Karl Marx hypothesized that there is a long-term tendency for the profit rate to fall in capitalist economies. Immanuel Wallerstein hypothesized that capitalist development tends to drive up labor cost, material cost, and taxation cost. This book evaluates Marx's and Wallerstein's hypotheses by studying the long-term movement of the profit rate and contributing factors in major capitalist economies. During the twentieth century, leading capitalist economies largely succeeded in stabilizing the profit rate. However, the current decline of the profit rate in China may precipitate the global capitalist economy into a new major crisis. As economic growth slows down in all major capitalist economies, Marx's original hypothesis may be verified by the global economic events in the twenty-first century.

This book studies the limits imposed by the depletion of fossil fuels and the requirements of climate stabilization on economic growth with a focus on China. The book intends to examine the potentials of various energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and other renewables, as well as energy efficiency. Unlike many other books on the subject, this book intends to argue that, despite the large potentials of renewable energies and energy efficiency, economic growth eventually will have to be brought to an end as China and the world undertake the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. China has overtaken the US to become the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter. Their energy consumption is dominated by coal and China now accounts for one quarter of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, China is set to become the world's largest oil importer in the next decade. This book will consider energy development in the broader context of economic and social changes, especially the historical dynamics of the capitalist world system. Historical lessons of capitalism and socialism will be discussed. The book will evaluate the implications of ecological limits to growth on the economic system and argue that the existing capitalist system is fundamentally incompatible with ecological sustainability.

The USA is widely seen as the country at the centre of the recent economic crash. But will this be the case the next time the system goes into shock? This book analyses how the political and economic imbalances in China will exacerbate system collapse, and how this could happen much sooner than we imagine, possibly within a decade. By looking at the big questions of class struggle, global economic imbalances, peak oil, climate change and political power play, Minqi Li argues that by the time of the next crisis, China will be at the epicentre of these contradictions. China is the last large region, and source of cheap labour, into which capital could expand: the system is at its limits. By combining this argument with issues surrounding the planet's ecological limits and the internal politics of the Chinese Communist Party, Li commands a narrative of China at a pivotal, and possibly apocalyptic stage.

This book studies the limits imposed by the depletion of fossil fuels and the requirements of climate stabilization on economic growth with a focus on China. The book intends to examine the potentials of various energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and other renewables, as well as energy efficiency. Unlike many other books on the subject, this book intends to argue that, despite the large potentials of renewable energies and energy efficiency, economic growth eventually will have to be brought to an end as China and the world undertake the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. China has overtaken the US to become the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter. Their energy consumption is dominated by coal and China now accounts for one quarter of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, China is set to become the world's largest oil importer in the next decade. This book will consider energy development in the broader context of economic and social changes, especially the historical dynamics of the capitalist world system. Historical lessons of capitalism and socialism will be discussed. The book will evaluate the implications of ecological limits to growth on the economic system and argue that the existing capitalist system is fundamentally incompatible with ecological sustainability.

China's increasing power in the global economy is destabilizing the established system. This book analyses the possible historical trajectories of China and the capitalist world-economy in the twenty-first century. Minqi Li examines the future global prospects from the perspectives of Marxism, world-system theories, and ecological limits to growth. He argues that China is likely to exacerbate many of the major contradictions of world capitalism, which could lead to the demise of the existing world-system.

This is an essential text for students of political economy, economics and global politics.

Minqi Li was a political prisoner in China between 1990 and 1992. He teaches economics at the University of Utah and has also taught political science at York University, Canada.

The economic growth in East Asia has been believed to be the model case of the triumph of capitalism. Some progressive economists, for example, the developmental state theorists, also praised the East Asian model as the progressive alternative to neoliberal market fundamentalism, arguing that they are the outcomes of state-led development. However, with the sudden advent of the 'Lost Decade of Japan' in the 1990s, and the ensuing 'IMF Crisis' of South Korea in 1997, and now the imminent 'hard landing' of the Chinese economy, the East Asian miracle story is quickly becoming a thing of the past. East Asia has now become an epicentre of the contradictions and crisis of global capitalism. Today, deepening economic crises, exacerbation of social polarization, rising popular discontents, and escalating geopolitical tensions are common to China, Japan and Korea. Moreover, East Asia has been at the centre of global ecological contradictions. Indeed, East Asia has now become the typical place of Marxian macro-dynamics. ; This important and timely volume brings together experts in political economy from across the globe, to comment on the return of Marxian macro-dynamics in East Asia. The contributions explore macro-dynamics, the role of the state and hegemony in the context of transnational capitalism, and Marxian alternatives for East Asia.

The USA is widely seen as the country at the centre of the recent economic crash. But will this be the case the next time the system goes into shock? This book analyses how the political and economic imbalances in China will exacerbate system collapse, and how this could happen much sooner than we imagine, possibly within a decade. By looking at the big questions of class struggle, global economic imbalances, peak oil, climate change and political power play, Minqi Li argues that by the time of the next crisis, China will be at the epicentre of these contradictions. China is the last large region, and source of cheap labour, into which capital could expand: the system is at its limits. By combining this argument with issues surrounding the planet's ecological limits and the internal politics of the Chinese Communist Party, Li commands a narrative of China at a pivotal, and possibly apocalyptic stage.

In recent years, China has become a major actor in the global economy, making a remarkable switch from a planned and egalitarian socialism to a simultaneously wide-open and tightly controlled market economy. Against the establishment wisdom, Minqi Li argues in this provocative and startling book that far from strengthening capitalism, China's full integration into the world capitalist system will, in fact and in the not too distant future, bring about its demise. The author tells us that historically the spread and growth of capitalist economies has required low wages, taxation, and environmental costs, as well as a hegemonic nation to prevent international competition from eroding these requirements. With the decline of the economic power of the United States, its current hegemonic role will deteriorate and the unprecedented growth of China will so erode the foundations of capital accumulation--by pushing wages and environmental costs up, for example--that the entire capitalist system will be shaken to its core. This is essential reading for those who still believe that there is no alternative.

A common theme in the analysis of the contemporary Chinese economy is that the Chinese state owned enterprises fail to operate efficiently because of ambiguous property rights, soft budget constraints, and government intervention. These authors advocate an economic reform program based on large-scale privatization. This monograph advances an alternative perspective on the state owned enterprises. It argues that the state owned enterprises have made an important contribution to China's macroeconomic stability. In the Chinese context, the state owned enterprise sector must be sufficiently large so that public sector investment accounts for about 50 percent of the total capital formation. The performance of the state owned enterprises can be enhanced by promoting workers' participation in management. Much of the disguised unemployment in the state sector may be due to insufficient aggregate demand rather than technical inefficiency. An increase in aggregate demand should lead to substantially higher productivity in the state owned enterprises.