For all the people who still believe that the Chinese state is a revolutionary anti-capitalist force, I’ll quote the statements made by the overwhelming majority of Chinese scholars at a state-sponsored conference in
this article (shared by other ppl down below): https://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/articles/State_of_Official_Marxism_07_05.pdf
– When an SOE is turned into a joint-stock corporation with many shareholders, it represents
socialization of ownership as Marx and Engels described it, since ownership goes from a single
owner to a large number of owners [among others this was stated by someone from the Central
Party School].
– If SOE’s are turned into joint-stock corporations and the employees are given some shares of
the stock, then this would achieve “Marx’s objective of private ownership of property.”
– In dealing with the SOEs, we must follow “international norms” and establish a “modern
property rights system.” [As in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, the
terms in quotes were euphemisms for capitalist norms and capitalist property rights.]
– Enterprises can be efficient in our socialist market economy only if they are privately owned.
[This statement, voiced by several people, comes from directly from Western “neoclassical”
economic theory.]
– SOE’s exploit their workers and are state capitalist institutions, and SOEs often have a very
high rate of exploitation. [The point was that privatizing SOE’s will not introduce exploitation or
capitalist relations since both are already present in SOEs.]
– The nature of ownership of the enterprises has no bearing on whether a country is capitalist
or socialist. Enterprises should be always be privately owned and operated for profit. What
makes a country socialist is that the government taxes the surplus value and uses the proceeds to
benefit the people through pensions and other social programs. [Along with justifying
privatization, this implies that, as China’s economy becomes much like those of the U.S. and
Western Europe, that would not mean China is abandoning socialism since, by this definition, all
of the industrialized capitalist countries are actually socialist.]
– The USA has companies with millions of shareholders, which is a far more socialized form of
ownership than anything that exists in China
– “[After World War II] Capitalism not only gave up its fierce antagonism to labor, but even
began combining with labor…Modern capitalism … is gradually creating a new type of
capitalism that is more like socialism.”
– The CCP followed the correct approach, in line with classical Marxism, during the period of
New Democracy [i.e., the period directly following the 1949 liberation, when the party said it
was completing the bourgeois democratic revolution but not yet trying to build socialism]. The
change in policy after that period [when the party shifted its aim to building socialism] was an
error, and instead the New Democracy policy should have been continued. [This was spookily
similar to the widespread argument in Moscow in 1989-91 that the Soviet Communist Party
should have stayed with the New Economic Policy of 1921-27, which called for a mixed
economy with a significant role for private business and with market forces playing the main
coordinating role]
– Besides current labor and past labor [the latter the Marxist term for the labor required to
produce the means of production], there is a third type of labor, namely “risk labor.” Marxist
theory should take account of this third type of labor, which is expended by those who take risks
through entrepreneurship. [The obvious point was that “entrepreneurs” i.e., capitalists are a
type of worker, and hence it is correct that they are allowed to join the Communist Party
For all the people who still believe that the Chinese state is a revolutionary anti-capitalist force, I’ll quote the statements made by the overwhelming majority of Chinese scholars at a state-sponsored conference in this article (shared by other ppl down below): https://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/articles/State_of_Official_Marxism_07_05.pdf
– When an SOE is turned into a joint-stock corporation with many shareholders, it represents socialization of ownership as Marx and Engels described it, since ownership goes from a single owner to a large number of owners [among others this was stated by someone from the Central Party School].
– If SOE’s are turned into joint-stock corporations and the employees are given some shares of the stock, then this would achieve “Marx’s objective of private ownership of property.”
– In dealing with the SOEs, we must follow “international norms” and establish a “modern property rights system.” [As in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, the terms in quotes were euphemisms for capitalist norms and capitalist property rights.]
– Enterprises can be efficient in our socialist market economy only if they are privately owned. [This statement, voiced by several people, comes from directly from Western “neoclassical” economic theory.]
– SOE’s exploit their workers and are state capitalist institutions, and SOEs often have a very high rate of exploitation. [The point was that privatizing SOE’s will not introduce exploitation or capitalist relations since both are already present in SOEs.]
– The nature of ownership of the enterprises has no bearing on whether a country is capitalist or socialist. Enterprises should be always be privately owned and operated for profit. What makes a country socialist is that the government taxes the surplus value and uses the proceeds to benefit the people through pensions and other social programs. [Along with justifying privatization, this implies that, as China’s economy becomes much like those of the U.S. and Western Europe, that would not mean China is abandoning socialism since, by this definition, all of the industrialized capitalist countries are actually socialist.]
– The USA has companies with millions of shareholders, which is a far more socialized form of ownership than anything that exists in China
– “[After World War II] Capitalism not only gave up its fierce antagonism to labor, but even began combining with labor…Modern capitalism … is gradually creating a new type of capitalism that is more like socialism.”
– The CCP followed the correct approach, in line with classical Marxism, during the period of New Democracy [i.e., the period directly following the 1949 liberation, when the party said it was completing the bourgeois democratic revolution but not yet trying to build socialism]. The change in policy after that period [when the party shifted its aim to building socialism] was an error, and instead the New Democracy policy should have been continued. [This was spookily similar to the widespread argument in Moscow in 1989-91 that the Soviet Communist Party should have stayed with the New Economic Policy of 1921-27, which called for a mixed economy with a significant role for private business and with market forces playing the main coordinating role]
– Besides current labor and past labor [the latter the Marxist term for the labor required to produce the means of production], there is a third type of labor, namely “risk labor.” Marxist theory should take account of this third type of labor, which is expended by those who take risks through entrepreneurship. [The obvious point was that “entrepreneurs” i.e., capitalists are a type of worker, and hence it is correct that they are allowed to join the Communist Party
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