Ownership or control of an economy by a government
This article is about a variant of capitalism. For the concept of the functions of the state under capitalism, see Capitalist state.
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State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor). The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized using business-management practices) or of public companies (such as publicly listed corporations) in which the state has controlling shares.[1]
A state-capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts as a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[2] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[3] Some scholars argue that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state-capitalist systems, and some western commentators believe that the current economies of China and Singapore also constitute a mixture of state-capitalism with private-capitalism.[4][5][6][7][8]
The label "state capitalism" is used by various authors in reference to a private capitalist economy controlled by a state, i.e. a private economy that is subject to economic planning and interventionism. It has also been used to describe the controlled economies of the Great Powers during World War I (1914-1918).[9] Alternatively, state capitalism may refer to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but the state has considerable control over the allocation of credit and investment.[10] This was the case with Western European countries during the post-war consensus and with France during the period of dirigisme after World War II.[11] Other examples include Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew[12][13][14][15] and Turkey,[16]
as well as military dictatorships during the Cold War and fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.[17][18][19][20]
The phrase "state capitalism" has also come to be used (sometimes interchangeably with "state monopoly capitalism") to describe a system where the state intervenes in the economy to protect and advance the interests of large-scale businesses. Noam Chomsky, a libertarian socialist, applies the term "state capitalism" to the economy of the United States, where large enterprises that are deemed by "the powers that be" as "too big to fail" receive publicly-funded government bailouts that mitigate the firms' assumption of risk and undermine market laws, and where private production is largely funded by the state at public expense, but private owners reap the profits.[21][22][23] This practice is held[citation needed] in contrast with the ideals of both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.[24]
There are various theories and critiques of state capitalism, some of which existed before the October Revolution of 1917. The common themes among them identify that the workers do not meaningfully control the means of production and that capitalist social relations and production for profit still occur within state capitalism, fundamentally retaining the capitalist mode of production. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), Friedrich Engels argued that state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. He argued that the tools for ending capitalism are found in state capitalism.[25] In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin claimed that World War I had transformed laissez-faire capitalism into monopolist state capitalism.[26]
^Williams, Raymond (1985) [1976]. "Capitalism". Keywords: A Vocabulary of Society. Oxford paperbacks (revised ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780195204698. Retrieved 26 June 2020 – via Google Books. A new phrase, state-capitalism, has been widely used in mC20, with precedents from eC20, to describe forms of state ownership in which the original conditions of the definition – centralized ownership of the means of production, leading to a system of wage-labour – have not really changed.
^Compare: Dossani, Sameer (10 February 2009). "Chomsky: Understanding the Crisis — Markets, the State and Hypocrisy". Foreign Policy In Focus. Institute for Policy Studies. Archived from the original on 12 October 2009. Retrieved 1 December 2023. Noam Chomsky: [...] From roughly 1950 until the early 1970s there was a period of unprecedented economic growth and egalitarian economic growth. [...] Many economists called it the golden age of modern capitalism — they should call it state capitalism because government spending was a major engine of growth and development.
^Binns, Peter (March 1986). "State Capitalism". Education for Socialists (1). Socialist Party of Great Britain. Retrieved 26 June 2020 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
^Howard, M. C.; King, J. E. (2001). "'State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union". History of Economics Review. 34 (1): 110–126. doi:10.1080/10370196.2001.11733360. Retrieved 26 June 2020 via – History of Economic Thought Society of Australia.
^Epstein, Gady (31 August 2010). "The Winners And Losers In Chinese Capitalism". Forbes. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
^"The rise of state capitalism". The Economist. 21 January 2012. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
^Ferguson, Niall (9 February 2012). "We're All State Capitalists Now". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
^Araújo, Heriberto; Cardenal, Juan Pablo (1 June 2013). "China's Economic Empire". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
^Coleman, Janet; Conolly, Willam; Miller, David; Ryan, Alan, eds. (1991). The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (reprinted ed.). Wifey/Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9780631179443
^Bakunin, Mikhail (1971) [1873]. Statism and Anarchy. "Critique of the Marxist Theory of the State". In Dolgoff, Sam, ed. Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism. London: George Allen and Unwin. ISBN 978-0394717838.
^Schmidt, Vivien A. (November 2004). "French capitalism transformed, yet still a third variety of capitalism". Economy and Society. 32 (4): 526–554. doi:10.1080/0308514032000141693. S2CID 145716949.
^Berger, Mark T. (August 1997). "Singapore's Authoritarian Capitalism: Asian Values, Free Market Illusions, and Political Dependency by Christopher Lingle". "Book Reviews". The Journal of Asian Studies. Cambridge University Press. 56 (3) 853–854. doi:10.1017/S0021911800035129. JSTOR i325583 i325583.
^Lingle, Christopher; Owens, Amanda J.; Rowley, Charles K., eds. (Summer 1998). "Singapore and Authoritarian Capitalism". The Locke Luminary. I (1).
^Budhwar, Pawan S., ed. (2004). Managing Human Resources in Asia-Pacific. Psychology Press. p. 221. ISBN 9780415300063.
^Bhasin, Balbir B. (2007). "Fostering Entrepreneurship: Developing a Risktaking Culture in Singapore". New England Journal of Entrepreneurship. 10 (2): 39–50. ISSN 1550-333X. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
^
Note for example:
Ricz, Judit (17 February 2023). "Introduction: Emerging Market Economies and Alternative Development Paths". In Ricz, Judit; Gerőcs, Tamás (eds.). The Political Economy of Emerging Markets and Alternative Development Paths. International Political Economy Series - ISSN 2662-2491. Cham: Springer Nature. p. 11. ISBN 9783031207020. Retrieved 1 December 2023. [...] the role of state-owned enterprises, the manufacturing sector, various types of rents and the specificities of the Belarusian and Turkish state capitaliusm.
^Bel, Germà (April 2006). "Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany" (PDF). Economic History Review. 63 (1). University of Barcelona: 34–55. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00473.x. hdl:2445/11716. S2CID 154486694. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
^Gat, Azar (August 2007). "The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers". Foreign Affairs. 86 (4). Council on Foreign Relations: 59–69. JSTOR 20032415.
^Fuchs, Christian (29 June 2017). "The Relevance of Franz L. Neumann's Critical Theory in 2017: Anxiety and Politics in the New Age of Authoritarian Capitalism" (PDF). Media, Culture & Society. 40 (5): 779–791. doi:10.1177/0163443718772147. S2CID 149705789. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
^Fuchs, Christian (27 April 2018). "Authoritarian Capitalism, Authoritarian Movements, Authoritarian Communication" (PDF). TripleC. 15 (2): 637–650. doi:10.1177/0163443718772147. S2CID 149705789. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2019. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
^Chomsky, Noam (18 May 2005). "State and Corp. Noam Chomsky interviewed by uncredited interviewer". Znet Germany. Retrieved 26 June 2020 – via Chomsky.info.
^Chomsky, Noam (7 April 2011). The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival (Speech). University of Toronto. Retrieved 26 June 2020 – via Chomsky.info.
^Chomsky, Noam; Segantini, Tommaso (22 September 2015). "History Doesn't Go In a Straight Line". Jacobin. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
^Johnson, Allan G. (2000). The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology. Blackwell Publishing. p. 306. ISBN 0-631-21681-2.[need quotation to verify] In 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council used the term in Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed to describe the development of China, India and Russia.
^Engels, Friedrich (1970) [1880]. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. "Historical Materialism". Marx/Engels Selected Works. 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 95–151 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
^Lenin, Vladimir (1963) [1916]. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. "Concentration of Production and Monopolies". Lenin Selected Works. 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 667–776. ISBN 9780141192567 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
Statecapitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of...
of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, anarcho-capitalism, state capitalism...
Criticism of capitalism is a critique of political economy that involves the rejection of, or dissatisfaction with the economic system of capitalism and its...
The theory of state monopoly capitalism (also referred as stamocap) was initially a Marxist thesis popularised after World War II. Lenin had claimed in...
relations; the role of class conflict; the role of the state; the extent to which capitalism is a distinctively European innovation; its relationship...
macro-economic regulation. Statecapitalism is a form of capitalism that features high concentrations of state-owned commercial enterprises or state direction of an...
to and overlapping with statecapitalism, a system in which the state undertakes commercial activity, authoritarian capitalism combines private property...
The coexistence of capitalism and democracy, particularly in Europe, was supported by the creation of the modern welfare state in the post-war period...
Late capitalism is a concept first used in print (in German) by German economist Werner Sombart at the start of the 20th century. In the late 2010s, the...
Developmental state Dirigisme Economic interventionism Four Asian Tigers Tiger Cub Economies Nordic model Singapore model Statecapitalism Hamiltonian economic...
for crony capitalism include obtainment of permits, government grants, tax breaks, or other undue influence from businesses over the state's deployment...
Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies[better source needed] and/or the practice of businesses providing welfare services...
thinkers who view the modern state as a byproduct of capitalism, which would have no function in a socialist system. A socialist state is to be distinguished...
Ernest Mandel Late Capitalism Capitalist mode of production Late capitalism Post-Fordism StatecapitalismState monopoly capitalism White Collar: The American...
that support mixed economies include Keynesianism, social liberalism, statecapitalism, fascism, social democracy, the Nordic model, and China's socialist...
state apparatus acting in its self-interest, ushering in a new form of capitalism rather than establishing socialism. As a political ideology, state socialism...
and Fall. Simon and Schuster. "Fighting to be tops". The Economist. "Statecapitalism: China's 'market-Leninism' has yet to face biggest test". Financial...
established socialism had only established "statecapitalism" and was one of the first to describe the Soviet Union as state capitalist. The party's political position...
Rentier capitalism is a concept in Marxist and heterodox economics to refer to rent-seeking and exploitation by companies in capitalist systems. The term...
banana cultivation. A banana republic is a country with an economy of statecapitalism, whereby the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise...
Reich, speaking about the current state of the American economic system, and presents ideas how to "save capitalism". The film was released by Netflix...
the state) Social market economy, also known as Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Mixed capitalist) New Economic Policy (Mixed socialist) Statecapitalism (Government-dominated...
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary...