An Overview of Socialist Political Economy with Chinese Characteristics

This article examines socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics as a coherent theoretical system grounded in Marxist political economy and continuously reshaped through China’s historical practice. The study conceptualizes China's economic model as a dialectical development of Marxist theory under specific national and global conditions. It analyzes the core categories, methodological principles, and value orientations of this framework, with particular attention to the theoretical significance of the socialist market economy as an innovative synthesis of market mechanisms and socialist relations of production. The article further discusses how concepts such as people-centered development, common prosperity, and high-quality growth extend traditional political economy beyond industrial-era assumptions. By emphasizing theory–practice interaction and historical materialism, the study argues that socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics constitutes a distinct paradigm that enriches contemporary political economy and expands the explanatory scope of Marxist economic theory.