I think what they’re getting at with this is that markets can exist without some of nastier parts of capitalism (e.g. a co-op operates in a market economy) but so much of the prevailing wisdom (both positive and negative) about capitalism equates markets with capital’s power-distribution function.

markets have existed forever. what is new since the dutch invention of capitalism is the cycle of money->commodity->money instead of commodity->money->commodity. That is, production for money instead of simple exchange.

This different cycle has massive implications, and changes how investments are made. Instead of people investing in things for themselves, they invest explicitly for production for the market and for other people for things they will never use themselves.

In China, the post-Deng consensus is to use markets in service of socialist development. People can be critical of this, but Deng's idea was that: "it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it's a good cat" meaning that markets, even with some capitalist mechanics, if subservient to socialist politics, can still be used to socialist ends. Personally, I am still trying to decide how I feel about that, but it's also hard to argue with (so far) something that looks like success.

I agree, and I agree with Deng’s hypothesis, at least insofar in that China’s maintenance of social benefits appears to be successful, and, importantly, it operates strictly without actual political freedom.