1mo ago

Challenging the purists: the Marxist debate over China’s path

socialistchina.org Challenging the purists: the Marxist debate over China’s path - Friends of Socialist China

The article below was submitted by Dan Farhat, an author and researcher based in Beirut, Lebanon. Dan responds to the critique made of China by some of the (particularly Western) left, that the introduction of market mechanisms from 1978 onwards was a betrayal of socialism and that China has become ...

You're viewing a single thread.

10 comments

Lets say I agree on the anti purist part, even the economics, introduction of market and so on for this case. But what makes you think that power itself, I mean state is in hands of chinese proletariat. What signal of real working class power institutions do you see in China?
- We can easily answer this question by looking at how the standard of living has been improving for the workers in China. This can be contrasted against capitalist path of development seen in countries like India.
  By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
  Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
  The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
  From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China%E2%80%99s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
  From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&amp%3Blocations=CN&amp%3Bstart=2008
  Chinese households had stashed away in savings by the end of 2023, hitting yet another record high, data from the People’s Bank of China shows https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
  Full year results of household survey for 2024 in China just posted. Real household income and consumption rose faster than overall GDP growth. Gains to rural households are higher than urban ones.
  
  Ok, I also agree conditions of life for proletariat are getting better, but this is not enough proof of proletariat really having the power in their hands. My suspicion ia that state is no longer in control of the proletariat.
  
  My suspicion ia that state is no longer in control of the proletariat.
  Whats your reasoning behind this?
  
  State seems to be under the control of a governing class that is already separated from proletariat, and the socialist idea of workers having direct control over the state institutions in that sense seems to no be a reality there. Bureaucrat governing specialists class seems to not be exactly the idea pf workers democracy. Socialism needs direct democracy in some form and not "representatives" that already live in a different reality.
  
  Bureaucrat governing specialists class seems to not be exactly the idea pf workers democracy. Socialism needs direct democracy in some form and not “representatives” that already live in a different reality.
  Why wouldn't you want specialists in charge? You have a view of the world where a gardener and a clothing factory manager should have direct input on state medical policy? On foreign policy? On the details of implementation of an ecological plan to protect a distant region they've never visited? I hope you can understand that's absurd.
  If I have medical problems I don't act like a crank and ask random cranks on the internet what I should do then listen to their nonsense advice to treat it with essential oils and eating nothing but meat for a month. I go to a medical doctor who has a degree and is certified. The doctor consults with me hopefully and explains what is going on, what they're going to do. what I need to do and gives me the chance to ask some questions to be informed.
  People do not have time or energy to inform themselves about all the details of things in order to make rational, scientific choices on all policy while trying to do their actual day-jobs and enjoy recreation. That's why there exists the party and bureaucrats who help draft, debate, etc such things to achieve OBJECTIVES that meet the wants and needs of the people and who are answerable to them for the results.
  Here is what Xi Jinping has to say on China's democracy: https://redsails.org/xi-on-democracy/
  Here are some other pointers: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#is-china-a-democracy
  https://medium.com/@neoflorian/how-china-maintains-working-class-rule-highlighting-the-feedback-mechanisms-of-the-chinese-system-c5710759a51f
  You likely have a chauvinism, a prejudice, a capitalist defined idea of this precious pure form of socialism that can never exist anywhere and never will. More specifically a kind of fetish for this ideal that you're convinced is the only acceptable goal (why? propaganda. Whose? western capitalists who claim their liberal system is closest to this ideal and therefore you should side with them until this perfect socialism they've depicted arrives (it never will), how convenient!).
  A system is what it does. If the rulers of a place so fear the people they have to pretend to be communists and do everything communists would do to serve the people (a ridiculous notion I think) I fail to see a difference in outcome. It is outcomes we concern ourselves with. Marxism is not a religion. It is about results. Purity fetishism gets you nowhere, it makes you feel self-righteous and good but it doesn't feed kids, it doesn't lessen exploitation, it doesn't build a better world, it doesn't improve the lives of others. Communism is not a switch, it is a historical process that resolves contradictions over time but not immediately, it shall exist with contradictions just as capitalism has contradictions.
  
  Why do you say there is a separated class of rulers? Nothing seems to indicate that.
  Anyone can join politics in China, and many of top officials rose from being farmers, factory workers, elementary school teachers etc.
  Do you know how their government works? How democracy works in China?
  
  Could you provide some reading material for those off us who want to have a better understanding of their political process?
  
  That's absolutely not the case. Here’s an article explaining that Chinese system actually encourages decentralized governance and grassroots organization from bottom up. https://www.noemamag.com/what-the-west-misunderstands-about-power-in-china/
  Similarly, the government is also organized based on using grassroots structures as its foundation https://news.cgtn.com/event/2021/who-runs-the-cpc/index.html
  You're making claims out of ignorance here.
- Worker congresses

10 comments