Decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, the legacy of the Sino-Soviet split stands out sharply in the history of socialism and the Cold War as a major turning point, impacting conflicts all over the world and within the movement, the collapses of 89-91, and China's relationship with the West and embrace of foreign investment.
How do Marxists in China (inside and outside of the CPC) think of it? As justified, as a mistake, as well-intentioned but with bad consequences? What works of theory analyzes its causes, effects? And in light of China's reform and opening up, how is "revisionism", in general and as an ideological rebuke of liberalization in the post-Stalin era in particular, understood?
Any and all answers appreciated, let me know if another comm is better suited for this post.
The PRC also hasn't experienced a real boom-bust cycle. The lack of a real boom-bust cycle is a major argument towards the PRC not being capitalist because the boom-bust cycle is an inherent feature of capitalism. What you do observe in concrete reality, as you yourself put it, is almost uniformly positive economic growth. Even the Cultural Revolution was marked by a period of economic stagnation rather than economic decline. The only point in the PRC's history where you saw negative economic growth was during the GLF, and that has more to do with the PRC not properly managing food production. It has nothing to do with capitalism since negative economic growth in capitalism has more to do with overproduction than underproduction.
If the PRC was completely capitalist, why was it almost completely unaffected by the Great Recession? Why has the PRC, in contrast to virtually every other capitalist country, pursued a strict policy to contain Covid even against the wishes of its own bourgeoisie? I guess Chinese capitalists are extremely big-brained in foreseeing the effects of long Covid on their wageslaves versus their Western counterparts. The brains of Western capitalists, with a completely smooth and near frictionless surface, pales in comparison with the fractal brains of Chinese capitalists.
If one were to believe that the PRC is capitalist, then the only real explanation for the reason why the PRC is outperforming the West is something pertaining to Chineseness. After all, if China is capitalist and the West is also capitalist, then the main difference between capitalism with Chinese characteristics and capitalism with Western characteristics is the Chinese part of it. Whether it's Chinese culture, Chinese genes, or Chinese skull shapes, the West are getting owned. I guess Western capitalists are too stupid to figure how to make capitalism not suck, but what else do you expect from the laboratory freak creation of Yakub.
Of course you can try to argue that the PRC isn't outperforming the West and that it'll collapse any day now, but that's just Western cope lmao
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The chinese standard for recession is single digit economic growth instead of double digit
What is “complete” capitalism? Pure capitalism only exists in the mind of libertarian ancap weirdos. There have at various times been varying levels of socialisation in western economies, it didn’t make them socialist.
China may have a ruling party that keeps a handle on the worst excesses of the bourgeoisie (which is good), but the national economy is still organised in an extremely capitalistic manner. Whether or not that changes in the future is the question, but it’s been the best part of 40 years and private ownership and exploitation are growing, not contracting.
There are always winners and losers in capitalist competition. That’s literally how capitalism operates. China outperforming other capitalist economies isn’t prima facie proof that china’s economy is socialist. Was the US socialist in the 50s because it was outperforming other capitalist countries?
You completely glossed over the lack of a true boom-bust cycle in the PRC. No capitalist economy can escape this. The UK didn't escape it despite colonizing India and half of Africa. The US didn't escape it despite rigging the world's economy through the Bretton Woods system system. But China did. Why is that?
No, it is not, but I see the lack of a true boom-bust cycle as strong evidence that it is not capitalist.
No, it was not socialist because despite its prosperity being due to the theft of Indigenous lands, Black slave labor, and its collection of colonies, neocolonies, and proxy states, the US still wasn't able to escape the boom-bust cycle. The time between the Great Depression and the 1973 recession was around 4 decades. Even with everything going in its favor, the US economy couldn't even last for half a century without experiencing a recession. That recession marked the fall of Keynesianism and the rise of neoliberalism. The US economy would then last for less than 4 decades before hitting the Great Recession. And now, less than 2 decades later, the US is poised to hit yet another recession due to Covid. Boom-bust-boom-bust. Such is the fate of a capitalist economy.
The formal proclamation of the PRC until now is almost 80 years, and in that time period, the PRC has experience not one major recession. The PRC was completely unaffected by the 1973 recession, it was barely affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis that hit every single capitalist countries in East Asia, it was also completely unaffected by the Great Recession of 2008, and it registered "slower than predicted growth" in the current Covid recession.
I guess the plucky Chinese capitalists are just super-duper smart compared with every single other capitalist in world history.