"China’s state-owned 'corporations' are not profit maximizers per se like, say, Singapore’s state-capitalist Temasek and similar sovereign wealth funds. They’re happy to make money when they can. But they’re not obliged to. Many have been effectively bankrupt for decades but the government won’t let its 'zombies' fail so rolls over their loans in perpetuity. In forty years of market reform, not a single significant SOE has been permitted to go bankrupt. Their existence and purpose is dictated by the Plan not the market. Thus when the head of a major state-owned conglomerate was removed for embracing market economics a bit too enthusiastically, a Beijing University expert on China’s state enterprises remarked:
There’s a system in place, not just one person. The party’s appointee draws his position from patronage… and the task is to engage with state leaders and safeguard government assets, not to maximize profits." https://spectrejournal.com/why-china-isnt-capitalist-despite-the-pink-ferraris/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1226): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1226 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76674603/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
