Among the books on China I really liked but did not review is Zhao Ziyang's "Prisoner of the state".
amazon.com/Prisoner-State…
Not so much for the usual "freedom" reasons but for Zhao's description how little knowledge and much fear reformers had in the beginning of the reforms.
amazon.com/Prisoner-State…
Not so much for the usual "freedom" reasons but for Zhao's description how little knowledge and much fear reformers had in the beginning of the reforms.
Zhao writes they were afraid that Beijing and Shanghai will face hunger if they let farmers decide on their own what to produce and sell. To have food in cities, they thought, you had to order peasants to bring it in.
People who live in capitalist economies where money, markets, numbers are everywhere forget this is not a universal condition.
Since I grew up in communism I knew how hard it was to bridge this epistemological gap.
Since I grew up in communism I knew how hard it was to bridge this epistemological gap.
So it is not solely because of their "interests" that early communists were afraid of market reforms but because of fears that it would lead to chaos. (As incidentally it did lead in Russia.)
@threadreaderapp unroll
