|
Pieinsky wrote:
Questions for Henry from an old Maoist:
>(1) Aren't you concerned at all about the evidence of
increasing class disparities and the consequent rise of open class struggles
(workers' strikes, farmers' protests, etc.) in "Red" China? What do these
occurrences mean, in your opinion?<
Class is disparity by definition. I am vigorously against
income disparity. The working class should enjoy the same income or even higher
income than the bourgeoisie. Those members of the bourgeoisie who work to
increase income of workers are performing a useful function. Excess profit is
not only counterrevolutionary, it is even bad economics in an overcapacity
economy. Strikes are not really class struggle activities, especially
legal strikes in the context of a capitalist system. General strikes to shut
down the economy are revolutionary, but there have not any general strikes for
quite a few decades in the West. In a system such as China's, the way to protect
worker and peasant interests is not through strikes but through intra party
political struggles, to get the right people into the central committee and the
polibureau. The private sector grows in China due to very complex political and
geopolitical factors. No one can accuse China and the Communist Party of
China for not giving Maoism a fair chance. But facts are that while the
ideology is admirable, the results have been wanting. Wealth needs to be created
before it can be shared.
>(2) Why does it have to be either poverty or "ideological purity"? Can't a Third World country's development take place, while at the same time preserving and extending more egalitarian social relations, as I think Mao hoped for China?< The reasons are very complex. Purity of any kind,
including religious purity, tends to require tradeoffs that reduce life to
single dimensional results. What we need is to merge ideological aims with
utilitarian implementations.
Nothing the Western Left has voiced has impressed me as being
useful for the situation in China. Noise of no practical value does not
deserve attention. In fact, I cannot think of any achievement of significant by
the Western left in the last five decades.
Despite all the anti-China noise, China is still the most
socialist economy in the world. Ask the Cubans who have visited China,
including Castro, who has long since stopped criticizing China.
Henry C.K. Liu
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free
from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
|
