Exploring Capitalist Development in Greater China: A Synthesis (original) (raw)

A New Agenda for Research on the Trajectory of Chinese Capitalism

Management and Organization Review, 2011

This article sets a new agenda for research on the trajectory of Chinese capitalism. We first critically review the conflicting views on the causes of China's economic development. Then we suggest that insights from the comparative capitalism and economic sociology literatures can provide theoretical tools to understand the critical features of Chinese capitalism in a more systematic manner. The comparative capitalism literature can help us understand how Chinese capitalism resembles or differs from other varieties of capitalism in terms of the relationships between government, firms, and workers. The literature on economic sociology provides insights about how particular markets have evolved and become stabilized. We use these perspectives to suggest a set of possible research agendas for studying Chinese capitalism.

The Uneven and Combined Emergence of “Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics”

2020

The People’s Republic of China’s (henceforth named China) development over the past decades has been nothing short of extraordinary. While undergoing constant transformation and recording the world’s second highest GDP ($) in 2017[1], the socialist past appears a distant memory. Put bluntly, since the start of economic reform in 1978, China is booming with a “unique blend of planned economy and unbridled capitalism”.[2] Meisner even contends that the self-proclaimed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has evolved to become the guardian of Chinese capitalism.[3] At a glance this may appear as a paradox, due to the apparent zero sum game between communism and capitalism that has been continuously perpetuated by the rhetoric of the Cold War.[4] Conversely, this essay will argue that the emergence of specific ‘Chinese characteristics’ within the country’s manifestation of capitalism, can be understood as an outcome of uneven and combined development (U&CD). Through applying Trotsky’s framewor...

China in Between Varieties of Capitalism and Communism

2016

This paper is challenging mainstream views about the contemporary Chinese system as a developmental state and a variety of capitalism. Based on a comparative analytical model (Csanadi, 1997, 2006) I will demonstrate that in China the general features of a communist system prevail to date, and that the „Chinese specifics” is a structural variety of those general features. I will point out why the Chinese system is neither capitalist nor post-socialist. Instead, it is a complex party-state system in the process of transformation comparable, but not identifyable - to all other party-state systems in their period of operation and transformation. Mainstream concepts of Chinese developmental state, state capitalism, socialist market economy, emerging system, hybrid system variegated capitalism, polymorphous state, centralized developmental autocracy, entrepreneurial state, instrumental development state and clientelist state may be detected embedded in and accomodated to this complex and ...

The state and domestic capitalists in China's economic transition (Critical Asian Studies, vol. 51, no. 4, 2019)

Critical Asian Studies, 2019

This article contributes to the debate on the role of the Chinese state in economic transition by shedding light on the relationship between the state and a Chinese domestic capitalist class. The formation of this new class has been a two-way movement between the state and new elites' forces. This two-way movement remains a prominent feature of the relationship between the state and the new class. This relationship has evolved with the dynamics of capital-labor conflicts and contradictions within a regime of accumulation and transitioned from a stage of "great compromise" to a stage of "strained alliance." ARTICLE HISTORY

China: What Variety of Capitalism?

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This paper analyzes China's political economy through the lens of the varieties of capitalism approach as formulated by . It presents the current state of knowledge about China in each of the five spheres of the political economy included in the varieties of capitalism model. It concludes that China in many respects resembles a liberal market economy (LME). In addition to providing an empirical basis for further discussion of the world's second-largest economy within the varieties of capitalism approach, the analysis raises questions for future research in three areas: the existence of multiple varieties of capitalism within the same national boundary; actual practice versus formal structure; and the nature and extent of social capital.

In what way is China capitalist?

[This is my Msc Dissertation, edited only to correct errors in the writing rather than any content] This paper will provide an alternative to the currently reductionist interpretations of China’s political economy, arguing that their key failure is the inability to conceptualise capitalism in a way which can think beyond the historical examples from Europe, and deal with the atypical complexity of China as a rising non-European power. To counter this we will utilise historical materialism to focus the concept of capitalism around capitalist accumulation for the production of surplus-value; forming and propagating a capitalist class who reproduce by extracting surplus-value, and wage-labour who can engage in production only when organised to do so by capitalists and to create commodities controlled by capitalist. From this we will argue that China should be seen as wholly capitalist. Though in a form articulated by the historical legacy of the Chinese state, which has been essential to ensuring the expansive population and territory of China can remain coherent. This articulation is explicitly non-European, however, its particular form has been key for capitalist accumulation in China to remain successful. Especially in its attempts to catch up with Europe. Consequently, the ability for this articulation to remain stable as an endogenous form of Chinese capitalism should be at the centre of analysing the capacity for Chinese capitalism to both develop, and remain successful.

On Tobias ten Brink’s China’s Capitalism: A Paradoxical Route to Economic Prosperity, Philadelphia PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019

Socio-economic Review, 2020

No doubt China's rise to power and the question of how the Chinese leadership has been able to successfully combine a one-party communist political system with a thriving capitalist economic system-lifting 850 million people out of poverty and becoming the world's second largest economy in just a few decades-is one of today's key questions; posing a significant puzzle to academics and policy makers, in particular in the West. Many volumes, special issues and articles have been devoted to try and define and understand the particular kind of capitalism China hence represents (Arrighi, 2007; Naughton and Tsai, 2015; Nö lke et al., 2015; McNally, 2020; De Graaff et al., 2020a), and a multifold of different conceptualizations have been put to the fore, from Sino-capitalism (McNally, 2012) to statepermeated capitalism (Nö lke et al., 2015) and state-directed capitalism (De Graaff, 2020b). Yet, the question remains how to understand and explain 'capitalism with Chinese characteristics' (Huang, 2008), and the way in which it has developed and will likely further

The state and domestic capitalists in China’s economic transition: from great compromise to strained alliance

Critical Asian Studies, 2019

This article contributes to the debate on the role of the Chinese state in economic transition by shedding light on the relationship between the state and a Chinese domestic capitalist class. The formation of this new class has been a two-way movement between the state and new elites' forces. This two-way movement remains a prominent feature of the relationship between the state and the new class. This relationship has evolved with the dynamics of capital-labor conflicts and contradictions within a regime of accumulation and transitioned from a stage of "great compromise" to a stage of "strained alliance." ARTICLE HISTORY