Kornai János - Qian, Yingyi: Market and Socialism. In the Light of the Experiences of China and Vietnam - IEA Conference 146. (New York, 2009) / angol nyelven
6 Julan Du - Chenggang Xu: Market Socialism of Capitalism? Evidence from Chinese Financial Market Development
6 Market Socialism or Capitalism? Evidence from Chinese Financial Market Development* Julan Du and Chenggang Xu Introduction The cornerstone of market socialism, according to Lange (1936; 1937), Lerner (1947), and Taylor (1929), is the public ownership of the means of production, and the state is regarded as the default representative of the 'public.' Associated with this basic feature, the market socialism literature emphasizes the role of the state in governing markets in resource allocation. The most important coordination mechanisms that a market socialist economy relies on are the administrative mechanism (or 'bureaucratic coordination mechanism' (Kornai, 1992)) and the market mechanism. In sharp contrast to the practice of capitalist economies in the world, the market socialism literature does not discuss the functions of financial markets. Market socialist thinkers (for example, Lange, Lerner, and Taylor) did not mention stock markets, although they all discussed product and labour markets in detail. Moreover, the role of law and legal institutions is absent in that literature as well. A major reason for the sharp contrast in the different roles of financial markets and law in capitalist economies and in the market socialist economy literature is related to the ownership structures in the two models. Individuals in a capitalist economy not only trade products and labour, but also trade financial assets of means of production. Consistently, private ownership is the dominant ownership structure in a capitalist economy and financial markets are an essential part of a capitalist economy where ownership rights of means of production are traded. Associated with this, a legal mechanism is the key to protecting private property rights and to governing financial markets for exchanging financial assets. However, in principle, the dominant property right structure is state ownership in a market socialist economy. 88