Worded like this, he is wrong, but from the sentiment in this thread there is something to it that people miss. From a position of having billionaires, capping their wealth is anti-marxist. it is idealism, the ideal that limiting their wealth is better for morale or something? The marxist move from a position of having billionaires, is to ask what happens if the wealth is capped. immediate capital flight, credit derating, currency collapse. the marxist road here, which i suspect the cpc is on to, is to inact much harder progressive taxation when the structure of the economy makes this cost beneficiary. right now, the structure is too centered on fdi attractibility in manufacturing.
as china moves to financialization and moves manufacturing overseas, this wealth shift is much easier to do, as they will be the ones possessing the relevant capital. if you guys as good baby communist took charge and capped wealth below the billion, you would see a financial collapse and secessionism in the regions with imperialist footholds and interest. the objection to this analysis is that you could say the marxist would never be in that position, so modern china cannot be marxist. but i would say this is from a place of disengagement with the dengist theory. So we dont criticize china for the idealist idocity of having billionaires, we continue to sift in the bipolar contradictions between lamenting the marketization shift/counterrevelution and the fact that what they do now is fucking working well..
the ideal that limiting their wealth is better for morale or something
While the take that it would be idealist is nice and sounds Marxist there is also the concentration of power that goes together with capital. While it doesn't change the system and the capitalists do still have their class conflict with the working class, having more of them with lower wealth means they have a harder time organizing and a harder time to become a class actor (similarly to the separation of workers in different countries).
While any Marxist and Dengist perspective for that matter ought to challenge the system and existence of capital in the current form (by taking over the means of production and holding the power (of the state) to regulate them) and facilitate socialist reforms, develop productive forces and such, just taking away capital isn't Marxist.
Hindering power of capitalists can be Marxist though, just has to be thought through and be implemented from a position of power (and at that points most would just do away with billionaires - e.g. Cuba).
The KPCh is wielding power of the state and billionaires are hit with it. Though Xi's conception of what Marxism is and how a nation ought to be lead (and that of the party / party congress of thousands!) obviously varies from many "justice-Marxists" here.
i guess the epistemic rift between the camps is that one part thinks that the power coupled to capital is real here, while the other thinks the fact that a ML party is in government makes the power of capital meaningless. Im in the former camp, I think the fact that some of the pigs are being fucking executed with impunity speaks volumes here
The goal of a socialist nation isn’t to become the financial centre of the world and outsource manufacturing. That’s literally just late stage capitalism.
Attracting FDI was necessary for rapid development of the productive forces, but the key thing is keeping that capital under the Party’s control. So limiting it to JVs with state entities, embedding party members inside companies, etc.
Another big thing is capital controls. Allow capital to come in, but not leave. That insulates the nation from market fluctuations, and also prevents capital strike. Similarly, the currency is stabilised.
The goal isn’t deindustrialisation. The goal’s full automation of productive forces.
The problem with billionaires in this stage is that they represent a political threat. They can potentially exert control over their capital in such a way that’s not beneficial to society, such as through outsourcing overseas, or creating an opioid epidemic.
They also represent potential misallocation of resources, such as to real estate bubbles, instead of according to human need.
Given the first half of your argument is true, why exactly would capital not flee China to unregulated tax havens (after they've moved from manufacturing)?
the part of financialization that is in the public sector is under complete control. if privatization occurs and they can use tax havens, that is just a loss. so they either account for sufficient capital controls, or concede these outflows as cost-beneficiary collateral. Given the number of officials implicated in the panama papers and the reaction from govt, i think its somewhere between
Worded like this, he is wrong, but from the sentiment in this thread there is something to it that people miss. From a position of having billionaires, capping their wealth is anti-marxist. it is idealism, the ideal that limiting their wealth is better for morale or something? The marxist move from a position of having billionaires, is to ask what happens if the wealth is capped. immediate capital flight, credit derating, currency collapse. the marxist road here, which i suspect the cpc is on to, is to inact much harder progressive taxation when the structure of the economy makes this cost beneficiary. right now, the structure is too centered on fdi attractibility in manufacturing.
as china moves to financialization and moves manufacturing overseas, this wealth shift is much easier to do, as they will be the ones possessing the relevant capital. if you guys as good baby communist took charge and capped wealth below the billion, you would see a financial collapse and secessionism in the regions with imperialist footholds and interest. the objection to this analysis is that you could say the marxist would never be in that position, so modern china cannot be marxist. but i would say this is from a place of disengagement with the dengist theory. So we dont criticize china for the idealist idocity of having billionaires, we continue to sift in the bipolar contradictions between lamenting the marketization shift/counterrevelution and the fact that what they do now is fucking working well..
While the take that it would be idealist is nice and sounds Marxist there is also the concentration of power that goes together with capital. While it doesn't change the system and the capitalists do still have their class conflict with the working class, having more of them with lower wealth means they have a harder time organizing and a harder time to become a class actor (similarly to the separation of workers in different countries).
While any Marxist and Dengist perspective for that matter ought to challenge the system and existence of capital in the current form (by taking over the means of production and holding the power (of the state) to regulate them) and facilitate socialist reforms, develop productive forces and such, just taking away capital isn't Marxist.
Hindering power of capitalists can be Marxist though, just has to be thought through and be implemented from a position of power (and at that points most would just do away with billionaires - e.g. Cuba).
The KPCh is wielding power of the state and billionaires are hit with it. Though Xi's conception of what Marxism is and how a nation ought to be lead (and that of the party / party congress of thousands!) obviously varies from many "justice-Marxists" here.
i guess the epistemic rift between the camps is that one part thinks that the power coupled to capital is real here, while the other thinks the fact that a ML party is in government makes the power of capital meaningless. Im in the former camp, I think the fact that some of the pigs are being fucking executed with impunity speaks volumes here
The goal of a socialist nation isn’t to become the financial centre of the world and outsource manufacturing. That’s literally just late stage capitalism.
Attracting FDI was necessary for rapid development of the productive forces, but the key thing is keeping that capital under the Party’s control. So limiting it to JVs with state entities, embedding party members inside companies, etc.
Another big thing is capital controls. Allow capital to come in, but not leave. That insulates the nation from market fluctuations, and also prevents capital strike. Similarly, the currency is stabilised.
The goal isn’t deindustrialisation. The goal’s full automation of productive forces.
The problem with billionaires in this stage is that they represent a political threat. They can potentially exert control over their capital in such a way that’s not beneficial to society, such as through outsourcing overseas, or creating an opioid epidemic.
They also represent potential misallocation of resources, such as to real estate bubbles, instead of according to human need.
Given the first half of your argument is true, why exactly would capital not flee China to unregulated tax havens (after they've moved from manufacturing)?
the part of financialization that is in the public sector is under complete control. if privatization occurs and they can use tax havens, that is just a loss. so they either account for sufficient capital controls, or concede these outflows as cost-beneficiary collateral. Given the number of officials implicated in the panama papers and the reaction from govt, i think its somewhere between