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Is China a Capitalist or Communist Country? In this article, Sir Vince Cable describes the ways in which China is both capitalist and also communist as well as the economic challenges it faces.
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Although the mechanisms for distributing nominally public goods such as education vary widely by city, the general logic is to advantage those that the state has determined are useful in upgrading the local economy. Everyone else is left to the whims of the market. The situation for urban proletarians who work in the same place as their hukou registration is somewhat different, and certainly better from a material standpoint.
They will be able to get access to public schooling, possibly some housing subsidies, and are much more likely to have a legally-binding labor contract. Welfare benefits in China are not generous, and social spending as a share of GDP is far below the OECD average , but urban residents have a better chance of accessing them.
Deep class and regional inequities as well as fiscal problems plague the system. As a result, there is no question that even these relatively privileged groups must make themselves useful to capital in order to secure adequate health care, decent housing, or security in retirement. The dibao livelihood program is not sufficient, nor is it intended, to support reproduction at a socially acceptable level.
As with every other capitalist country, the Chinese state has its own relative autonomy, and one may quibble about which state has more autonomy. But it is apparent enough that the state has hitched its wagon to the star of capitalist value, which has effected a profound shift in governance. One particularly prominent example was the violent police suppression of the strike of 40, workers at the Taiwanese-owned Yue Yuen shoe factory—the historical irony of riot cops intervening on behalf of Taiwanese capitalists was not lost on the workers.
This capital-centric logic is abundantly apparent in shop floor politics. China has seen an explosion of worker insurgency over the past three decades, and the country is the global leader in wildcat strikes. How does the state respond when workers employ the time-honored tradition of withholding their labor from capital? While strikes inevitably each have their own unique character, the police intervene almost exclusively on behalf of the boss, a service they provide to private domestic, foreign, and state-owned enterprises alike.
There are innumerable instances in which police or state-sponsored thugs have used coercion to break a strike. But one particularly prominent example was the violent police suppression of the strike of 40, workers at the Taiwanese-owned Yue Yuen shoe factory—the historical irony of riot cops intervening on behalf of Taiwanese capitalists was not lost on the workers.
State violence has also been deployed in the policing of informal workers in urban public space. In perhaps the most spectacular and violent example, migrant workers in Zengcheng, Guangdong took to the streets en masse in when a rumor spread that a pregnant woman had miscarried after being assaulted during a chengguan operation. If we think of capital as not just an economic relationship based on exploitation, but a political relationship in which labor is subordinated, there are other important ways in which state action is consistent with the logic of capital.
Just as the PRC was embarking on its capitalist transition, Deng Xiaoping in decided to remove the right to strike from the constitution. Paired with this restriction of labor rights has been a continual ban on worker self-organization. The only legal union is the All China Federation of Trade Unions, an organization that is explicitly subordinated to the CCP and implicitly subordinated to capital within the workplace.
It is standard practice for enterprise HR managers to be appointed as the enterprise-level union chair without even a fig-leaf of democratic participation by workers. It goes without saying that workers do not see these unions as meaningfully representing their interests, and efforts to build autonomous organizations have been met with harsh repression.
The political subjugation of the proletariat extends to formal state structures as well. As with all citizens, workers have no capacity to self-organize in civil society, to form political parties, or to exercise any kind of political delegation, so they are entirely dependent on the goodwill of the CCP to represent them. Even a cursory assessment of the social constitution of the central government reveals that capital not only has good access to state power, it is fundamentally inseparable from state power.
The legislature has sought to incorporate people who made their billions in the private sector, such as Pony Ma, head of internet giant Tencent. In the 21 st century PRC, capital begets political power just as political power begets capital. There are, however, a few features of the economy that are rather different from the modal capitalist country in , and therefore deserving of somewhat more attention.
There is no doubt that Chinese state intervention in the economy is more extensive than is the case in most capitalist countries. But if we are concerned with capitalism in general, rather than its relatively novel neoliberal form, China appears not all that exceptional. State intervention oriented toward enhancing efficiency, profitability, and predictability is not antithetical to capitalism, but a necessary component. Weijian Shan was born in China and had his life upended by the Cultural Revolution.
Morgan and taught at the Wharton School. Weijian Shan understands the delicate U. He was born in China, and his life was upended during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent off to do farm labor in the Gobi Desert.
Morgan, and taught at the Wharton School. Does that create new investment opportunities? Shan: Despite initial blunders, China has handled the coronavirus pandemic well through strict lockdowns and mass testing.
Its GDP dropped 6. China has been shifting away from an investment-driven growth model to one led by private consumption. That leaves much room for growth and many opportunities for investors, particularly in businesses that cater to consumers. How accessible is it these days? Our firm, PAG, invests throughout Asia and occasionally beyond. However, there are usually lawful ways to get around that.
The name of the game in China is scale. Trade wars, nationalism, and the pandemic have led many companies to question their supply chain strategy—in particular basing manufacturing in China, thousands of miles from their markets. Are you seeing a significant shift in supply chains out of China? Some manufacturing has been relocated away from China since the trade war with the U.
The point is that a China-based supply chain has proved a blessing, not a curse, in this pandemic. American companies will do so only if U. And what if the market itself is in China?
GM sells more cars in China than in the U. Where can it move its production if the target market is China? The U. Both countries have human rights issues, although in different forms. Investors anywhere should invest in a socially responsible way to advance human rights, adhering to a high standard for labor practices, gender equality, investment in human capital, and charitable contributions.
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