Individualism in Chinese Legislation and its Role in Social Transition – A Durkheimian Approach

"Individualism" is used in this paper to denote "individualized wants and needs and of beliefs, sentiments and ideas" associated with "personality". Durkheim identified the fact that when societies become more advanced, there is less individual resemblance, shown by the historical biological evidence that the more differences in individual cranial capacity, the more advanced civilization there is. Individual personalities are then formed and become conscious of themselves. This paper applies Durkheim‘s theory of individualism in Chinese society and tries to examine how individualism is growing in Chinese laws from 1978. This paper examines the major changes of Chinese laws in the aspect of individualism for the past few years and applies Durkheim‘s theory of social solidarity to understand those changes. It also tries to refine Durkheim‘s original theory of individualism by investigating into the different roles of individualism in social transition of the PRC from 1978. This paper discusses the evidence of growing individualism in China laws since 1978, the influence of the rise of individualism on the changes of collective consciousness during social transition in China as well as the role of individualism in social transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. On the one hand, this paper is expected to be illuminating for understanding Durkheim‘s theory of social transition, social solidarity, individualism, collective consciousness and anomie etc. from the findings of Chinese society. On the other hand, it also helps to examine the increase of individualism and the role of individualism in Chinese society for the past few years.