Inequalities and capital accumulation in China

• Main Authors: Isabela Nogueira, João Victor Guimarães, João Pedro Braga
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editora 34
• Series: Brazilian Journal of Political Economy
• Subjects: Desigualdades; China; acumulação de capital; financeirização; propriedade estatal; questão agrária
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-31572019000300449&lng=en&tlng=en

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the debate on income and wealth distribution in China by analyzing the main characteristics of the Chinese accumulation pattern that determine its distributive dynamics in a comparative perspective. After a period of rapid growth of inequalities, coupled with improved living conditions for all distribution deciles, inequalities have stabilized in China since the mid-2000s. Globally, China is today in a distributive pattern worse than Western Europe or Japan, but it is more egalitarian than the United States and far from the world inequality frontier defined by Brazil, India, South Africa and the Middle East. In this article, we scrutinize three characteristics of the regime of accumulation in China that mitigate the capital-concentrating tendency: 1. the financialization process with Chinese characteristics, 2. the strategic share of State ownership in the economy, 3. its trajectory over the agrarian question.