China

[Connolly Was There1916]

I don't know much about China, but my main question is simple. I know it is said to be a Marxist-Leninist state (well on wikipedia it is!) but with the amount of manufacturing done there for countries around the world (largely UK and US) surely that is an aspect of Capitalism? Because they are trading and selling stuff to Capitalist nations? If someone could explain this to me i would be very grateful! :)

[Caj]

China is state capitalist.

[Drosophila]

China is communist in color only.

[Connolly Was There1916]

Cheers lads:thumbup1:

[Zulu]

Officially their state capitalism is akin to the NEP of the early USSR, but it's been now in place for over 30 years (as opposed to 6-8 years of the NEP), and the CPC has no intention to return to a more socialist economy in the foreseeable future.

[Caj]

Officially their state capitalism is akin to the NEP of the early USSR, but it's been now in place for over 30 years (as opposed to 6-8 years of the NEP), and the CPC has no intention to return to a more socialist economy in the foreseeable future.

Much like the USSR didn't after the NEP.

[Ostrinski]

China has a market economy and is run by a political party that calls itself communist and flies red flags. Nothing Marxist, Leninist, or socialist about it.

[gorillafuck]

I don't see the point of calling china state capitalist. China is market capitalist, plain and simple.

[Caj]

the USSR drastically changed it's economy following the NEP.

Yes, but it didn't "return to a more socialist economy." It was just a new manifestation of state capitalism.

[Prometeo liberado]

This is all you need to know:
http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oGkkGedkhPXk4AHFVXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWgwN28 5BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA3NrMQR2dGlkAw--/SIG=120bifbi6/EXP=1330177822/**http%3a//www.youtube.com/watch%3fv=NN5OgiwprP8

[Imposter Marxist]

Really, China has always been capitalist. It was never socialist. The leaders in china own capital in the state, and they are some of the richest CEO's in the world. They're more imperialist than the US and Europe in some way. They are state capitalists, in the sense the state allows law of value to be distrubuted by the party "fat cats" and makes them rich overlords.

Its really quite sick. And they call themselves socialists.

[Zulu]

Yes, but it didn't "return to a more socialist economy." It was just a new manifestation of state capitalism.

Your anarchistic calling socialism "state capitalism" doesn't change the fact that
Anarchy = laisser-faire capitalism (which is to be followed then by accumulation&concentration of capital, and eventually monopoly capitalism... all over again).

And if Soviet economy after the end of the NEP and before Kosygin's reform of 1965 wasn't socialist, then nothing is.

[Ostrinski]

And if Soviet economy after the end of the NEP and before Kosygin's reform of 1965 wasn't socialist, then nothing is.In other words, we're fucked.

[Ostrinski]

Your anarchistic calling socialism "state capitalism" doesn't change the fact that
Anarchy = laisser-faire capitalism (which is to be followed then by accumulation&concentration of capital, and eventually monopoly capitalism... all over again).You know, anarchists aren't the only ones who disagree with the ML conception of socialism. It's basically all the rest of us too.

[Zulu]

You know, anarchists aren't the only ones who disagree with the ML conception of socialism. It's basically all the rest of us too.

And that's strange. Because economic progress is all about the concentration of capital. State capitalism is the next logical step after the monopoly capitalism. The shift from the market mechanism of regulation to the planned economy regulation in the state capitalist system is officially the first practical step of socialism.

[The Αnarchist Tension]

China started out as Marxist-Leninist, but when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took power, he started to reform it capitalism. I question whether China should be considered 'state' capitalist, or just 'capitalist'. Lots of private companies in China now.

[CommunityBeliever]

I know it is said to be a Marxist-Leninist state (well on wikipedia it is!) but with the amount of manufacturing done there for countries around the world (largely UK and US) surely that is an aspect of Capitalism?

Taking advantage of a low point of worker's power during the cultural revolution and the degeneration of Mao's health, the revisionist faction led by Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping took over China, restored capitalism, and sold out China to Western imperialism in the 1970s. Today, China is state capitalist and its role as a manufacturing hub is vital to the global imperialist system.


Really, China has always been capitalist.

Class society only takes up a small segment of human history, and capitalism itself takes a up a yet small segment of the history of class society. No country has always been capitalist, not even China.


I don't see the point of calling china state capitalist. China is market capitalist, plain and simple.

China is state capitalist because the state owns all the sectors that make up the core of the Chinese economy such as the information technology, aviation and shipping, and automobile and machinery production, and telecommunications sectors.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

There is a difference between saying you're a marxist and actually being one. China clearly isn't anything close to any form of communism/socialism, and probably will not be in the near future.

[Imposter Marxist]

China has always been capitalist in the 20th century I meant to say, and it always will be until World Revolution. Following the bourgeois state capitalist doctrine of "Socialism in one country" always leads to state capitalist nightmare states

[Tavarisch_Mike]

just for evrybody too remember. Socialism means that the workers have the control over the production. What that really is and how its manifestate and how we are gonna reach there, thats what divides evrybody. But one thing is clear, and that is that China is not socialist.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

China today is a manufacturing platform for Western, and especially US corporations. The ruling "Communist" party supervises an extremely corrupt and repressive system of crony capitalism profiting off of sweatshop labor.The actual left in China is visciously surpressed.

For more info on China

http://www.chinaworker.info/en/content/

[Krano]

Really, China has always been capitalist. It was never socialist. The leaders in china own capital in the state, and they are some of the richest CEO's in the world. They're more imperialist than the US and Europe in some way. They are state capitalists, in the sense the state allows law of value to be distrubuted by the party "fat cats" and makes them rich overlords.

Its really quite sick. And they call themselves socialists.
No way is China more imperialist then US how many countries has China invaded?

[Os Cangaceiros]

A rather flagrant return to a system that obviously resembles capitalism you say? How oh how will leftist troglodytes possibly justify this so as to not make themselves look like a pack of gullible buffoons? Oh yeah, I know:

NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP NEP

[Nox]

China is state capitalist.

It isn't even state capitalist any more, it's just private capitalist (or whatever it's called)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I don't think there's any difference between "state capitalism" and private capitalism. Capitalism is capitalism. All major industrial countries today have a high level of state direction.In countries which are less developed and newly industrializing the tendency is towards "crony capitalism" as a means of primitive capital accumulation, rather than more "cleaner" bourgeois legal norms. The US went though this stage in the 19th century and is rapidly going back to this.

[Caj]

Your anarchistic calling socialism "state capitalism" doesn't change the fact that
Anarchy = laisser-faire capitalism (which is to be followed then by accumulation&concentration of capital, and eventually monopoly capitalism... all over again).

Um . . . What the fuck are you talking about?! :confused:


And if Soviet economy after the end of the NEP and before Kosygin's reform of 1965 wasn't socialist, then nothing is.

Nothing is? Well, I know one thing that is: workers' control of the means of production.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I agree with Caj; the Soviet workers lost whatever power they ever had over the means of production and the political superstructure long before the Kosygin reforms of 1965. IMO they began to lose their power as early as the 1921 Party Congress and by the 1926 Party Congress the Union was a party dictatorship.

[Brosip Tito]

China is/was capitalist. It's that simple. Every Marxist-Leninist program has failed, and inevitably led to the creation of a state capitalist system, run by bureaucrats who become the bourgeoisie, or a part of, themselves. In no way should we even humour the idea that it achieved a dictatorship of the proletariat.

As Lenina said, and Gramsci Guy below, the idea of a state capitalist china is no more. They have integrated into international private capitalism.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I agree with Lenina Rosenweig that China today apart of the manufacturing platform of US and multi-national corporations. China is fully part of the international capitalist system, that there really is no longer any such thing as Chinese "state capitalism". China's "vanguard party" has allowed China to become fully integrated into international capitalism.

[Caj]

IMO they began to lose their power as early as the 1921 Party Congress and by the 1926 Party Congress the Union was a party dictatorship.

I would say workers' control ended even earlier; at some point during the first half of 1918 with the liquidation of the soviets.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Am trying to give Lenin and Trotsky the benefit of the doubt, but I sympathize with your position.

[Ocean Seal]

China is state capitalist.
No I'm pretty sure that they're just regular capitalist.

[Caj]

No I'm pretty sure that they're just regular capitalist.

Okay, whatever. Private capitalist. Regardless, China is capitalist and not socialist in any way, shape, or form.

[Grenzer]

It's interesting to check out China's official web page. I don't recall which portion of the site it was at, but there was an area dealing with the country's theoretical background. It's couched in so much Marxist rhetoric that one who is not familiar with Marx may be forgiven for thinking that China is still communist today, and that Deng was a theorist on the scale of Lenin. They even provided some translated works in English, which is kind of interesting. Wish I could find exactly where it was I found that..

My University has one of the most robust foreign programs in the country, so I get to meet a lot of people from all over the world; but in particular, there are a lot of people from China here. I've talked to quite a few, and sometimes I'll ask them what they know about politics, communism, and Mao. Most Chinese I've encountered don't really know anything about Mao, other than that he was an important figure in the creation of the PRC. The impression I got is that the government does not foster any kind of political understanding, even of the pro-government. I think the Chinese government, at the present, would prefer for the people not to think of politics at all.

The students I have met tend to be the children of people such as factory owners or petty bourgeois professions, so I'm skeptical that China could be called socialist in any way; but perhaps there is some vestige of progressive policy in China. It doesn't seem like there is, but I don't know enough on the subject to make such a judgement.

[Connolly Was There1916]

Cheers for all your comments, very informative:cool:

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

My University has one of the most robust foreign programs in the country, so I get to meet a lot of people from all over the world; but in particular, there are a lot of people from China here. I've talked to quite a few, and sometimes I'll ask them what they know about politics, communism, and Mao. Most Chinese I've encountered don't really know anything about Mao, other than that he was an important figure in the creation of the PRC. The impression I got is that the government does not foster any kind of political understanding, even of the pro-government. I think the Chinese government, at the present, would prefer for the people not to think of politics at all.


I believe that the official government line that is taught in school is that Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong. Which basically amounts to the things he did to gain National Independence and carry forward industrialization were good but things like the Cultural Revolution, particularly the early years of it which led to a lot of populist attacks against the party bureaucracy, and any aspects of his thought that may shine a positive light on the idea of class struggle is very very bad.

[enver criticism]

i am from china and as a hoxhaist ,i believe mao is a anti-marxist.

[Gold Against The Soul]

China started out as Marxist-Leninist, but when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took power, he started to reform it capitalism. I question whether China should be considered 'state' capitalist, or just 'capitalist'. Lots of private companies in China now.

It is somewhat different to other models though, isn't it? Still plenty of large state companies and the banks are state controlled too. Which I think is quite an important difference!

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well we find wide agreement here that China is not socialist. Ho hum. But I will float the Trotskyist view that China is a deformed workers state. (no it is not ruled by deformed workers) This means that while the workers of China are obviously not in political control of the country, the property forms center on a planned collectivized economy, albeit an economy run by party bureaucrats. But we defend the gains of the Chinese Revolution, which were considerable and continue to defend China against the US and European capitalist powers. A good historical analogue is Napoleon being the Emperor of the French bourgeois republic.

The continued market reforms and the incursions of capital bring closer the day of full blown counterrevolution in China. I don't have time to go into theories of state capitalism, right now, but suffice to say that I don't agree with them.