From Belgrade to Beijing

Abstract

This study offers a comparative analysis of economic reforms in Eastern Europe and China. Some CMEA countries—especially Yugoslavia and Hungary—undertook reforms in the 1960s, while China launched its reform and opening-up in 1978. In light of the lessons learned—concerning planning, markets, ownership of means of production and liberation of productive forces, and the interaction of relations and forces of production during socialist construction—it is possible to provide a systematic comparison. After providing background to the reforms, the comparison has four steps: (1) de-linking a market economy from a capitalist system, and the concomitant de-linking of a planned economy from a socialist system; (2) whether a market economy is a neutral instrument usable in any system, or whether it is a component shaped by the system of which it is a part; (3) planning and markets within a socialist system; (4) the relationship between ownership of the means of production (and control over the forces of production) and liberation of productive forces in the process of socialist construction. The fourth topic leads to the more foundational question of the dialectical interactions between relations and forces of production, since on this matter the economic definition of socialism turns.