Market Reforms In Socialist Societies: Comparing China And Hungary

"What communist-party states lack is a political process capable of fully implementing market reforms." Around this thought, Professor Van Ness of the University of Denver has grouped 14 papers by Chinese, Hungarian and American scholars. The results are uneven and there is, not surprisingly, less emphasis than one would like on the odd but intriguing comparison of the Asian giant and the small European state. The high points are the editor's introduction, which makes sense of the whole enterprise, and Janos Kornai's masterful summary of his country's experience.