Just how capitalist is China?
By: APPEL, Tiago Nasser
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ArticlePublisher: São Paulo : Editora 34, out./dez. 2014Revista de Economia Política = Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 34, 4, p. 656-669Abstract: In this paper, we review old and modern conceptions of capitalism and then we evaluate how well China fares on three touchstones of capitalism: competitive markets, generalization of wage-labour, and private ownership of the means of production. While we accept that China has come a long way under the first two criteria since the 1980s, we do not deem China yet to be a full-fledged capitalist economy for the State still wields great power through the allocation of massive state resources and control of large and highly profitable state enterprises, which dominate key sectors of the economy.
In this paper, we review old and modern conceptions of capitalism and then we evaluate how well China fares on three touchstones of capitalism: competitive markets, generalization of wage-labour, and private ownership of the means of production. While we accept that China has come a long way under the first two criteria since the 1980s, we do not deem China yet to be a full-fledged capitalist economy for the State still wields great power through the allocation of massive state resources and control of large and highly profitable state enterprises, which dominate key sectors of the economy.
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