China - Socialism in the 21st Century - by Elias Jabbour & Alberto Gabriele

Written for the general public, the book China: socialism in the 21st century is a meticulous theoretical and statistical work by Elias Jabbour and Alberto Gabriele. The work analyzes the People's Republic of China, a giant that has become, in the last two decades, the locomotive of the world economic system. After all, what is Chinese socialism? It is possible to affirm that it differs from capitalism as we have known it until now, although it is still premature to define it as a consolidated alternative. With a critical stance, the authors do not disregard China's complexity and avoid ideological prejudices such as framing the country as yet another socialist failure or, in the opposite direction, as a paradise of accomplished communism. They offer the reader a materialist approach, which analyzes the peculiarity of property relations and planning/design tools in force in the country. All this to highlight its crucial role as a realistic alternative to the anarchy of capital. The work presents a country that managed, for decades, to achieve one of the most stable growth rates in history, going from one of the poorest in the world to the second economy on the planet and which has a vast industrial and scientific base, without ignoring that the socioeconomic system Chinese also carries serious contradictions that need to be analyzed and criticized. Silvio Almeida, who wrote the fourth cover, states that "the book by Elias Jabbour and Alberto Gabriele is a courageous work. And here it is not about exalting a moral aspect, external to the work. The courage I am referring to is an essential attribute to major intellectual endeavors that aim to initiate a public, science-oriented debate around fundamental themes.