Nicholas Loubere Knihy

Focusing on microcredit as a tool for rural development, the book explores how small-scale loans aim to integrate rural areas into China's urban market-oriented financial system. Through extensive fieldwork, it highlights the formulation and outcomes of government microcredit programs, revealing their dual role in promoting financial inclusion for some while exacerbating marginalization for others. The analysis underscores the complexities and contradictions within rural China's development landscape, illustrating the nuanced impacts of top-down strategies on local livelihoods.

After four decades of integration into the global socioeconomic system, discussions of China continue to be framed by a core assumption: that the country represents a fundamentally different and separate 'other'. This Element seeks to illuminate the ways in which China and it's people form an integral part of the global capitalist system.