The State And Capitalism In China

How China Became Capitalist details the extraordinary, and often unanticipated, journey that China has taken over the past thirty five years in transforming itself from a closed agrarian socialist economy to an indomitable economic force in the international arena. The authors revitalise the debate around the rise of the Chinese economy through the use of primary sources, persuasively arguing that the reforms implemented by the Chinese leaders did not represent a concerted attempt to create a capitalist economy, and that it was 'marginal revolutions' that introduced the market and entrepreneurship back to China. Lessons from the West were guided by the traditional Chinese principle of 'seeking truth from facts'. By turning to capitalism, China re-embraced her own cultural roots. How China Became Capitalist challenges received wisdom about the future of the Chinese economy, warning that while China has enormous potential for further growth, the future is clouded by the government's monopoly of ideas and power. Coase and Wang argue that the development of a market for ideas which has a long and revered tradition in China would be integral in bringing about the Chinese dream of social harmony.

China's contemporary political economy features an emboldened role for the state as owner and regulator, and with markets expected to act in the service of party-state goals. How has the relationship between the state and different types of firms evolved? This Element situates China's reform-era political economy in comparative analytic perspective with attention to adaptations of its model over time. Just as other types of economies have generated internal dynamics and external reactions that undermine initial arrangements, so too has China's political economy. While China's state has always played a core role in development, over time prioritization of growth has shifted to a variant of state capitalism best described as, “party-state capitalism,” which emphasizes risk management and leadership by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Rather than reflecting long-held intentions of the CCP, the transition to party-state capitalism emerged from reactions to perceived threats and problems, some domestic and some external. These adaptations are refracted in the contemporary crises of global capitalism.This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

This volume explores how Chinese institutions have adapted to the new challenges of 'state capitalism'.

This book comprises a collection of well-researched essays on selected contemporary economic and finance issues in China, making a timely contribution to the intellectual intercourse regarding the implications of China’s rise. These essays analyze issues related to the state of China’s ecology, real estate market, inbound and outbound FDI, income inequality, etc., and offer analysis on the policy and institutional causes of those issues. Readers will be able to infer their implications for business opportunities in China and the tradeoff / tension between economic growth and social welfare. Moreover, this book introduces an array of data and data sources useful to scholars and practitioners interested in studying the Chinese model of economic growth. This book will be a valuable resource to journalists and scholars trying to gain insight into China’s extraordinary pace of growth in the past three decades.

Presents a story of two Chinas – an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China. In the 1980s, rural China gained the upper hand. In the 1990s, urban China triumphed. In the 1990s, the Chinese state reversed many of its rural experiments, with long-lasting damage to the economy and society. A weak financial sector, income disparity, rising illiteracy, productivity slowdowns, and reduced personal income growth are the product of the capitalism with Chinese characteristics of the 1990s and beyond. While GDP grew quickly in both decades, the welfare implications of growth differed substantially. The book uses the emerging Indian miracle to debunk the widespread notion that democracy is automatically anti-growth. As the country marked its 30th anniversary of reforms in 2008, China faces some of its toughest economic challenges and substantial vulnerabilities that require fundamental institutional reforms.

"China's contemporary political economy features an emboldened role for the state as owner and regulator, and with markets expected to act in the service of party-state goals. How has the relationship between the state and different types of firms evolved? This Element situates China's reform-era political economy in comparative analytic perspective with attention to adaptations of its model over time. Just as other types of economies have generated internal dynamics and external reactions that undermine initial arrangements, so too has China's political economy. While China's state has always played a core role in development, over time prioritization of growth has shifted to a variant of state capitalism best described as, "party-state capitalism," which emphasizes risk management and leadership by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Rather than reflecting long-held intentions of the CCP, the transition to party-state capitalism emerged from reactions to perceived threats and problems, some domestic and some external. These adaptations are refracted in the contemporary crises of global capitalism"--

Hou proposes to end the dichotomous view of the state and the market, and capitalism and communism, by examining the local institutional innovation in three villages in China and presents community capitalism as an alternative to the neoliberal model of development. Community is both the unit of redistribution and the entity that mobilizes resources to compete in the market; collectivism creates the boundary that sets the community apart from the outside and justifies and sustains the model. Community capitalism differs from Mao-era collectivism, when individual interests were buried in the name of collective interests and market competition was not a concern. This book demonstrates the embeddedness of the market in community, showing how social relations, group solidarity, power, honor, and other values play an important role in these villages' social and economic organization.

The end of the Cold War ushered in an age of American triumphalism best characterized by the "Washington Consensus:" the idea that free markets, democratic institutions, limitations on government involvement in the economy, and the rule of law were the foundations of prosperity and stability. The last fifteen years, starting with the Asian financial crisis, have seen the gradual erosion of that consensus. Many commentators have pointed to the emergence of a powerful new rival model: state capitalism. In state capitalist regimes, the government typically owns firms in strategic industries. Not beholden to private-sector shareholders, such firms are allowed to operate with razor-thin margins if the state deems them strategically important. China, soon to be the world's largest economy, is the best known state capitalist regime, but it is hardly the only one. In State Capitalism, Joshua Kurlantzick ranges across the world--China, Thailand, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and more--and argues that the increase in state capitalism across the globe has, on balance, contributed to a decline in democracy. He isolates some of the reasons for state capitalism's resurgence: the fact that globalization favors economies of scale in the most critical industries, and the widespread rejection of the Washington Consensus in the face of the problems that have plagued the world economy in recent years. That said, a number of democratic nations have embraced state capitalism, and in those regimes, state-backed firms like Brazil's Embraer have enjoyed considerable success. Kurlantzick highlights the mixed record and the evolving nature of the model, yet he is more concerned about the negative effects of state capitalism. When states control firms, whether in democratic or authoritarian regimes, the government increases its advantage over the rest of society. The combination of new technologies, the perceived failures of liberal economics and democracy in many developing nations, the rise of modern kinds of authoritarians, and the success of some of the best-known state capitalists have created an era ripe for state intervention. State Capitalism offers the sharpest analysis yet of what state capitalism's emergence means for democratic politics around the world.