Party-State Capitalism: China's Communist Party and Rule by Market

The World Unpacked

How should we understand China’s unique variety of party-state capitalism? In this episode of The World Unpacked, Isaac Kardon sits down with Dr. Meg Rithmire, a renowned scholar of political economy in China and the James E. Robison Professor at Harvard Business School, to discuss how capitalism functions in a party-state that tries to maintain “rule by market” without ceding too much control to private capital. Their discussion is based on Dr. Rithmire’s chapter in a new volume released from Carnegie called The Life of the Party: Past and Present Constraints on the Future of the Chinese Communist Party. They explore how private capitalists have been important to China’s economy since the 1950s, and how China attempts to exert control over companies to ensure that their activities serve party-state objectives, like Made in China 2025.

Notes:

1. Yvonne Chiu, Isaac B. Kardon, Jason M. Kelly, “The Life of the Party: Past and Present Constraints on the Future of the Chinese Communist Party,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 9, 2025.