AN EVALUATION OF THE CONFORMITY BETWEEN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DECENTRALIZED SOCIALISM: CHINA AS A CASE STUDY

The People\u27s Republic of China has undergone extensive systemic reform in the past decade, spawning an abundance of descriptive literature on these reforms. Similarly, a vast amount of literature, which together constitutes the decentralized or market socialist model, has been developed in the post World War I period. This dissertation links these descriptive and conceptual contributions and thereby compares the reality of the Chinese reform with the theoretical literature comprising decentralized or market socialism. In the first section of this dissertation, market socialist literature is integrated into a synthesized, operational model of market socialism. Toward this end, the initial chapter examines market socialism as a derivative of capitalist and socialist models. The various models that compose the body of market socialism are introduced in chapter two. A selected review of market socialist literature focuses largely on the classic works of Lange, Taylor, Vanek, Ward, Horvat, Lerner, and Dobb. Through the integration of this market socialist literature, a synthesized, operational model of market socialism is specified in chapter three. Model precepts are divided into institutional and performance characteristics. Chapter four describes the nature of recent socialist reform movements initiated outside the PRC, with emphasis on reformation within the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The common attributes of these applied reform movements are examined, with particular emphasis on their common quest for improved economic efficiency. These country studies provide a basis for comparison of Chinese reformation processes. Chapter five provides a brief review of the 1949-1978 Chinese economy, followed by an examination of the current state of China\u27s modern economic reform in chapter six. Chapter seven analyzes the conformity of the Chinese economic reform to the integrated theoretical model developed in chapter three. An evaluative scale is developed to facilitate comparison of the interrelationship between market socialist theory and applied Chinese reforms. In the final chapter, the degree of adherence to the model, generalizations of these findings, and the future direction of economic reform in China are discussed