This is probably an unpopular view even here, but I don't see any reason to believe that liberalization and "market reforms" have accelerated China's economic growth. First, I should mention that this doesn't mean that moving away from Maoism didn't help growth in any way. In fact, there are certain cases in which growth was promoted by various interventions, which have been better designed and implemented more successfully than similar Maoist interventions. However, this is the working of the state, not markets. Chris Bramall's book "Sources of Chinese Economic Growth," particularly the third section, is the best source I've seen detailing growth promoting interventions in the Dengist era. However (despite the fact that I gather Bramall is a Marxist himself from his books and personal communications with me) all this stuff about China's interventions is basically written from the same perspective as an Alice amsden or Robert Wade. The issues raised in Burkett and Landsberg's criticisms of Asian industrial policy get little mention. I suppose I'll get back on topic now.....
Also, the "Agricultural miracle" of the late 70s and early 80s probably had alot of positive consequences throughout the Chinese economy. Most people would attribute this "miracle" to decollectivization, but the basis for doing so is questionable. Decollectivization happened earlier in some provinces than others, and the "miracle" was just as strong in places that hadn't decollectivized as those that had. Further, there was also great agricultural performance in the late 70s before any decollectivization. It was less spectacular than in the early 1980s, however, this may be attributed to the unfavorable weather in the former period. Bramall again refutes the specious pro-liberalization claims about decollectivization in "Chinese Land Reform in Long-Run Perspective and in the Wider East Asian Context" Journal of Agrarian Change (2004 v.4 iss. 1-2). The most convincing reason for why this agricultural "miracle" happened was because of late Maoist projects in agricultural technology and infrastructure that had recently been completed. Bramall's book does a good job of detailing these projects, but it also includes a questionable argument that the surplus labor created by the agricultural growth did not really contribute to industrial progress. And not only was the size of the army reduced, but industrial production was less defense oriented. And I'm not simply saying they produced less military hardware, but in the Maoist era industry was geographically organized to make it less vulnerable to military attack. the Third Front Program made industry in the interior widely dispersed to make it less vulnerable to bombing attacks. This was probably effective (by which I mean it would have been had any attacks happened) but reduced economic "efficiency." The Maoist system was far from perfect, but why change it by going rightward rather than leftward? While in most of China what really happened during the Cultural Revolution does approximate (to a limited extent) the popular western view, and the official CCP view, of what happened. However, there were some communities, mostly poor and rural, in which the people were able to gain power and run the communities democratically. From what I've read, it almost seems similar to the "participatory economics" of Albert and Hahnel. Dongping Han's "The Unknown Cultural Revolution" is a great study of a county of about a million people in which this happened, and the county seemed to do VERY well in terms of economic and human development under this system. > > Market reforms have indeed accelerated economic growth, but there are two > other factors that Cheng mentioned (and that I have never considered > before) that have complemented the unleashing of market competition. One > is > a reduction in population to the tune of 300 million. The other is a > reduction in the size of the army, a result of a lessening of cold war > tensions. >
