Re: An Open Letter to the CPC Party Central- The SocialistState

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The world in history and currently is still on the road towards socialism.  The
world has not had a truly socialist state, or a socialist society without a 
state.
The US has incorporated many socialist programs, such as social security,
unemployment insurance, universal public education, etc., does it make the US
socialist.  The answer is no, because the national goal of the US is based on
private property and its economy is driven by return on capital.  Capitalism
survives in the US because it, despite its evils, has provided a steady rise in 
the
domestic standard of living through a spectacular increase in productivity and
through imperialism.  Along with prosperity, the US system can afford certain
degrees of individual freedom, by rendering such freedom non threatening to the
survival of the system the control of which remains firmly in the hands of the
ruling elite based on ownership of private property.  So life in the US is
generally pleasant and enjoyable, at least for those who are not poor, colored, 
or
of the wrong religion.

In contrast, China, for the past 50 years, has had a national goal of public
ownership of the means of production.  It has a system of government openly 
based
on the leadership of the Communist Party which commits itself as the vanguard of
the proletariat (which in Chinese has been translated to mean those who own no
property).  The proletariat in the Chines language does not mean factory 
workers,
the way its does in the West.  If proletariat had meant factory workers in 
Chinese
politics, the revolution would never had succeeded.  In 1921, when the CPC was
founded, Western notions of proletariat predominated.  Chen Dushui, as Party
leader, tries to organize factory workers around capitalist Shanghai and the
strategy caused the CPC near extinction.  It was Mao's insight to identify the
property-less peasants who happened to be mostly tenant farmers, but also the 
urban
non-farm poor, that gave the CPC its enduring strength and ultimate victory.  
Thus
dictatorship of the proletariat in Chinese communism has very different meanings
than Western communism.  So, China has allowed some market capitalism to seep 
into
the consumer sector. Does that make China a capitalist country?  A strong case 
can
be made that it does not.  Of course, The capitalist West is fantasizing that 
this
will eventually lead China to become a full fledged capitalist society.  This
fantasy is as baseless as unionism hope that it will turn the US into a 
socialist
society.

Even today, the number of factory workers is less that 15% of the work force and
even the lowest paid workers are in fact enjoying pay several time higher than 
most
peasants in the rural areas.  The factory workers are in fact part of the 
economic
elite.  Thus when factory workers, with the aid of Western unions, want to force
upon the system the right to strike for higher pay, such strikes appear
counter-revolutionary to the masses.  Labor unrest in China is very complex. 
Much
of it has to do with complaints against losing life-time job guarantees for 
those
working in state-owned enterprises which are loss-making and a heavy drag of the
economy, losing money that otherwise would go the masses.  The number of workers
working for foreign or joint venture enterprise are less than 5% of the work
force.  This is the area where the most objectionable labor abuse took place.  
But
the likes of Nike and Disney are the real culprits, not the CPC.

Thus the Western left's criticism of Chinese communism often sounds like shadow
boxing.


Henry C.K. Liu