market undone: essays on commerce, corruption, and chinese society

"A Market Undone: Essays on Commerce, Corruption, and Chinese Society brings together 144 essays written by Gan Liu (pen name: Desolate Isle) over six years, from 2020 to 2025. The collection is organized around four thematic sections: "On Innovation," "Voices of Entrepreneurship," "Questions in the Impasse," and "Perspectives on the Economy." Documentary realism, probing inquiry, absurdist observation, and sharp satire - these voices interweave throughout, together painting an unflinching portrait of an era defined by institutional constraint, economic deterioration, and the suppression of free expression. Every essay in this collection is drawn from the author's own experience as an ordinary entrepreneur navigating a declining economy and a deteriorating market. In the spirit of the Chinese saying "a long illness makes the patient a doctor," the book proceeds like a traditional Chinese medical examination - observing, listening, questioning, and probing - to offer a comprehensive diagnosis of China's market paralysis, economic crisis, and the institutional pathologies that lie at their root. The author writes: "Publishing this book leaves me with feelings both heavy and free.