Disorganizing China Counter-Bureaucracy and the Decline of Socialism [Hardcover]

This book offers a new interpretation of socialism and its failure in the last century, and takes on the conventional view that socialist China and other Soviet-type societies represented the domination of bureaucracy. Using a wealth of original archival sources, interview data, and comparative material, Eddy U argues that these societies were not bureaucratic enough. The ruling regimes established a form of workplace administration that is the antithesis of modern bureaucratic organization. Because the workplace lacked rational rules and practices, Soviet-type societies were marred by technical inefficiency, political resentment, and social friction. But U does not merely expose workplace disorganization in Soviet-type societies; his theoretically and empirically grounded research raises questions about the contention that socialism has been proven unworkable. He concludes that strengthening the rational capacity of the state may still be the key to improving social and economic justice.Eddy U offers a new interpretation of socialism and its failure in the last century. Taking on the conventional view that socialist China and other Soviet-type societies represented the domination of bureaucracy, he argues that these societies were not bureaucratic enough. Through extensive interviews and archival research, U reconstructs the concerns and priorities of a war-torn Shanghai as the triumphant Communists marched in to restructure the old society. An illuminating work that drives home the tragedies of Mao's over-reaching ambitions when lofty designs encountered social realities. Clear and to the point,Disorganizing Chinaprovides a valuable window into the nature and problems of everyday administration in Marxist-Leninist polities. A challening contribution to China studies, studies of socialist regimes, and social theory, it provides a reasoned, empirically grounded contribution to ongoing debates over the meaning of state socialism's failures and the promise,lcª