Reforms of the Economic Administration System During the Maoist Era
Reforms of the Economic Administration System During the Maoist Era
With China’s changed political situation in 1957–58, it became politically incorrect to share interests with state-owned enterprises and workers. The 1958 reform consisted of decentralizing power to local governments. But the decentralized planned economy was similar to the centrally planned economy in that they both used administrative commands to allocate resources. Therefore, it is more accurate to refer to China’s post-1958 economy as a “decentralized command economy.” This was the institutional foundation for the 1958 Great Leap Forward. By the end of the year, the negative results of the Leap, which completely lacked common sense, had become increasingly apparent. Between 1958 and 1976, the decentralized command-economy measures resulted in a vicious cycle: once powers were decentralized, chaos ensued, leading to yet another round of centralization, and as soon as powers were again recentralized, the economy lost its vitality.
Keywords: Chapter institutional decentralization, administrative commands, allocation of resources, Great Leap Forward, decentralized command economy
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .