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.
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 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 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.
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.
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?
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?