ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how the general factors influencing Chinese economic theory found expression in specific analyses of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The SOEs faced increasing competition from imports and foreign-invested firms. Their most serious competition, however, came from the rapidly expanding township and village enterprises. Neoclassical economic analyses portray marketization measures in the SOE sector as steps toward economic rationality. They attribute most accompanying economic problems to insufficient rather than excessive marketization. From a Marxist perspective, the massive layoffs in the urban sector and the surge in migrant labor from the countryside in the 1990s redefined power relationships in the Chinese workplace. Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) theory can be used to analyze the Chinese economy and the changing character of Chinese business enterprises. It offers an illustrative heterodox-Marxist alternative to new institutionalist economic (NIE) explanations for the expansion of private enterprises and the decline of SOEs in China.
