The Myth of Chinese Capitalism

The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World

By: Dexter Roberts

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

The untold story of how restrictive policies are preventing China from becoming the world's largest economy

Dexter Roberts lived in Beijing for two decades working as a reporter on economics, business and politics for Bloomberg Businessweek. In The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Roberts explores the reality behind today's financially-ascendant China and pulls the curtain back on how the Chinese manufacturing machine is actually powered.

He focuses on two places: the village of Binghuacun in the province of Guizhou, one of China's poorest regions that sends the highest proportion of its youth away to become migrants; and Dongguan, China's most infamous factory town located in Guangdong, home to both the largest number of migrant workers and the country's biggest manufacturing base.

Within these two towns and the people that move between them, Roberts focuses on the story of the Mo family, former farmers-turned-migrant-workers who are struggling to make a living in a fast-changing country that relegates one-half of its people to second-class status via household registration, land tenure policies, and inequality in education and health care systems.

©2020 Dexter Roberts (P)2020 Tantor

Immensely valuable

This book does an excellent job of distilling the boundless and intimidating complexity of modern China into an accessible narrative. Roberts masterfully weaves statistics and human stories in such a way that each supports and enriches the other. For anyone wishing to make sense of the whirlwind of headlines about China, this book is invaluable.

Rambling

The message is clear but too often the book rambles from one story to another without tying it all together for long stretches. The message however is an important one and I am happy to have listened.