Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese Characteristics’

village enterprises (TVEs) were created out of the assets held by

the communes, and these became centres of entrepreneurialism,

flexible labour practices, and open market competition. A wholly

private sector was permitted at 

first only in small-scale production,

trade, and service activities, with limits (gradually relaxed over

time) on the employment of wage labour. Finally, foreign capital

flowed in, gathering momentum during the 1990s. Initially limited

to joint ventures and certain regions, it ultimately bore down

everywhere, though unevenly. The state-owned banking system

expanded during the 1980s and gradually substituted for the cen-

tral state in providing lines of credit to the SOEs, the TVEs, and

the private sector. These di

fferent sectors did not evolve

independently of each other. The TVEs drew their initial 

finance

from the agrarian sector and provided markets for outputs or fur-

nished intermediate inputs to the SOEs. Foreign capital integrated

into the TVEs and the SOEs as time went on, and the private

sector became much more signi

ficant both directly (in the form of

owners) and indirectly (in the form of stockholders). When the

SOEs became less pro

fitable they received cheap credit from the

banks. As the market sector gained in strength and signi

ficance, so

the whole economy moved towards a neoliberal structure.

6

Consider, then, how each distinctive sector evolved over time. In

agriculture, peasants were given the right to use communal lands

under a ‘personal responsibility’ system in the early 1980s. Ini-

tially, they could sell surpluses (over and above the commune tar-

get) at free market rather than state-controlled prices. By the end

of the 1980s the communes had been totally dissolved. Though the

peasants could not formally own the land, they could lease it and

rent it out, hire in labour, and sell their product at market prices

(the dual price system e

ffectively collapsed). As a result, rural

incomes increased at the astonishing rate of 14 per cent annually

and output similarly surged between 1978 and 1984. Thereafter,

rural incomes stagnated and even fell in real terms (particularly

after 1995) in all but a few select areas and lines of production. The

disparity between rural and urban incomes increased markedly.

Urban incomes that averaged just $80 a year in 1985 soared to over

$1,000 in 2004, while rural incomes rose from around $50 to

around $300 in the same period. Furthermore the loss of the

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