Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change Lawrence C. Reardon (bio) Bruce J. Dickson. Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. x, 187 pp. Hardcover $65.00, ISBN 0-521-81817-6. Paperback $23.00, 0-521-52143-2. Since Deng Xiaoping pushed forward the dramatic economic changes of the late 1970s, Western observers have speculated about the true nature of China's economic reforms and their implications for political change. During the 1980 s, Western pundits were all too eager to proclaim that the market-opening strategies would unleash the democratic aspirations of the Chinese people. Yet, with the destruction of the 1989 "Goddess of Democracy" in Tiananmen Square, such pundits had to acknowledge the continued ability of the Communist Party to maintain control of the state. During the 1990s, many Westerners hoped that the emergence of a new civil society led by the newly empowered Chinese business class would help transform China into a democracy. While avoiding whether such a civil society is emerging in China today, Bruce J. Dickson pursues in this book the more fundamental question concerning the linkage between civil society and democracy. Reaffirming findings by other China scholars, Dickson uses extensive field surveys to argue that China's new capitalists are "red." In other words, these businesspeople are not catalysts for democratic change, but are partnering with the state in order to pursue what is in their mutual self-interest: economic development. Previous studies of entrepreneurs have focused on elite attitudes, particular associations, or economic sectors; other studies have failed to support their argument with substantial evidence. Employing survey teams from Peking University's Research Center for Contemporary China (RCCC), Dickson analyzed data gathered from eight counties in Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, and Hunan during the fall of 1997 and spring of 1999. Altogether, the RCCC team collected data from 524 private entrepreneurs and 230 local Party and government cadre. County officials invited the selected entrepreneurs to meetings to fill out the survey; in certain cases, local government cadre actually delivered the questionnaires to individual entrepreneurs and returned them on the same day (p. 87). While it is difficult to assess the influence of local government participation on survey results, the cooperation between the RCCC and Western academics continues to bode well for China survey research. Dickson's own survey research constitutes the core strength of his analysis and is why Dickson's work makes a strong contribution to the literature on China's entrepreneurs. Continuing his previous work on Leninist party regimes, Dickson describes how the Chinese Communist Party has become a party of inclusion, culminating [End Page 322] with the July 1, 2001, announcement that private entrepreneurs once again could join the Communist Party. To control these new forces, the Party resorted to corporatist strategies of control by establishing trade and business associations that are noncritical of the Party. Members embrace the close relationship between the association and the state; they oftentimes turn to the state to resolve problems. Instead of a utilitarian relationship where relationships (guanxi) and connections (menhu) are of primary importance, private entrepreneurs and officials see a fusion between self-interest and public interest; what is good for business is good for the community. Confirming Pearson's previous work,1 the Party and the associations share the common goal of economic and not political reform. Dickson arrives at his findings by first describing the impact of two decades of economic reform on the Party and its recruitment schemes. Not surprisingly, the reforms had a deleterious effect on the Leninist system of control. Party members had difficulty upholding Party principles in the face of the competing needs of the marketplace. Whereas the Party dominated the command economy of the pre-1980s, the post-Third Plenum economic reforms resulted in the downsizing or closure of the SOEs, which mandated the layoff of workers, including Party members. The Party had little success in establishing cells in the vibrant non-SOE sectors, especially among the self-employed laborers (getihu), in the township village enterprises (TVEs), and the foreign joint ventures. To co-opt the...