The Transformation of Ideology from Mao to Deng: Impact on China’s Social Welfare Outcome

This article aims at making a dialectical assessment of the development of social welfare between the period of Mao’s socialism and Deng’s economic marketization. It examines the transformation of ideological discourses between the two periods and its impact on social welfare outcomes. It posits that an ideological system is important in affecting the outcome of social welfare policy. Mao’s welfare policy, despite certain shortcomings, created a relatively equal, sustainable and self‐sufficient society with solid achievements in social welfare and especially in human development. Deng’s economic marketization, although remarkable in economic growth, is producing social contradictions leading to the decline of welfare service. The current development discourse is dismantling Mao’s welfare policy without establishing a new and more democratic conception of socialist political economy.