Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's Embrace of China's Private Sector

by Bruce J. Dickson

In Wealth into Power, Bruce Dickson challenges the notion that economic development is leading to political change in China, or that China’s private entrepreneurs are helping to promote democratization. Instead, they have become partners with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote economic growth while maintaining the political status quo. Dickson’s research illuminates the Communist Party’s strategy for incorporating China’s capitalists into the political system and how the shared interests, personal ties, and common views of the party and the private sector are creating a form of “crony communism.” Rather than being potential agents of change, China’s entrepreneurs may prove to be a key source of support for the party’s agenda. Based on years of research and original survey data, this book will be of interest to all those interested in China’s political future and in the relationship between economic wealth and political power.

Genres: China

294 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is now 13 years old but it's still a useful look at Chinese policy from a historical view.

Dickson starts with 'modernization theory' and previous links towards economic growth and democratization. Where other authors suggested that rising incomes, growth in civil society, and an expanding middle class presaged a transition to a democratic form of government, Dickson was more cautious. He also notes two optimistic assumptions about China that did not hold: the first was that the Chinese Communist Party would be relatively passive in the process of economic growth and the growth of of the private sector; and the second was entrepreneurs would necessarily prefer a liberal democracy to whatever the system in China was.

Dickson continues by discussing the growth of the private sector, then the process of "bridges and branches" - or developing institutional links between the party and private enterprises. Dickson makes the point - rather pertinent today - that while not every party member runs a business, most people who are in leadership positions are party members, largely from the connections party membership provides and the easier access to loans from state-owned banks. A later chapter relies on surveys to compare political attitudes between business leaders and party positions.

The author knew well enough to be cautious about if past trends indicate future performance - corruption or inequality could cause further complications in the party's control or legitimacy. The recent crackdowns on the private sector and the retrenchment of state-owned enterprises under the Xi Jinping adminstration belies the tension left from the previous years.

[The Uprightman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruce Dickson seeks answers to the question plaguing numerous contemporary Western political scientists: does a free-market economy eventuate in political democratisation? China is his case study.

The author dispels the myth that the social changes accompanying economic growth lead to inevitable political change. For China, the free-market to democracy argument relies on two core assumptions, ‘the first being the CCP is a passive actor in this process, and secondly, that entrepreneurs hold policy preferences, values and interests that are fundamentally different those incumbent officials in Party and government.’ Dickson finds little evidence for either.

After a fascinating overview tracking China’s shift from command to market economy by focusing on enterprises' development into different organisational structures, Dickson’s statistical data summaries in the following chapters are tedious. The findings read like a frustrating brain teaser, and would have best been left in a tabled or graphed appendix. In my opinion, the author would have benefited from an editor's heavy-hand who recommended only key findings outlined then analysed rather than talking through the numerical data.

Dickson’s method seems reflective of a broader movement in the soft sciences, which look to be trending towards quantitative methods and away from theory. In an effort to disengage from theory-laden disciplines and their negative association with post-modernism’s destruction of standards, political scientists have been increasingly eager to employ quantitative methods to legitimise their arguments. While one can recognise the importance this approach holds for gaining insight into an opaque political economy such as China’s, the data presentation leaves much to be desired.