Is China Really Socialist?

In retrospect, some would say, October 23rd, 1985 was the day the Chinese Communist Party

died.

By the mid-80s, virtually every inch of the country had been transformed by well over

a decade of radical economic reform.

But after that day in October, when Deng Xiaoping explicitly described state policy, as quote,

“Let[ting] some people get rich first”, the proverbial cat was undeniably and seemingly

irreversibly out of the bag.

It didn’t matter what ‘-ism’ defined its economy, or, in the words of Deng, what

color the cat was, only that it was effective at catching mice, for ideology had no place

in this new China.

Class struggle and collectivization had already given way to new inequalities.

But with Deng’s unequivocal proclamations, gone too was even the façade.

There was nothing especially subtle about it.

Any American visitor to China in the roughly thirty years after 1980 — myself included

— inevitably returns with the same surprised observation: “China looks more Capitalist

than America”, (and that’s saying something!).

Most iconically, there are the McDonald’s.

So, so many McDonald’s.

And you can’t miss the KFCs.

Twice as many, in fact, as in America.

Street vendors everywhere trying to make a buck.

Shopping malls, Apple Stores, and designer handbags.

Chinese consumerism is globally unmatched in its ostentatiousness.

But the culture of Capitalism has seeped much deeper than mere brand names.

The American obsession with buying houses launched the greatest financial crisis of

the 21st century… yet is thoroughly put to shame by the Chinese, who ‘collect’

third and even fourth homes — all empty, bought before completion, and likely to never

be lived in by anyone — like the rest of the world collects stamps.

Then there are the class distinctions.

Americans are no strangers to economic inequality.

But, at least in theory, no law stops you from packing up and moving to Beverly Hills.

In China, your place of birth quite literally determines your place in the world.

Household registration — or hukou — means you can move from middle-of-nowhere Gansu

province to cosmopolitan Shanghai — but its public schools, hospitals, and jobs will

forever be legally off-limits.

Place of birth matters everywhere, but only in China do authorities not even pretend otherwise.

And if all that doesn’t convince you “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is but a euphemism

for “state Capitalism” there’s plenty more evidence to choose from…

Starting in 1980, international corporations could buy advertising space in the Communist