me: > it's more of a matter of the monopolies and the state forming a > unified bloc. After all, the CP of China is a rich-person's club. > (They should get credit for being embarrassed by this fact.)
CB: > No it's the state dominating the corporations. And the vast > majority of CP members not heading corporations, nor the corporate > heads as party members. I really don't see a big difference here. A bunch of rich people dominate the membership US Senate and people call it the "millionaire's club." But when rich people dominate the membership of the CP of China, CB instead implies that it's the rich people -- and their corporations -- are dominated by the CP of China (and the state that it has a hammerlock on). There is a distinction between "state capitalism" (state-owned corporations, often with monopolies) and US-style capitalism, but they're both versions of capitalism. If the people of China had democratic control over China's state, it would be different. But they don't have that control: instead, is is in effect owned by a minority authoritarian party.[*] State ownership of productive resources should not be treated as a criterion for defining "socialism" _unless_ the state is controlled by the people. After all, the old Pharaoh in Egypt owned most of the non-human resources. State ownership of productive resources is literally as old as the hills. me: > BTW, there have been other cases of corporatist capitalism, where the > political sphere is dominated by a single authoritarian political > party that purports to combine and represent the interests of capital > and labor, while suppressing the independent organization of the > latter. It was a form of capitalism that prevailed in some countries > in western and central Europe during the 1930s. CB: > China is not a case of corporatist capitalism. A fundamental > difference between China and Germany , for example, is that the Nazis > had an ideology of militarism, imperialism, world conquest and white > supremacy; and launched a war killing 50 million people; I don't know why you bring up the Nazi party. I wouldn't compare the Nazis to the CP of China at all. To my mind, the Nazis represent an outlier, a case like (almost?) no other. Maybe the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia might be likened to the Nazis, but I don't know enough to say. (Such comparison likely conceals more than it reveals.) In any event, the comparison of the CP of China to the Nazis is nothing but a "red" herring or a straw man. (Hey, we can defend _anyone_ by saying "they're not Nazis, after all!" Jeffery Dahmer? Not a Nazi. Bill O'Reilly? Not a Nazi. Etc.) I was instead thinking of the Fascist parties under Mussolini or Franco, along with several other monopoly parties pushing corporatism (merged state/corporate rule) in Europe during the period between the two World Wars of the 20th century. (It's Mussolini, not Hitler, who coined -- or at least defined -- the word "corporatism.") BTW, the first leftist I read who suggested that the current Chinese regime might be fascist was the late Alexander Cockburn. He was trying to provoke the reader (as was his game) but the tag seems to fit China. CB: > Waging war was an essential component of Lenin's definition of > imperialism/finance capital; and white supremacy a basic aspect of > capitalism and imperialism; that is the complete antagonistic opposite > of China under the CP. Not all national capitalisms are seen as "imperialist." After all, there are a lot of capitalist countries in what used to be called the "third world" that nobody would dub "imperialist." (Ecuador? Somalia?) Some of them are quite authoritarian if not "fascist." But their authoritarian brands of capitalism are _dominated_ rather than dominating in the capitalist world system, so most people wouldn't call them "imperialist." (Like capitalism itself, imperialism should be seen as a type of social relationship.) In these terms, China can be a capitalist and fascist power without it being "imperialist." The tag only becomes relevant when a country becomes a superpower (as many say China is becoming these days) or at least one of the major powers contending for power in the capitalist world system. The old China -- before Deng Xiaoping's political revolution -- had a relatively small military. (Even so, China and India came to military blows more than once, while China attacked Vietnam, supposedly a brother socialist country, in early 1979.) Since then the Chinese military has grown mightily, while the "Peoples' Army" now owns business enterprise and acts very much like a capitalist organization on some fronts. Some folks also interpret a lot of the power-politics ploys that China makes (fighting over sea-based oil supplies, etc.) as being in the same league as "imperialist" tactics and strategy. Maybe, but I don't think that imperialism is a characteristic of an individual countries as much as of capitalism as a whole. (Thus, I'd describe the US as currently being the hegemonic power in the imperialist system.) China's currently acting like a big power contending for power within the capitalist world system, in effect playing the imperialist game. Since the 1917 Soviet revolution has clearly failed at this point, I don't know why Lenin's definition deserves any more respect than any other definition. (Appeals to authority are fallacious anyway.) And correct me if I'm wrong, but Lenin never mentioned "white supremacy" as part of what defines "imperialism" (while Marx never saw it as an essential part of the definition of capitalism). It seems to me that CB is attributing his own definition of imperialism to Lenin. Some scholars argue that Han Chinese supremacy is a major element of the CP of China's autocracy, but I don't know enough about the subject to agree or disagree. The Uyghurs might have an opinion on this question. CB: > Not only that, the Chinese CP's policies have brought tens of > millions, maybe 100's of millions of people out of poverty, by > developing the forces of production of a feudal- like country very > rapidly. This demonstrates that the CP is not just purporting to but > in fact is representing the interests of the working class masses. It's true that the Chinese CP's economic and political dictatorship has always been justified (by it and its supporters) by its stated goal of national development with a bias toward helping the peasantry. But does economic development define "socialism," especially when it's made a small minority really rich as the same time that the "iron rice bowl" that protected the living standards of the "working class masses" has been abolished? (Mussolini was also in favor of the economic development of Italy, while claiming to help the masses.) Further, the idea that the CPC represents the "interests of the working class masses" doesn't fit with such bloody events as Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and "Great Proletarian [sic] Cultural Revolution." If the CPC represents the interests of the workers and peasants, it should be willing to sacrifice their political monopoly (and their suppression of independent labor unions). It's not as if China is under a severe military threat from the outside (capitalist encirclement and all that). Instead, the threat to the CP's wealth and power seems to come from the people it claims to represent. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. [*] I wonder if someone's done any research to see how the current CP of China differs from (and is similar to) the old monopoly KMT that used to run Taiwan. Interestingly, the KMT was designed along "Leninist" lines under the guidance of the Bolshevik Mikhail Borodin. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
