>The point about the law of value is that it is a law. Capital tries
>its best to accumulate by reducing the value of commodities. Nation
>states get in the road of the perfect operation of the LOV, but they
>cannot prevent it from operating including its crisis effects. The
>former USSR and China in breaking with the world market suspended the
>LOV except for imports (a relatively small part of their economy).
>What the reintroduction of the market does is to reassert the
>operation of the LOV. Zhu's role has been to open up to the LOV in
>order to force the state sector to compete so that his bureaucratic
>caste can convert themselves in a new bourgeoisie. His desperation
>is shown in the concessions made by China to the US - half of
>telecommunications opened up to the US and the US allowed to use
>anti-dumping legislation against China for another 15 years (David
>Sanger, NYT 16 Nov).
>
>What is interesting about this is not that it sheds new light on Marx
>- all this stuff is old hat - but what it says about the
>counter-revolution in China. For those of us who belief that the
>degenerated or deformed workers state in China was progressive
>because it replaced the LOV with state planning, it looks as if China
>has reached the point of no return in the counter-revolution at
>which the banking, insurance and communications industries will be
>opened up to the global market. Joining the WTO symbolises this,
>but what it symbolises is that the Chinese currency becomes
>convertable and the LOV can then act upon the whole economy with
>little state hindrance. The basis of workers' property, the
>mechanism of planning and adminstered prices, is replaced by the
>market. At this point we would have to say that the Chinese state is
>now controlled by functionaries who serve the class interests of a
>bourgeoisie, and that it is no longer even the vestige of a
>degenerated workers' state. Now that the workers of the former USSR
>have seen the effects of the LOV, maybe Chinese workers will stop the
>restoration process at the 11th hour.
>
>Dave.
All quite true and good stuff. However, the Chinese workers will only
successfully reverse the restoration process if they get themselves a
revolutionary Marxist leadership, and helping them with that is our
responsibility.
Which isn't to say that there might not be significant riots and shake-ups
in the CCP bureaucracy even with the current chaotic political shape of the
Chinese proletariat. Even a delay of a year or two in the complete
restoration of capitalist relations in China would be of great assistance
in the development of an international revolutionary leadership, especially
if such explosions threw up Chinese political currents able to link up with
international revolutionary tendencies.
Cheers,
Hugh
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