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 had the most hilarious discussion with a Tankie about China a while back. They refused to accept that China is pretty much communist in name only. I pointed out that they had billionaires, privately-owned companies, a stock exchange and private property, meaning you can earn capital in China.
The Tankie actually said something on the lines of, “If you would JUST READ MARX you would know that earning capital is a fundamental cornerstone of communism!”
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.
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!
I’m a communist who doesn’t want to call China a communist country, so I don’t really agree with the person that you were talking to, but your second paragraph does show you haven’t researched communism or its history. The debate of whether societies need to undergo capitalist capital accumulation first to enter communism is about as old as communism, and the history of communism is full of examples of this. It’s the ideological reason why the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party split into two wings: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, the former believing that the Russian Empire had to undergo capitalism first in other to become communist, and the latter wanting to implement socialism to the primitive almost feudalist Russian empire. Some similar split happened more discreetly inside the Communist Party of China, with Mao implementing socialism directly to the extremely underdeveloped Chinese society, and later Deng Xiaoping opting for the more market-socialism (known now to many as "socialism with Chinese characteristics).
So you may or may not agree whether china is communist, but from your comment it’s clear that you’re very oblivious to the historical and ideological reasons for the argument as to whether china is or isn’t a socialist country and whether they’re on the path to it. It’s good to discuss things and to have opinions, but please get informed before dismissing other people’s opinions on topics they’ve probably dedicated more time than you to studying.
Weird how this path went from a communist country under Mao to a capitalist one under Xi. I guess it goes back again?
How exactly do you achieve communism via billionaires, a stock exchange, private ownership, etc.? That’s ludicrous.
I’m not myself trying to make the assertion that china is communism or that it will achieve communism, I’m saying that what you consider “ludicrous”, has been a hotly debated topic for the past 100 years with many proponents on both sides, many of them with much more knowledge of socialism and revolutions than you or I possess.
Yes. I stand by my statement that it is ludicrous to go from no private property to private property and still call yourself communist.
And I’m saying that you have clearly not dedicated much time to thinking about or studying the issue. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, so I’m not very supportive of Dengism, but if you listen to Dengists and Mensheviks they will tell you that China still has a communist party in power (as does Vietnam and as does Laos) whereas the former USSR has a capitalist proto-fascist in government. Only time will tell who’s really right, and whether china shifts to a less market-socialism society and more towards a democratic centrally planned economy in the hands of the workers and the state.
I’m not saying China isn’t a country, I’m just saying it’s hotly debated whether or not it should be called west Taiwan. Only time will tell whether the CCP admits defeat and hands over control in line with their one China policy.
Man, making shit up is fun.
Do show me where Marx said that the path to communism is eliminating private property and the ability to accrue capital and then bringing it back again.
From Wikipedia article on Mensheviks: (you’ve been talking to someone else in the comments)
So yes, mate, there are literal historical figures of communism debating this exact same issue that you find so laughable, it’s literally the raison d’etre of the word Bolshevism. There is no specific “Marx passage” as if it was the bible, where it says “in case some fella called Mao organizes a socialist revolution in a peasant agrarian society, pls pull it back to capitalism first, and then go to socialism once it’s capitalist, ok?” If you generally read Marx, you can see how he puts socialism as the necessary and logical end of capitalism, as something inevitable that will happen because capitalism will bring forward the material conditions for the revolution. But despite that, Marx also was a highly politically involved individual, who pushed forward momentously the socialist movement in Europe together with Engels.
Marx isn’t a gospel that you’re supposed to be able to chant and have undying faith for, it’s an analysis of reality that you can agree or disagree with, which explains the existence of different flavours of communism such as menshevism and bolshevism or such as Maoism and Dengism, which can be explained by the material and historical conditions leading up to those moments. Marx himself said that Marxism has to be constantly interpreting the reality of the moment and critically adapting everything. So if you’re looking for a direct quote from Marx about Dengism or Menshevism, I’m not here to provide that, I’m here to tell you that the definition you consider stupid has been hotly debated for a hundred fucking years, so maybe it’s not so stupid.
And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.
Because that makes no sense.
And you and everyone else arguing for this are ignoring that.
In his theory of Historical Materialism. Mao and the later Gang of Four succeeded in broadly eliminating private property, but had done so without developing the Means of Production adequately, resulting in economic stagnation. The people were poor, they had tried to leapfrog development to Communism in an idealist, Utopian manner, which was a rejection of the Historical Materialist idea that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous.
Communism requires a certain level of industrial development that the PRC did not have, and for that reason the Cultural Revolution was in many ways highly damaging.
Would you have had the PRC uphold the Gang of Four’s dogmatic, anti-Marxist line simply because China had largely abolished Private Property? Is it better for the proletarist to be poor under Socialism, or rich under Capitalism?
Yes, you can claim that. I asked you to show me where. At the very least a reference to where he says it, but you could quote him. I don’t see why you think I should just trust your interpretation.
Also, I am not making a value judgment about communism. Do not try to twist what I am saying into an argument against communism, because you are starting to look like you’re here in bad faith.
Don’t worry, ML theorists like Stalin take precedence over Marx, like how the New Testament takes precedence over the Old. It’s basic theology.
Oh believe me, I know. They don’t care about what Marx actually said.
No, no, you see, people who Read Theory™ have taken a side, therefore, the position is valid. Like how the value of the holsum Khmer Rouge is debatable instead of gruesomely apparent!
If the Bolsheviks didn’t believe that Russia had to undergo capitalism then why did they implement, and I quote Lenin, state capitalism.
Also there’s already a term for socialists who tolerate capitalism, it’s social democrats. Maybe the “democrat” thing is the issue MLMs have with the whole concept, not the tolerating capitalism part.
Social Democrats don’t want a transition to communism, not even ideologically. Dengists and Mensheviks do, at least ideologically. Whether you believe that or not is a different debate, but equating socialdemocrats with mensheviks is dumb, not a dunk.
Look, I’m not here to argue for Marxism-Leninism against you because you’re obviously trying to be smug, not trying to have a civilized discussion. If you actually want some good (in my opinion) analysis of actually-existing socialism, there are plenty of Michael Parenti videos online, or you can pick up his book “Blackshirts and Reds”. But I suspect you’re just here to punch to those communists that are further left than you are. If you do want to have this discussion let me know.
Last I checked the SPD’s party program still speaks of socialism.
I’m an Anarchist. Council Communists are generally to the right of me, quite adjacent but not quite there, Tankies somehow managed to seat themselves at the very other side of the plenum.
I’m sure the SPD party program talks about the end of capitalism /s
Again, not here to engage with smug factionalists. Have a good day
I’m not a factionalist you’re the factionalist. Just agree with me and be done with it!
Tankies are just communist cosplayers.
Where are the “real” Communists? What draws the line between a Marxist and a tankie?
Might be a few left in a small part of India.
If by definition but not by name, a lot of advocates for direct democracy, public goods and services, and nationalized industry still exist all over the world. They just don’t refer to themselves with the same moniker as Mao “History’s Greatest Killer” Zedong.
I mean you can still have private property under communism, it’s the capital making property that’s more owned by the workers themselves, but you can still own things under communism.
Similarly, you can earn capital under communism too, it’s just that the tools for earning said capital aren’t owned by corporations under corporations under CEOs under the 1%. It’s not a cornerstone for sure, but it’s not like communism is anti capital and growth and owning things
A bit nitpicky here, but personal property isn’t Private Property. That being said, Marx and Engels maintained constantly that Private Property cannot be abolished in one sweep, that goes fundamentally against Historical Materialism. Socialism emerges from Capitalism, you can’t establish it through fiat, hence why the Cultural Revolution wasn’t a resounding success. Mao tried to establish Communism immediately, misjudged, and then Deng stepped in.
Thank you you’ve put the difference in better terms than I did
No problem. Marxism is pretty difficult for most people to understand entirely without reading far more than you would expect, it isn’t simply criticism of Capitalism or advocacy for Socialism and then Communism, but also Dialectical and Historical Materialism, which is where people can easily trip up.
Directly from The Communist Manifesto:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
Read a bit ahead if you may:
Okay? That doesn’t change the summary about private property, which is a thing in China. It wasn’t under Mao, it is now.
And then the adherents fought over the means and meaning, and everybody else threw their hands up
Tbh Marx is intentionally questioning definitions and such so it makes sense, simplifying it down to terms we use isn’t very productive in that sense, because what he argues for is the abolishing of “private property” as we know it, but without removing the fruits of labour from its people, so if you and your mates worked for your house you can have it, until the moment you start making a business out of it then it’s less ok.
That’s probably the smartest tankie in existence
This is actually hilarious
Private property as in land or a house? Because that’s not how it works in China. You can only buy it for a specific set of time. Besides that it is indeed just a capitalistic country with an oppressive state.
Any time someone describes something that happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they are misrepresenting what happened 100% of the time.
Hahaha, are you saying that because it was you on the other end of that discussion? I know you love China so much that you are willing to praise their genocide of Uyghur people.
Maybe you could distill the theory for us a bit so we can decipher why “socialism” is producing hundreds of billionaires.
Not to my knowledge, but there’s no way for anyone to know what incident it’s referencing so it could be any conversation they had with anyone, or made up whole cloth. I say this exact thing every time I see someone claim something happened on the fediverse without providing a link 1 2 3, and I haven’t been wrong yet. And that’s not really surprising, why wouldn’t someone provide a link to something that made the other side look bad, unless it didn’t actually play out the way they claim?
For example, when you say that I “praise the genocide of Uyghur people,” that is a lie, and it should be obvious that it’s a lie from the fact that you didn’t provide a link to it.
I’d be happy to have a good faith discussion regarding China’s economic policies and how they relate to socialism. Just not with someone who I already know is going to lie, misrepresent whatever I say, and act in bad faith, as I know you will.
That’s right! OBJECTION! is just a genocide denialist, like Holocaust denialists! Much better.
Do you know why Holocaust denialism is considered so bad? It’s not because it’s inherently wrong to question any claim anyone makes that a genocide is happening. It’s because the Holocaust is extremely well documented with an overwhelming amount of evidence. To place it on the same level of extremely dubious claims that primarily rely on one single person, who is a religious nut with ties to the CIA, is bordering on actual Holocaust denialism.
Claims of genocide do not get some special status where they get to circumvent the normal process of skepticism and critical examination. It’s the opposite, since it is such a major claim, they should be subject to even more skepticism. The Holocaust has very clearly passed the most skeptical evaluations, to the point that we can safely say that anyone denying it is acting in bad faith. But other claims of genocide that lack that kind of evidence, such as the “Uyghur genocide” or the “White genocide” or whatever else do not get the same treatment. You don’t get to exploit the Holocaust to bypass evidence for other claims.
From the position of your acceptance of Uyghur genocide and pretending that China is anywhere near the left, it’s astonishing you are comfortable accusing anyone else of bad faith.
There’s simply no way to have a serious discussion with you regarding anything about China. That’s why you have chosen the lemmy.ml instance, it is a hivemind of like thinkers all sheltered from the truth by fragile admins.
Oh, look at that, you can’t provide a link. Because you’re a liar. And once again my rule is proven true.
Oh, you want links? I can give you links.
Here you are linking to an article saying it isn’t genocide: https://lemmy.world/comment/12211000
Here you are refusing to accept the genocide is happening despite a huge number of links: https://lemmy.world/comment/11959309
And as a bonus here’s some trollish avoidance of admitting that the Tienanmen Square massacre happened: https://lemmy.world/comment/12256833
You do know there’s a search function, right?
None of those links show me “praising” a genocide. That remains a bold faced, blatant lie.
Tbh, I find that this sort of casual lying is so common in spaces like .world that nobody even seems to care. Maybe it’s a neurotypical thing, where you’re allowed to tell lies so long as you’re lying about the out group. Frankly, when people don’t even acknowledge such things as lies, I have to wonder if they’re even capable of being truthful or acting in good faith.
Those “huge number of sources” I actually went through point by point. Here’s a book from the 1930’s called 100 authors against Einstein which presents “a huge number of sources” claiming that Einstein’s findings regarding General Relativity were wrong. Every one of them is wrong.
I don’t feel like wandering your comment history looking for what you’ve had to say about China’s treatment of Uyghurs. Unless you’re not the same Objection I saw posting anime cartoons?
That’s me.
I find it pretty convenient how you can so distinctly remember me praising something, but you can’t remember anything else about that conversation that would allow you to find it in the search function. Are you sure we can rely on your memory? Because I don’t remember ever saying that and I’m pretty sure I would.
Was this the same conversation where you were praising the Holocaust? I can’t provide any evidence that that happened because I don’t feel like wandering through your comment history, but I have a vague memory of you saying something like that, so I guess if vague memories are the standard of evidence we’re relying on, you’re looking pretty bad too.
Oh, we can solve that. I’ll state for the record right now that the Holocaust is evil, rather than allow you to continue lying about that.
Will you say the same right now about China’s treatment of the Uyghurs?