u/kittyabbygirl - originally from r/GenZhou
I’ll make a note that I’m using the more clinical definition for black markets, not in that they deal especially sketchy things, but simply that they are markets that operate outside of the law, whether to avoid taxes, workplace regulations, restrictions on controlled substances, etc… While I’m aware of the opium trade continuing epistolary Maoist China, the more relevant black markets here would be historically considered part of resistance to collectivization, where farmers, instead of growing state planned crops, would often grow other things and sell and exchange them in rejection of the planned economy. This is to my point that legalizations under Deng reduced the black market simply through legalization- now, small farms can operate and sell without being criminal. However, from a material analysis, these farms resemble/resembled early capitalism, as it was primarily small and did not have advanced technologies brought by mass production under capitalism.

I think pork is a textbook example. It has some cringe anti communism stuff in it, but in a lecture Chinese historian Frank Dikötter singled out pork as one of the examples of the failures of collectivization, in that rather than grow corn, farmers were raising pigs. Say what you will of planned economies, but it’s non controversial that Mao made some mistakes in planning, and a lot of these areas were just straight out infertile land that could not support corn (bonus points to Xi whose agriculture plan included soil tests to figure out what can grow where before building farms). Fast forward a bit, and these became smaller independent pork farms. Fast forward more, and Smithfield Foods based in Virginia is the biggest pork producer in the world, operating out of numerous subsidiaries and selling internationally as well. Fast forward to the end of the story 2013, and the Chinese pork manufacturer WH Group buys out Smithfield, unifying production. As a critical Chinese company, they receive significant subsidies to do things small operations never could, such as improved biohazard defense, AI integration, and biotechnology to make the process more efficient and thus cheap for the people of China and the world. Aside from full nationalization, this is the life cycle- crime, small operation, foreign operation, national operation, state-guided innovation.