Ruling Party or Ruling Class? Reading Thomas Heberer and Gunter Schubert Weapons of the Rich: Strategic Action of Private Entrepreneurs in Contemporary China

Abstract In Weapons of the Rich, Thomas Heberer and Gunter Schubert (2020) have applied sociological theory and utilised primary research to argue that Chinese private entrepreneurs have been expanding their influence and becoming a powerful compeer of the Communist Party in what is a regime coalition. This review article draws on the findings of what is the most innovative and comprehensive study to date on the class of Chinese private entrepreneurs to reconsider the relevance of historical materialist concepts to the allotment of power in China around the interrelations between corporate structure, state intervention, and class formation. Stress is placed on the centrality of concentrated, capital-intensive corporations in the private and state sectors as a form of monopoly finance capital within a class conscious strategic group that joins with the party-state into a ruling class.