President issues 'important instructions' to all regions to boost party control over private enterprise and rejuvenate the nation; all firms will need employees from the party to boost law abidance and moral standards
Interesting that there's another post from a similar article that frames this as "China likes their private sector and wants to keep it, they're desperately trying to keep them in line" and a bunch of people talking about how "neoliberalism has corrupted china".
From this it seems like the "next step" is actually being put into motion, as they had already said they would in the past few years. The benefits of highjacking the global capitalist economy to build their own productive forces and gain leverage over the capitalist economy are not as interesting as before, and they've said for a while that they would start switching to an even more state-controlled system now that their controlled capitalist highjacking was not as useful as before.
It certainly seems to be a very dangerous game, and I'm aware that my perspective on this is very narrow since i'm in the west and i can't speak/read mandarin.
This seems to take the right direction, and from what i've heard I feel like xi's fight against corruption and the infiltrated capitalists is going well. Still, the contradictions of the current chinese model are a dangerous game to play, but I still think it was a good choice to make and a good strategy because it's allowed them to gain strength without too much opposition for a while, and the west genuinely seems to have been fooled for some time. Would china have been better off going the more soviet way and becoming economically isolated, wouldn't they still have the same attempts at capitalist infiltration?
I don't know nearly enough about china but this is making me very, very interested.
Unironically yes, I kinda want to learn it. I don't know what the best way to do it is, maybe we could organize something on here or the discord to do it because it's much easier with other people and when you can actually speak and practice out-loud.
I feel like the understanding of china has progressed a lot in the western left, or at least on places like these.
I mean myself, just a few months back, I didn't think much of china and fully accepted the idea that they were an authoritarian state-capitalist country and had communism or socialism only in name.
I also fully bought the narrative around Xinjiang and HK, etc.
I've learned a TON in just the past 2-3 months and i'm still learning, thanks for those sources!
Leftists need to have grand vision and start to think how to carve a path for socialism in this time of crisis.
it's precisely for having done this that we support the actions of the CPC, their decisions were correct under the conditions that were imposed on them
doesn't mean it would be correct for america, or even other third world countries such as mine (though it would definitely be more fitting in our cases for reasons that should be obvious)
you seem to think your point of view is "balanced" and "rational", when it's precisely the opposite, you're making statements while treading on the surface
reality is way more complicated than you think, and marxists need to know how to deal with contradictions. the CPC has shown a surprising ability to do this and their syntheses, most of the time, make perfect sense under their situation
i don't understand how so many socialists are fine with the idea of transitioning from socialism to communism, but as soon as you talk about transitioning from capitalism to socialism (with a revolution first so that the bourgeoisie isn't in power), something LENIN could see like 100 years ago with the NEP, you guys go haywire. like, why is this so controversial lol
this is my optimistic view of Xi, that he is the anti-corruption leader that is trying to stop the power grab of the mega capitalists. He's basically trying to stop the flood created by Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai clique.
That's interesting because that sentiment contrasts pretty strongly with the assessment from Chinese economist Wu Jinglian (who represented more of the right-leaning market reform wing of the party and was even derisively referred to as "Market Wu") about the future of the party about a decade ago as he was complaining about “old-style Maoists” gaining significant influence in the government since 2004. He claimed that this left-wing faction is pressing for a return to central planning and was placing blame for the corruption and economic inequality in China on the market reforms Wu helped lead.
We even saw Jack Ma surprisingly speak favorably of an eventual return towards more of a planned economic model predicated on ongoing technological development:
Over the past 100 years, we have come to believe that the market economy is the best system, but in my opinion, there will be a significant change in the next three decades, and the planned economy will become increasingly big. Why? Because with access to all kinds of data, we may be able to find the invisible hand of the market.
The planned economy I am talking about is not the same as the one used by the Soviet Union or at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The biggest difference between the market economy and planned economy is that the former has the invisible hand of market forces. In the era of big data, the abilities of human beings in obtaining and processing data are greater than you can imagine.
With the help of artificial intelligence or multiple intelligence, our perception of the world will be elevated to a new level. As such, big data will make the market smarter and make it possible to plan and predict market forces so as to allow us to finally achieve a planned economy.
I think this is really interesting and a good point. At some point of conglomeratation and regulatory capture, one probably reached for much of the West already the difference between corporate and state planning basically becomes a moot point. Both are effectively planned economies, just one is planned to maximise only profits and the other planned in line with the goalsof the state. Deciding and influencing the goals of the state is the key question.
I’m aware of Wu being well respected among many economists in China which are very unlikely to be very well represented in this rising hardline “Maoist” (unlikely “Maoist” in the MLM sense) faction in the party that Jinglian has spoken about. Yet still critics have noted that Wu’s influence on the government has been increasingly waning. They have noted to how he was no longer being invited to weekly economics seminars held for prominent leaders and how his name was conspicuously left off the government’s honors list of top 100 outstanding contributors to the country’s transformational economic reforms. CPC media even allowed the publishing of rumors that essentially accused him of being a spy for America which he later denounced as “dirty tricks” by his critics within the party. Despite being a clearly biased source and the alleged loss of influence, Wu still remains more privy to the inner politics and infighting within the CPC than many other analysts that we may hear of in the West.
Despite being more neoclassical-oriented, the characterization of Justin Yifu Lin as a “neoliberal” seems a bit inappropriate due to his advocacy of a more active government role in economic development which is contrary to neoliberal ideology. Michael Hudson and David Harvey have also acknowledged how neoclassical economics has become popular in Chinese economics departments; however, the CPC's recent closure of the Unirule Institute of Economics that had been founded to promote economic liberalization since the early 1990s and was comprised of liberal Chinese economists have analysts noting that this was another indication of economic liberal ideals becoming increasingly less welcome. It's also worth noting though that the incorporation of a neoclassical economic analysis does not wholly preclude socialist ideology as the socialist economist Oskar Lange had developed a socialist economic model based on neoclassical economics through the Lange Model. The power struggle between the factions of the CPC will continue, but it appears that a more left-leaning anti-liberal faction is at the very least gaining more ground under Xi. Western imperialism and capitalist encirclement will continue also to present a major obstacle to socialist development in China though as it has for every other socialist country.
My hunch is, the way the government and economy is set up in China, if the people want socialism, they'll get socialism. If they end up wanting to abandon it for free-market capitalism, well, that's probably what they will end up with too.
(This is opposed to the US, where we will never be able to vote for socialism, even if like 99% of us want it, due to how our government is set up i.e. the capital class will just have socialism declared unconstitutional by the supreme court or some shit).
Interesting that there's another post from a similar article that frames this as "China likes their private sector and wants to keep it, they're desperately trying to keep them in line" and a bunch of people talking about how "neoliberalism has corrupted china".
From this it seems like the "next step" is actually being put into motion, as they had already said they would in the past few years. The benefits of highjacking the global capitalist economy to build their own productive forces and gain leverage over the capitalist economy are not as interesting as before, and they've said for a while that they would start switching to an even more state-controlled system now that their controlled capitalist highjacking was not as useful as before.
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It certainly seems to be a very dangerous game, and I'm aware that my perspective on this is very narrow since i'm in the west and i can't speak/read mandarin.
This seems to take the right direction, and from what i've heard I feel like xi's fight against corruption and the infiltrated capitalists is going well. Still, the contradictions of the current chinese model are a dangerous game to play, but I still think it was a good choice to make and a good strategy because it's allowed them to gain strength without too much opposition for a while, and the west genuinely seems to have been fooled for some time. Would china have been better off going the more soviet way and becoming economically isolated, wouldn't they still have the same attempts at capitalist infiltration?
I don't know nearly enough about china but this is making me very, very interested.
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We should probably start learning Mandarin so we can stay informed. I know that sounds extreme but leftists need to start doing stuff.
Unironically yes, I kinda want to learn it. I don't know what the best way to do it is, maybe we could organize something on here or the discord to do it because it's much easier with other people and when you can actually speak and practice out-loud.
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Take a course. Learning mandarin in a group without experienced teachers will take you a decade.
Community colleges/university language courses can be surprisingly cheap too.
好主意
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I feel like the understanding of china has progressed a lot in the western left, or at least on places like these. I mean myself, just a few months back, I didn't think much of china and fully accepted the idea that they were an authoritarian state-capitalist country and had communism or socialism only in name. I also fully bought the narrative around Xinjiang and HK, etc. I've learned a TON in just the past 2-3 months and i'm still learning, thanks for those sources!
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it's precisely for having done this that we support the actions of the CPC, their decisions were correct under the conditions that were imposed on them
doesn't mean it would be correct for america, or even other third world countries such as mine (though it would definitely be more fitting in our cases for reasons that should be obvious)
you seem to think your point of view is "balanced" and "rational", when it's precisely the opposite, you're making statements while treading on the surface
reality is way more complicated than you think, and marxists need to know how to deal with contradictions. the CPC has shown a surprising ability to do this and their syntheses, most of the time, make perfect sense under their situation
i don't understand how so many socialists are fine with the idea of transitioning from socialism to communism, but as soon as you talk about transitioning from capitalism to socialism (with a revolution first so that the bourgeoisie isn't in power), something LENIN could see like 100 years ago with the NEP, you guys go haywire. like, why is this so controversial lol
this is my optimistic view of Xi, that he is the anti-corruption leader that is trying to stop the power grab of the mega capitalists. He's basically trying to stop the flood created by Jiang Zemin and his Shanghai clique.
That's interesting because that sentiment contrasts pretty strongly with the assessment from Chinese economist Wu Jinglian (who represented more of the right-leaning market reform wing of the party and was even derisively referred to as "Market Wu") about the future of the party about a decade ago as he was complaining about “old-style Maoists” gaining significant influence in the government since 2004. He claimed that this left-wing faction is pressing for a return to central planning and was placing blame for the corruption and economic inequality in China on the market reforms Wu helped lead.
We even saw Jack Ma surprisingly speak favorably of an eventual return towards more of a planned economic model predicated on ongoing technological development:
I think this is really interesting and a good point. At some point of conglomeratation and regulatory capture, one probably reached for much of the West already the difference between corporate and state planning basically becomes a moot point. Both are effectively planned economies, just one is planned to maximise only profits and the other planned in line with the goalsof the state. Deciding and influencing the goals of the state is the key question.
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I’m aware of Wu being well respected among many economists in China which are very unlikely to be very well represented in this rising hardline “Maoist” (unlikely “Maoist” in the MLM sense) faction in the party that Jinglian has spoken about. Yet still critics have noted that Wu’s influence on the government has been increasingly waning. They have noted to how he was no longer being invited to weekly economics seminars held for prominent leaders and how his name was conspicuously left off the government’s honors list of top 100 outstanding contributors to the country’s transformational economic reforms. CPC media even allowed the publishing of rumors that essentially accused him of being a spy for America which he later denounced as “dirty tricks” by his critics within the party. Despite being a clearly biased source and the alleged loss of influence, Wu still remains more privy to the inner politics and infighting within the CPC than many other analysts that we may hear of in the West.
Despite being more neoclassical-oriented, the characterization of Justin Yifu Lin as a “neoliberal” seems a bit inappropriate due to his advocacy of a more active government role in economic development which is contrary to neoliberal ideology. Michael Hudson and David Harvey have also acknowledged how neoclassical economics has become popular in Chinese economics departments; however, the CPC's recent closure of the Unirule Institute of Economics that had been founded to promote economic liberalization since the early 1990s and was comprised of liberal Chinese economists have analysts noting that this was another indication of economic liberal ideals becoming increasingly less welcome. It's also worth noting though that the incorporation of a neoclassical economic analysis does not wholly preclude socialist ideology as the socialist economist Oskar Lange had developed a socialist economic model based on neoclassical economics through the Lange Model. The power struggle between the factions of the CPC will continue, but it appears that a more left-leaning anti-liberal faction is at the very least gaining more ground under Xi. Western imperialism and capitalist encirclement will continue also to present a major obstacle to socialist development in China though as it has for every other socialist country.
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My hunch is, the way the government and economy is set up in China, if the people want socialism, they'll get socialism. If they end up wanting to abandon it for free-market capitalism, well, that's probably what they will end up with too.
(This is opposed to the US, where we will never be able to vote for socialism, even if like 99% of us want it, due to how our government is set up i.e. the capital class will just have socialism declared unconstitutional by the supreme court or some shit).
Capital flight will always be a danger. So they probably gotta keep a two-faced attitude to prevent them from going ham.
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