Cat theory (Deng Xiaoping)

The cat theory (simplified Chinese: 猫论; traditional Chinese: 貓論) of Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of China between 1978 and 1989, is a pragmatic economic philosophy which can be summarized by "it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it's a good cat (不管黑猫白猫，能捉到老鼠就是好猫)". Deng argued that a planned economy or a market economy are only tools for distributing resources and have nothing to do with political institutions. In other words, socialism can have market economy and capitalism can have planned economy. The cat theory became widely known within the Chinese society after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992, and was an underlying ideology of the reform and opening in China.