Transformation of Chinese Socialism

Lin Chun teaches comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the editor of the three-volume collection China and the author of The British New Left.

• Preface ixIntroduction: The Making and Remaking of the Chinese Model 11. China and Alternative Modernity 172. Chinese Socialism 603. People’s Democracy 1324. Liberty and Liberation 205Conclusion: Rethinking the Chinese Model 251Notes 289References 323Index 359

“The Transformation of Chinese Socialism is a visionary and critical reorientation for social theory. It is a great reminder of what the stakes are just now and why socialism, far from being defunct, has as much to offer governance theories and policy planners as it always has.”-Tani E. Barlow, author of The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism “While most people have already cast China as a capitalist country with a communist government, Lin Chun shows that there may be life in Chinese socialism yet. Combining erudition, passion, and an engaging writing style, Lin challenges a lot of conventional wisdom about China. This book should be on the shelf of everyone who has any interest in the course of the Chinese economy and society.”-Meghnad Desai, author of Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism “With quite exceptional historical and theoretical insight, Lin Chun examines what remains of the Chinese Revolution’s socialist legacy and explores the prospects for the rebirth of a new kind of Chinese socialism in the People's Republic. This very original and thought-provoking study is essential reading for those concerned about the future of China and the fate of socialism in the age of capitalist globalization.”-Maurice Meisner, author of Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic “The Transformation of Chinese Socialism is an important book. Lin Chun’s grasp of the issues of Chinese socialism, and the serious engagement with which she presents them, easily makes the book by far the best discussion of socialism in China available in English.” - Arif Dirlik (China Review) “The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, certainly the most intellectually stimulating book written on the reform era, is an eloquent plea to create a democratic "socialist market system" that combines the more egalitarian and democratic features of traditional China, the modern Chinese revolutionary experience, and the innovations of the reform period. . . . In making historically plausible the vision of a ‘socialist market system,’ Lin Chun challenges the assumption that only a capitalist economy allows for the possibility of political democracy.” - Maurice Meisner (Progressive) “This is a timely book dealing with a very important subject. . . . It should be read by scholars in various areas of comparative study and will in no doubt shape the discussion of contemporary Chinese politics and society.” - Yiching Wu, (The China Quarterly) "Perhaps only a Chinese scholar who grew up as a socialist in China could combine the moral and the material argument in this way. Sometimes speculative but always stimulating, Lin Chun's analysis demands serious response from a generally much less adventurous Western scholarship." - John Gittings (Pacific Affairs)