Re: Re: Re: "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation." (fwd)

2000-03-30 Thread Chris Burford

At 13:35 30/03/00 -1000, Stephen wrote:




> > Chris Burford
>
>Now from an official Chinese source, translated by your's truly...on the
>socialist content of TVE's:
>
> >From Workers' Daily, 11/26/98
>
>In the Hunan Province village of Yiyang  as long as Getihu entrepreneurs
>put out under a hundred Yuan, they can buy  TVE "hongmaozi'
>status.  That's the 'latest trend' that interviews with villagers revealed
>to this reporter.  According to  butcher Chen Guiting from Anhua county,
>he and 17 other butchers got together and spent 55 Yuan to become a "TVE."
>Sources close to or in the government note that throughout China, numerous
>getihu  are following suit..The widespread sight of getihu  that have the
>cover of TVE gives one cause to reflect.



The reason why there is such a lot of bad economic news from China about 
corruption is because they are publishing it. It is easily scooped up to 
make a news story.

This is a society in rapid transition. Old conventions of trust and 
accounability have gone. They have not got modern bourgeois  control 
systems in place (not that they guarantee protection from corruption and 
cartels even in places like Germany.

The number of executions in China is offensive IMHO to global civil society 
(but so is that in the United States of America.)

That is a feature of the rapid process of change and the conflict that 
arises (conflict in all its forms - I am using the word in the abstract 
sense).

All this does not alter the overall picture that China may be moving 
towards a more diversified economy with still the firm intention to have 
the overall economy under social control. That may end up looking a bit 
like market socialism. BTW David Schweickart says nothing about the control 
of corruption and cartels. But that may be vital to the process of 
lubricating any social interchange, which must depend on degree of trust, 
that the reciprocity implied in exchange will work out reasonably well. 
Perhaps he assumes that a commission from the Loyola University of Chicago 
could regulate this more humanely in a future society.

I must say in stretching this comparison between China's economic strategy 
and Schweickart, it does occur to me that his description of market 
socialism is almost utopian in its peaceful flavour. The actual result may 
be much muckier.

BTW also, I am not sure what getihu's are. Can you help?

Regards

Chris Burford

London







Re: Re: "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous situation." (fwd)

2000-03-30 Thread Stephen E Philion

> 
> >My apologies for sending on this information from a bourgeois source. But
> >for those offended, rest assured this kind of story you can find in
> >Chinese magazines, newspapers,...Steve
> >
> >Subject: "All the work units have collapsed. . . . It's a dangerous
> > situation."
> >Washington Post
> >WTO Membership Imperils China's Industrial Dinosaurs
> >
> >By Clay Chandler
> >Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday , March 30, 2000 ; A01
> 
Chris wrote:> 
> Bourgeois sources are usually right at the level of gossip. What they will 
> leave out is any coherence to what the Chinese Communist Party may claim to 
> be trying to do.
> {snip}
> My impression is that ithe CPC is increasingly retreating to a position 
> where the  coordination of China's finances in the context of the world 
> economy is the most important features of a social control of the means of 
> production. That, coupled with the large town and village cooperative 
> sector, might be not so different from Market Socialism.
> 
> Chris Burford

Now from an official Chinese source, translated by your's truly...on the
socialist content of TVE's:

>From Workers' Daily, 11/26/98

In the Hunan Province village of Yiyang  as long as Getihu entrepreneurs
put out under a hundred Yuan, they can buy  TVE "hongmaozi'
status.  That's the 'latest trend' that interviews with villagers revealed
to this reporter.  According to  butcher Chen Guiting from Anhua county,
he and 17 other butchers got together and spent 55 Yuan to become a "TVE." 
Sources close to or in the government note that throughout China, numerous
getihu  are following suit..The widespread sight of getihu  that have the
cover of TVE gives one cause to reflect.
The gap between official stats and what one really sees begs an
explanation.  No matter if it's a shop selling tofu or meat sellers in
country markets, all are "TVE's"..If you're not careful, you might even
find yourself inside a "barber-shop" TVE..According to Yiyang City
Ministry of Industry and Commerce statistics, Yiyang city has a total of
5,414 getihu's  that are registered as TVE's including  barbershops, watch
repairshops, restaurants, small grocery shops, cigarette and alcohol
sellers..run by farmers from the countryside. These shops all have the
simultaneous status of getihhu  and TVE.  
In the town of Lanxi, which borders Yiyang city, some shop owners/traders
said that officials they approached for the TVE registration asked for 65
Yuan, and with that they received oneTVE registration certificate, one TVE
legal regulations booklet, and one TVE tax payment record card.  Not a few
getithu  proprietors revealed that once they made their registration
payment they were told by TVE Affairs Office that now that they were
TVE's, they were not required to pay taxes to the City Ministry of
Industry and Commerce.  Numerous getihu  proprietors now believing
themselves to be 'TVE' proprietors have since refused to pay their fees to
the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. As a result a conflict has arisen
between the two powerful  Ministry of Industry and  Commerce and the TVE
Ministry, in which much less powerfulgetihu's see themselves as  caught in
the middle of and ending up as the biggest as the biggest victims.
According to sources Hunan Provincial Prosecutor's Office, Financial
Court, Commodity Prices Bureau..officials decided at a meeting , on July
3rd of this year, enjoined the TVE Ministry to rectify the problem of
misappropriation of fees and to deliver a report on progress by August,
1998.  
However, in November of this year, this reporter in the counties of
Heshan, Taojiang, and Anhua found thru many interviews that most getihu's
had not had their TVE status revoked and were still operating under the
cover of TVE registration...