From New Left Review:
Modern China is undergoing a relentless process of transformation, from the forests of construction cranes in its coastal cities to the gargantuan infrastructure projects in its interior. Its economic trajectory has been equally dramatic: China is now ranked 4th in the world by gdp, rising from 11th in 1990. A range of developments testify to its rapid progress along the path to a capitalist economy: the commodification of land and labour, emergence of private firms, formation of finance capital, among many others. Yet China scholars have been curiously reluctant to apply the classic Marxist idea of a transition to capitalism”and its corollary, primitive accumulation”to the Chinese case. Instead, they quite loosely use terms such as globalization, marketization, post-socialism, reform era and market socialism, seemingly unaware of how closely the transformations under way in China compare with the development of capitalism in Europe and North America”not to mention many other ‘late developers’ in Asia and Latin America. [Full Text]
Richard Walker is Professor and former Chair of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. Daniel Buck is the University Lecturer in the Human Geography of China at the University of Oxford.
