Competing legacies: Rupture and continuity in Vietnamese political economy

Abstract

Vietnam today is less in a process of transition from 'plan' to 'market' than in a process of state consolidation with clear parallels in the colonial period. The authors focus on four aspects of Vietnamese political economy under the colonial and post-colonial regimes: the interpenetration of state and enterprise through state-created monopolies; the interaction of regional and ethnic dynamics with the monopolies; the 'illegal' activities (smuggling, 'fencebreaking', etc) that accompanied the monopolies; and the way monopolies have served as bases for rampant diversification into speculative ventures. The parallels across the eras call into question conventional notions of rupture, and confirm the importance of structural constraints that continue to shape Vietnam's political economy.