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

Walter wrote:
China today is a bureaucratically deformed workers state, David. So,
roughly using Trotsky's approach to the USSR as a broad parameter,
it's a contradictory society in which the government, a privileged
bureaucratic layer, straddles between the interests of the working
class and peasant majority of the country and the growing capitalist
layer. It similarly defends the national interests of the Chinese
state against the interests of international capitalism.

This is not true at all. China has a vast bourgeoisie, including the billionaire paper recycling magnate mentioned earlier. There is no planning in the Chinese economy. It operates strictly on the basis of profit, not human need. The only thing that is "communist" about it is the name of the ruling party. I imagine that this might confuse some people but that's the breaks.

On the international side, China still plays a positive role, assisting Cuba circumvent the U.S.
blockade, assisting Venezuela with an alternate market for oil should
Washington decided to stop the purchase of oil from the Bolivarian
republic, and by its generally acting to restrain Washington's
bellicosity to the extent that is possible via diplomacy.

So does Putin's Russia, but nobody would argue that it is a "worker's state". Come to think of it, there is supposedly a lot bigger state sector in Russia than in China, according to Chris Doss--president of the Putin fan club.

China's historical place in the world, in human civilization, seems to
have eluded those so despearte to brand China capitalist. I'm still
not sure why this urgency is so strong. Most Marxmailistas, as far
as I'm aware, live in capitalist countries.

Yes, I am sure that some of them are being bankrolled by the CIA to say these terrible things about China. I have even heard rumors that Jim Farmelant is digging a tunnel into China from Tibet in order to smuggle in secret agents.

Perhaps is just a matter of
"misery loves company"? I simply do not understand. Fidel Castro
gave a good account of China's place in history, at least from his
own point of view, not so long ago. I recommend it to everyone:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-china.html

Walter, when Fidel Castro dies, who will be your new pope?

The urgency, indeed the desperation with which some Marxmailistas
DEMAND that China be branded capitalist is alarming, since Marxmail
is, as it can only be, a discussion forum, a place where ideas ought
to be discussed and clarified.

Do you think we should get a note from our parents to get permission to call China a capitalist society? I am sure my mom would be agreeable to that. She really loves me, with all my pro-imperialist faults.

Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I granted your
wish, that I conceded to your demand to brand China as capitalist.
What would you do with the victory? What would be different in
the world we live in? Why is it so urgent, so important, for those
demanding this, that China be branded a capitalist country?

Why? Why? Why?

I guess we are infected with a sick curiosity about the spectacle of a huge postcapitalist society becoming capitalist. This sick curiosity obviously afflicted the late William Hinton as well, who had the same relationship to China that people like Lee Lockwood had to Cuba.

Today, after 20 years of Deng?s ?reforms? we can clearly see which way China is going and what the result will be. Surely Mao?s diagnosis still stands. Mao?s diagnosis for the whole of China?s revolution was that the capitalist road was not open to the people of China. In a world dominated by powerful imperialists and multinational corporations with enormous strength and global reach, any third world country taking the capitalist road is taking a road that leads to neocolonization. Today, with capitalist methods, one can?t build an independent, self-reliant economy and country, but only a subsidiary economy and country at the mercy of these huge multinational corporations at the top of the heap that set the rules and rule the roost. The Deng (now Zhang) regime is, in essence, already a comprador regime, ready to sell out to the highest bidder China?s most precious land, material, and human resources. For immediate gain the current power holders will do anything, sacrifice any principal, invite in any investors, give away huge chunks of the domestic market, sell any and all resources including long-term use rights to the most valuable urban land, not to mention advertising space on the walls of the Yangtze Gorges, which could stand as a symbol of the whole paradigm. Recently around Beijing a big speculative boom in housing surfaced and some of the best cropland in north China was diverted to build estates for wealthy people. The prices of these houses under construction?they aren?t called houses, actually, they?re called villas?ran from 450,000?1,500,000 U.S. dollars. So far as I know, few if any of them were sold to anyone who wanted to live in one. In the meantime, speculators from Hong Kong and other parts for the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia bought a few hoping to make a bundle by selling them again before the whole scam collapsed.

full: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0904hinton.htm



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