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China economy
EconomyChina Economy

Chinese scholars suggest official line between entrepreneurs, capitalists to jolt private-sector spirit

  • Chinese academics have recommended an official line be drawn between entrepreneurs and capitalists to restore business confidence
  • Private sector has lost initiative in post-pandemic recovery, as measures to rein in capital have raised questions of status in relation to state firms

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Chinese scholars have suggested entrepreneurs be theoretically distinguished from “capitalists” as theorised in the works of Karl Marx. Photo: AP
Mandy Zuoin Shanghai

As business confidence reaches new lows and a law to support China’s private firms works its way through the system, scholars have called on the government and Communist Party to formally differentiate “entrepreneurs” from “capitalists” to provide theoretical backing for a resurgence of the non-state sector.

The proposed change comes in response to a perceived ideological bias against millions of business owners – particularly billionaires, the wealthiest individuals in the country – with some figures going so far as to call for the elimination of private ownership outright.
Concerns were amplified when Beijing took action to curb what it termed the “disorderly expansion of capital” as part of its campaign for “common prosperity”, a reorientation of the economy towards a more equitable distribution of wealth.

The term “capitalist” holds derogatory connotations in China, an officially socialist country whose constitution upholds public ownership as the “mainstay” of the economic hierarchy. While private property rights were enshrined in a 2004 amendment to the country’s founding document, the non-state sector has remained relegated to a supporting role.

In a recently published book, Views on China’s Private Economy, economists Teng Tai and Zhang Haibing argued that private business owners are not “capitalists” as originally theorised in the works of Karl Marx. Instead, they said, entrepreneurs are “enterprise managers, innovators, investors, the final risk bearers of enterprises and socialist builders”.

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