Hey comrades, can someone please enlighten me on the holes that I have on my knowledge of China. I know that China currently has a restricted bourgeoisie class to be able to get enough capital to modernize the entire country. And that makes me wonder, if China has plans to eventually get rid of their bourgeoisie once it achieves it target goal. Does it have ever set a date or a specific plan on this?
China keeps tricking me, I thought they were gonna do follow MY plan for communism (me being the world's foremost expert) but instead they just lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and built the world's largest thriving economy to the point that they can challenge global US hegemony, I feel so let down. 😞
neither of those are unique accomplishments of communism tho. And afaict in the things that specifically make communism better than the alternative (radical democracy, elimination of class inequality/class divisions in general), China is not doing exceptionally well.
For real, China's economic miracle is basically unprecedented and better than anything accomplished by any other country with the possible exception of the USSR, and is more enduring. And it's just the beginning.
Singapore wasn't a country where being "rich" meant being a landless peasant but eating wheat instead of millet and having meat 3 times a year.
China have made any number of compromises and backward steps, some needed and some I heavily criticise.
But they're still around, and I don't see a hammer and sickle on any of our flags so we might want to remove the log from our eyes before we attempt to remove the splinter from theirs.
Singapore was never really 'poor' in the way China, especially at the start of the 20th century, was though. They have always been a relatively wealthy centralized trading port.
Also Singapore, I am pretty sure, did some nice development but they got a some western backing to help
Singapore can't possibly be a good example because it's a city, basically. It's not comparable to what china has done and I'm talking about what China has done since Mao proclaimed the PRC in 1949, not just since Deng's reforms in 1979 onward. What Mao and the CPC did achieved great progress even before the reforms that allowed foreign capital to come pouring in (always under the direction of the CPC and for the benefit of all the people). Those reforms weren't an abandonment of the socialist principals that preceded them, just a change in tactics to conform to the situation China found itself in within the global economy, allowing foreign investment to turbocharge what was already underway. Just look at China compared to India for an example of a country of similar size and demographic realities choosing capitalist development vs socialist development.
Oh no that's horrible, I'm going to call Xi Jinping and the other one hundred million Chinese communist party members to tell them what a bad job they're doing
Here is Cheng Enfu's outline for the different stages of socialism. He is the president of the Academy of Marxism at CASS.
Show
I've been trying to find a PDF of the book it is from, China's Economic Dialectic, but haven't been able to. I'll buy it one day. Here is a paper I didn't realized he published which has a similar chart: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=0051EA1A0EAA00EF7B1B1D61428EE3A2 "On the Three Stages in the Development of Socialism"
So what does he say about current status, timeline, etc?
Communism button when, basically.
Well first off, the paper mentions how there are disagreements with regard to defining stages of socialism.
excerpt, p 176
In contemporary China, there exists a variety of ideas with regard to the criteria for distinguishing stages of socialism. To sum up, these criteria include “the level of productivity development,” “the realization of modernization and its corresponding living standard,” “the relations of production and the ownership of means of production,” and “the operational mechanism of social economy.”
And towards the end he mentions the different definitions by Lenin, Stalin, and Deng.
But he believes there are five conditions necessary to transition to communism. It's not very ground-breaking though.
excerpt, p 177-178
To that end, five basic conditions must be met: first, the material condition — highly advanced productive forces; second, the economic condition — single ownership of the means of production by all the people, a planned economy and distribution according to need; third, the social condition — full development of education, science, technology, culture and health care, and the elimination of the major difference between mental labor and manual labor; fourth, the spiritual condition — the great improvement of ideological awareness and moral character; fifth, the political condition — abolition of class and the withering away of the state.
Probably the most reassuring thing is this:
excerpt, p 178
The primary stage is not only about laying foundations; it is also the transition to the intermediate and advanced stages of socialism. This is a historical process in which the public-owned economy grows stronger and distribution according to labor becomes dominant. The key is to grasp the present and future economy from the perspectives of the three economic systems — property rights, distribution, and regulation — at different stages of development. Some may argue that there is no risk to China’s superstructure, i.e., the long-term rule of the working-class political party, even if privatization becomes the main element of the reform. This is a misconception, which deviates from historical materialism. The rule of the political party of the working class, public ownership, and the guidance of Marxism are all indispensable factors that together constitute the essential content of socialism.
So, communism eventually. Not market socialism forever though.
And towards the end he mentions the different definitions by Lenin, Stalin, and Deng.
I'd like to read this section, if it isn't too much hassle.
It's just at the end of the linked PDF. On my phone and in a hurry so this won't be formatted well.
big quote
Beginning from Thomas Moore’s book Utopia in 1516, world social- ism has had a history of a little more than 500 years. The fact that the vast majority of European critical utopian socialists regard private ownership, commodity, money, and market as the root of evil is of great reflexive value. Marx, Engels, and Lenin all believed that dur- ing transition from the old society to a communist society (including socialism as the first or lower stage), private ownership, commodity and monetary relations could continue to exist in very small amounts. Only when private ownership, cooperative economy and commodity– money relations are completely eliminated can there formally be a communist society. This is the first concept of a socialist economic system, established by Marx, Engels and Lenin; it is a socialist social concept in a strict sense. Vietnam has so far adhered to this criterion for socialist society, declaring that it is still in the transition phase to socialism and not yet having achieved socialism. Of course, Lenin sometimes referred to the New Economic Pol- icy period, which contained a certain amount of private ownership, 180 SCIENCE & SOCIETY cooperative economy, and commodity economy, as socialism, but only in the special sense of the working class and its party being in power. Stalin, similarly, declared, in 1936, that socialism was achieved in the Soviet Union (Stalin, 1978), at a time when there still existed cooperative economy, commodity and monetary relations, and the issuance of money wages instead of labor vouchers. Mao Zedong agreed with the Soviet standard, and in 1956 declared the end of the transition period (the period of New Democracy) from the old society to socialist society. After China began its reform and opening up, the constitution in the 1990s stipulated the implementation of a property rights system that had public ownership as the center and non-public economy as an important part, and implementation of the socialist market economy. These steps further lowered the standard for socialist society. This is the third concept of a socialist economic system, established by Deng Xiaoping. As to whether non-public economy has surpassed public economy and become the main central form in reality, this is a ques- tion about the actual operation of the economy, about whether or not the country is strictly following the constitution, and about system adjustment. There is no right or wrong in the three views of the socialist economic system. They just represent different values and criteria for economic systems. I have tried to enrich the theory by, in a broad sense, defining the first concept of a socialist economic system as the advanced stage of socialism, the second as the intermediate stage, and the third as the primary stage. The idea of three stages of social- ism is based on previous research, based on the Marxist classics and on practical experience (for details see Cheng and Hu, 2018). This new theory answers, in a logically consistent manner, the difficult questions of what socialism is and how its practice and operation should proceed; it is intended to serve as the basis for further aca- demic research and practical undertaking. It obviously differs from views of “socialism without working-class rule,” “socialism–capitalism convergence,” “high welfare is socialism,” and “permanent primary stage of socialism.”
No worries about formatting, friend. Just sharing it is not only good enough but much appreciated.
Disagreements? That can't be. BBC assured me Xi disappears critics.
China is just going to keep doing what works. Their whole system is built on continuous 5 year and 20 year plans with an overall goal outlined for longer periods, but their focuses on each plan will be targeting existing issues and realities within China.
Their current system is functioning well enough and into there's a need to change they'll probably keep it.
That being said, the housing collapse and the pressure from the lower wage workers is rising, so I can see a shift happening soon. Especially since they lock down investments for citizens and keep most money internal.
If there's any more movement towards a war, that's another factor that would likely cause them to rapidly liquidate the Special Economic Zones. Having the tech and light industrial sectors under state control would be necessary for wartime production, and it's unlikely that they'd return those factories to the capitalists that ran them afterwards.
Hijacking this like Leila Khaled.
Can anyone recommend any good books generally on the history of the Chinese revolution and maybe its initial stages?
Thanks! This one seems really great!
I found it really cheap so I already bought it.
A user already gave a book, so if you want a TV historical drama (you can turn your brain off to supplement the book) about the origins of the Communist Party, you can watch "The Age of Awakening here or here (translation is a little funny on either, choose whichever makes the most sense for you)
I really liked it but it depends if you enjoy every detail being explored in a show, starting with Chen Duxiu before the Communist party was established. Speaking of, Chen is played by one of my favorite Chinese actors who did a really good job in the Three Body Problem as Da Shi.
I think he's referring to the 2049 centenary goal of a "strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country". Unfortunately for planned economy enthusiasts, I can't recall a single official statement that links such a goal with a drastic change in how the economy is run. For the CPC, SWCC is socialism. Unless the collapse of capitalism in 2040 or whatever makes it necessary, don't expect China to implement cyber communism.
No, they aren't liberals. They base their plans on material conditions. They aren't going to make a plan based on ideology without respect to material conditions
Yeah, so the current SWCC model will continue for as long as it works well. Which is not forever, but there's also no set date because that wouldn't be materialist.
this isn't a direct answer to your question, but here's aimixin on Marx and the elimination of private production (the first two paragraphs are setup):
Marxists do not claim people should just work for society because of some selfless feelings, Marx was personally annoyed with people who constantly said this and commented on it himself:
Communists do not oppose egoism...The Communists do not preach morality at all. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc...the Communists by no means want to do away with the "private individual" for the sake of the "general", selfless man. That is a statement of the imagination.
—Marx, The German Ideology
The reason Marx saw a post-capitalist society as having socialized production, where people work for society, is because they have to. But, I know what you're thinking, "that's authoritarian!" But you'd be misunderstanding, he did not believe people would work socially because the government would tell them to at gunpoint or that owning a private business would be against the law.
No, he thought they would work socially because any other sort of economic arrangement would simply not be possible. Even if you changed the laws to allow for starting a private business, you still could not start one, because it would just not be something feasible people could do.
Why? Because Marx observed that in all capitalist societies, private enterprises always grow in scale, and the proportion of small businesses to big is continually shrinking. The more this goes on, the smaller the proportion of businesses owners to workers in a society becomes, the more and more small businesses go bankrupt and people the business owners then become regular workers.
Why does this happen? Because the government outlawed private businesses? No, because as businesses grow in size, the smaller businesses that can't keep up eventually just can't compete and are less efficient and go bankrupt.
Not only this, but as businesses get bigger, the barrier of entry constantly rises. Can you start a small business in your basement to compete with Samsung? Of course not, you need hundreds of billions of dollars in capital to even begin to compete!
Again, it's not the government making it illegal to own a business. It's the physical conditions of everyday life making it simply impossible to own one no matter what the laws say.
It is a misunderstanding of Marxism to think that what Marx had in mind was just to make all private businesses illegal. Rather, the vision he had was to nationalize the "big industry" which has already grown so large that there is hardly much competition anymore anyways, and then to use it to try and speed up economic development, because this will make more of the small business sector grow into big businesses, and then eventually they too can be nationalized.
Hence, Marx argued for a gradual, "by degree" nationalization process, alongside encouraging rapid economic development, "the development of the productive forces." Not just making all private enterprise illegal.
People would work for this big industry because there would simply be no other industry to work for and it would not be physically possible for them to start a small business even if the laws allowed them to.
I firmly disagree with this analysis of Marx. Marx did not JUST advocate for gradual nationalization processes, that is some Kautskyist revisionism. To paraphrase Lenin, that is taking the revolutionary sentiment and reasoning out of Marx and rendering him a sheepdog to bourgeoisie capitalism, something he very much was not.
It is clear that Marx thought that the international communist movement would emerge out of history, birthed not wholesale but cobbled together, as all movements are, through both violent and peaceful processes. In some areas that would look like gradual nationalism, in others that would have to be emergent from violent social revolution. There was no 'one size fits all' solution because what Marx was primarily focused on was describing the existent, novel and nascent, capitalist formations that were around him and predicting the reason and types of crises they would encounter because of their contradictory formations, than describing a theoretical communist society or even the 'proper' movement towards one.
When they are sure they don't need it anymore. It has been a very successful weapon against the west. China is still roughly as economically powerful a Mexico. They have a long way to go before they don't have to worry about the CIA. When the material conditions are right they will do so. We can seen countless examples of them improving things as conditions allow so there is no reason to belive this would be any different
China is not roughly as economically powerful as Mexico. You can't use per capita numbers when measuring a country's economic power. By those numbers Lichtenstein is much more economically powerful than the US.
Fair. I think it still holds up when discussing domestic economic targets.
For sure. Just like it doesn't make sense to use per capita numbers to discuss a country's international economic power, it makes no sense to not use per capita numbers when discussing their domestic economic goals.
As far as I'm aware, China doesn't plan on changing what it's currently doing. People read predictions like "China will be a prosperous socialist country by 2050" and think that means they will start phasing out their market economy and private property before that date. But I don't think they will. As far as I'm aware, everything indicates that the CPC believes that what they are currently doing IS socialism. There is also a very strong reaction to the obviously untrue US propaganda created to make people hostile to China, which leads to a lot of leftists counterjerking very hard and denying that any criticism can be made of the direction that Marxism has taken in the country.
Except that if you read their theory and literature, it's not that they believe what they are doing 'is socialism' it's that they believe that 'socialism' occurs in stages, with the properties of those stages emergent within the contradictions and economic circumstances of their era. Communism, according to marxist analysis, is the social movement that emerges from the contradictions of capitalism, but marxism does not define what that movement is or looks like (a fundamental critique of Marx by Mao), and China operates in a fundamentally different manner than any other country of it's kind. The differences between them and India, despite theoretically occupying the same rung on the global economic ladder, are stark, and evidence of this.
If their theory is sound will remain to be seen, but what is clear is that they are still here and doing 'communism' while the USSR is not. They have forded the contradictions into this new, bleaker era, keeping the torch of Marxism and Marxist analysis, however dim, lit, and that is to be commended, as much as their foreign policy is to be criticized.
