It would appear that changes to the Chinese institutional system are affected by elements of all five of the aforementioned modes of change. The current work will now seek to ascertain whether certain modes of change have more of an impact than others.
CAPITALISM WITH “CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS”? THE ROLE OF HISTORICAL CULTURAL TRADITIONS
The drivers of capitalism are always mediated by normative and historical cultural traditions. Alongside older historical traditions such as the Confucian tradition and close interpersonal network of relationships (guanxi) this also includes Sino-Marxism. Sino-Marxism’s attempts from 1949 to imitate the Soviet-Marxist modernization model in fact considerably modified it, thus contributing to China’s distinctive path to modernity (see Arnason 2003b).
As mentioned, historical ideational, and social cultural traditions cause path dependencies that call global convergence processes into question. In the case of China, historians, historical sociologists, and anthropologists argue, for instance, that in order to explain its extraordinary economic dynamism, older Chinese and East Asian traditions of merchant capitalism must be taken into account (Pomeranz 2000; Hamilton 2006a). This comprises a rich tradition of merchant groups operating on the basis of familial ties, which coexisted for hundreds of years with the ruling “tributary” state class without ever achieving a dominant role, until they emerged in the course of the twentieth century, under the new “tributary power” of the CCP, as a motor for economic restructuring (Gates 1996). Other authors argue that the rise of capitalism in China draws from other cultural traditions—including, particularly, those of the overseas Chinese. These include family values, network-based relationships, and paternalistic authority structures. The spirit of Chinese capitalism is also described as Confucian (see Redding 1990; M. Yang 2002). Long dominated by a Weber-inspired notion, according to which the roots of China’s inability to modernize lay in the static traditional values of a culture shaped by Confucianism, the discussion now draws on opposite assumptions. Now it is precisely certain Confucian values such as diligence and thrift that are viewed as stimuli for economic growth. In a sense, then, a Confucian way of life is considered to be equivalent to the “Protestant ethic” (see Pohlmann 2002; Arnason 2003a).
In more recent historical sociological research, further arguments are propounded as to why favorable conditions for capitalist dynamics were to be found in China (and East Asia). In comparison to other regions of the world, there was a relative continuity in East Asian history, which derives from the comparative stability of Chinese culture (Arnason 2003a, 304–8). In contrast to the Indian, Islamic, or even the later Western world, what the East Asian historical region had in common during the premodern era was the more developed, more continuous existence of state structures promoting the protracted processes of nation building. “[In China] the result was … a more marked cultural unity than any other imperial order has achieved, and—in due course—an enduring ambition to transform this legacy into a full-fledged national identity” (Arnason 2008, 401). Finally, in comparison to other world regions, the premodern East Asian region was less affected by the influence of foreign powers. Even the colonialism of the nineteenth and (more so) the twentieth century was, for the most part, in spite of significant Western influence, an experience associated with Japanese imperialism. The relatively limited Western presence and military power allowed the region flexibility to more autonomously receive and adapt Western models.
Admittedly, far from the perspectives just outlined, research on China and Asia has long been influenced by approaches that could be described as culturalist (see Weggel 1997; Pye 1998; Jacques 2009). Abstracted in this way, Confucianism for instance is in danger of being essentialized (Dirlik 1997, 311). This reductionist “China-is-China-is-China” viewpoint (Dreyer 1996, 13) leaves no room for a comparative perspective. Rather, such approaches are frequently more concerned with emphasizing the uniqueness of China. According to Jacques, today’s China should be seen as a “civilizational-state,” which, unlike the Western nation-state, preserves within it an over two-thousand-year-old living tradition (Jacques 2009, chapter 2). Its most important moral point of reference is the desire for the unity of the Chinese people. While in the West the relationship between state and society is assumed to be constructed in such a way that the authority and legitimacy of a state essentially result from democratic processes, the Chinese “civilizational-state” acquires its legitimacy through its role as representative of Chinese civilization. The “Chinese,” according to Jacques, experience the state as the head of the family, whereas in Western societies state power is regularly viewed as intrusive and as such to be restricted.
Furthermore, in a culturalist perspective, premodern features of life are often seamlessly subsumed under modern concepts. Prematurely drawn parallels between the emperor and CCP leaders or between Confucianism and communism are in danger of lending too much weight to the power of tradition. There is a risk, then, of neglecting to take into account the fundamental crisis experienced by imperial China from the nineteenth century onward—triggered precisely by an increase in external influence—where many traditions, previously deemed sacrosanct, were called into question. Even if recourse was and is made to certain social cultural traditions, the priority was to tackle a radical modernization and thereby overcome traditional premodern forms (less successfully in the first half of the twentieth century, but in a sustained manner following the Maoist accession to power). Moreover, a fundamental shortcoming of culturalist approaches is a failure to embed the recent historical development of China (and East Asia) in the global capitalist order. “The problem with ‘Chineseness’ based explanations of Chinese capitalism is that they suppress the structural context within which this capitalism has arisen. Whatever resemblances it may have in particular to past practices, this capitalism has acquired an identity of its own only in the very recent past with the success of East and Southeast Asian societies, which has empowered the projection of this newfound identity upon the more remote past and its assertion against others, in particular Euro-American capitalism” (Dirlik 1997, 315–16).
Assumptions that only emphasize a continuity of cultural factors cannot sufficiently explain China’s transformation. In order not to encourage cultural determinism and exaggerated assumptions of inner-civilizational homogeneity, research must be done on the contradictory interaction between “cultures” that produced the interwoven forms of capitalist modernization.
Five Dimensions of Capitalism
To examine the proposition that the political economy of China can be understood within the scope of a broad analysis of capitalism, the research framework will now be set out more concretely on the basis of the ideas discussed so far. For this purpose, I distinguish five dimensions of capitalist systems in space and time.16 The different proportions of these basic ingredients found in all forms of capitalism give rise to different varieties of capitalism where the three key groups of actors (companies, state actors, and workers) each play an (unequal) role. Bearing this in mind, my intention here is to determine an overarching identity of capitalist driving forces and lines of action also and particularly with respect to the real historical diversity of different types of capitalism.17
THE HORIZONTAL AXIS OF CAPITALIST SOCIAL RELATIONS
The first dimension of capitalist systems concerns the unstable dynamics of markets and enterprises as well as the significance of competition-driven processes. In capitalist economies the competition between enterprises renders increased accumulation and innovation a necessity. This acts as a social sanctioning mechanism subjecting each individual capital to an imperative to accumulate with a failure to comply being punishable with the enterprise’s existence. In order not to let the concept of competition become too vague, it could be understood from an action theory perspective as the anticipation of a potential danger. In a field shaped by many actors, the potential exists for a competitor or new rival to participate in potential profits and/or to monopolize market segments. The relationship produces an imperative for continuous reinvestment and innovation of production processes, distribution networks, and so on.
Under conditions of competition-driven
