Business Coaching

China has seen economic results from putting money in state-owned businesses.

China’s leaders during the financial crisis have reaffirmed their faith in their own more statist approach to economic management, in which private capitalism plays only a supporting role.

The New York Times reports that the Chinese government has grown richer — and more worried about sustaining its high-octane growth — and therefore, it has pumped public money into companies that it expects to upgrade the industrial base and employ more people. The beneficiaries are state-owned interests that many analysts had assumed would gradually wither away in the face of private-sector competition.

The distinction may matter more today than it once did. China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy this year, and its state-directed development model is appealing to poor countries.

Would this strategy work with the US? Investing in state-owned companies, to see the economy skyrocket, just like China?