ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the economic 'soft shoe shuffle', adopted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1978, can be seen as a response to damaged Party legitimacy. In the wake of the programme for economic reform sanctioned by the Central Committee's Third Plenum of late 1978, the C.C.P. planners have followed the path trodden by Soviet and Eastern European 'socialists'. The chapter is concerned with legitimacy, domination and rationality. Rationality is valued more highly than efficiency. The hopes of economic reformers have been diluted as the government allowed 'social policy considerations' to militate against enterprise efficiency. In the Weberian tradition, Zygmunt Bauman has pointed out that in socialist societies, problems arise because industrial workers are oriented towards formal rationality whilst the Party is oriented towards substantive rationality. In Weberian language, the use of remunerative policies to achieve legitimation is best achieved by legal-rational forms of domination.
