I don't think Richard would object to me posting this:
Dear Louis,
Thanks for sending me those two pieces. I would object however that just
because Chinese SOEs have sold so-called ‘shares’ on the NYSE does not
make them capitalist. First, as I explained, they are not privately
owned, they’re profit-maximizing companies. They’re not ‘companies’ at
all. They don’t live or die on the basis of their success in the market
place like regular capitalist companies. Back in the 1990s, the gov had
its SOEs hang out new shingles, to rename themselves ‘corporations.’
Thus the oil ministry renamed itself the China National Petroleum
Corporation, and so on. They listed shares on stock exchanges and many
installed ‘corporate boards.’ But this was all for show. First, the
shares available to be traded were officially limited to no more than
20% of the value of the ‘company’ (and who knows what that is because no
SOE has ever been sold so who knows what its value is anyway?). No
significant SOE has ever been put up for sale, and the thousands of
trivial small SOEs (tiny coal mines, village level garment companies and
the like) that were sold off in the late 1990s as not worth bothering
about were ‘bought’ by larger SOEs, or by officers, or by Chinese
capitalists. None were sold off to foreigners. Secondly, those shares
listed on the NYSE are non-voting. Their purpose was just to raise
money, for foreigners — to give Western banks, wealth funds, pension
funds the option to speculate on China’s booming economy by giving those
companies piles of Western cash — and no SOEs are permitted to be sold.
There’s no M&A business in Chinese SOEs for Goldman Sachs. Thirdly, the
so-called boards of directors were powerless. The Party ran all its
SOEs. Indeed, last year in a speech I quoted in my next book, Xi ordered
these Potemkin boards of directors abolished, to make it unmistakably
clear that at the Party runs the companies, not the CEO, not the
corporate ‘boards.’ Spectre limited me to 4000 words so I had to cut out
this further discussion but it's all explained in the sources I cited,
Richard McGregor, Carl Walter and Fraser Howie, James McGregor, and others.
Why don’t you write a review of my book?
Best,
Richard
On Aug 21, 2020, at 5:19 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/21/20 2:37 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
Dear Louis,
Where’s the about face? In everything I have written from my first articles on
the Mao period in 1981 to my thesis in 1989 to my book just out i have
consistently maintained that China is a bureaucratic collectivist regime —
purely so under Mao and still mainly so since Deng installed his capitalist
add-on. As the article says China has all kinds of capitalism today but the
ruling class still runs the economy as bureaucratic collectivists not
capitalists though they do also run some state capitalist operations as with
the foreign
companies they’ve bought. And even though as individuals many have private
investments in western corporations, mutual
funds, etc. You can review my history on this question here:richardanthonysmith.org
<http://richardanthonysmith.org>.
Best,
Richard
Sent from my iPhone
Yes, I believe that you have been consistent all along. I was under
the wrong impression. My own take of course is that China is
capitalist. My responses to Michael Roberts, who is closer to you on
these questions:
https://louisproyect.org/2017/10/30/chinas-state-owned-enterprises-a-reply-to-michael-roberts/
https://louisproyect.org/2018/06/11/is-china-socialist/
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