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THE NEW CHINA PLAYBOOK

Name: THE NEW CHINA PLAYBOOK
Author: Keyu Jin
ISBN: 9781984878281

BEYOND SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM

by Keyu Jin ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023

Mixing research with personal experience, Jin offers critical insights about the future of China and its global impact.

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A respected academic provides a nuanced examination of China’s past, present, and future.

China has always been difficult for many Westerners to understand, but the issue has become increasingly crucial as the country’s global role has grown. Jin, who grew up in China and retains strong connections there, was educated in the U.S. and is now a professor at the London School of Economics. With this background, she is well qualified to play the role of cultural interpreter. She has a special interest in the problems now emerging in China as the society struggles to move from an unremitting focus on economic growth to quality-of-life and equity issues. Jin notes that China’s transition from an impoverished, rural country to a wealthy, urbanized society has been remarkably fast. The private sector has driven the growth, especially in the past two decades, but the government remains firmly in control, with a complex system of incentives, rules, easy credit, and government-owned enterprises. The author traces key policies since the time of Deng, and she delves into the impact of the “one-child policy,” an area often overlooked by armchair commentators. For the most part, the Chinese people are willing to accept government direction, including a high degree of personal surveillance and intervention in their lives. They value security over freedom and generally believe that China requires a powerful central authority. Significantly, the younger generation is in many ways more conservative than their parents despite their taste for Western brands and lifestyles. Jin acknowledges China’s incredible progress but wonders what the future holds. “China’s central leadership, which spurred the most successful economic growth story of our time, could also make choices that might have the opposite effect in the future,” she concludes. “The power of the state provides the system’s greatest potential and also poses its gravest inherent risk.”

Mixing research with personal experience, Jin offers critical insights about the future of China and its global impact.

Pub Date: May 16, 2023

ISBN: 9781984878281

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023

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THE VAMPIRE STATE

AND OTHER MYTHS AND FALLACIES ABOUT THE U.S. ECONOMY

by Fred Block ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 30, 1996

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An ultraliberal academic's immodest proposal for a new world socioeconomic order—one appreciably more statist than those envisioned by Plato in his Republic or Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan. Before presenting his against-the-grain initiatives, Block (The Mean Season, 1987, etc.) engages in an extended rant as to how right-wing extremists have falsely convinced large segments of the American electorate that the US government is a malefic vampire sucking the domestic economy's lifeblood. In aid of this arguable premise, the author (Sociology/Univ. of Calif., Davis) cites examples of so-called conventional wisdom he deems irrational, if not mad. Cases in point range from faith in balanced federal budgets, deregulation, free markets, low taxes, and unrestricted trade through an abiding antipathy to activist governance and inflationary procedures. Block dismisses any notion that deficits depress private-sector investment, affect savings rates, or cause other of the financial harms ascribed to them. Getting down to business, Block obligingly furnishes a detailed agenda that could put the country on course toward a practical utopia (a term whose oxymoronic character he concedes). He would make managed trade and fixed currency-exchange rates hallmarks of foreign policy. On the home front, he would introduce wage controls to keep the aggregate compensation of top corporate executives at no more than 25 times that of low-income or jobless individuals and cut the work week (possibly in half). Expressly wary of elitist, individualist entrepreneurs, Block would also use the power of government to encourage establishment of a network of small firms and cooperatives. In time, he asserts, his incentive-free revolution could be taken global. A wish-list tract amounting to the triumph of hope over experience for its trust in the constructive capacities of big government.

Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1996

ISBN: 1-56584-193-X

Page Count: 256

Publisher: The New Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996

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TUG OF WAR

TODAY'S GLOBAL CURRENCY CRISIS

by Paul Erdman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 1996

An accessible interpretive briefing on currency exchange rates and why they matter to a host of constituencies ranging from...

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Though best known in recent years as the author of fiscal entertainments (Zero Coupon, 1993, etc.), the Canadian-born Erdman is a bona fide economist and former Swiss banker.

If not invariably prophetic, his periodic observations on the Global Village's monetary systems are always worth attention for their lucid explications of a complex subject. The semi-sensational subtitle accurately reflects Erdman's focus on the long-range implications of the recent run on the US dollar, precipitated largely by the collapse of the Mexican peso and accompanied by a sharp rise in the value of the Japanese yen. Having outlined the major events of what he dubs the currency crisis of 1995, the author sorts through the conflicting claims as to who or what was to blame, subsequently ticking off winners (US exporters) and losers (mainly Japanese investors who had acquired American assets at inflated prices). Moving on to an after-the-fall audit of money markets, Erdman assesses the roles played by so- called speculators (commercial banks as well as hedge funds) and trade blocs (the EU, NAFTA, et al.). Offered as well are worst-case scenarios for an appreciably more competitive but debt-burdened US and a recession-ridden, deflation-afflicted Japan. That, however, is unlikely to happen, according to Erdman. He reminds us that Japan's much-vaunted economy is but one-half to three-fifths the size of America's in terms of purchase power parity, and notes as well that America retains comparative advantages in entrepreneurship, availability of venture capital, and minimal regulatory constraints. Erdman suggests that America (in partnership with a more open, less mercantile Japan) will provide the responsible leadership that ensures a prosperous tomorrow for the wider world.

An accessible interpretive briefing on currency exchange rates and why they matter to a host of constituencies ranging from policy makers to consumers.