 Forms of Chinese CommoditiesYanan Wang ()
Chapter 4 in The Basic Theory of Chinese Economy, 2026, pp 25-30 from Springer Abstract: Abstract Commodities have served as a fundamental economic form throughout history, yet their existence always presupposes specific social relations. In this chapter I examine commodities as historical forms and argue that, in a society where different stages coexist, the decisive question is not how many commodities circulate, but which commodity form is dominant. For China today, the problem is no longer whether a commodity economy exists, but whether the dominant commodity is produced under pre-capitalist small-scale production or under capitalist relations. I therefore distinguish “selling in order to buy” from “buying in order to sell,” and clarify why small-scale commodity production is often mistaken for capitalist commodity production in a transitional society. I then classify Chinese commodities—industrial and agricultural products, and the special commodities of land and labor power—and show that exchange alone does not prove capitalism: the capitalist character of a commodity is determined by the conditions of production and the class relation between owners of the means of production and direct producers. Date: 2026 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-95-6330-2_4 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-6330-2_4 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Springer Books from Springer |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.