Great Social Transformation Afoot in China

After su ering from the short nightmare of "market society" in the 1990s,China has found a burgeoning countermovement hastening the birth of a "social market". In a social market,the market is still the primary mechanism of resource allocation but the government employs redistributive instruments to conduct "decommodification" in areas concerning people’s rights of existence,letting everyone share the fruits of market operation and letting each social class share the costs of market operation in a bid to reembed the market in social and ethical relations. A litany of social policies enacted in recent years show that the Chinese government has both the political will and fiscal prowess to serve as a midwife for the birth of the social market. Nevertheless,China has yet to strengthen its will and prowess. Today there still exists a multitude of grave problems in Chinese society but it is a historical turning point to see the eventual emergence of social policy whose importance cannot be overestimated.