How is Chinese socialism different from neoliberalism? Is the main difference just lying in intent and ideology? They both believe in regulated capitalism. Chinese has its concrete goal to reach communism and Neoliberalism believes in magic hand of markets to just do good somehow?
What else am I missing? I understand it's probably a lot and that im being really reductive but this is why u ask questions ig
The big difference is that the Chinese state still has control of the banks and big industry. It also still owns all land and only leases out to capitalists.
Their state investment (Keysian sorta) is actually directly invested into projects and carried out with state construction companies instead of being a handout to private capitalists.
That's two big points that make it different, basically the state/party has maintained power over the capitalist markets.
neoliberalism is not about regulated capitalism, it's neo- in its opposition to the public spending and regulation of 1930s-->70s liberalism. from what i can tell China's public investment & regulation of companies has only been increasing lately, in stark contrast to the absolute state of western regulatory apparatus (useless at best and compradors at worst)
The prime difference between neoliberalism and classical liberalism is that neoliberalism embraces a powerful and activist state. Neoliberals view the state as the active creator and enforcer of markets and the ideology that is required to make it work. This is why the ACA wasnt just a liberal project, it was incredibly neoliberal, it created makets where there were none and forced market mechanisms onto people. In this sense neoliberalism is incredibly authoritarian, it takes the guise of freedom of choice, but the reality is you dont have a choice. You cant choose anything BUT the market, so what if the market only offers 4 equally shitty healthcare plans, and a national socialized system is objectively better, you cant pick that pick a market choice. The latter bit is critical, because not only is it the structural implementation of markets, but the ideological ones.
They both believe in regulated capitalism.
The problem, and I apoligize if this seems snarky, is that you believe neoliberals when they say this. Their actions speak for themselves when they privatize every public good and create austerity. Compare that to China doing something like decommodifying education or executing capitalists who's greed causes harm to the people. Neoliberal "regulation" is a pinky promise from mining companies that they won't put too much industrial runoff in the water, promise, whereas CPC regulation is a gun to the head of any for-profit company operating within their jurisdiction.
Good faith neoliberals do i dont believe in neoliberalism at all
China's communist party understands that they cannot let capital/capitalists have any control over the government, because that leads to the neolib order where govt is just a tool for capital. But they also understand that to develop productive forces, they benefit greatly from foreign investment. This was the trade-off that Deng struck when 'opening up' China. This is also why CPC maintains very strict controls on capital accumulation and monetary policy if it impacts the sovereignty of China.
That's my basic understanding. Just look up how China punishes the wealthy for stepping out of line compared to other capitalist nations.
Neoliberalism is a way of squeezing new profits out of the people of a given area via deregulation, destroying labor protections, forcing an export market economy owned by foreign/international capital, and gutting of services. China does not meet those criteria...
If we're talking about post-Deng, you can find some overlap. There was some deregulation, China's special economic zones and so on. There was some undermining of labor protections, though it's way more complicated than that and they've actually improved over time. They created an export market, but not one where foreign capital gets everything, where it's pure imperialism, as China forces the capital to stay in China, with IP transfer and training etc. There is exploitation because the capitalist machine hasn't been killed off, but it's for ed into public works and massive state investment, the exact opposite of neoliberalism. Services and state investment/ ownership have massively increased lately.
Another question might be how is China not simply capitalist, so we don't have to argue about neoliberalism. There is, of course, capitalism in China. If you read Chinese sources and Chinese theory, they say this plainly. It's not a gotcha. The special economic zones are, in theory, a caged beast of capitalism that constantly tries to break out of it's cage and constantly leaks harmful shit out of it - but a caged beast that can itself be exploited for the development of industry, infrastructure, services, etc, and slowly nationalized. That's the main question: how well is that going, how do you keep the capitalists from taking over, how much exploitation can you suffer in the name of overall national development against ruthless capital?
The production part of the gamble is uncontested. China has massively industrialized. The capturing of capital into public investment is also uncontested: combined with productive capacity, the quality of life has massively improved. The risk of capital taking everything over seemed to be increasing over the decades. China has liberal economists in high places and its party apparatus kept letting in more and more capitalists. But under Xi's faction, this has started to move in the other direction, with capital's influence getting repeatedly reined in. China's handling of its real estate crisis is the perfect example of this. A neoliberal, or even typically capitalist country, would shovel money into financialized bullshit to prevent the firms from failing and taking everyone with them. They'd either provide liquidity to real estate itself or, more likely, do a bunch of financialized shenanigans that out a ton of state resources into it with no real consequences or long-term fixes. China controls its financial sector and is making real estate capitalists accept their own failure, and is moving slowly in the direction of nationalization, or something much closer to it.
China also has a (good) habit of slowly nationalizing entire industries, even though new private ones keep popping in and growing.
also I was talking to a finance guy who was complaining about China regularly just ripping up contracts with western capital investors and keeps all their assets in China. They are absolutely not beholden to capital
this does a pretty good job of explaining things if I remember it properly (been a while since I read it):
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
I saw the explanation once that China is a Keynesian state ruling over a group of neoliberal city states.
For a longer, in-depth read, peep https://dokumen.pub/socialism-with-chinese-characteristics-a-guide-for-foreigners-9789811616211-9789811616228.html
Capitalism is an economic system and Neoliberalism is a political system that puts the government as subordinate to capitalism. China is a mixed economy that's probably closer to capitalism than communism. On the other hand, China's political system is not subordinate to capital and the government frequently disciplines capital (and capitalists specifically). This is in contrast to the US where capital can frequently discipline the government and bully it into giving the capitalists whatever they want right then.
Other people have explained the regulation thing better than I have.
seems to me like FDR new deal style economics on steroids. quite a few new dealers had an end goal of a sort of technocratic socialism. i think back in the 40s everyone thought socialism was going to be the end goal of capitalism. the chinese seem to have learned from the mistakes of the past and have an actual ML party behind stuff. ehh it's the best we got now. my hope lies in the younger generation who seem pretty based and are educated marxists and have a full state apparatus neatly wrapped up with a bow for them to easily seize, unlike the U.S.
