CATO: How China Became Capitalist
... Nonetheless, China has been transformed from the inside out over the past 35 years. This transformation is the story of our time. The struggle of China, in other words, is the struggle of the world. ...
Conclusion
Given our account of how China became capitalist, what can we say about the form of capitalism that has emerged in China? A persisting feature of China’s market transition is the lack of political liberalization. This is not to say that the Chinese political system has stood still over the past 35 years. The Party has distanced itself from radical ideology; it is no longer communist except in name. In recent years, the internet has increasingly empowered the Chinese to exercise their political voice. Nonetheless, China remains ruled by a single political party.
This continuity hides a fundamental change in China’s political reality. With the death of Deng Xiaoping, “strongman” politics was brought to a closure. Under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, China is no longer ruled by a charismatic leader. In that sense, Chinese politics today is qualitatively different from the time of Mao and Deng. But the Chinese government has not come to terms with this political change on the ground; there have been few efforts at institution-building to prepare China for the new political reality.
The combination of rapid economic liberalization and seemingly unchanged politics has led many to characterize China’s market economy as state-led, authoritarian capitalism, which many people have rightly recognized as fragile and unsustainable. When and how China will embrace democracy, and whether the Party will survive democratization, are the main questions asked about China’s political future. In our book, a different perspective is offered. It provides a different diagnosis of the main flaw of the Chinese market economy: China has developed a robust market for goods, but it still lacks a free market for ideas.
The market for ideas points to an alternative way of thinking about China’s political future. Our reasoning is mainly based on the following two considerations. First, multiparty competition does not work unless it is cultivated and disciplined by a free market for ideas, without which democracy can be easily hijacked by interest groups and undermined by the tyranny of the majority. The performance of democracy critically depends on the market for ideas, just like privatization depends on the market for capital assets. Second, multi- party competition had virtually no precedent in Chinese history. Indeed, the Chinese word for the “party” (党) has a strong negative connotation in traditional Chinese political thinking. “Forming a party and pursuing self-interest” (结党营私) has been consistently denounced as undermining the political ideal, which is “what is under heaven is for all” (天下为公). In contrast, the market for ideas has a deep and revered root in traditional Chinese thinking; “let one hundred schools of thought contend” has been respected as a political ideal since the time of Confucius. In our view, the market for ideas promises a more gradual and viable approach to rebuilding Chinese politics on the principles of tolerance, justice, and humility.
Over the past 35 years, China has embraced capitalism not just in the economy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments has more than a dozen Chinese translations; the book has won the heart and mind of premier Wen Jiabao. The message of Adam Smith resonates strongly with the Chinese, not least because of its striking affinity with the traditional Chinese thinking on economy and society. A surprising outcome of China’s transition to capitalism is that China has found a way back to its own cultural roots. ...
