In recent years, the party has sought to tighten its grip on private businesses, by taking stakes in non-state enterprises or installing officials in large firms
I mean, other than being a giant nothingburger of an article - "Private industry scared of Chinese bureaucrats, but Chinese bureaucrats still desperately need private industry!!!" is the same corporate fascist dog whistling we hear in response to any government regulatory initiative anywhere in the world - that bit seems to stick out.
Everything beyond that is hot air. But
taking stakes in non-state enterprises or installing officials in large firms
is literally nationalization.
It’s quite literally not nationalization, and certainly not nationalization under workers’ control, which is what we want as socialists.
If the government in a minority stakeholder in a private firm, it’s still a private firm, by definition. The government is acting as an investor in the private business, which is still run as a private business.
Putting a government official in as an officer also doesn’t change the private ownership of the company, although it may give the government more influence over business operations. The company again is still run as a private business and is still owned by capitalists.
If the government in a minority stakeholder in a private firm, it’s still a private firm, by definition.
Putting government administrators on the board assigns direct managerial control to the firm.
Putting a government official in as an officer also doesn’t change the private ownership of the company
A public official operating as an administrator of a business will have a significantly different motive than a private investor-appointed manager. This is the whole reason such a change is implemented.
A public official operating as an administrator of a business will have a significantly different motive than a private investor-appointed manager.
Does it exempt the company from the profit motive? No.
Still must be run as a capitalist business per the same rules of competition as any other capitalist business. Capitalist shareholders still expect return on capital investment.
Notice how we were talking about “nationalization” and now the goalposts have shifted to “motives” for administration, and even then it’s a stretch.
Also notice there is zero discussion of workers’ control or worker ownership, because neither of those basic socialist principles apply here.
Does it exempt the company from the profit motive?
No.YesAs the public employee does not enjoy a profitable stack in the operation of the firm.
The entire firm operates on a for-profit basis, return on investment for shareholders, regardless of having an officer or two who works for the government and personally does not enjoy a share of the profits.
That government employee can’t just mandate that the firm operate at a perpetual loss—they will be involved in running the business as a business.
I can’t tell if you don’t have an idea of how private firms work, or you’re trying to pull the wool over folks’ eyes.
The entire firm operates on a for-profit basis
When it's run by private investment capital.
Once it's taken over by public sector bureaucrats, the focus changes to whatever the goal of said bureaucrat happens to be.
Capitalists would have you believe profit-motive is the only motive. But I assumed folks in this community would know better. The entire reason Xi's government is replacing managers is to subvert the investor tendency to value short term profits above long term national well-being. That's the reason for this statement and the motivation for change.
By virtue of a government official stepping in as an officer of the firm, can the firm then begin to operate at a profound loss, like losing money hand over fist?
No, obviously not. It will go out of business, and investments will be pulled because the investors are losing money on their investments. The government could then step in to actually nationalize the company, to itself own the company, but that's not what's happening here. The business is still subject to the profit motive, it is still owned by capitalists, and capitalists have all the usual incentives to maximize profits, and they will maximize profits.
You're literally making an argument for "compassionate capitalism." You are mounting a defense of capitalism. Capitalism has never been compassionate and it's not compassionate now because you, or Xi, want it to be.
Are we talking about private firms taking on government officials as officers, or are we talking about the government employing people to run an agency or something? It's fucking mind-boggling how delusional your argument is.
By virtue of a government official stepping in as an officer of the firm, can the firm then begin to operate at a profound loss, like losing money hand over fist?
glances at AIG, the '08 Financial Sector, and the '10 Auto Sector
Yes.
You’re literally making an argument for “compassionate capitalism.”
I'm making the argument that Chinese state bureaucrats, not private investment capitalists, are the final arbiters of the national economy.
glances at AIG, the '08 Financial Sector, and the '10 Auto Sector
It's almost like these companies got massive government loans meant to prop up their private operations, and this didn't happen by virtue of putting a government employee in the C-suite.
What a fucking joke of a comparison, except for the part where those companies went back to extracting surplus value from their workers, which is the same thing private firms in China are going to do whether or not there's a bureaucrat in their boardrooms.
And the comparison is especially fitting, because the role of the Chinese state is to defend capitalist relations, same as in the US. Thanks for pointing that out.
But yes, draw a comparison to the vultures of finance capital in the US, say Chinese capitalists are comparatively better and magically not subject to any of the laws of capitalism, and then act like your bourgeois apologism is actually woke.
I’m making the argument that Chinese state bureaucrats, not private investment capitalists, are the final arbiters of the national economy.
You wish this was true, but it's not, and it's certainly not more true based on the policy from the article which is literally, once again, not a policy for nationalization.
It’s almost like these companies got massive government loans meant to prop up their private operations, and this didn’t happen by virtue of putting a government employee in the C-suite.
If only there was a comprehensive system of state-initiated loans in China, so that companies following the party line could be insulated from not ravenously following the profit motive. Something like, say, the nationalisation of all major banks.
Wow, almost like state loans from national bank to prop up capitalist businesses in China don’t insulate them from the profit motive any more than Fed loans or legislated bailouts in the United States insulate US capitalists from the profit motive.
Any other arguments in defense of the bourgeoisie over there?
You: party members in private business can’t force a business to defy the profit motive, or it’d go out of business
Me: State banks can give preferential loans to businesses following party orders, to keep them in business if it’s unprofitable
You: ah, but the USA also has loans to business and it’s capitalist
Like, are you even following this discussion chain, or are you just throwing out false equivalencies and gotchas?
It’s a 1-1 equivalence (and an equivalence you drew), two examples of states stepping in to prop up capitalist businesses.
You have literally any evidence that, in China, state loans are uniformly given to businesses that operate at a loss due to focus on social concerns?
Also your initial argument was that the presence of a government official as an officer insulated companies from the profit motive, so we’re now on the third iteration of you rehashing the delusional argument that the private sector in China doesn’t operate by basic rules of capital accumulation.
You have literally any evidence that, in China, state loans are uniformly given to businesses that operate at a loss due to focus on social concerns?
Sure. Here’s research into how China uses state subsidies and tariffs to enable rubber investment in Laos, which both allows for national self-sufficiency in rubber, as well as crowding out opium crops.
And here’s research that finds that non-state firms that engage in prominent corporate philanthropy tend to get more preferential loans than those that don’t.
This isn’t some big secret—China’s use of its state-controlled banking sector in this way has been a very public, very prominent sticking point in western media. It’s usually couched in terms of ‘market distortions’, or ‘non-performing loans’.
Cool. The businesses you mentioned haven’t been exempted, or even really insulated, from the profit motive. Like you said “sure” and then gave me non-responsive examples. So I’ll ask again, can you link to a business in China that is operating at a loss and exempt from the profit motive (you can’t btw).
Bill Gates also gets preferential treatment from the US government and (coincidentally) does philanthropy.
I literally showed you an industry-based example in Laos, as well as a wider study demonstrating preferential loans being given to companies engaging in philanthropy. That’s not just a single example of some billionaire deciding to give money away—it’s evidence of an institutional practice of state owned banks insulating companies from the consequence of non-profitable activities.
Here’s the IMF telling China to stop loaning money to non-profitable companies.
If this stuff doesn’t persuade you, I’m not sure what else will. What I’m saying is not at all controversial. You don’t even have to think it’s a good thing. A big part of Xi’s reforms have been trying to curb the degree to which unprofitable firms keep getting loans.
From your article:
The Chinese copper mining firm NFCA, in contrast, aims not only to pursue profits but also to accrue political capital
What the entire article actually argues is that Chinese policy incentivized the collection of a “strategic resource” (rubber), by protecting rubber exporting firms’ profit margins through tariffs and other mechanisms.
And we aren’t talking about state-owned enterprises!! Like, holy shit, it would be nationalization if the new policies converted private businesses to state-owned enterprises, but that isn’t what the policies do, or are designed to do.
And that’s actually the rub of why you’re wrong: propping up private businesses doesn’t remove the need for return on investment for private capital investors. It just makes it easier for capitalists to realize profitable return on investment in conditions where operations might otherwise not be profitable enough to pursue. In the case of state-owned enterprises, yes the profit motive would be different, because it’s not private capital investment behind the enterprise.
A big part of Xi’s reforms have been trying to curb the degree to which unprofitable firms keep getting loans.
Xi’s policy change is to curb the degree to which unprofitable SOEs are allowed to exist without turning a profit by allowing them to fail (and have their operations replaced by private, for-profit, capitalist investment). It’s literally the opposite of nationalization, it’s privatization.
What the entire article actually argues is that Chinese policy incentivized the collection of a “strategic resource” (rubber), by protecting rubber exporting firms’ profit margins through tariffs and other mechanisms.
Yes. So let’s recap. Without state protection, the profit motive would force a firm to say ‘fuck this, it’s not profitable. Let’s get out of here.’ With the state protection, it does what the state wants.
Yes, some capitalist is still getting more money. M -> M’ holds true. But the things the capitalist has to do to get more money are dictated by the Party not just the market.
Xi’s policy change is to curb the degree to which unprofitable SOEs are allowed to exist without turning a profit by allowing them to fail (and have their operations replaced by private, for-profit, capitalist investment). It’s literally the opposite of nationalization, it’s privatization.
While there are more state-owned zombie firms, there are still a substantial number of zombie private firms. It’s slightly over twice as many state owned to private.
Yes, some capitalist is still getting more money. M -> M’ holds true.
If the government didn’t incentivize (not control) an unprofitable economic activity, it wouldn’t happen. But when they make that activity profitable, it does happen. Wow, seems like there’s a profit motive.
This is also the same principle by which many western, capitalist governments incentivize private investment (New Market Tax Credits for example). Again, I have no idea what connection this has to socialism, working class power, or working class ownership of the means of production.
ALSO NONE OF THIS IS THE ORIGINAL POLICY AT THE TOP OF THIS THREAD THAT YOU FALSELY CLAIMED CONSTITUTES NATIONALIZATION.
You keep backtracking and shifting goal posts, and even then, none of what you’re talking about is nationalization. Literally all of these policies are attempting to influence private businesses without nationalizing private businesses. How intellectually bankrupt can you be?
Look at the usernames in the comment thread. I jumped in purely to discuss the effectiveness of the party-state in bending private industry to the Party’s goals.
If you wanna call that nationalisation, socialism, etc, go for it.
I definitely don’t want to call that socialism, because it’s
the opposite. Also not nationalization, which is a straightforward concept that doesn’t apply here.I’m not going to celebrate the CPC’s selling out workers and defending capitalist relations to the point where the CPC is now itself captured.
Stop replying to me with walls of text about how yellow man bad fucking white chauvinist
completely fails to see it as a culturally diverse and politically conflicting country
Stop looking at China and seeing the United States.
Han Chinese are an overwhelming majority. China is a de facto single-party state under the CCP. And the CCP has high approval both domestically and in the eyes of ex-pats living abroad.
I’m not sure what they’re talking about, but are there capitalist productive relationships in China right now? Yes, obviously, and the CCP even admits as much (socialism by 2050).
If you have capitalist relations, you have class conflict, different and competing class interests between capitalists in China and workers in China. China is not magically exempt from the class conflict inherent to capitalism.
On this website "neoliberal" often just seems to mean "thing I don't like."
Neoliberalism is when you have markets and private property. State owns half the economy? Doesn't matter, if you have private firms it's neoliberal.
It's a period of history in capital development...not that Marxists care about that!
Most "private industries" are worker coops though
No one can own a share of Huawei unless they're employed
The founder of Huawei only owns 1.14% of Huawei while 96,768 there are shareholder employees
While Huawei is not structured perfectly as a traditional worker cooperative where workers have more direct influence over management, the employees still hold indirect influence on management decisions through being able to vote for the Representatives' Commission which appoints Huawei Holding Board of Directors and Board of Supervisors.
In remarks published by Xinhua on Wednesday, Xi said the non-state sector was a vital part of China’s economy and reaffirmed his longstanding pledge to give “unwavering” support to private as well as state-owned firms.
Doubt it.
It's the age-old question of politics.
When is leadership expressing a genuine sentiment? When is leadership just saying what the audience wants to hear?
Given that Xi's statements are being soundbitten by a western news service with a steep capitalist bent and the entire article amounts to "China needs private business more than private business needs China", I might want to dig in a bit further before writing Xi Jinping off as Chinese Ronald Reagan.
Think they're using this as the source: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-09/16/c_139373545.htm
I don't really see this as a super good or super bad thing, it just seems like a step towards more oversight in the private sector and a move towards nationalization (a small one).
Socialist nations need private sectors still because the global markets are dominated by capitalists. Private sectors are a sort of necessary evil. Unless you're North Korea, but they share a boarder with China so benefit from their international trade.
Literally every socialist state has some form of private sector that it uses to interface with global markets, China is at least taking measures to try and keep theirs from growing uncontrollably.
Agreed, it isn't a huge step from the current direction that China has been going on.
More that I think that stage 2 of the Dengist plan where the productive forces are deemed to be developed enough is still far off.
I'm not one to say China is full communist or anything, but this is definitely a good sign that at least Xi seems to be serious about bringing back some of the revolution.
If they manage to develop trade with other socialist nations to the point that interfacing with the US and the West is no longer necessary, I think we'll see some pretty rapid changes.
The drum beating over Xinjiang is definitely a defensive reaction from the West because they know Chinese independence will spell their doom. Especially with China taking over for the IMF in Africa, giving way better deals.
