Planned and market economies are two key components of the overall socialist system. This chapter primarily concerns the socialist market economy, since many outside China remains noticeably ignorant concerning its nature. Chinese debates concerning the socialist market economy were settled 25 years ago, with the following seen as the solution. One must begin with the logical, economic, and historical reasons for de-linking a ‘market economy’ from a capitalist system, as also a ‘planned economy’ from a socialist system. Second is contradiction analysis, where we find a shift from over-emphasising ownership of the means of production and restoring an oft-neglected emphasis on the liberation of productive forces. Further, Chinese scholars distinguish between an overall economic system (zhidu) and specific institutional forms or components (tizhi), such as planned and market economies. It follows that one can have both institutional forms as components within the socialist system. Third, one must also deploy contradiction analysis at another level, now in terms of universality and particularity. The question now concerns what is common about a market economy and how the particular features of a socio-economic system determine the nature of a market economy. Thus, each component (tizhi) is shaped and determined by the system (zhidu) in question, with a socialist system focused not on profit but on meeting the needs of the people (gongtongti fuwu). Finally, this chapter deals with more recent arguments concerning the dialectical transcendence or sublation (Aufhebung—yangqi) of planned and market economies.