Malaysia: Power Shifts and the Matrix of Consumption

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the evolving patterns of consumption among the new middle class in Malaysia, which includes professionals and individuals who either manage their own businesses or are employed as trustees for ‘Bumiputra1 firms’. This group emerged in the 1970s out of a deliberate government policy to engender a class of rich Malays in order to reduce the economic ‘dominance’ of non-Malays, particularly the Chinese. It is, therefore, necessary to begin with a brief examination of the role of the Malaysian state and its policies in the formation of the new middle class.