Bureaucratization and Economic Reform in Chinese Industry

Abstract

Amidst all the metamorphoses of economic reform measures adopted, especially in the agricultural and foreign trade sectors, in the post-Mao era in China, the state industrial system remains these days basically unchanged, in terms of what we know about the Stalinist legacy. It is still centrally controlled on the basis of state ownership. If anything, the degree of bureaucratization in Chinese industry is probably greater than anywhere else in the Soviet bloc. To be sure, quiet a number of new measures have been experimented with since 1979, with a view to improving efficiency in individual enterprises and overall industrial management. But generally speaking, the measures taken until recently, remain very much in the sphere of the Kosygin reform of 1965 [7]. Essentially these are reform measures aimed to improve efficiency within the Leninist principle of Khozraschyot, that is, economic accountability within the Stalinist framework of centralized planning and control. Only commencing late 1984, has there been a genuine move to gradually dismantle the Soviet-style central planning. And this should hopefully not compromise the established principle of socialist ownership. How good is the prospects for the Chinese to move towards a market-type economy, say, a la Oscar Lange?