ABSTRACT
From the late 1970s, the political economy of transition from state socialism shaped transformations in the discourse of workers’ democracy in China. In this chapter, I offer an overview of China’s transitional political economy during the post-Maoist period (from roughly 1978 to the present). I argue that capitalist markets had not systemically dominated the SOE sector by the end of the 1990s. Even at this late stage of restructuring, the largest value-pumping SOEs in China continued to be shaped by confl icting values of collectivism and for-profi t markets. The outcomes of such ideological confl icts in the Chinese SOEs, even in the present moment, remain critical for the direction of Chinese transition from state socialism.
