[Marxism] Marxmailistas, "No, No, No" and the politics of why can't we all just get along.

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

The latest post by Walter L. on the discussion on China provides another example
of why politics by diplomacy just leads to a dead end. Walter, as well a few
others on Marxmail, has continually wants to see the upside of countries that
seem to take at best, a diplomatic distance from the US, especially as regards
to Cuba, of course, but in politics in general. We've scene him, and others,
continue to say "Yes! Yes! Yes!" to every country that takes its distance with
the US and with the usual 'Things are not so bad there' which quickly follows.
Long gone is any critical assessment and objective viewing of the class
struggle domestically in each of the countries in question. I doubt seriously
you see our Marxmailer Bandwagoners comment on the latest news in Bolivia
except in the most superficial support for the Bolivian gov't, or Brazil's
Lula, and, now, it seems China and it's Dickensian condition of that country's
working class.

I would like to know if Walter, assuming he would condensend to opine on this, 
thinks China is still a workers state, or perhaps, a socialist one, or,
perhaps, has now gone over to capitalism? Does he think that the govt (given
that govt's rest on a class ruling over another class) is there to defend
socialist property or to destroy it. I use such stark terms as 'destroy'
because that is what appears to be happening there.

This thread started off over labor laws in China. It appears that Chinese
working class is operating "as a class" akin to the US working prior to 1934,
well before the Wagner Act was written into law in this country (or, should I
say, put into effect).

Clearly, what most have written here is correct: that the ACFTU has been a
transmission belt for the Chinese bureaucracy and, for use in heading off a
social explosion by allowing (albeit to a much smaller degree than in Vietnam)
strikes to happen, and to allow the union to actually function as a union. Even
this deal with Wal-Mart seems to be taking place well above the heads of the
working class, a deal cut, signed, sealed and delivered by the leadership of
the CCP and Wal-Mart, probably with the ACFTU "leadership" rubberstamping
anything that comes out of the CCP headquarters (mind you, I couldn't blame
them considering the generally impotency of this fake union called the ACFTU.
Maybe this will have the effect of transforming it into a real union).

I think Rod Holt is also correct that (at least as secondary reason) it is a way
for the Chinese to get around their own anti-working class, reactionary property
and free trade laws, to take back some surplus from foreign enterprises as an
indirect way of taxation, and to use this to further develop some sort of
Keynesian economic stimulus.

Lastly: A correction to whoever made this comment: the Chinese gov't does NOT
favor the state sector of the economy. The opposite is true: the gov't ATTACKS
the state sector by constantly underfunding it, divesting capital from it, and
privatizing the most efficient sectors of it. Where the Chinese invest in this
sector, it is to develop infrastructre for *private industry* to function
better, for better foreign investment, for better profit for their burgeoning
capitalist class.

David Watlers




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