Freewheeling Capitalism in China

Extracted Attributes

• Contrast

  Current environment with increased government regulation in China

• Description

  A period characterized by minimal government intervention, significant private enterprise, and market-driven growth in China.

• Key Figure (Leadership)

  Jack Ma

• Example Company Flourished

  Alibaba

• Associated Economic Philosophy

  Laissez-faire

Timeline

• The founding of Alibaba, a company that flourished during China's era of freewheeling capitalism under the visionary leadership of Jack Ma, characterized by minimal government intervention. (Source: document_25b33de1-03a6-4006-8b29-546cd33eda28)

  1999-04-04

• The transition towards an environment of increased government regulation in China, contrasting with the previous era of freewheeling capitalism and creating a more intensely competitive landscape for businesses. (Source: document_25b33de1-03a6-4006-8b29-546cd33eda28)

  2020-01-01

Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire ( LESS-ay-FAIR, from French: laissez faire [lɛse fɛːʁ] , lit. 'let do') is a type of economic system in which transactions between private individuals are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations). As a system of thought, laissez-faire rests on the following axioms: "the individual is the basic unit in society, i.e., the standard of measurement in social calculus; the individual has a natural right to freedom; and the physical order of nature is a harmonious and self-regulating system." The original phrase was laissez faire, laissez passer, with the second part meaning "let (things) pass". It is generally attributed to Vincent de Gournay. Another basic principle of laissez-faire holds that markets should naturally be competitive, a rule that the early advocates of laissez-faire always emphasized. The Physiocrats were early advocates of laissez-faire and advocated for an impôt unique, a tax on land rent to replace the "monstrous and crippling network of taxation that had grown up in 17th century France". Their view was that only land should be taxed because land is not produced but a naturally existing resource, meaning a tax on it would not be taking from the labour of the taxed, unlike most other taxes. Proponents of laissez-faire argue for a near complete separation of government from the economic sector. The phrase laissez-faire is part of a larger French phrase and literally translates to "let [it/them] do", but in this context the phrase usually means to "let it be" and in expression "laid back". Although never practiced with full consistency, laissez-faire capitalism emerged in the mid-18th century and was further popularized by Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations.

Web Search Results

• Beyond the sprouts of capitalism: China's early capitalist ...

  The form of capitalism that emerged in China during the early modern period was marked by distinctive forms of power relations. Rather than evolving an antagonistic contradiction between an urban bourgeois class of merchants and manufacturers and a conservative feudal aristocracy of landowning great families, China developed a hybrid elite in that landed and commercial interests converged and functioned as the ruling class through the instrumentality of the imperial state. China’s historical [...] Early modern capitalism in China endured across many centuries, with periods of expansion and contraction, but with a persistent drive toward greater sophistication and productivity, and with the accumulation of wealth derived from the extraction of surplus value from labor power reviving after each era of destruction. This generated a wealthy stratum of merchants and investors, largely urban in residence, and distinct from the more traditional elite of landowning households that, through their [...] The point is not that China was just like Europe (or, more properly, the other way around, given the chronological sequence of developments), but that the fundamental attributes of capitalism, as explicated in Capital, were also present there, in their own historically and culturally specific forms. China’s early modern political economy, a distinctive form of early capitalism, emerged in the Song dynasty and persisted through periods of growth and contraction across the following Yuan and Ming

• Reform and opening up - Wikipedia

  the implementation of a program that Chen had outlined in the mid-1950s. Chen called this the "birdcage economy (鸟笼经济/鳥籠經濟)". According to Chen, "the cage is the plan, and it may be large or small. But within the cage the bird [the economy] is free to fly as he wishes." Chen and some other conservative leaders including Li Xiannian never visited Shenzhen, the leading special economic zone championed by Deng. [...] Premier Zhu Rongji and Premier Wen Jiabao have expressed various degree of support over this view. On the other hand, the New Left argued that capitalism had become prevalent in mainland China with worsening corruption and widening economic inequality, which were common issues in the development of western capitalism, and therefore the New Left criticizes market mechanism and calls for social justice as well as equality, defending some of Mao Zedong's policies during the Cultural Revolution. [...] The success of China's economic policies and the manner of their implementation resulted in immense changes in Chinese society in the last 40 years, including greatly decreased poverty while both average incomes and income inequality have increased, leading to a backlash led by the more ideologically pure New Left. Scholars have debated the reason for the success of the Chinese "dual-track" economy, and have compared it to attempts to reform socialism in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union;

• How China Became Capitalist | Cato Institute

  China’s embrace of both its history and globalization leads us to believe that Chinese capitalism, which just started its long journey, will be different. This is desirable not just for China, but for the West and everyone else as well. It is also desirable for the global market economy. Today, biodiversity is recognized as vital for sustaining our natural environment. Institutional diversity plays a similar role in keeping human society resilient. Capitalism will be much more robust if it’s [...] 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 [...] 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.

• Economic history of China (1949–present) - Wikipedia

  also raised a risk that China could backslide into capitalism.: 363–364 [...] Households still had to contribute to state quotas but could make their own decisions about what to plant on contracted land and could sell via a multi-tier price system that included the lowest price for payment to the state up until the quota, a higher rate for above-quota sales to the state, and market price for crops allowed to be sold at fairs.: 163 This multi-tier price system also resulted in price stabilization effects that encouraged production while protecting households from a [...] In 1982, Chen Yun described the influential metaphor of the "birdcage economy" when he stated:: 2–5

• Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from ...

  This was a model characterised, at the economic level, by the coexistence of different forms of ownership; at the level of political power, by a dictatorship exercised by the “revolutionary classes” as well as the leadership of the Communist Party of China. It is a pattern confirmed 17 years later, although in the meantime the People’s Republic of China was founded, in a speech on January 18, 1957 (“Talks at a Conference of Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal and Autonomous Regions Party [...] Mao was aware of this problem. In 1958, he responded to criticism from the Soviet Union regarding the persistence of capitalist areas in the Chinese economy by saying, “There are still capitalists in China, but the state is under the leadership of the Communist Party.”( Almost 30 years later, to be exact, in August 1985, Deng Xiaoping made a remark we should ponder: “Perhaps Lenin had a good idea when he adopted the New Economic Policy.”( Here is an indirect comparison between the Soviet NEP