Re: [Marxism] PRC: The Left of the CPC critiques capitalist restorationists

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter wrote:
>In China, not only do they speak the Chinese language, but they 
>speak in the language of the Chinese political culture.

It has nothing to do with being "Chinese". It is instead the standard 
discourse of Stalinism, which makes scholastic use of the Marxist 
classics to beat one's enemies over the head with. Just take a look 
at Joseph Stalin's 1951 "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" 
if you want to find the inspiration for the article that Chandan 
linked to. 
(http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm.)
 
Stalin manages to write hundreds of pages without actually examining 
concrete class relationships. He just strings together a bunch of 
jargon that was obviously meant to disguise the USSR's very real problems.

I prefer something like this myself:

China Left Review
Be Cautious When Talking about Land Privatization

LI CHANGPING

There are not a small number of local officials who stand for land 
privatization, and there are also lots of experts and scholars 
standing for it too. Many scholars even think that the 'San Nong' 
(agriculture-village-peasantry) problem is actually rooted in the 
common ownership system of land. They argue that peasants would not 
have property and human rights, and the state would not have vitality 
to enter into an ideal world, until land has been privatized.

I, however, have always conveyed, in different occasions, my fear of 
land privatization in the countryside. Because of this, I have called 
for lots of well-meaning criticisms. Nonetheless, here are my fears 
and reasons for going against land privatization:

I). A majority of Chinese peasants do not have the request for 
privatization. The most urgent thing for the state to do now is to 
return the land rights to the village collective.

I've been to lots of rural areas in many places. In my communications 
with peasants, I haven't heard and seen that peasants are having 
request for land privatization (suburb areas are exceptional). The 
major contradictions at present are those which are between the state 
and the collective. The state must return the land rights to the 
collective, so as to fulfill the clause, i.e. 'land in the 
countryside is owned by the collective', that is prescribed in the 
constitutional law. Based on this, whether or not land in the 
countryside should be owned by the private or the collective, and 
whether or not carrying on familial businesses or shareholding 
cooperative businesses, or any other modes of businesses, should be 
at the peasants' own discretion. Our experience always proves that 
the peasants' own choices are much more sensible than those 
self-consciously designed by the elites.

II). The rights of land-use can be transferable, provided that the 
current land policies in the countryside have been implemented.

Some people say that land cannot be transferred if it is not 
privatized. The peasants' response to this is: the rights of land-use 
can definitely be transferable as long as farming makes money under 
the current policies. The peasants from Da Xing An Ling in Inner 
Mongolia have told me that they had a good method to make the land 
become transferable: the peasants who are going to work in the city 
can mortgage their contracted land to swap 5,000 yuan as the 
'Personal Development Fund for Working in the City'. The period of 
the mortgage would normally be ten years, and the head of the village 
is the judge of the transaction. The fund investors can possess the 
rights of using the land and that of gaining profits out of the land 
within the ten years, and the peasants working in the city can 
unconditionally use that 5,000 yuan. This is in fact an exchange of 
the rent of one acre of land to the interest of 5,000 yuan. After ten 
years, the two parties will proceed to swap again what they 
originally had before; or, they may choose to start another 
transaction with each other. In the process of this kind of 
transaction of property rights, a middleman organization has emerged, 
that is, the 'Land Credit Cooperative Society'. For those who no 
longer return to the countryside, their original land contractor-ship 
will be transferred to the collective via the 'Land Credit 
Cooperative Society'. Why can the countryside in Da Xing An Ling area 
have developed this mode of land transfer? Because the land liability 
is rather slight here: only 20 yuan for each acre of land. The rights 
of land-use which can produce higher profits here may enable free and 
profitable transfers under the conditions of market economy. But in 
the Central Plains area where the land liability is heavy and the 
rights of land-use always gain negative profits, the rights of 
land-use cannot naturally succeed in inducing free and profitable 
transfers. Hence it is noted that the current land policies do not 
affect land's transferability at all, that what affects land's 
transferability is in fact those land-related tax policies and other 
liabilities.

full: http://chinaleftreview.org/index.php?id=40 


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