A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.
CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”
According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.
That’s legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.
I don’t think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.
The USSR didn’t collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.
Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60’s.
Russia didn’t want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn’t track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.
But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers’ councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.
Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.
I’m sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to “drown in a bathtub”. 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.
Yes, and now let’s look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We’ve gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.
What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn’t productive enough to make that particular leap…who the hell can?
As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership…modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.
Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I’m grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn’t coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?
Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who’s disciples were Jews.
You can’t be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.
Cowbee didn’t do that. Cowbee said that Engles was a Capitalist, i.e. he had Capital, I am reading it as if you are mistaking it for Liberal? Cowbee also didn’t call Marx a socialist.
My point was that his assertion that Marx didn’t judge Engles for being a capitalist isn’t really meaningful as they didn’t ideologically conflict at the time. There wasn’t an ideological divide between a capitalist and workers, as workers hadn’t developed a stratified class consciousness.
The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.
This doesn’t really follow. I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical. Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?
This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.
I said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC. There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.
Okay.
It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.
Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.
It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.
Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.
I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.
Source for forced labor in China.
Ahh, so examine internal contradictions…but don’t actually call them contradictions.
It depends on what era and region you are talking about. Stalin was a supporter of communism in one country, as opposed to Mao who urged each country to adopt communism with characteristics unique to each culture.
A large part of the split between Trotsky and Stalin occured over how to handle the CCP during the Japanese invasion. Stalin wanted to make a deal with the KMT and later turn on them, Trotsky wanted to aid the budding CCP in their fight against imperialism.
When talking about the spread in eastern Europe, the Soviets implemented programs to replace languages and culture.
In Korea the Soviets disappeared the socialist leader of Korea who was paramount in fighting off the Japanese, because he wanted control of the country to be transferred back to Koreans and for unification to begin ASAP. He was replaced by the Kim family, who they had trained in Russia.
Or we could just take a look at how the Soviets treated the non Slavic people withing the USSR. Whom are overwhelmingly more impoverished and have historically had the wealth of their land extracted to support the Slavic population. As well as being drafted for wars at a tremendously higher rate than their Slavic counterparts.
What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?
Source?
Soo if the state “owns” the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don’t have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America… What does that say? Something isn’t adding up here.
Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose… Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.
You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.
And what has that ownership meant for the people who “own the means of production”? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.
Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.
Is that worker really worker ownership…? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.
How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you “own”?
Right… But my point was there’s not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.
Wikipedia has a lot of western-friendly reporting on the increase in SOE’s in quantity and control. Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.
Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.
I assumed you were familiar with Marxist theory, I was not referencing the idea of Socialism in One Country vs Permanent Revolution or anything. Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.
As above with the SOEs.
Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances. The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn’t at “breakneck speeds,” you’re going to have to describe what that entails. Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng’s statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.
No, I could not, because the American Bourgeoisie controls the state entirely.
Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there’s even workplace democracy. Simply saying “it seems as though xyz” and gesturing isn’t an argument.
Yes, it’s a contradiction that requires careful planning.
Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management “class?”
I did not. My statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.
So you’re saying state ownership is a response to increased disparity, yet the increase of state ownership hasn’t been effective at controlling the disparity.
An ad hominem? I see this response a lot about anything having to do with the uyghur population. Even if some of the information referenced was gathered by a fascist, that doesn’t mean the information itself is flawed.
The haber process was invented by a literal Nazi and we still utilize it to produce nitrogen. Whatever his motivations, the information he gathered has all been verified by reputable journalists to originate from internal part communications or publicly released information.
You don’t speak for all Marxist, and Marxist don’t get to redefine terminology to exclude themselves from valid criticism. Even if everyone accepted this definition of imperialism… What do you call it when you violently expand your territorial holdings with ethno national intent?
What do we call it when they transfer entire nationalities to places like Kazakhstan to extract the wealth to support the Slavic population? It’s a complete cop out to think that redefining a term to muddy the waters is meaningful despite the end results being tragically similar.
Source?
The share of China’s national income earned by the top 10% of the population has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, nearing the U.S.’s 45% and surpassing France’s 32%.
Similarly, the wealth share of the top 10% of the population reached 67%, close to the U.S.’s 72% and higher than France’s 50%.
Then why is wealth disparity still growing? If SOE have nationalized the majority of production, how is the disparity continue to grow?
Well, it’s because SOE are still profit driven… A nationalized business that still has profit motive isnt inherently different from private organization, especially considering that most of these SOE still have a significant amount of shares being publicly traded.
How is creating wealth for the state and share holders different from creating wealth for a capitalist and share holders for a workers perspective. There still an inherent motivation to maximize profits at the expense of their own workers.
Simply stating there are “Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power,” isn’t an argument. Especially considering there’s widely available reports of workplaces ignoring these guilines without retort. On top of that nearly a third of their workforce lacks the protections outlines by the state as they are migrant workers who dont work full time for a single employer.
As far as real estate purchasing power… I think we both know the extent of their issues within the real estate market.
I don’t really have any criticisms about the majority of their large infrastructure projects, that’s an area I think theyre ahead of the rest of the world, however id hardly say that’s a byproduct of “workers owning the means of production”. I’d say that’s more a byproduct of a more centralized government .
Yes, real wages are rising. But is that a product of industrialization or socialism? Every nation that industrializes sees a rise in wages, that’s not inherent to workers seizing the means of production. What’s strange is that real wages and disparity are rising in eerily similar patterns as western nations.
Are you being purposely obtuse, or just can’t make the leap in deduction? What do you call a class of people whos job is to represent capitalist in the actual workplace? People whom don’t participate in ownership, but work on behalf of the owners to maximize their profits at the behest of the capitalist?
Just because people don’t utilize the same internalized diction accepted in your particular political ideology, doesn’t mean the information isn’t valid. That’s just asking for discourse based purely on semantic reasoning.
Right, but you you said it in reference to class reductionism… Which doesn’t really make sense as there wasn’t an established stratified class consciousness at the time.
I honestly don’t have a problem with Communism, I think Marx was brilliant and dialectical materialism is probably one of the most important ideas of the millennium. Im just not as optimistic about the contemporary implementations of it, and I think it’s important to point out the internal contradictions of past and current states for future attempts.
I constantly see people talking about the importance of addressing internal contradictions, however when anyone points out something like rising disparity or soe having profit motive, I tend to just get knee jerk reactions that are usually based in logical fallacy.
I think you and most Marxist who reflexively defend the contemporary CCP from valid criticism would benefit from a different perspective from someone once very engaged in the party. This isn’t a liberal perspective but someone who is upset at the liberalization of the modern CCP.
From Victory To Defeat: China’s Socialist Road and Capitalist Reversal
by Pao-yu Ching
Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but this is an extremely lengthy conversation where each minor paragraph could be the focus of a single conversation, and the information conveyed would be much better. I’m not going to disrespect you and accuse you of gish-galloping. If you want to focus on a particular topic, I am okay to continue, you can pick one strand and develop it into a sizeable argument and we can discuss from there, but as it stands there is no way to do justice to any of these topics in one cohesive lemmy comment thread.
I read your comment, you have points worthy of responding to. I’m not dismissing that, and I don’t want this comment to be interpreted as such, I just wanted to give you the respect of explaining why I would rather focus on one topic at a time, or disengage altogether. Lemmy isn’t the right format for such a convo.
Have a good day if you decide you don’t want to continue, I appreciate your time.
Fair enough, however I would like to point out that my responses have been direct responses prompted by questions and statements originated by you and the person you were originally responding to.
But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.
In my opinion so long as the company’s structural hierarchy and it’s inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there’s not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don’t really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.
There’s still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There’s still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there’s a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.
Thank you for your time, it’s pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don’t 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.
First off, thanks for bearing with me. This is a good question!
The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I’ll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.
Since I am assuming we are evaluating from a Marxist perspective, it truly is important to apply Dialectical Materialism. One of the pillars of DiaMat is that any analysis that doesn’t see the entirety of the system, and purely compares stationary snapshots of entities, is not Dialectical analysis but mechanical.
Within the context of the PRC, SOEs are guided by the CPC, which practices central planning as can be made to work with the rest of the CPCs planning, while private companies in Capitalist countries are the ones lobbying the State for lucrative projects of their own. The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests. It’s a measure similar to the NEP.
Private companies within the PRC as compared to SOEs obviously see less direct influence and guiding than SOEs do, but similarly exist under the thumb of the PRC, who allows them to act in their own interests as long as they fulfill their role in rapidly building up the productive forces, which we can see is a role that, to this point, has helped dramatically compared to the era of Mao and the Gang of Four, which saw much slower development.
This really depends on outside factors, again analyzing the context within which these entities exist. In SOEs and Private Companies within the PRC there are elements of Workplace Democracy, as I showed prior, but the idea that business entities are perfectly democratic within the PRC is false, which is why I haven’t attempted to make such a point. Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie. Given that the CPC regularly punishes their domestic bourgeoisie and the CPC itself has a 90%+ approval rate among the people, we can at least see that the CPC appears to be acting and managing for the benefit of society as a whole, and not for their bourgoeis class.
You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can’t beam information into everyone’s brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.
I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind. Cheers!
I would say it’s important to evaluate all of these points as a whole. I think evaluating certain aspects of a system under a microscope without equating how it’s supposed to function tends to divert attention from the purpose of the hierarchical system to begin with.
I don’t know if it means they’re automatically guided by bourgeois interest, but I would also hesitate to claim that just next it’s an SOE it’s immune from creating class stratification. My fear is that an increase of wealth disparity is an indication of a new mode of class stratification.
Not that I want to spiral into endless discussion again , but I think framing the argument where we must assume a dictatorship of the proletariat has occurred isn’t a logically sound way to question the effectiveness of any hierarchical system.
I understand the benefit of a centralized economy, my main fear is that systems of hierarchical control are self reinforcing. Hierarchical systems stabilize over time as you utilize them for their intended purpose. If we take a look at the purpose of a profit driven SOE, it’s still to create capital. Now that capital is being controlled by the state, but simply putting that under a stricter hierarchy doesn’t mean that the system is going to change its inherent purpose.
If we assume that the CCP continue to nationalize private organizations until 100% of the production value is being controlled by the state, does that mean the purpose of the hierarchical system is going to change? There will still be people attempting to reinforce the hierarchal system they have been judged upon their entire careers. People have risen to places of power by reinforcing the system of profit, and they will try to protect the system that they excelled at.
I’m not an anarchist or anything and don’t agree with a lot of his hot takes, however if you’re interested Murray Bookchin’s analysis on hierarchy is pretty impressive.
An unfortunate rarity now a days. Thanks for keeping it classy.