Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise
Hybrid event. To join talk online, please register first.
As China opened up its economy over the past four decades, conventional wisdom held that the country’s growing embrace of free markets would lead to a more liberal society. Instead, China’s unprecedented economic growth has positioned state capitalism as a durable foil to the orthodoxy of free markets, to the confusion of many in the West. At the 20th Party Congress in Beijing in October 2022, Xi Jinping was appointed to a third five-year term as China’s supreme leader, and many have commented on his renewed embrace of Maoist principles. What does this mean for the future of the Chinese economy and relations with the West? What are the implications of China returning to some of the ideological principles spearheaded by Mao Zedong? And how much of China’s decades of economic success can be credited to Mao and Maoism? Mao and Markets (Yale University Press, 2023) examines these questions and charts how Mao’s ideological principles, mass campaigns and socialist institutions have enduringly influenced Chinese entrepreneurs, listed companies and provincial and city politicians.

Christopher Marquis is the Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. He is the author the award winning books Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism and Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. Prior to joining Cambridge he worked at Cornell for over 6 years, and Harvard for over 11 years, where he developed an award-winning course on social entrepreneurship. He is the author of more than 20 peer-reviewed academic articles and more than 50 Harvard business cases on topics related to sustainable business, and has earned awards for scholarly achievement from the Academy of Management and the American Sociological Association. Marquis earned a PhD in sociology and business administration from the University of Michigan and BA in History from Notre Dame. Before his academic career, he worked for six years in the financial services industry, most recently as vice president and technology manager for a business unit of J.P. Morgan Chase.
Date: 31 January 2023, 17:00 (Tuesday, 3rd week, Hilary 2023)
Venue: Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road OX2 6LU
Venue Details: Kin-ku Cheng Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Professor Christopher Marquis (University of Cambridge)
Organising department: Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Organiser: Professor Todd Hall (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: information@chinese.ox.ac.uk
Host: Professor Todd Hall (University of Oxford)
Part of: Baillie Gifford Distinguished Speaker Series
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wezHP1F-SUKhhg31X9Z1Dg
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Clare Orchard