Mao’s revolution fueled countless rectification movements and campaigns that inverted the once-inviolate primacy of ruler over ruled, scholar over worker, husband over wife, father over son, and family over individual. By the time of the reforms of the 1980’s and 1990’s, bonds tying individuals to culture, the state, the work unit, and household-registration systems, for example, had largely unraveled.
毛的革命催生了无数修正运动，逆转了从前从未受到过侵犯的统治者对被统治者、学者对工人、丈夫对妻子、父亲对儿子和家庭对个人的主导地位。到20世纪八九十年代改革之时，将个人捆绑在文化、国家、单位和户口登记制度上的束缚在很大程度上已经不复存在。摆在大量新增个人企业主和劳工面前的障碍已经扫清，摆脱了家庭和政党责任的束缚，中国民众以刚刚解放出来的个人力量横扫市场。