Actually Existing Socialism

How China Avoided The Soviet Union's Fate w/ Carlos Martinez

Dec 12, 2023
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INSIGHT

Material Progress Underpins Legitimacy

  • China's development combined poverty reduction, green tech leadership, and massive infrastructure investment.
  • These material gains underpin the CPC's sustained legitimacy and popular support.
INSIGHT

Stagnation From 'Emergency' Economics

  • The USSR struggled to transition from wartime 'emergency-mode' planning to a diversified peacetime economy.
  • That structural difficulty helped produce economic stagnation and declining popular expectations by the 1970s–80s.
INSIGHT

Gradualism Over Sudden Liberalization

  • China pursued gradual, experimental reforms described as "crossing the river by feeling the stones."
  • That cautious approach kept growth accelerating while protecting the Communist Party's political control.
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