ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on the disparate burdens borne by different classes in China and Mexico, and the disparate benefits received. In China the benefits of reform have largely accrued to the working classes, the peasants as well as the industrial workers. The official focus in both China and the Soviet Union remained on the large, state-owned enterprises, but in China smaller enterprises were scattered like germinating weeds all around the officially-emphasized state sector. The differences between Mexico and China are, of course, evident. In both China and Mexico, the industrialization strategies pursued prior to reform created great inefficiency in the industrial sector. At the core of the similar development strategies being pursued by China and Mexico is the effort to incorporate their economies more firmly in the capitalist world economy and a related effort to increase the role of competition and market forces in domestic resource allocation.
