I admit to being somewhat agnostic about how to characterize present day China. Describing it as a deformed workers’ state, as I once did, sounds archaic today, not so much because the working class is not in control of the economy and political system - it never was - but because of the restoration of a large class of wealthy capitalists which had been eliminated during the Maoist period.
The Chinese, of course, say that an extensive private sector and wage labour with its inherent exploitation is not inconsistent with the early stages of socialism - in its case, with distinctive “Chinese characteristics”. What matters to me is less how to define the PRC than that it still presides over a predominantly state-owned and controlled economy which is anathema to the ruling class in the other major economies where the means of production are privately owned. If we could place our finance, energy, telecommunications, transportation and other key industries under public ownership, I would consider it a huge historical advance. I attribute China's authoritarian political system mainly to the unfavourable economic and geopolitical context in which like the USSR, it found itself. I hope and expect that as China continues to develop it will give rise to increasing demands by Chinese workers and intellectuals for a multi-party political system, independent trade unions, and other rights won through struggle in the Western bourgeois democracies. Assuming the process is not interrupted by world-ending climate change or nuclear war. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30804): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30804 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106728659/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
