.

Imagining that they had a common interest with the government made these e-traders more confident and bolder with taking risks in their e-business (cf. Gogoi & Thakur 2022). For instance, they noticed that state clampdowns tended to come at specific times, such as Consumer Rights Day on March 15. In the days leading up to those periods, media reports on state crackdowns on fraudulent transactions or counterfeits increased, and they would take countermeasures accordingly. Once the crackdowns ended, they then returned their products online. Zhu explained,

We see news reports as a reminder from the government. They normally stay out of the e-commerce market and allow us to conduct our business as we want, but when it comes time for them to posture for consumers, then we lie low as soon as that news breaks. Nevertheless, it will be best if they never manage the market.

Despite his disapproval of state interference, Zhu adopted an ‘evasive cooperation’ approach towards the intermittent interventions that had already taken place, which conveyed his indifferent yet pragmatic attitude. By contrast, Ms Wang took a more drastic approach. She had moved from a village of Hunan Province to Yiwu after finishing high school. In 2011, she took a sales job at a healthcare products company. A colleague told her there was a lot of money in that industry: aside from selling products to customers, she could also recruit other salespeople and receive a cut from that person's sales performance, a method used by many to get rich quick. However, to join the company she had to pay an ‘entrance fee’, with the company in turn supplying her with an equivalent amount of healthcare products to sell.

During her first two months, Wang indeed made some money by selling products to her relatives and friends and by recruiting a handful of co-workers. Then the company abruptly shut down. The police detained Wang for several days and seized her earnings. It was during the investigation that she discovered her company had been engaging in multi-level marketing, which was illegal in China. But Wang felt deeply wronged. She and her colleagues had not stolen anything, how could they have broken the law? She had also lost all her earnings and received a criminal record. When she resumed her job search after release, employers would reject her as soon as they noted her criminal record. She ultimately decided to open an e-shop, not only because it was commercially viable but also because it was difficult for her to find another position.

After entering the e-commerce industry, Wang came to believe that one of its greatest advantages was minimal government interference. She said,

I’m fed up with the government. Those officials are always micromanaging. The healthcare products company sold good-quality goods that customers were willing to buy, but they said it was illegal and shut it down. The e-commerce industry is corrupt too. Fraudulent transactions and counterfeits are everywhere, but the government leaves it alone. Well, that's actually good for me. I have no desire to deal with them.

Because of her past experience, Wang looked negatively upon state intervention in market activities. After moving into e-commerce, she only grew more staunch in her opposition to government involvement in this industry. In 2016, Wang had made a name for herself and had begun receiving invitations from local e-commerce associations to speak at startup forums. In one event, she discovered that it was jointly hosted by an association and a neighbourhood committee, and an official made the welcoming address. She subsequently declined all their invitations. She was also chosen by those two groups as a model entrepreneur but declined the nomination. Wang explained,

I want nothing to do with government officials. The association said that as a model entrepreneur, I could receive government support, but I don't want that. Taking advantage of others always comes at a cost. I know some model entrepreneurs who have to host officials from all over the country year-round. It's not just paying out of pocket; they don't even have time to manage their shops anymore, so their business takes a dive. Also, becoming a model means that the government knows everything about their business. Is that inviting disaster upon yourself? I have no desire to be supervised by someone else. I can make a living for myself just through the market—and a good living at that, too.

Undoubtedly, Wang's resistance to government involvement underscored her search for autonomy as an entrepreneur and as a citizen. She believed it safeguarded her personal dignity in the face of state power and represented an important part of her good life.

Conclusion

Neoliberalism has been widely criticised in anthropological literature for being harsh, violent, and punitive, and people under neoliberal regimes are often enveloped by depression and hopelessness. While acknowledging its negative impacts, this study argues that neoliberal mechanisms and ethos may work to benefit ordinary people in certain circumstances. Drawing from a group of Chinese rural migrant e-traders’ entrepreneurial experiences, this study finds that they have acquired material benefits, techno-cultural capital, and a certain degree of political independence by taking advantage of the growing neoliberal e-commerce market and by practising a neoliberal ethos. The acquired resources enable these people, formerly considered lower-class, to assert their status and dignity in Chinese society and ultimately help them achieve a good life. In exploring how neoliberal elements may work to improve ordinary people's life conditions, this study offers a more balanced assessment of neoliberalism in its everyday manifestations.

Furthermore, by appropriating diverse neoliberal elements to serve their interests, migrant e-traders in this study form a ‘reciprocal’ relationship with the neoliberal complex. Instead of becoming unconscious, passive masses susceptible to the deception and manipulation of neoliberal power, or progressive activists resistant to its hegemony, these e-traders are selective in choosing the discourses and techniques of neoliberalism to empower themselves in pursuit of personal life goals and happiness. Besides the shared objectives of building careers and wealth, they may use the material gains to improve their family wellbeing or alleviate familial pressures, with these improvements contributing to my informants' self-realisation. They also utilise their accumulated techno-cultural capital and (imagined) political independence, which is grounded in neoliberal beliefs (e.g. market supremacy), to refashion themselves into self-enterprising and risk-taking subjects. It is this subjectivisation and its positive outcomes that generate the e-traders’ strong sense of self-worth and self-fulfilment. In turn, these market players’ constructive exercises of neoliberal subjectivity constantly reinforce the actually existing neoliberalism in the Yiwu market, giving rise to a prospering private e-commerce economy. By navigating the dynamic process in which Chinese e-traders embody neoliberal thoughts constructively in relation to the expanding neoliberal market, this study sheds new light on individual agency in dark anthropology.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Luigi Tomba, Jonathan Unger, Sally Sargeson, Lisa Hoffman, Katherine Tse, Zhu Yayun, and two anonymous journal reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also thank the TAPJA Editorial Office for editorial assistance.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talent Program of Jiangsu Province (PRC) and Zhishan Scholar Program at Southeast University of China.

Notes

1 Since the 2000s, some anthropologists have also started to describe China's post-socialist transition as neoliberal—their research echoing the mainstream anthropological critique of neoliberalism as exploitative and repressive (Yan 2003; Anagnost 2004).

2 To conduct this research, I lived in two urban villages in Yiwu that comprised a large number of e-traders, and found my informants via neighbourhood relationships as well as in local start-up forums. Among the 106 e-traders interviewed, 70 were men and 36 were women, 95 were in their 20s and 30s, 88 were migrants from other parts of China, and 18 were Yiwu local residents.

3 The Chinese government launched an anti-monopoly campaign against Alibaba and other Internet giants in November 2020 after Jack Ma criticised the regulators for being too regulative. The campaign changed the state's management of the e-commerce market. However, in late 2022, Chinese authorities signalled resuming support for the Internet giants after the Central Economic Work Conference and Zhejiang provincial party secretary's visit to Alibaba (Feng 2022). Given the complexities of policy changes and the unclear future of Chinese e-platforms, this study restricts its discussion to the situation prior to the 2020 campaign.