China Confronts the Great Recession: ‘Rebalancing’ Neoliberalism, or Else?

Primitive Socialist Accumulation in China: An Alternative View on the Anomalies of Chinese “Capitalism”

“…Although Harvey (2007: 140) describes China as a “neoliberal state,” at the same time he agrees that China departs “glaringly from the neoliberal template, particularly in its massive infrastructure investment, however unsustainable that may or may not be. Lo (2012, 2016b) suggests that China’s investment in capital formation is not unsustainable but rather that it is the key to its continued resistance to the systemic dynamics of global capitalism. It is this productive investment and the rise in productivity that permits China to move away from labor-intensive growth and thus super-exploitation.…”

“…A special report in the Financial Times also shows that China’s household consumption has grown from 13 percent of United States levels in 2007 to 34 percent in 2017, and the gap is closing (Wolf 2018). Household consumption has made up over 70 percent of the final consumption (which consists of household consumption and government consumption) since 1978 (e.g., 78.8 percent in 1978; 73.1 percent in 2016) and has an impressive annual average real growth rate of 9.3 percent from 1978 to 2013 (Lo 2016a: 247). At the same time, China has seen an increase of gross fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP (from 30 percent in 1978 to 43 percent in 2016) (NBS 2017b).…”

“…Dic Lo (2016b) tracks the changing trajectory of Chinese political economy during the market reform years and shows that it has a dual character: submissive-cum-resistant to the systematic dynamics of global capitalism. Lo (2016a) finds that China’s economic model has been, by and large, antithetical to the neoliberal model, although it has displayed a certain neoliberal orientation since 2008 with an increasing proportion of investment in non-productive activities. The Chinese state sector has not been marginalized; its influence in the economy has been strengthened and its international competitiveness increased.…”

“…From being a drag on the economy in the 1980s, SOEs have transformed into market leaders with international competitiveness, and form a strong barrier to global capital in the twenty-first century. Although consumption as percentage of aggregate expenditure has decreased, the average annual growth rate of consumption was at 9.2 percent from 1978 to 2013 (Lo 2016a: 247). Lo (2016a) concluded that the twin targets of having sustained economic growth and compensation-enhancing employment expansion has largely been achieved thanks to the transition from labor-intensive growth to capital-deepening growth since the mid-1990s.…”

Origins of China’s Contested Relation with Neoliberalism: Economics, the World Bank, and Milton Friedman at the Dawn of Reform

“…2 China has not implemented the quintessentially neoliberal policies of the Washington Consensus and unlike Russia escaped shock therapy (Weber 2020). China has not pursued the core policies of full-fledged price, trade, and financial liberalization and privatization (see, e.g., Liew 2005;Lo 2009Lo , 2016. In fact, some go so far as to claim that China has established an alternative devel-Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA, USA This includes topics such as medical trials (Cooper 2008), the blood economy (Anagnost 2007), education (Crabb 2010), the governing of population (Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005), the production of desires (Rofel 2007), hypermasculinity (C. Y.…”