Council on Foreign RelationsWashington, D.C. MR. SULLIVAN: At least I had the bravery to give that speech at Brookings rather than at CFR. So — (laughter) — Mike, I want to say thank you for having me back at CFR. And to Susan and Kurt and Charlene and Steve, thank you for having me back…
Your definition does not fit though. It contradicts the very definition of the word “capitalism”, which is defined by the accumulation of capital, which does not seem to be what’s driving the Chinese government.
I’m not being pedantic. If you’re going to come criticize the authoritarians on their home turf, you’re going to have to be rigorous in your terminology.
Isn’t it though? If the goal of China’s economic policy is to avoid the accumulation of capital, they are failing miserably. China has more billionaires and more economic inequality than almost any country on earth—including classic capitalist countries like the US.
Even if we agree to disagree on whether China is capitalist, it just doesn’t resemble socialism in its original conception in any way. Working people have no control over industry or the government, and both exercise repressive controls on any movement towards such a system. Recent reforms have moved things further in that direction by enabling loyal party capitalists to accumulate huge amounts of wealth at the expense of workers, and as Xi Jinping continues to strengthen his control of the state apparatus. It’s hard to see how this will lead to socialism unless you are an accelerationist.
According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2023, China housed the highest number of billionaires worldwide in 2023. In detail, there were 969 billionaires living in China. By comparison, 691 billionaires resided in the United States. India, Germany, and the United Kingdom were also the homes of a significant number of billionaires that year.
So which is it, are the Chinese capitalists in control of the State, or is the “authoritarian” Xi Jinping in control? Or do Chinese workers actually have more effective democratic control than workers in bourgeois democracies?
BBC, 2014: Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracyThe US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite. So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
Working people have no control over industry or the government, and both exercise repressive controls on any movement towards such a system.
This is what we’re constantly told by our governments and our corporate media that parrot them. I would suggest that your understanding of China comes from imperial core propaganda for the purposes of Cold War II. The propaganda is also important to the capitalist class that doesn’t want workers here to take note of a threat of a good example.
This isn’t the gotcha that you think. Party and business elites (to the extent that these two groups are even distinct—in many cases there are overlapping members) cooperate to maintain control over the economy and political system at the expense of working Chinese. In recent years, Xi Jinping’s tightened grip on power has involved the elimination of some rivals from the ruling class, but he has not changed its overall structure, merely eliminating those deemed threatening and replacing them with allies. But we’ve seen many examples of countries where totalitarian dictatorships coexist with capitalism. Though the capitalists often have more power collectively, as long as they are allowed control of the economy and fabulous wealth, it’s not worth the risk of resisting the president, Führer, chairman, or whatever he wants to call himself.
I’m familiar with and agree with these criticisms of republican democracy in the West. But what you don’t seem to understand is that the situation in China is not materially different. In fact, the idea that China is socialist is actually also Western propaganda—and very successful propaganda at that. Most informed people can see that China is not a good place to live for ordinary people, and by labeling this system socialism, it confuses people into believing that socialism is a bad economic system. This is a big reason we have not had a real socialist movement for the past 100 years. The west was able to successfully associate the term with unpopular totalitarian governments, even though they never allowed any kind of real worker control or autonomy. For example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY. These films were effective because people could see that workers under Stalin or Mao did not have appreciably more control over their own lives or prosperity than workers in the US.
But I am interested in your claim that Chinese workers have more of a voice than we do in the west. Others have merely attempted to assert China is definitionally socialist or distract with irrelevant and cherry-picked economic statistics. Can you substantiate this claim? In my view this is the heart of our disagreement. From where I am I do not see much to suggest that Chinese workers have any say at all in political or economic decision-making but if that is incorrect there must be evidence.
I’m pretty sure you already made this point earlier in the thread, or perhaps in some other thread.
We Marxist-Leninist do think that China is an Actually Existing Socialism. Whether Western propaganda uses the term to its advantage is not our concern. We don’t at all agree with these “informed people” on whether China is a good place to live. Those people get their understanding of China from Western propaganda.
Also, totalitarianism is a bullshit term created by Western propagandists in order to equivalate socialism and fascism. Hannah Arendt came from a petty bourgeois family and was a paid propagandist.
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
From our own Western propaganda, you hear and credulously believe that Chinese workers have no say, and now the burden is on me to prove that they do have a say. If you really want to know, you’re welcome to look into it yourself. You might start with The East Is Still Red, which is short and provides a lot of references.
Your definition does not fit though. It contradicts the very definition of the word “capitalism”, which is defined by the accumulation of capital, which does not seem to be what’s driving the Chinese government.
I’m not being pedantic. If you’re going to come criticize the authoritarians on their home turf, you’re going to have to be rigorous in your terminology.
Isn’t it though? If the goal of China’s economic policy is to avoid the accumulation of capital, they are failing miserably. China has more billionaires and more economic inequality than almost any country on earth—including classic capitalist countries like the US.
Even if we agree to disagree on whether China is capitalist, it just doesn’t resemble socialism in its original conception in any way. Working people have no control over industry or the government, and both exercise repressive controls on any movement towards such a system. Recent reforms have moved things further in that direction by enabling loyal party capitalists to accumulate huge amounts of wealth at the expense of workers, and as Xi Jinping continues to strengthen his control of the state apparatus. It’s hard to see how this will lead to socialism unless you are an accelerationist.
Chinese billionaires
Chinese income inequality
So which is it, are the Chinese capitalists in control of the State, or is the “authoritarian” Xi Jinping in control? Or do Chinese workers actually have more effective democratic control than workers in bourgeois democracies?
BBC, 2014: Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite. So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is what we’re constantly told by our governments and our corporate media that parrot them. I would suggest that your understanding of China comes from imperial core propaganda for the purposes of Cold War II. The propaganda is also important to the capitalist class that doesn’t want workers here to take note of a threat of a good example.
This isn’t the gotcha that you think. Party and business elites (to the extent that these two groups are even distinct—in many cases there are overlapping members) cooperate to maintain control over the economy and political system at the expense of working Chinese. In recent years, Xi Jinping’s tightened grip on power has involved the elimination of some rivals from the ruling class, but he has not changed its overall structure, merely eliminating those deemed threatening and replacing them with allies. But we’ve seen many examples of countries where totalitarian dictatorships coexist with capitalism. Though the capitalists often have more power collectively, as long as they are allowed control of the economy and fabulous wealth, it’s not worth the risk of resisting the president, Führer, chairman, or whatever he wants to call himself.
I’m familiar with and agree with these criticisms of republican democracy in the West. But what you don’t seem to understand is that the situation in China is not materially different. In fact, the idea that China is socialist is actually also Western propaganda—and very successful propaganda at that. Most informed people can see that China is not a good place to live for ordinary people, and by labeling this system socialism, it confuses people into believing that socialism is a bad economic system. This is a big reason we have not had a real socialist movement for the past 100 years. The west was able to successfully associate the term with unpopular totalitarian governments, even though they never allowed any kind of real worker control or autonomy. For example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY. These films were effective because people could see that workers under Stalin or Mao did not have appreciably more control over their own lives or prosperity than workers in the US.
But I am interested in your claim that Chinese workers have more of a voice than we do in the west. Others have merely attempted to assert China is definitionally socialist or distract with irrelevant and cherry-picked economic statistics. Can you substantiate this claim? In my view this is the heart of our disagreement. From where I am I do not see much to suggest that Chinese workers have any say at all in political or economic decision-making but if that is incorrect there must be evidence.
I’m pretty sure you already made this point earlier in the thread, or perhaps in some other thread.
We Marxist-Leninist do think that China is an Actually Existing Socialism. Whether Western propaganda uses the term to its advantage is not our concern. We don’t at all agree with these “informed people” on whether China is a good place to live. Those people get their understanding of China from Western propaganda.
I think your conceptualization of socialism is a utopian one, which Marxists reject. This is why Engels wrote Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and Lenin wrote “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder.
Also, totalitarianism is a bullshit term created by Western propagandists in order to equivalate socialism and fascism. Hannah Arendt came from a petty bourgeois family and was a paid propagandist.
The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited
If fact, almost all of the “Western left” was captured by the imperial core propaganda machine: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism
From our own Western propaganda, you hear and credulously believe that Chinese workers have no say, and now the burden is on me to prove that they do have a say. If you really want to know, you’re welcome to look into it yourself. You might start with The East Is Still Red, which is short and provides a lot of references.
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