How China escaped shock therapy w/ Isabella Weber

Politics Theory Other

News

4.8 • 551 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the end of the 1980s, China's leaders came close to implementing the kind of economic shock therapy reforms that a few years later caused a social and economic catastrophe in the former Soviet Union and much of eastern Europe. A moment of enormous significance for Chinese and world history, Isabella Weber explains how and why China came to the brink of initiating an economic "big bang", and why ultimately the leadership chose to pursue a gradualist process of market reform instead. Later this month Isabella will be taking part in the book's official launch, along with James Galbraith, Branko Milanović and Bin Wong. You can register here if you would like to attend: https://tinyurl.com/4ybec9z2

Transcript

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0:00.0	The first cut on this record has been cross-format focused for Airplay success. The men beat on their drums. I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to
0:21.6	I'm going to
0:23.6	the Hello and welcome to another episode of Politics Theory Other, a podcast from Tribune magazine.
0:50.5	My name is Alex Doherty and my guest today is Isabella Weber. We talked about her new book,
0:55.7	How China Escape Shock Therapy, the Market Reform Debate. We discussed the economic reforms
1:01.3	undertaken in China during Deng Xiaoping's rule from the late 1970s through the 1980s and 90s that
1:07.2	enabled China's spectacular economic rise and integration into the capitalist world economy,
1:12.5	and how in the late 1980s China came close to implementing a shock therapy program of price liberalisation
1:18.4	of the kind that caused an economic and social catastrophe in the former Soviet Union and much of Eastern Europe.
1:24.9	We also talked about how the gradualist market reform approach that was
1:28.0	eventually adopted drew on the experience of the Chinese Communist Party during their Chinese
1:32.4	civil war, as well as techniques of market intervention that dated back as far as the 7th century
1:37.6	BCE. Finally, we talked about whether China's reformers genuinely believed that the reforms they were
1:43.2	implementing were simply laying the basis for economic development, that its summer undefined point
1:47.9	would make possible a transition towards communism, and the very mixed feelings of China's
1:52.7	reform economists about the consequences of China's turn towards the market.
1:57.5	Today's show is brought to you by PTO supporters on Patreon, and also by Versoo Books who have lots of excellent titles that may be of interest to PTO listeners.
2:06.2	What are the origins of the hostile environment for immigrants in Britain?
2:10.2	In his new book, We're Here Because You Were There, Immigration and the End of Empire, Ian Sanjay Patel tells Britain's recent history in an
2:18.4	often shocking account of state racism that still resonates today. Combining voices of so-called
2:24.2	immigrants trying to make a home in Britain and the politicians, diplomats and commentators who
2:28.5	were rethinking the nation, Ian Sanjay Patel excavates the reasons why Britain failed to create
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