Synopses & Reviews
China and Global Capitalism is a historical and conceptual analysis of China's position and positioning in the world. Reviewing relevant debates, Lin Chun clarifies the evolving relationship between China and global capitalism, past, present, and possible future, and offers a critical reflection on received knowledge about China and the resulting expectations and recommendations for its development, which are largely dependent on the standardization of capitalist trajectories. Against the historical and international background of China's revolutionary, socialist, and post-socialist transformations, this book assesses the logic and crises of capitalist integration. It asks whether a renewed Chinese social model is still feasible as an alternative with potentially universal implications to the eco-socioeconomic impasse of standard modernization. Rejecting both economically and culturally deterministic approaches, the book argues for the centrality of transformative politics.
Review
"A ringing political manifesto for a reinvigorated socialism. Lin Chun is no starry eyed dreamer. She offers pragmatic hope, a must for our times. China and Global Capitalism calls on all of us to have a pessimism of the intellect and an optimism of the will. This book honors the legacies of China's century of revolutions, arguing that a China model - one that embraces a substantive democracy by direct producers and citizens - can still be found in the interstices of China's current momentous transformations and that it behooves all of us to embrace these legacies before they are lost." - Lisa Rofel, author of Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture
"Amidst all the celebratory hype about the 'China model,' readers of China and Global Capitalism will find eye-opening Lin Chun's argument that if China is to overcome its accumulating problems, and offer a genuine alternative to capitalist development, it will have to reinvent socialism drawing upon its revolutionary past. The discussion grounds China's development historically within a changing global environment. It is empowered by the author's theoretical sophistication and political engagement." - Arif Dirlik, author of Culture and History in Postrevolutionary China: The Perspective of Global Modernity
"This brilliant book makes a great contribution to the historical research, theoretical exploration, and political debates surrounding China. Lin Chun locates her reflections in a broad historical context, which ranges from classical questions posed by Adam Smith, Max Weber, and Karl Marx to the diverse new trends of historical interpretation. Her succinct and incisive analysis offers a much-needed perspective." - Wang Hui, author of The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity
"This is a profound, provocative, and truly inspirational book. Lin Chun's compelling 'socialist China model' is both visionary and historically grounded, universalist and locally based. It will be the only desirable and practical option for China. Anybody who is seriously interested in China and its place in the world must read this lucid and timely book—a twenty-first century Chinese communist manifesto and a brilliant and ground-breaking contribution to ongoing global intellectual efforts to renew Marxism and reimagine socialist politics." - Yuezhi Zhao, author of Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict
Synopsis
In this concise historical and conceptual analysis of China's evolving position in a world defined predominantly by global capitalist development, Lin offers a critical review of relevant debates and discusses the imperative and feasibility of a socialist Chinese model, reconstructed, as an alternative to standardized modernity at an impasse.
About the Author
Lin Chun teaches at the London School of Economics, UK and co-edits Palgrave Macmillan's China in Transformation series. She is the author of The British New Left (1993), The Transformation of Chinese Socialism (2006), and Reflections on China's Reform Trajectory (2008, in Chinese). She is also the editor of China I, II and III (2000) and co-editor of Is Mao Really a Monster? (2009) and Women: The Longest Revolution (1997, in Chinese).
Table of Contents
PART I
1. Positioning China in World Capitalist Development
2. Debating History: from 'Oriental Society' to 'Great Divergence'
PART II
3. Chinese Socialism and Global Capitalism
4. The Politics of China's Self-positioning
5. Can There Be a Chinese Model?
6. Class, Direct Producers, and the Impasse of Modernization
7. The Rise of the Social: for a Communist Moral Economy
PART III
8. Toward a Historical Materialist Universalism
9. Marxism and the Interpretation of China