It’s the assembly line model with vertical integration and economies of scale, and it’s extremely capitalist
It is capitalist, but it’s also socialist, which won’t be in the article, because a teardown can’t reveal those cost savings:
- Not having to pay for workers’ health insurance, because the state provides healthcare
- Not having to pay workers for hugely overpriced housing because of neoliberal asset price inflation
- Not having to pay people extra so they can pay their student loans, because education is free/cheap
- Not having to pay into pension funds or 401(k) matching.
Etcetera. I think there are also various infrastructure costs that are cheaper thanks to being state run, rather than privatized and for-profit.
Edit to add: Another angle from which to view this is that late stage/neoliberal/finance capitalism has priced many capitalist countries out of the market, because the Finance, Insurance, Real Estate (FIRE) economy has buried both the working class and the real economy under onerous debts. They can’t compete with an industrialized planned economy that isn’t run by the capitalist class.
You really just said housing prices were not overly inflated in China? You guys gotta talk to some Chinese people for real.