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.
I mean, you definitely should read Marx. China is Socialist, guided by a Communist Party. It hasn’t reached Communism, and when they tried to jump to Communism under Mao and the later Gang of Four, they ran into massive issues because the Means of Production weren’t developed enough.
Marx maintains that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous, dialectically. That doesn’t mean China needed to let Billionaires run rampant, doing whatever they want, it means that it was the correct gamble to heavily industrialize and interlock itself with the global economy while maintaining State Supremacy over Capital, focusing more than anything on developing the productive forces.
Like it or not, the USSR collapsed due to trying to stay isolated from the West, which legitimately led to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They had strong safety nets and all the necessities they needed, but lacked the fun toys. The PRC watched this in real time, and didn’t want to repeat it.
In that manner, the PRC is Socialist. It maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over Capital, Billionaires fear persecution, state ownership is high and growing, the Proletariat’s real purchasing power is growing. The bourgeoisie exists, but has been kept no larger than can be drowned in a bathtub, in terms of power relation to the CPC, so to speak.
There is risk of Capitalist roading, and the bourgeoisie wresting control from the CPC. This risk is real, and is dangerous, but it hasn’t happened yet. Wealth disparity is rising, so we must keep a careful eye on it.
The greatest analytical tool of a Marxist is Dialectical Materialism. When analyzing something, it isn’t sufficient to take a present-day snapshot, you must consider its history, its relations to other entities, its contradictions, and its trajectory. Engels was a Capitalist, was Marx hypocritical for keeping Engels as his closest friend and ally? No. Class reductionism is dogmatic, we must analyze correctly.
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.
The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn’t significantly change this. It doesn’t matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.
What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.
Can you explain this? The PRC practices Whole Process People’s Democracy, which certainly isn’t Liberal Democracy, but is democratic. Xi is elected according to this process, and the PRC enjoys 90%+ approval ratings even in peacetime. Does the fact that China has a government at all mean, in your eyes, that it isn’t a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or do you have meaningful suggestions for how they may improve in your eyes?
The near totality of the energy, shipping, railways, mining, banking, and construction sectors are state owned, operated, and planned. 17 of the 20 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. 70% of the 200 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. The idea that the PRC is a largely state owned and managed “hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape” with 90%+ approval rates is dizzyingly contradictory. The fact that China has private sectors and heavy international trade with Capitalist countries does not mean it isn’t Socialist. Rather, they learned what happens if you don’t integrate with the global economy by watching the dissolution of the USSR.
My impression is informed primarily by visiting several small and medium sized businesses across China. What I saw in these industrial regions was an incredibly widespread entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone wanted to get ahead and have their own business. When the money gets really big, I don’t have direct experience, but it stands to reason the autocracy takes control. Greedy pieces of shit who Elon it up like Jack Ma find this out when they get too big for their britches.
As I’m sure you’re aware, many democracies around the world are largely performative (see e.g. USA) and based on fear, lies, and social engineering. Nothing and nobody in the world could honestly achieve a 90 percent favorability rating, and having observed thousands of workers in China I cannot believe such a number.
But Jack Ma was punished. Surely you can see the difference, can’t you? It isn’t the bourgoeisie in control, but the CPC. Regardless of individuals with “entrepeneurial spirit,” how does that translate to subversion of the CPC?
So, because the vibes are off, you call it a “libertarian Capitalist hellscape” where billionaires who "Elon it up’ get punished by the state, and you fully trust your gut instead of diving into hard-evidence? You’ll forgive me for not taking much stock in your analysis.
Yeah, those damn people queueing up in bread lines when they had all the air and water they needed!
They got what they needed, yes.
I don’t think having lines for food for people who need it is a bad thing if it gets results. The US just lets people starve. Can’t have breadlines if you decide not to give out food, after all!
Bread lines meant they did get the food the needed, which is better than the US solution at the same time, which was travelling bands of kids that found work or starved.
Ah, okay. Well, the previous mode of production involved no private property and no accrual of capital. Now there is both. So do please point out where Marx talks about how things go from not earning capital to earning capital to not earning capital again.
I did. Mao tried to jump ahead to Communism, without developing the Means of Production. This was misguided. Deng noted the failures of the Gang of Four:
The PRC had eliminated Private Property, but were poor. The people were struggling. They had not actually developed the Means of Production to the level they needed to be.
Here’s a Marxist “test,” if you will. If you take expert Marxists and place them in an entirely new Earth-like planet, with no tools, what would their course of history look like? Would they be able to achieve Communism through fiat, or would they have to go through similar stages of production as we did in history?
The Marxist answer is that, while they may be able to go through the process of development more quickly, with the knowledge of key technologies like agriculture and the steam engine that allowed for major leaps in Mode of Production, they would not be able to achieve Upper-Stage Communism outright, and would have to develop Modes of Production alongside technological development, just like you can’t skip from wooden pickaxes to diamond pickaxes without iron pickaxes in Minecraft, if you’ll forgive the analogy.
No you did not. You did not point to where Marx said it or what he said despite me asking you to multiple times. That is just a lie. You are clearly here in bad faith and this discussion is over. And I better not see this kind of trolling from you to other users.
In my opinion, I did provide it. I could link The German Ideology and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and if you read them you would perhaps understand Dialectical and Historical Materialism better, but we are having a discussion on Lemmy. The capacity for sharing information and the expecations for a single thread of replies are very low.
Marx was incredibly intelligent, but he couldn’t predict the future, thus, like I have linked in Critique of the Gotha Programme, the closest we can get is his insistence that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous. Asking for a quote for him saying “communism is when you eliminate private property, struggle a ton, then bring it back in a controlled manner and gradually increase public ownership” won’t happen, because the initial failure isn’t necessary.
Imagine trying to build a modern cell phone with bronze-age technology. You can’t, just like you can’t materialize Communism through fiat without developing the Means of Production. Marxism isn’t Utopian, ie it isn’t about picking a good society and forcing it into existence, regardless of the level of development of the Means of Production. Marxism is Scientific, ie it focuses on historical developments, the Mode of Production is tied to the technological level of the Means of Production. Feudalism disappeared after the Industrial Revolution, largely, and not earlier. Having achieved a backwards, idealist, impoverished “communism” like under Mao and the Gang of Four goes against Marx’s theory of historical development of class society, and China paid the price for ignoring that.
Theory must meet practice, and practice must inform theory. The PRC tried to establish Communism without developing the Means of Production adequately, readjusted, and has now rapidly developed. Holding an ultra-Maoist line like the Gang of Four that insisted it is better for the Proletariat to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism is Revisionism. Maoist Theory regarding Class Struggle did not meet practice, therefore the correct choice was to take a gradualist approach while maintaining CPC control so that when the Means of Production are more developed, they can be more Socialized in turn as Socialism emerges from Capitalism.
This is insulting, especially considering you haven’t attempted to respond to the rest of my comment, where I try to actually engage with modern analysis of a country Marx never lived to see and actively analyze. If clearly high-effort replies are considered “trolling” and “bad-faith” by your standards, then how can you consider your “gotchas” any better?
You’re nice for engaging in good faith.
It’s a bit funny that people who seem to think they are the politics, Marx, and communism understanders don’t even seem to understand basic Marxism that I picked up in an intro to political philosophy class, which covered Marx for all of about two weeks.
Thanks. In my opinion, people easily fall into idealist critiques of Marxists if they don’t read Marx. The Marxist critique of Capitalism is easy enough to grasp the basics of, as well as the Marxist idea of Socialism as Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, but concepts like the Marxist theory of the state, historical development, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism are much less intuitive.
You want quotes? Here are quotes
That’s an extremely long article. Can you point out where he says that communism is developed through eliminating capital, bringing it back again, then eliminating it again?
You may not have seen it, but I changed it to an image with a bunch of quotes.
All the Marx quotes there are discussing a very classic Marxist view of capitalism leading to socialism, not the ML view of feudalism leading to socialism if you believe really hard, much less the claim that modern China, in going from feudal-to-socialist-to-capitalist is somehow riding the right path.
I see that. I asked for Marx. You said Engels. Then you provided an image with a bunch of stuff that not only is not what I asked for, but also includes quotes from fucking Stalin.
If you want me to take your arguments in any way seriously, maybe don’t include the thoughts of someone who committed genocide.
Wall of text
Circular logic
Not going to read
Where, exactly, was the circular logic? Choosing not to read is your right, of course, but if you saw an error in my comment I’d like to know what it is.
Not reading that either.
Peak liberalism, lmao. Even when I ask for a critique, I can’t get any.
The first comment is self-contradictory, “not going to read” yet there is “circular logic”. If they haven’t read it, how can they know that it is there?
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they doubled down. Oh well.
Why make a comment if you aren’t going to engage in good faith? What is the point?
Im ArGuInG iN GoOd FaItH!