Li Minqi (born 1969) is a Chinese
political economist
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour mar ...
,
world-systems A world-system is a socioeconomic system, under systems theory, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate structural result of the sum of the interactions between polities. World-systems are usually larger than single stat ...
analyst, and historical
social scientist
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...
, currently professor of Economics at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
. Li is known as an advocate of the
Chinese New Left
The Chinese New Left () is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the economic reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which ...
and as a
Marxian economist
Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian e ...
.
Biography
Li was a student at the Economic Management Department of
Beijing University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
during the period 1987–90. There he studied and became convinced of neoliberal
'Chicago School' economics. He engaged in many protests of the existing economic system, and engaged in much activism after the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
.
Li was arrested after advocating
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
principles in 1990, and made a vast switch to become a
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
after extensive reading of the works of
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, and others while a political prisoner until his release in 1992. Li spent the next two years traveling in China, debating with remaining liberal dissident activists and conducting his own research into political, economic, and social development in modern China, using fake identification to visit provincial and city libraries. His view became one opposed to the mainstream, being that
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
's influence was a "revolutionary legacy rather than a historical burden for future socialist revolutionaries."
In 1994, he authored the book ''Capitalist Development and Class Struggle in China'',
[ ] which consisted of an analysis of the economic development of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in the
Maoist era and the
1980s
File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 420px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ease tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the ...
, as well as a Marxist analysis of the 1989
“democratic movement”, arguing that it was not a popular democratic movement and was abandoned by the liberal intellectuals, led to the physical and ideological slaughter of the urban working class, and led to a victory of the bureaucratic capitalists. He attempted to show that this paved the way for China's transition to
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
. He criticized
neoliberal economics
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
and its relation to economic rationality, inherent contradictions between
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
and capitalism, and the social and material conditions that had led to China's rise with a conclusion focusing on a criticism of
state-capitalism and advocating
democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self- ...
.
After firmly completing a political and intellectual break with the mainstream Chinese liberal tradition and their political counterparts, he established himself as a revolutionary Marxist. Li arrived in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
on December 25, 1994 and became a
graduate student
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
.A. (summa cum laude) Economics University of Delaware (1996) Since then, he has been among the foremost promoters of the
Chinese "New Left."
Li went on to author many Marxist articles for
Monthly Review
The ''Monthly Review'', established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. The publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States.
History Establishment
Following ...
in this period, notably "After Neoliberalism: Empire, Social Democracy, or Socialism?".
In 2001 Li's focus shifted to
World Capitalist Systems, and the work of
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his worl ...
in particular. Inspired by Wallerstein's arguments, he wrote a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
article, “Reading Wallerstein’s Capitalist World-Economy—And the China Question in the First Half of the 21st Century,” being the first
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
to link the "rise of China" to the demise of capitalism. The article gained popularity among the New Left in China without his knowledge, and was published in ''Currents of Thought: China’s New Left and Its Influences'' which he found by surprise while browsing in a Chinese
bookstore
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. In late 2001 he expanded his study of China in relation to World-Systems in a critique of
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as pres ...
's theory of Chinese social strata (a refutation of Marxist social relations from a Chinese perspective, arguing that China is moving towards a "middle-class society"), in his “China’s Class Structure from the World-System’s Perspective.” Li argued that China's economic rise would in fact greatly destabilize the capitalist world-economy in various ways and contribute to its final demise. Building upon his previous two papers, he wrote “The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy: Historical Possibilities of the 21st Century.” He then incorporated these and several other papers into his book "The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy"
in 2009, in which he argued, based upon an analysis of environmental data in relation to the Capitalist world economy, that the only way to avoid the inevitable collapse of civilization is to adopt a socialist world government by the middle of the 21st century.
From 2003 to 2006, he taught graduate and undergraduate courses on
political economy
Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...
at
York University
York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...
in
Toronto, Ontario
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Canada, and then went on to teach at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
, where he currently teaches.
He later worked on translation of
Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He fo ...
's "Power and Money" into Chinese with Meng Jie, and was an analyst of Chinese issues in 2008 for
The Real News
The Real News Network (TRNN) is an independent, nonprofit news organization based in Baltimore, MD that covers both national and international news.
History
TRNN was founded by documentary producer Paul Jay and Mishuk Munier in September 20 ...
.
Selected works
*China and the Twenty-First Century Crisis. London:
Pluto Press
Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Originally, it was the publishing arm of the International Socialists (today known as the Socialist Workers Party), until it changed hands and was replaced ...
(October 2015)
*The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy. London:
Pluto Press
Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Originally, it was the publishing arm of the International Socialists (today known as the Socialist Workers Party), until it changed hands and was replaced ...
; New York: Monthly Review Press (November 2008 / January 2009).
*
*Three Essays on China's State Owned Enterprises: Towards An Alternative to Privatization. Hamburg:
VDM Verlag
Omniscriptum Publishing Group, formerly known as VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, is a German publishing group headquartered in Riga, Latvia. Founded in 2002 in Düsseldorf, its book production is based on print-to-order technology.
The company publi ...
(October 2008).
*‘Socialism, Capitalism, and Class Struggle: the Political Economy of Modern China,’ Economic and Political Weekly, XLIII(52): 77–96, December 27, 2008 – January 2, 2009.
*‘Climate Change, Limits to Growth, and the Imperative for Socialism,’ Monthly Review, 60:3 (July–August 2008), pp. 51–67.
*‘An Age of Transition: The United States, China, Peak Oil, and the Demise of Neoliberalism,’ Monthly Review, 59:11 (April 2008), pp. 20–34.
*
*‘Response to Lau’s “China: Labour Reform and the Challenge Facing the Working Class”,’
Capital and Class, 65 (1998).
See also
*
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
*
Immanuel Wallerstein
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his worl ...
*
World-systems approach
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective)Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (E ...
*
Chinese New Left
The Chinese New Left () is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the economic reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Minqi
Living people
Chinese anti-capitalists
Chinese economists
Chinese communists
Maoist theorists
Anti-revisionists
University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni
Marxian economists
University of Utah faculty
1969 births
Chinese New Left
Chinese Marxists
Chinese Maoists