From ‘Constructing Socialism’ to a ‘Socialist-oriented Market Economy’ in Contemporary Vietnam: A Critique of Ideologies

Abstract

In power, the Vietnamese Communist Party has experienced three ‘moments’ of growth, each with some differences of detail and of meanings: ‘traditional communism’; the transition from a planned to a market economy in the 1980s; and, since 1992, a ‘socialist-oriented market economy’. For each, the article discusses the ideologically defined nature of change; intentionality—‘how growth was to happen’; and the quantitative data used. It suggests that critiques throughout the period have engaged with the intentionality issue: in the first moment, by isolating the socialist relations of production within socialist construction as the cause of difficulties; more recently, by engaging with the lack of effective policy despite contemporary ideology's unreliable belief in policy as key to growth.