China As A Capitalist State : From ''Primitive Socialist Accumulation'' To Neoliberal Capitalism

Year 2004, Issue: 35, 121 - 144, 01.05.2004

Eddie J. Girdner

https://doi.org/10.1501/Intrel_0000000090

Abstract

China As A Capitalist State : From ''Primitive Socialist Accumulation'' To Neoliberal Capitalism

Abstract

This paper will briefly explore the trajectory of Chinese development from 1948 to the present. It vvill argue that the Maoist period laid the basis for industrial development under an essentially import substitution industrialization pattern of development and essentially state-led capitalist accumulation, while liberalization and the opening to world markets, beginning vvith Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s, has culminated in the consolidation of a neoliberal pattern of capitalist accumulation today. China has undergone tvvo profound transformations since 1948. In spite of the setbacks during the "Great Leap Forvvard" and the lost development opportunities during the Cultural Revolution, the Maoist period mobilized the resources of the country for rapid development. Chinese development is part and parcel of the neoliberal capitalist development ali across the developing vvorld. China, since the Revolution in 1948, has emerged from a country engaged in primitive "socialist" accumulation under Mao to accumulation under the current global vvave of neoliberalism orchestrated by the IMF and World Bank.

Keywords

China, Capital Accumulation, Neoliberalism, China and Global Economy, Economic development in China.