From The Wall Street Journal:
China’s embrace of market forces in the past three decades has reshaped virtually every aspect of its people’s lives. Much of the impact has been positive. Hundreds of millions have escaped dollar-a-day poverty. The average Chinese citizen is wealthier, and enjoys far more economic and political freedom, than when overhauls began in 1978.
But the transformation has also wiped out much of a cradle-to-grave safety net — health care, education, pensions — that ensured basic needs were met for most of the population. It has severely damaged large parts of the country’s environment, and triggered a widening gap between rich and poor.
Indeed, while China’s government still calls its system socialist, and still plays a big role in the economy, what has developed here sometimes resembles a sort of naked capitalism, where an unfettered pursuit of profit governs almost all facets of life, and a growing share of the population is left unprotected.[Full Text]
