To hear some geostrategists and economists tell it, the future of the global economy is suspended between two very different models of the balance between the market and the state. Call this debate on capitalisms the Washington Consensus versus the Beijing Consensus. In democracies such as the U.S., market-led capitalism draws its legitimacy from the belief that everyone has an equal chance of getting rich, even if outcomes turn out to be unequal. In authoritarian regimes such as China, state-led capitalism is legitimized because it is assumed to provide more equitable outcomes as well as opportunities, although the reality may be quite different.
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