Reddit reviews Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State

If you can't trust the Chinese people to figure out to get "reasonably rich," why can you trust the (fairly large) set of Chinese people that make up the bureaucracy? Especially when economics scholarship has shown that the strongest growth in China's multi-decade surge took place when the government exercised the least control, not the most?

One way of understanding it is:

There is a lack of adequately paying jobs in the countryside, coupled with high birth rates and the move to more modern farming methods meaning less labor is required for the land (which is reduced in size due to urbanization).

Additionally, much of the non-agricultural work which existed in more rural areas before the start of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), what were called Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs), has moved towards the east coast (concentrating many jobs in those areas), been unable to continue (for numerous reasons, this book by Huang Yasheng discusses it), or been closed down (from rural industry, to dance troupes, to loads of random crap). In the pre-Reform period there was more of a spread of industry, and in the 1980s there was a vibrant Town and Village Enterprise movement, things changed with the move towards concentrating modern jobs on the east coast in SEZs.

This leads to a surplus (too much) of labour (people who can do work) in rural China.

Now, others could probably do farming if they wished, but in many small villages I have visited, the number of those farming there is just low enough that people can use farming to live and make some money. If many people choose to continue to do rural labour (farming) in the areas they are from income would be so low that people would need to leave (as they have).

But, there are many other reasons (cultural, sociological, gender) why people leave rural areas outside of the 'labour surplus' idea and what are called neoclassical economic theories of migration

Quality of services doesn't change the services from socialist to capitalist.

Fascism is something entirely different, namely the belief that since resources are limited, the nation must strive to gather resources from externally, and to do so must be built on the foundation of the military. China doesn't do this, so please don't call China fascist. The U.S. is far more fascist, with the strongest military in the world being used to secure oil and other resources (all the way back to land for fruit companies).

Politicians making money from bribes and investment in state-owned enterprises is not capitalism. It's cronyism.

Show me a private captain of industry in China. All major 'industries' are state-owned. Wealthy businesspeople in China are invariably connected to government interests, and it has been this way since the 90's. Read Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics regarding this point. The book provides much evidence to this fact. Any successful private companies in the post-Tiananmen environment have been based in Hong Kong or Taiwan, e.g. Lenovo.