[thetechlead]

Some people still think China's economy is a centralized one. No it's not. It's a mix of state owned and private - the former really good at long-term planning for national strategic goals, maintaining economic stability and building infrastructures with no short term returns, AND vibrating private sectors that drive innovation and employment. How they keep the balance of the two is mythical to many. However the Chinese came to this mixed system not by design, but with some luck. It needs to be studied and whether it can be replicated elsewhere remains a question.

[chessturk]

My understanding is that the Chinese economy is an "artificial" Free Market economy to bridge the gap between Maoism and here-to unforseen Communist Utopia. Hegelian/classical Marxist thinking requires a society to pass through a capitalist phase in order to industrialize to the point that the populace begins demanding socialist concessions.

It was my understanding that the Post-Mao creation of free-market-like conditions in China was an admission by Communist leadership that the Hegelian model of history could not be short circuited (as Lenin and Mao attempted), and capitalist style economics was required to industrialize, but that the capitalist economics was a temporary solution.

I could be mistaken though, and I'm curious why you thought they arrived there by luck.