Re: [Marxism] China Drafts Law to Boost Unions and End Labor Abuse (NYT)

[Rod Holt <rholt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marxists try to perceive and understand the social forces at work around 
the world. We are trying to get an accurate picture of China and its 
ruling state apparatus, which all agree is in upheaval. We have seen the 
state since the 1950s slowly but consistently evolving toward a tightly 
intertwined bureaucracy advancing its own interests at the expense of 
the working masses. In the 1980s the iron rice bowl was broken and as 
the economic potential of cheap labor began to be realized on the 
international market. Much of the state apparatchiks, their relatives 
and friends, wiggled free too borrow, speculate, and enter into 
alliances with native Chinese and foreign capital; in a word, they set 
out to get rich quick by becoming capitalists. At the same time to 
maintain its authority, the state has had to stay cohesive and 
disciplined, which it has been able to do so far, though threatened by 
increasingly widespread corruption.

In the 1970s, it was clear the Chinese state defended only itself and 
the privileges awarded to its bureaucrats and loyalists. Today, the 
state has a more complex task: it must defend the interests of that 
segment of itself which is interlocked with native capital, it must 
maintain friendly accomdations for foreign capital, it must still grant 
privileges to the state apparatus, and it must now manage to contain 
increasingly angry workers who find themselves virtually slave labor or 
unemployed. The state must do all these things while trying to manage an 
economy increasingly out of its reach as the state owned industries 
close down.

It is in this context that we should be evaluating articles from the 
bourgeoise press, studies from the IMF and World Bank, and illuminating 
articles such as that from *Japan Focus*. Inside China there is the 
three-way competition between the 2 blocks of capital -domestic and 
imperialist - and a desperate working class.  Outside China's borders, 
there are the conflicts with the established global powers over the 
valuation of currencies, trade balances, etc.

Contradictions such as these have led to trade wars, tariff barriers, 
depressions, workers' uprisings and even military wars, all of which are 
faily important consequences.

Gathering real world data in an attempt to see relative strengths and 
motions is a Marxist's first job and theorizing comes later. But as far 
as theory goes, I'd say that if the state acts first, last and always to 
defend capital, then the socio-economic system supporting it just might 
be capitalist.
      --rod

Walter Lippmann wrote:

> â
>
> So why all the heat? Why is there so strident
> an urgency to insist that capitalism has been restored in China?
> Why is that apparently so important to some individuals? Beats me.
>
> The only consequence of any interest, it would seem, is the question
> of theory: can you have a peaceful transition from a workers state
> to a capitalist state. 
>
> [snip]
>  

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