A New World is Possible: The Modernization of China

Acknowledgements
Praise for A New World is Possible
Contents
1 A New World is Possible: Preface to the English Edition
1.1 China in the Eyes of an Ordinary Chinese
1.2 To Understand China, One Must Understand Chinese History
1.3 What is the China Modernization Model?
1.4 New Economics
1.5 Reconceptualizing Marxism and Socialism
1.6 To Third World Readers
1.7 A New Era in China
2 China’s Early Choice of Modernization Path
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Why Was China Previously Unable to Modernize?
2.2.1 Constraints of a Smallholder Economy
2.2.2 Constraints of the World System
2.2.3 Constraints of State Power
2.3 The Goals and Constraints of Modernization in the People’s Republic
2.3.1 The Three Major Goals for Economic Development of the People’s Republic
2.3.2 China’s Comparative Advantages
2.4 The April Crisis: A Clash Between Old Institutions and New Goals
2.4.1 The April Crisis
2.4.2 Supply-Side: Land Reforms
2.4.3 Supply-Side Reforms: Readjusting Industry and Commerce
2.5 The New Logic Underlying New Institutions
2.5.1 Prioritizing the Development of Heavy Industry
2.5.2 The Planned Economy
2.5.3 State Monopoly of the Purchase and Marketing of Agricultural Products
2.5.4 Agricultural Cooperativization
2.5.5 The “Coupon Economy”: Rationing of Basic Necessities
2.5.6 National Mobilization for Technological Progress
2.5.7 Prudent Fiscal and Monetary Policies
2.6 A Historical Mistake or a Historical Necessity?
3 Seeking a Chinese Path (1956–1976)
3.1 Introduction
3.2 A Decentralized Planned Economy
3.2.1 Mao Zedong Was the First to Propose Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Soviet Model
3.2.2 The First Decentralization and the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961)
3.2.3 The Second Decentralization (1970s)
3.2.4 “On-The-Spot” Rural Industrialization
3.2.5 The Impact of Decentralization on Marketization Reforms
3.3 Economic Democracy and “Restricting Bourgeois Rights”
3.3.1 “Management of the Superstructure by Labor”
3.3.2 The Angang Constitution
3.4 Rural Collectivization
3.4.1 Why Did China Implement Rural Collectivization?
3.4.2 The First Controversy (1951): Should Cooperatives Be Established?
3.4.3 The Second Controversy (Early 1960s): People’s Communes or the Household Responsibility System?
3.4.4 Would It Have Been Better if the Household Responsibility System Had Been Enacted Earlier?
3.4.5 The Achievements of the People’s Commune System
3.4.6 Is Collective Agriculture a Practice of Low Efficacy and Egalitarianism?
3.4.7 The Limitations of People’s Communes
3.5 A Silent Revolution of Basic Education
3.5.1 A Dilemma: Elitist Education or Mass Education
3.5.2 The “Education Revolution”
3.6 The Healthcare Miracle
3.6.1 The Four Principles of Healthcare
3.6.2 Patriotic Public Health Campaigns
3.6.3 Public Health Insurance and Service in Urban Areas
3.6.4 Healthcare Revolution on the Countryside
3.6.5 Women’s Liberation and Demographic Dividends
3.6.6 How Was the People’s Republic Able to Achieve a Miraculous Rise in Human Capital?
3.7 A New China and a New World
3.7.1 Why Did China not Open up to the World Immediately After Its Founding?
3.7.2 The Start of Independent Industrialization
3.7.3 Orienting Towards the Two Intermediate Zones
3.7.4 The Third Front: Expansion to the Western Regions
3.7.5 The Establishment of Sino-US Relations
3.7.6 The Rise of China: Upholding Justice While Pursuing Shared Interests
4 Legacy of the Mao Era and China’s Modernization
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Accomplishments in the Mao Era
4.2.1 Rapid Economic Growth
4.2.2 China’s Industrial Revolution
4.2.3 A New Countryside and Modern Farmers
4.2.4 Access to Healthcare and Education
4.2.5 The Global Significance of China’s Development
4.3 How China Transcended Traps
4.3.1 A Social Revolution: Transcending the Poverty Trap
4.3.2 Effective Organization: Transcending Government Failures
4.3.3 Developing a New Culture: Transcending the Trap of Reactionary Culture
4.3.4 Independence and Autonomy: Transcending the Globalization Trap
4.3.5 Promoting Human Development: Transcending the Demographic Trap
4.4 Some Debates About the Mao Era
4.4.1 Did This Violate the Law of Comparative Advantages?
4.4.2 The Costs of High Savings
4.4.3 Political Movements and Economic Development
4.4.4 Was This an Example of “Leftist Infantilism”?
4.5 How Did China Ensure Basic Living Standards for Its People?
4.6 The Legacy of the Mao Era and the “Dividends of Reform”
4.6.1 The Dividends of Industrial Development
4.6.2 The Dividends of Human Capital
4.6.3 The Dividends of Foreign Diplomacy
4.6.4 The Social and Political Foundations for Marketization
5 Dialectics of the Market Economy
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis in the Market Economy
5.2.1 First Cycle: The Industrial Revolution (Eighteenth Century to Late Nineteenth Century)
5.2.2 Second Cycle: Globalization and the Great Depression (Late Nineteenth Century to the 1970s)
5.2.3 Third Cycle: From Neoliberalism to the Global Crisis (the 1980s Onwards)
5.2.4 Summary: Marketization Is a Process
5.3 The Market Economy in China
5.3.1 The First Stage—Old China: A Bad Market Economy
5.3.2 The Second Stage—The Mao Era: Remedying Market Failures
5.3.3 The Third Stage—Market Expansion During Early Reforms
5.3.4 The Fourth Stage: Cooperation Between “Both Hands”
5.4 The Countryside: Dialectics of Centralization and Decentralization
5.4.1 Reforms Cannot Stop at De-collectivization
5.4.2 Comprehensive Rural Reforms
5.4.3 Rebuilding Rural Collective Organizations
5.5 SOEs and the Market
5.5.1 SOEs Were a Key Force in Launching China’s Modernization
5.5.2 The 1990s: SOE Losses Were not Entirely an “Institutional Problem”
5.5.3 The Three-Year Campaign to Reform SOEs
5.5.4 The Achievements of SOE Reforms
5.5.5 Strengthening Institutional Confidence in SOEs
5.5.6 Clarifying Misconceptions and Misrepresentations of SOEs
5.6 The “Great Transformation” of the Public Sector
5.6.1 Reducing Fiscal Allocations and Encouraging Competition
5.6.2 Rebuilding the Public Services System
5.6.3 From Efficiency First to Ensuring Fairness
5.7 China’s Socialist Market Economy
5.7.1 China’s Economic Miracle Lies in the Integration of Socialist Institutions and the Market Economy
6 Chinese Democracy
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Democracy Solves Problems
6.2.1 Problem-Driven Reforms
6.2.2 New Mindsets and Philosophies
6.3 Top-Level Design and Consultative Democracy
6.3.1 Local Experiments: Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones
6.3.2 From the People, to the People
6.3.3 Participation by Think Tanks in Independent Research
6.4 Interaction Between Democracy and Centralism
6.4.1 Breakthroughs by Anhui Province in Primary Healthcare
6.4.2 Breakthroughs in Reforms of Public Hospitals in Sanming, Fujian
6.5 People-Oriented Reforms
7 Chinese New Model of Modernization
7.1 Introduction
7.2 A Few Misconceptions of the China Model
7.2.1 Is the China Model an “American Knock-Off”?
7.2.2 Does the Success of the China Model Lie in “Progressive Reforms”?
7.2.3 Is “a Strong State and Large SOEs” a Shortcoming of the China Model?
7.2.4 Is the China Model a “Low-Welfare Model”?
7.2.5 Is the China Model “Bureaucratic Capitalism”?
7.2.6 Does Praising the China Model Equate to Resisting and “Backtracking” Reforms?
7.3 The First Pillar: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism
7.3.1 Taking a New Path of Our Own
7.3.2 Constantly Transcending one’s Own Experiences
7.3.3 Turning Philosophy into a Weapon of the People
7.4 The Second Pillar: Placing Markets and Capital in the Service of the People
7.4.1 Integration of Public Ownership and the Market Economy
7.4.2 The Private Sector Under Socialism
7.4.3 A Government that Can Steer the Market Economy
7.5 The Third Pillar: People-Centered Approaches
7.5.1 Social Revolution Before Economic Modernization
7.5.2 Growth Through Common Prosperity
7.5.3 Prioritizing the Development of Education and Health
7.6 The Fourth Pillar: A Global Community of Shared Future
7.6.1 Independence and Autonomy: Attending to Virtue in Solitude When Poor
7.6.2 Upholding the Greater Good in the Pursuit of Shared Interests: Contributing to the Wellbeing of All When Successful
7.7 The Fifth Pillar: Party Leadership and the Mass Line
7.7.1 The Communist Party as Vanguard
7.7.2 An Organized Populace
7.7.3 The Mass Line and Consultative Democracy
7.7.4 Local Competition Under Centralization
8 Understanding Marxism in China
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Humanity is Still Living Under the Laws Revealed by Marx
8.2.1 Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall: Capitalism’s Achilles Heel
8.2.2 The Historical Cycle of Capitalism
8.2.3 Has Capitalism Saved Itself?
8.3 The Middle-Income Trap is a Capitalist Trap
8.3.1 The Trap of Capitalist Globalization
8.3.2 Efforts by Periphery Countries to Break Out of the World System
8.3.3 Only Socialism Can Free Countries from Dependency and Crisis
8.4 Reversing the Relationship Between People and Capital
8.5 From the Civil War in France to the Modernization of State Governance
8.6 “Eliminating Bourgeois Rights” and Common Prosperity
8.7 Why China Was Able to Leap Over the “Caudine Forks”
8.7.1 The “Outpacing Theory” and “Remedial Lesson Theory”
8.7.2 The Four Drafts of Marx’s Reply
8.7.3 What Blocks the Caudine Forks?
8.7.4 Why is China Able to Leap Over the Caudine Forks?
9 A Macro-historical View of the Global Crisis
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Root of Western Decline: Expansion of Capital
9.2.1 The Source of the Crisis: Over-Expansion of the Forces of Capital
9.2.2 The World is Still Unequipped to Exit the Crisis
9.3 The Dilemma of Mainstream Western Economics
9.3.1 Keynesianism: Focusing on Economic Aggregates but not Distribution
9.3.2 Neoliberalism: Exacerbating Rather Than Alleviating Crises
9.4 Review of China’s Economic Growth
9.4.1 The Three Main Drivers of Growth in the Early Stages of Reform and Opening Up
9.4.2 The Four Drivers of Growth in the Early Twenty-First Century
9.5 A Re-examination of Neoliberalism
9.5.1 Misconception I: Blind Faith in Marketization
9.5.2 Misconception II: Blind Faith in Privatization
9.5.3 Misconception III: Blind Faith in “Small Government”
10 China’s New Era (2012–)
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Historical Logic of the New Era
10.2.1 The Logic of China’s Social Development
10.2.2 The Logic of Marxism and Socialist Movements
10.2.3 The Logic Behind the Modernization
10.3 People-Centered Development
10.3.1 From “Capital-Centered” to “People-Centered”
10.3.2 Revisiting the Purposes of Socialist Production
10.3.3 A New Development Paradigm: Concretization of the Purposes of Socialist Production
10.4 High Quality Development
10.4.1 Strengthening Basic Industries
10.4.2 Innovation-Driven Development
10.4.3 Forging a New Working Class
10.5 Set “Traffic Lights” for Capital
10.5.1 What is Disorderly Expansion of Capital
10.5.2 The Harm of Disorderly Expansion of Capital
10.5.3 Control the Capital in Socialist Scheme
10.6 Enhance Common Persperity
10.6.1 Socialism Can Prevent “Welfare Dependency”
10.6.2 Social Welfare and Economic Growth
10.7 Modernization of National Governance
10.7.1 Stronger Centralization
10.7.2 Rebuilding Local Dynamism
10.7.3 Institutionalizing the Mass Line
10.7.4 New Forms of Rural Collectivization
10.8 E-Socialism
10.8.1 Market Economy + Internet
10.8.2 Consultative Democracy + Internet
10.9 Building a just New World
10.10 Socialism as a New Civilization
10.10.1 New Civilization
10.10.2 Humanity Refocuses on Socialism
10.10.3 The Consistencies Between National Rejuvenation and Socialist Development
10.10.4 Socialism 3.0