For Western Marxists, what is likely to be most astonishing is the many-sided approach to Marxism displayed throughout this work. This reflects a strong emphasis on cultivating an open Marxism, drawing on different views and debates, and various movement ver-naculars, in the continuing world struggle for socialism.

In this progression, which the author describes as the unfolding of the hedonistic potential of utopianism, Marxism became China's road to capitalism and consumerism.

The book includes 30 articles divided into 4 parts: basic principles of Marxist economics; contemporary socialist economy in China, contemporary capitalist economy and comparative studies on Marxist economics and Western economics.

The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.

Professor Eckstein's book is a study of China's efforts to achieve rapid modernization of its economy within a socialist framework. Eckstein begins with an examination of economic development in pre-Communist China, specifically focusing on the resources and liabilities inherited by the new regime in 1949 and their effects on development policies. He then analyses the economic objectives of the Communist leadership - narrowing income disparities, maintaining full employment without inflation, and achieving rapid industrialization - and argues that the implementation of these goals required a potent ideology capable of providing a strong faith and motivational force for the mass mobilization of resources. In discussing the methods used by the government to achieve its aims, Eckstein makes a thorough evaluation of China's general framework for economic planning, particularly in regard to the distribution and pricing of farm products and the allocation of resources in the industrial sector. The author also evaluates the radical institutional changes in property relations and in economic organization in the People's Republic of China.

This book is part of a series which makes available to English-speaking audiences the work of the individual Chinese economists who were the architects of China’s economic reform. The series provides an inside view of China’s economic reform, revealing the thinking of the reformers themselves, unlike many other books on China’s economic reform which are written by outside observers. Yu Guangyuan (1915-) is a famous Chinese philosopher and economist. A member of the Chinese Communist Party from 1937, he has made significant contributions in the fields of Marxist theory and in state planning. He was head of the Political Research Office of the State Council from 1975 and the first director of the Economic Research Institute of the State Planning Commission. He has held many other important posts, and was editor-in-chief of the "Dictionary of Economics". The book is published in association with China Development Research Foundation, one of the leading economic and social think tanks in China, where many of the theoretical foundations and policy details of economic reform were formulated.