• China is big. Veru big
  • Very diverse
  • Be careful about Rosarch's syndrome and in generalization

• Two challenges
  • Reforming to a market economy system
  • Increasing the standard of living

• Meta-strategy
  • No one has any guideposts
  • Experiment with small changesand diversity
  • Seek truth from facts
  • Nobody really knows what to do <-------

• Taboos
  • The purpose of reform is to make China a rich and powerful nation
  • The supremacy of the Communist Party is not to be challenged
  • The correctness of the Marxist-Leninist framework is not to be challenged

• But there is a trick in dealing with Marxism
  • Socialism with Chinese characteristics
  • Primary state of socialism
  • Just don't call it capitalism

• In practice
  • Most day to day economic issues don't hit taboos
  • Vibrant debate within red lines

• Theoretical issues
  • There may be more than one way of doing something
  • The right way may be path dependent
  • Just because it hasn't be done before doesn't mean that it can't happen
  • Problems with idealized systems

• Darwinian evolution versus Lamarckian evolution
  • Lamarck - Markets make companies better
  • Darwin - Markets kill bad companies
  • Chinese economic reform seems to support Darwin

Further reading....

Stanford Law Review, July 2000 v52 i6 p1599

Conceptualizing corporations and kinship: comparative law and development theory in a Chinese perspective. Teemu Ruskola.