June 25, 2021
by Straight-Bat for the Saker Blog
1. Prelude
The other day, I was trying to visualize the conversation that would take place on a rainy humid day in July 2021, in a cafeteria in the Eurasian region of heaven where Karl Marx, Robert Owen, Comrade Lenin, Chairman Mao, and Generalissimo Chiang would meet. Purpose – to exchange critical views around the Communist Party of China (CPC) centenary and China.
Generalissimo Chiang would start the conversation, “Mr. Mao, congratulations on the hundredth anniversary. Tell me what did you really achieve by pushing me and Kuomintang out of mainland China?”
Chairman Mao would reply, “It was obvious! We wanted to build a socialist China based on Marxist-Leninist principles, for which you were the biggest opposing force. The CPC was always looking out for enlarging the anti-imperialist democratic front – even a section of Kuomintang joined us! But you steadfastly denied, on the contrary you acted viciously to wipe out the proletarian struggle in China.”
Chiang chuckled, “Well, that happened in past. Now, mainland China progressed a lot to become the largest economic power ahead of my friend (USA) and second largest military power next to your friend (Soviet Union or Russia), but it still has too much of inequality among three types of citizens – filthy rich businessmen and capitalists, struggling workers in farms and factories, and self-employed city dwellers burning midnight oil in their small ventures. If only economic growth and military power were the objectives, even Kuomintang (after emancipation from the cliques with vested interests) would have achieved similar targets!”
At this point, Comrade Lenin, the eternal revolutionary, came to the rescue of his cherished student Mao, even though they never met. Lenin replied, “Mr. Chiang, it’s a long haul, it would be a very complicated journey. My follower relentlessly struggled to establish the CPC as the vanguard of socialist revolution. His team had to develop the productive forces, build the initial social capital for further economic development – that called for a capitalist economy. Unfortunately, the European geopolitics didn’t allow my New Economic Policy to succeed in developing the productive forces in Soviet Union”.
The old ‘patriarch’ Karl Marx couldn’t remain silent anymore. He appeared to be in a reflective mood and shied, “I was sure about the appraisal of ‘capital’, but wasn’t sure how to turn the ‘surplus value’ into irrelevance after gaining the political power. Also, neither I nor Engels got came out with a definite blue-print on how ‘state’ would wither away! As long as a few fellows could own land, and resources as their property, get hold of technology, and could exert influence on the state apparatus, neither ‘capital’ nor extreme inequality would go away. Mao’s team still has a long way to go. However, this is a great occasion to cheer up the Communist Party that was founded in China hundred years back.” Marx would turn to Lenin with silent reprimand, as if Lenin stood guilty of his team’s failure to reach a century even after scoring a swashbuckling half-century under the leadership of Stalin against the Zionist-capitalist clique who staged two world wars by then for wanton destruction of Eurasian heartland!
Marx would continue, “so many groups of revolutionaries in dozens of European and non-European countries came forward since 1848 to build a socialist society through a socialist revolution, but most of them messed up their movements mid-way. The CPC withstood the test of time, which is now leading the most populous country (with 18% of the total global population) and churning out approximately 19% of the total global GDP on purchasing power parity basis. Even if the CPC hasn’t yet closed the first step of a socialist society, this is an occasion to celebrate their incredible perseverance!”
Chiang obviously didn’t want to join issues, for he never had time for such ideological discussions; Mr. Chiang’s faction only understood power and wealth based on rudimentary nationalism.
The discussion so far was not to the liking of Mr. Owen. He deemed it fit to jump in, with apparently robust argument, “Mr. Marx, aren’t you ashamed of so much of bloodshed by your followers, the so-called revolutionaries, and yet not even the first step of Marxist Socialism is complete in case of China?”
The quintessential activist in Marx flared up suddenly, “Mr. Owen, enough of such allegations! Let me ask you two simple questions – firstly, even if other groups of socialists also fought against injustice and inequality globally, why there was not a single case where they could come to political power?” Owen was speechless, Marx continued, “Let me respond! Whether in the past or in present, no socialist group other than the Marxists will be able to come to power AND build truly socialist society, because their ideology was based on only compassion and courage, it lacked the foundation of scientific analysis.”
Marx leaned towards Owen, and murmured in a soft tone, “Did you notice the difference of the present status of the standard of life between China and India, both of which started their journey as a modern independent country with humongous load of population as the decade of 1940s was drawing to a close? The proletariat and petit bourgeoisie in China are leading a quality life which is way ahead of what their brethren enjoy in India – on all parameters like education, health, employment, income, household expenditure, leisure, life expectancy etc.! There were dangerous obstacles in the struggle of the poor Chinese for emancipation and dignity under the banner of communist party, hence there was bloodshed. If such impediments do not arise, then a socialist revolution would become peaceful without bloodshed! Now the Chinese people are leading a life which is worth living! Compared to that, what did the social democrat faction (of the most prominent political party) achieve in India, even if they ruled India for more than four decades immediately after independence? Now, after three decades of exploitation under neoliberal capitalism, on one side, two-thirds of population, the plebs, earn on average even less than a dollar per person per day, and on the other side, the Indian bourgeoisie continue accumulating more wealth than others in Asia!”
The moment was ripe for Lenin to take a centre-stage. He became brutally frank while addressing Owen, “Mr. Owen, the Utopian socialists, the Anarcho-socialists, and the social democrats are blinded by jealousy of our limited success – otherwise how could they blame the Marxist socialists for every problem that overwhelm the humanity! Isn’t that utterly funny? Not only us, but all other socialist groups were equally sickened with the exploitation and injustice meted out by the capitalist bourgeoisie! The capitalists have not changed, so is it that the Utopian socialists, Anarcho-socialists, and social democrats changed their track to become lackeys of the capitalists?”
Lenin continued, “if they have truly anti-capitalist anti-imperialist anti-Zionist ideology then, there is every possibility that the Utopian socialists, the Anarcho-socialists, and the social democrats would become successful in the long run – maintain your separate identity as a party, if you wish so, but adopt our goal which wisely mix empathy with wisdom, which identify actions along with the dream. Join our front in every nook and corner of the globe!”
And, that ended my day-dream. Is the dream, a blasphemy in the ‘post-modern’ era when half of the 1% Zionist-capitalist oligarchy fund a section of academia and media to beat the hollow drum of democratic nationalism, while the other half of the same 1% oligarchy fund another section of academia and media to sound the trumpet of capitalist globalism, thereby creating a false dichotomy that would perpetually keep 90% of the population of the globe engaged in stupid arguments over the future of humankind? Is the dream, a wickedness in the current ‘post-modern’ era when the 1% Zionist-capitalist oligarchy successfully obscured the real issue of accumulation of wealth and power by them, and obfuscated the very definition of ‘democracy’, ‘autocracy’, ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’, and ‘communism’ to turn their meaning upside down? Be that as it may, now, as the CPC celebrates a splendid 100 years journey, I would like to look into the details of how socialism, the only antidote to Zionist-capitalism, has been welcomed in China!
2. Socialist Revolution & China
In the medieval world the traders and businessmen were inseparable from their wealth/money/capital. The evolution of ‘capital’ as a separate entity from the businessmen, traders and entrepreneurs took quite a long time. During 15th, 16th, and 17th century when aristocrats and financers of west European kingdoms and empires were fully absorbed into ‘mercantile capitalism’ and ‘agrarian capitalism’, the underlying dynamics were fully related to ‘primitive accumulation’ (even though no body spelt it out that way). The primitive accumulation of wealth (as capital) taking place within the entrepreneurs- traders-bankers of different countries of west Europe through their far-flung imperial ‘colonies’ in the continents of North America, South America, and Africa soon became the harbinger of ‘industrial capitalism’ at the dawn of 18th century west Europe. Even before that, the capitalist system of finance matured in the beginning of 17th century Netherlands – world’s first stock exchange as well as world’s first bank using the fractional reserve system were established in Amsterdam. Capital became a global force to reckon with, by the end of 19th century, when the entire world came under the sway of west European Zionist-capitalist oligarchy whose primary objective was to relentlessly pursue accumulation of capital – essentially, the journey of ‘capital’ to reproduce itself infinitely, passed through extermination of hundreds of communities across the globe and ceaseless exploitation of natural resources of mother earth. Karl Marx bared it all in the ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I’ as “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation ……The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organized force of society.”
Between 18th to 20th century in Europe, many intellectuals, economists, politicians, philosophers, and social activists raised their voice against the Zionist-capitalist savagery in which their state became willing accomplice. They did extensive analysis of how the different stages of capitalism exploited the society and transformed majority of the people into poor plebs ruled by a group of wealthy aristocrats who would bend any established rule to ensure accumulation of profit and wealth from any kind of business – from slave trade to opium trade. Different European thinkers (in Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Russia) became political activists trying to organize (a) political party that would fight for rights of the working class, (b) awareness among public about inhuman treatment meted out to the people in the colony owned by the state. Different political groups were formed by the advent of industrial capitalism during this period, each of which professed to a particular ‘ideology’ of political economy built over time by few intellectual-cum-activists – prominent among them were Utopian socialists, Anarcho-socialists, social democrats, and Marxist socialists. All of these ‘socialist thoughts’ had one common theme – working class people are exploited by the business owning class, and the workers must get their due share of revenue from industrial operation.
Throughout the second half of 19th century, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels enriched the philosophical basis of socialist thoughts and carried out extensive economic analysis of mode of exploitation – thus ‘Marxist socialism’ evolved, and the political activists who would follow the socialist thoughts of Marx and Engels came to be known as Marxists or Marxist socialists or Communists. Till date, hundreds of intellectuals, politicians, economists, activists, and philosophers across the globe contributed to the development of Marxist socialism, and enriched the Marxist literatures. Most prominent among them was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian revolutionary better known as ‘Lenin’, who during his short lifespan of 53+ years (a) formulated the procedures of practical implementation of Marxist socialism in a country, (b) analyzed the economic relation between imperialism and capitalism, (c) coordinated the Russian Revolution that formed the first socialist government in Russia, (d) guided the newly created Russian government towards economic and geopolitical. Since mid-20th century, most of the political parties across the globe who followed Marxism, identified themselves as ‘Marxist-Leninist’ – that made perfect sense, for it was Comrade Lenin who first brought the theory down to practice.
2.1 Basics of Socialist Dream
Any country and its people can be depicted as interplay among five socio-political entities, where community as the central entity deals with four other entities which are modern historical constructs (with roots in ancient and medieval history). Four relationships between community (identified as ‘1’) at one side and state apparatus (identified as ‘2’), political party (identified as ‘4’), ally states (identified as ‘3’), adversary states (identified as ‘5’) on the other side are crucial for a community to survive and flourish. This has been the case ever since human civilization started experimentations with political entity. In reality, the state and the party both are extended part of a community itself (hence, intraneous entity), while outside states can be termed as extraneous entity. The following block diagram figure 2.1 depicts it:
Every society/community is the expression of a continuous interaction between the ecosystem and a group of people. A community lives and thrives within the boundaries of the ecosystem – if the ecosystem is frayed, the community can’t thrive. The main socio-economic actors in the modern history, after industrial capitalism transformed the lifestyle of human beings, are portrayed in the schematic diagram figure 2.2 given below.
Significant observations that can be noted from a glance at the above diagram are:
1. There is a clear pattern emerging out of the interaction between ecosystem and community – the economic activities of the community draws EVERY MATERIAL (except finance, technical, managerial knowledge, and labour efforts) from the ecosystem that is processed into goods and services. The 1% people (termed as bourgeois capitalist) who have inclination towards wealth accumulation, contributed towards the creation of the social superstructure containing state apparatus, law, monetary and banking system etc. in such a way that, the output of economic base would continue to enrich them generation after generation through a benefit accrual cycle:
Ecosystem → Economic Base → Capitalists → Ecosystem
2. Since the economic base is using every material input from the ecosystem (other than labour and other efforts of the society) for production and distribution of goods and services, and NO INPUT CAN BE FUNDAMENTALLY CREATED BY THE BOURGEOIS OR ANYBODY ELSE, how could a class of people (termed as proletariat) of the community be deprived of the fruits of the economic activities? Every person has a ‘natural right’ to the benefits as per the concept of ‘natural justice’. Laws are made by humankind, but NATURAL JUSTICE AND NATURAL RIGHTS ARE IMMUTABLE CONCEPTS of the creation that can’t be challenged by humankind. Hence Marx-Engels-Lenin-Mao (the doyens of Marxist socialist theory) unambiguously wanted to create a benefit accrual cycle that would scotch the earlier fallacy and create an appropriate cycle:
Ecosystem→ Economic Base→ Community→ Ecosystem
2.1.1 The Essence of Marxism
A socialist society would convert all classes of people into stakeholders of economic performance of the country instead of leaving it on to invisible ‘market forces’ (which is a façade under which the Zionist-capitalist operated economy accumulates wealth and power on behalf of the 1% oligarchy). The objective of socialism is to bring widest possible freedom and maximum possible development for every citizen in a classless stateless society. Every human being (irrespective of background identity like age, sex, ethnicity, language, religion, and region) should become free from hunger-disease-insecurity-injustice, each citizen should spend time in socially useful productive work, people can carry out research in academic areas, they can seek entertainment-pleasure at leisure time, without any of these being morally or physically harmful to any other people or section of the society.
As per Marx, the history of humankind is a struggle between antagonist ‘classes’ over the fruits of economic activities. Whether the slave mode of production in ancient era, or feudal mode of production in medieval era, or capitalist mode of production in modern era, the working class was always exploited by the dominant class of the era who constructed the system of state, law, bureaucracy etc. as institutions to perpetuate their rule – hence, the majority plebs remained paupers throughout the history while the aristocrats remained wealthy.
In the capitalist mode of production, some of the elements of ‘factors of production’ (viz. the ‘means of production’, and financial capital) are treated as ‘capital’ and two other elements of factors of production (viz. labor, and entrepreneurship) utilize the capital to produce goods and services. The produced goods (and services) have different ‘use-value’, and in a barter society real and specific useful labor that went into making of the goods would be considered as ‘exchange-value’ which is tied closely to the ‘use-value’. In modern capitalist society, that real labor is removed from the goods, and abstract value of labor is attached to the produced goods which results in the labor efforts getting objectified. Similarly value of the produced goods get transformed from use-value – in the capitalist market, artificially calculated exchange-value dominates. In order to generate surplus (monetary capital as profit), price of the produced goods in money-form becomes cost of input materials plus labor plus ‘surplus/‘profit’ (ignoring things like interest and depreciation). Thus, the capitalist who owns the finance capital and means of production, earns profit (in monetary form), accumulates profit endlessly, while the laborer don’t get the price of labor.
Every means of production whether the ‘subjects of labor’ (raw materials, natural resources including source land, energy, water) or the ‘instruments of labor’ (tools, machinery, factory including land, other infrastructure) which go into production of any material (from a grain of wheat to a car) and service (from electricity supply to 5G communication) is drawn from natural resources, while the processing is done by a team of people (Labour) supervised by technical specialists. Hence, any entity like a family, or a business that use such ‘produced goods and services’ only utilize natural resources and human labour. Thus the capitalists’ accumulation of profit is more immoral because he/she is not the creator of natural resources.
As per the Marxist theory, there should be two-stage transformation in a socialist society which looks like:
The stage 1 transformation >> Capitalist society (bourgeoisie democracy) to
Socialist society (dictatorship of proletariat)
The stage 2 transformation >> Socialist society (dictatorship of proletariat) to
Classless socialist society (also termed as Communist society)
The most significant modification of Marxism happened with Lenin’s theory that proposed: a Marxist political party would act as a vanguard party of the proletariat which would seize the state power, and steer the economy and society until the political environment across the world is conducive for classless stateless society (where party would lose its significance).
If Marx was 100% right, ‘capitalism’ as an economic system has to go. David Harvey (2015) criticizes capitalism as ‘a system which lives beyond its means through a banking and finance system that takes on too much debt’, ‘a system which pays its workers too little to consume all of the goods it produces’, ‘one which is ruining the environment’. There is little doubt that Zionist-capitalist oligarchy created a globalized society of monumental inequality – Oxfam said in January’2020 that, 2,153 dollar billionaires across the world have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people (i.e. 60% of the planet’s population), and top 162 billionaires have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of global population (link: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/billionaires-inequality-oxfam-report-davos_n_5e20db1bc5b674e44b94eca5?ri18n=true). There can be even less doubt that, nature abhors the state of disequilibrium.
2.2 Socialist Dream – China, the Last Man Standing
As on date, there are 155 countries in the world with population more than 1 million. At least two-thirds of the countries have one or two political outfits which identify Marxist socialism as their guiding principle – these parties/outfits have been around for a long time, may be on average 75 years. However, the current environment is a downward slide after the world-wide socialist movement witnessed phenomenal success in three regions apart from east and south-east Asia:
1. East Europe – Soviet Union helped many communist parties of east European countries to come to state power after WW II. Later on these countries formed ‘Warsaw pact’ that included Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and East Germany. Not only Soviet Union led the economic rejuvenation of the Warsaw pact countries after complete devastation of WW II, Soviet Union contributed immensely towards national liberation of African countries.
2. Africa – many countries that fought liberation war against the west European colonial masters saw the triumphant parties professed Marxist socialism as their guiding principle. Countries like Algeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, and Zimbabwe had governments and ruling party leadership who wanted to progress the newly independent countries through the past of socialism.
3. Latin America – in most of the countries in South American continent and Central American region, Marxist parties were organized against the well-entrenched lobby of local oligarchy and American oligarchy who would invariably manipulate every government towards oligarch-friendly policies that would exploit the natural resource and 90% plebs. In countries like Chile, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador Marxist parties struggled, but success eluded most of them.
Apart from the above mentioned countries where Marxist socialist political parties and discourse were popular in the past (and in some countries, still popular), there were many more South American, North American, African, and Asian countries where multiple groups of revolutionaries stood against exploitation and dehumanization by the local and comprador oligarchy, and struggled to seize political power through a socialist revolution. But, most of them messed up their movements mid-way – some of them couldn’t withstand the onslaughts by Zionist-capitalist oligarchs masquerading as democratic populist party leaders, some other simply betrayed the ideal in order to stash illegitimate wealth offered by the Zionist-capitalist clique, and finally there were a few leaders who were wrong from the very beginning about what is socialism! There was another unfortunate factor which played to the detriment of the worldwide socialist movements – unity among various ideological factions within a Marxist party was mostly absent, hence the policy and planning for struggle towards achieving political power differed. In many countries, the struggle within various factions of a Marxist party resulted in multiple splits and continuous depletion of resources, time and efforts of leadership of all factions.
With the implosion of the Soviet Union as a state and CPSU as a party between 1989 CE and 1991 CE, Marxist socialist political parties around the world lost much of the moral and material support to continue their journey towards socialism, and as matter of fact, most of those political parties changed their ideology to identify democratic capitalism as their goal. Only 5 countries viz. China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba still got a Marxist socialist party controlling the state power. The socio-economic realities in all countries, however, point out towards high degree of exploitation, dispossession, lack of income, and overall poverty among the plebs, 90% of the population – the significance of Marxist socialism refuses to go away!
The CPC has always been one of the most vibrant communist parties in the world, which witnessed many violent field battles against adversaries as well as ideological battles between various factions within the party built around policy and implementation programmes since its birth in July’1921. Between July’1921 and October’1949 the CPC built the mass base in rural and urban regions as well as created an army (Peoples Liberation Army) that fought against the Kuomintang after it became clear that Chiang Kaishek faction of Kuomintang party would not share power at the central government with the CPC. In October’1949 People’s Republic of China (PRC) was proclaimed by Mao as the PLA won the war against the Kuomintang army – the leadership of Kuomintang settled in Taiwan group of islands declaring Republic of China (ROC) as an independent country. Technically PRC and ROC both claim to be the legal representative of China.
While none of the CPC leaders seriously debated about what would be the final shape of China after achievement of 2nd and final stage of socialism (class-less state-less communist society was never really a subject of detail discussion among Marxist socialists because Marx was vehemently opposed to any such blue-print of a distant future), senior leaders like Mao, Zhou, Liu, Deng, and their factions debated exhaustively on what would the 1st stage of socialism look like and how to achieve that. Marx-Engels-Lenin mostly engaged in deliberating the advent of capitalism in European society, hence theoretical discussions and writings on socialism in ‘Asiatic’ society remained a far cry from what was expected by the 20th century socialist revolutionaries in China, India, and Indonesia. Rightly judging that, the social capital and productive forces built in China between 1950 CE and 1980 CE as grossly inadequate for a stage 1 socialist society for sustaining in the highly competitive global economy and complex geopolitical reality (ideological divide between the CPC and Communist Party of Soviet Union in mid-1950s turned into unfortunate hostility by end of 1960s), Deng and his successors went on to develop theoretical framework of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. When judged unbiased, ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ appears to be built on three pillars – (a) Leninist principle of communist party acting as the ‘vanguard of socialist revolution’ was followed with complete dedication and the CPC remained all-powerful authority, (b) the terminology of ‘market socialism’ propounded by Oskar Lange was borrowed and used with ingenuity by the CPC, but the concept of Lange was never really implemented anywhere in Europe or in China, (c) the productive forces including the ‘animal spirit’ of capitalists were unleashed under strict control of the Chinese state.
During the next 40-year period from 1980 CE to 2020 CE, the CPC spearheaded the rejuvenation of the Chinese society and state through astounding growth of China’s economy, complete eradication of absolute poverty, and imbibing all sorts of technology. The drive towards industrial capitalism in China using the global finance owned by the Zionist-Capitalist bankers and industrialists (initiated by Deng) was followed up by the succeeding CPC leadership in such sincerity that, the Zionist-capitalist Deep State representatives like Kissinger concluded that transformation of the Chinese society and economy into a Zionist-capitalist system was forthcoming. With China’s entry into the world order triad (USA-West Europe-Japan), the new configuration would have become USA-West Europe-East Asia. Meanwhile, Soviet Union and Warsaw pact got dissolved. Zionist-capitalist clique was sure about China ditching Marxist socialism to join USA camp by the turn of the past century. Chinese government went all-out to create free trade zones for global Zionist-Capitalist interests which wanted more and more profits towards endless accumulation of capital, and hence were busy shifting their manufacturing base to China to harness low-cost labour and slack regulations. By 2008, China became the third largest economy in terms of GDP nominal (as per IMF estimates USD 4604 billion) and largest export base in the world (In 2007-2008, its Export-to-GDP ratio reached 32%, and its Exim-to-GDP ratio was 59%). But during this process, China also became a society where inequality was one of the highest in the world – Gini coefficient increased from around 0.3 in early 1980s to 0.49 in 2008. The media, and academia funded by the Deep State went all-out to woo the CPC leadership towards ushering a new era of ‘political reforms’ after such a brilliant success of ‘economic reforms’ – by ‘political reforms’ they meant introduction of democratic election based multi-party system with liberal capitalism. However, after 2 decades of continuous and intensive persuasion, by 2008 CE, the Zionist-capitalist Deep State cabal concluded that, the CPC would never change their ideological color – the CPC leadership just utilized the capitalist system, capital, and technology from USA, Japan and west Europe to perform a ‘great leap’ forward towards the industrialisation of China! Since then, the world order controlled by the Zionist-capitalist Deep State has been putting up innumerable obstacles on the path for further economic and social transformation of China.
As it stands today, only a few Marxist communist/socialist/ workers parties, who continue to be led by bold, capable, and visionary leaders through generations, are able to sustain their journey. Among the 5 countries which still got a Marxist socialist party running their government, China has the largest Marxist socialist party. If China shied away from the ideology of Marxist socialism, the philosophy of socialism will get a quiet burial across the globe. Remaining 4 countries (Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba) possess too insignificant landmass and population to gather sufficient moral and material strength to continue their journey on the road to socialism against the brutal economic sanctions by Zionist-capitalist world order. China led by the CPC, is the proverbial ‘last man standing’!
3. Socialist Revolution – All’s Well That Ends Well
3.1 Stage 1 Socialist Dream in China
While every socialist-minded people all over the world applaud the stupendous achievements of mainland China led by the CPC, as it celebrates the centenary, they also point out that, there is still a long way to go before the CPC can claim a successful socialist society in China.
A news article with a headline “600 million with $140 monthly income worries top” appeared on the Global Times website on 29th May 2020 (refer link: https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1189968.shtml) and another with a headline “China’s 400 Richest 2020: Total Wealth Surges Amid Pandemic” appeared on the Forbes website on 4th Nov 2020 (refer link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2020/11/04/chinas-400-richest-2020–total-wealth-surges-amid-pandemic/?sh=5b1c42d13d7a). In a Marxist socialist country, such income inequality is a natural outcome of the phenomenon, what I paraphrase as: the significant aspects of stage 1 socialism are yet to be achieved in China. Chinese government took remedial action as noted in the article “China to issue 20 billion yuan in subsidies to farmers” (refer link: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1226522.shtml) that appeared on the Global Times website recently. However, such corrective action is not really a substitute for permanent resolution – remedial measures need to be taken up at the level of policy formulation and implementation.
During past 4 decades, China implemented a mix mode of economy, which was essentially a combination of ‘state capitalism’ and ‘private capitalism’ supported by the Zionist-capitalist global oligarchy with finance and technology until about 2008 CE. The Zionist-capitalist motive force generated very high degree of momentum within the Chinese mainland unmatched in any of its past ‘enterprises’ whenever the force went to ‘invade’ new territory around the globe. The main challenge for the present Chinese leadership is to dissipate the energy of that storm so that, the energy can be harnessed for social benefits as much as possible, while damage from the storm is kept at a minimum as the society turns deep into socialism. With Zionist-capitalism so well-entrenched within the bourgeois class and the economy, the CPC wouldn’t be able to a take an ingenious decision of a single-stage transformation to a classless and stateless society. On the eve of centenary celebrations, the CPC should finalize on a prudent realistic approach of two-stage transformation. The following tasks should be taken up to implement the final aspects of the stage 1 socialism in China:
(a) Action point 1 – Implementing the concept of ‘restricted-profit enterprise’ to bring all economic activities (as mentioned in the sub-section 3.1.1) under its sway EXCEPT a few vital sectors, and simultaneously making all classes of society stakeholders for enterprise performance (as owners of the enterprises), instead of only the capitalist class and the state owning industrial enterprises;
(b) Action point 2 – Implementing a robust banking and monetary policy by following a judicious mix of the ‘fractional reserve theory of banking’ (broad banking for creating credit money) through 50% of the banking/financial institutions and ‘financial intermediation theory of banking’ (narrow banking that is transactional in nature) through remaining half of the institutions, instead of individual bank/ financial institution practicing the ‘credit creation theory of banking’ to create debt money out of thin air in connivance with the ever-greedy capitalist class;
(c) Action point 3 – Restructuring the agriculture and related sectors towards liberating tens of millions of surplus workforce (currently underemployed and unemployed), and simultaneously making new initiatives for agro-based industry in rural regions, instead of the rural economy remaining burdened with an overcrowded agriculture sector;
(d) Action point 4 – Planning and control of national economy with an eye to increasing the spending capacity of all sections of the society, so that the household consumption expenditure becomes the mainstay of the economic growth by contributing at least 50% of the GDP, instead of investment and export playing the lead role to support economic growth;
While action point 1 and 2 are truly (socialist) revolutionary concepts directly favouring the proletariat (and the petit bourgeois) against the bourgeois capitalists, action point 3 and 4 are concepts related to sound economics that fight against inefficiency and unsustainability. Four action points collectively target to erase exploitation and inequality which are still part of the quasi-capitalist economy of China and to implement robust monetary and economic measures that will be instrumental in achieving the stage 1 socialism.
At least the following subjective impact analysis should be done meticulously during detail planning:
1. Impact on GDP and GNI
2. Impact on prices and inflation
3. Impact on employment and income
4. Impact on consumer households (i.e. people from different classes of the Chinese society who consume goods and services)
5. Impact on producers (i.e. different enterprises, and individuals of the Chinese society who manufactures/produces goods and services)
6. Impact on Chinese importers (the enterprises in China who import goods and services from foreign countries)
7. Impact on Chinese exporters (the enterprises in China who export goods and services to foreign countries)
8. Impact on MNC with business operation in China (imports and sells in China, manufactures and sells in China)
9. Impact on MNC with business operation in China (manufactures and exports to foreign countries)
10. Impact on local governments
11. Impact on central governments
12. Impact on Peoples Bank of China (PBoC)
13. Impact on global banks with business operation in China
14. Impact on foreign governments
15. Impact on Multilateral trade organizations
16. Impact on projects funded by Chinese government
17. Impact on projects funded by foreign governments
Socio-economic scenario simulation should also be done during detail planning:
1. Computerized simulation of pessimistic scenario that assumes actual duration of implementation to be double than planned duration calling for almost double resource and efforts
2. Computerized simulation of optimistic scenario that assumes actual duration of implementation to be 80% of the planned duration thereby saving resource and efforts
3. Computerized simulation of probable scenario that assumes actual duration of implementation to be 20% more than the planned duration thereby causing little additional resource and efforts
Both the individual impact analysis and socio-economic scenario simulation need to take into account the past 3 decades of socio-economic landscape of China and make projections for 2 decades into the future. We need to remember, if central planning system of Soviet Union failed to take into account the population, geography, and goods/services requirements satisfactorily, lack of enough computational power and adequate information were to be blamed – the theory and proposition was not responsible for its debacle. The following subjects should be considered as part of the socio-economic landscape:
i. Parameters on national GDP accounting
ii. Parameters on production
iii. Parameters on sales
iv. Parameters on prices and inflation
v. Parameters on labour force
vi. Parameters on international finance and trade
vii. Parameters on balance of payments
viii. Parameters on income and expenditure
ix. Parameters on Human Development Index (HDI)
x. Parameters on environmental sustainability
3.1.1 Action Point 1:
Ever since the intellectuals and economists in early modern Europe raised their voice against the exploitation by the privately owned industries, the question of ‘ownership of means of production’ took central position (along with the question of ‘money as finance capital’) in every debate concerning struggle against capitalist mode of economy. Mainly three different ideas got substantial support among different shades of socialists – (a) ownership by public/community, (b) ownership by ‘State’, and (c) ownership by ‘workers’ cooperative’. Mode (b) had been the most preferred option for the socialist parties that came to power in Soviet Union, East European countries, China, Vietnam, and Cuba, because it was assumed that a ‘state’ represented a ‘community’. However, in my opinion, mode (a) is the most genuine because only that can deliver all the benefits of ownership to the individual level of the community – not only the appearance of ‘state’ as expropriator gets averted, but people’s self-esteem and involvement with the economy increases. Let’s revisit what happened in Soviet Union and East European countries in the beginning of 1990s – when the Zionist-capitalists were dissolving the socialist state, constitution and system, they picked up all productive assets – factories, mines, facilities – at almost no cost by manipulating the then state administration of Soviet Union. The ‘state’ was the owner of all productive assets, hence the people were just bystanders, they didn’t resist since they didn’t own. In future, if and when the Zionist-capitalists in China organize themselves to stake its claim on state power, community ownership of means of production and other productive forces will be the ONLY repelling force that would save the day for the CPC.
The action point 1 should be implemented at every sector/sub-sector of the Chinese economy (that are concerned with natural resources and economic base of the society as shown in figure 2.2) and its interaction with every class in the society in such a way that address specific issues and concerns of the society as well as the economy. Because of the unparalleled significance of ‘Manufacturing (defense & space)’, ‘Banking, Finance, Insurance’, ‘Education’, and ‘Healthcare’ sectors, ownership of those four sectors should be only vested in the state, to begin with. The ownership of remaining all categories of means of production needs to be legally transferred to the community (and the state) in an orderly manner – EVERY CITIZEN AS HE/SHE TURNS 25 YEARS, SHOULD BECOME ELIGIBLE FOR ALLOTMENT OF EQUITY OF ENTERPRISE(S) TO BECOME AN ‘OWNER’ under this scheme, what easily can become the largest transfer of wealth in the history of humankind. The ownership would remain non-transferrable which means that the share is not trade-able at the share market, and at death the ownership gets terminated. An indicative scheme of ownership for the 12 sectors/sub-sectors is given below in table 3.1.1. It is to be noted that, the percentage of ownership indicated in the table is for EVERY ENTERPRISE/FACILITY and NOT for a sectors/sub-sectors in totality – e.g. in the ‘Real Estate & Construction’ sector, equity of each of the organizations/facilities should be distributed among citizens belonging to 5 classes/sub-classes of the community as noted in the same table so that, each class gets 20% equity, it does NOT mean that 20% of the enterprises/facilities in the ‘Real Estate & Construction’ sector should be owned by each of the 5 classes. Approximately 73% of the population of China would be beneficiary. Since the entire conceptual philosophy behind this proposition is to put an end to basic causes of exploitation and inequality among various sections of society, the implementation of this vast programme has to be done in such a way that at least 1 member of every family residing in 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, and 4 municipalities of PRC becomes beneficiary of this scheme.
The table 3.1.1 given below has been constructed with a certain degree of thought process that took into consideration things like (a) criticality of a sector to the sustenance of the state and the party (a ‘vital’ sector shouldn’t be opened for community ownership at this point of time), (b) future urban-rural population (urban population would become two-thirds of the total population, hence more sectors should be serving that compared to rural people), (c) the state (and the party) should play a role as ‘stabilizer’ among different classes of owners in every enterprise, hence a token presence is required on the ownership table. However, before implementation, the concerned team of CPC should suitably modify to reflect the ground realities more appropriately (except increasing the share for bourgeois).
Table 3.1.1
| Economy sectors & sub-sectors | Community | State | ||||
| Proletariat –Rural labourer, unemployed | Proletariat –Urban labourer, employed, unemployed | Petit bourgeois – Rural peasant, craftsmen | Petit bourgeois – Urban technologist, manager,self-employed | Bourgeois – owning or controlling capital | ||
| i) Agriculture & related areas | 20% Ownership | — | 70% Ownership | — | — | 10% Ownership |
| ii) Mining & related areas | 20% Ownership | — | 70% Ownership | — | — | 10% Ownership |
| iii) Utility | — | 40% Ownership | — | 40% Ownership | 10% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
| iv) Manufacturing(traditional) | — | 40% Ownership | — | 40% Ownership | 10% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
| v) Manufacturing(hi-tech) | — | 40% Ownership | — | 40% Ownership | 10% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
| vi) Manufacturing(defence & space) | — | — | — | — | — | 100% Ownership |
| vii) Banking, Finance, Insurance | — | — | — | — | — | 100% Ownership |
| viii) Real estate & construction | 15% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 15% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
| ix) Technology-based services | 15% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 15% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
| x) Education | — | — | — | — | — | 100% Ownership |
| xi) Healthcare | — | — | — | — | — | 100% Ownership |
| xii) Other Services | 20% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 20% Ownership | 10% Ownership | 10% Ownership |
There would be a couple of significant counter-arguments to suggest the proposed implementation of action point 1 as an ‘impossible task’ or a ‘utopia’:
1. Primarily there are four types of domestic enterprises operating in China mostly in industry and services – state-owned big/medium sized corporates, private-owned big/medium sized corporates, state and private joint ownership companies, small companies owned by individual professionals. How could the ownership pattern be changed without disturbing the management as well as without impacting the performance of the enterprise? Answer to that can follow similar logic of how a company maintains its structure and functioning after it is taken over by another corporate entity through acquisition of majority equity share with an understanding that existing setup won’t be disturbed by the new owner;
2. Assuming on average 4-member family, there would be about 350 million families in China spread over about 9.6 million sq.km. How could even 1 member from each family get ownership share in even 1 enterprise that brings material benefit to him/her? There is no standard answer. There has to be rigorous analysis covering all types of enterprises (According to a report by China’s Administration for Industry and Commerce released on 14 January 2016, more than 77 million companies were active in mainland China) in all sectors/sub-sectors to explore physical and financial capital base built over past 7 decades, and thereafter optimum restructuring of equity capital has to be done for each of those enterprises in all sectors/sub-sectors (except 2). Then only a clear picture would evolve about how so vast number of citizens can be accommodated;
3. Another significant question is whether the existing private owners would at all accept proposed dilution of their equity stake, and if they agree then what would be the terms-conditions, and if everything is settled, then whether they would continue to manage the enterprise as they did in past. This is the most significant question from legal perspective. The bourgeois class executives would not mind diluting their equity stake in existing enterprises because (a) China’s private entrepreneurs are politically co-opted by the CPC, (b) by working through the party-state networks all over the country, private businessmen understand that they are a very important part of the current national economy, (c) bourgeois class is a numerically very small part, may be 1% of the Chinese community, still sizeable equity stake for them has been proposed in 6 sector/sub-sectors (as given in table 3.1.1) which is disproportionately high when compared to numerically much larger part of the society;
4. Last but not least is the question – how could a business enterprise function under ‘restricted-profit’ environment. Generally, an enterprise functions with ‘profit’ (e.g. business operation) or ‘non-profit’ (e.g. social work) orientation. But, as per the guiding principles of socialism, endless accumulation of profit can’t be an objective for a socialist society. Hence, during implementation of action point 1, procedures for enterprise functioning with restricted profit has to be laid out that neither violates the socialist principles nor kills the spirit of business operation. Steps may be – (a) exhaustive analysis of all factors of production that go into production and distribution process for all types of business operation under each of the listed 12 sectors/sub-sectors (e.g. ‘Manufacturing – traditional’ has, say, 15 sub-sectors like food & beverages, textile & garments, metal processing, light engineering goods, consumer durables, heavy machineries, automobiles, chemicals & fertilizers, hydrocarbon processing, pharmaceuticals, rolling stock, shipbuilding etc.); (b) setting up of optimum range of operational expenditures – input material cost, input labour hour, input energy cost, factory and machinery depreciation, cost of financial capital, cost of technology, cost of managerial coordination etc. – across the entire value chain of each of the sub-sectors (e.g. 15 sub-sectors of ‘Manufacturing – traditional’); (c) setting up of optimum range with upper and lower limit of operating margin, product/service price, profit, share of profit to be reserved and share of profit to be distributed among shareholders. We, the protagonists, need to always remember ‘when there is a will, there is a way’
3.1.2 Action Point 2:
In commodity exchange, one exchanges a commodity for money, and that money is exchanged again for some other commodity. One sells in order to buy something else for consumption – Marx identified this cycle as Commodity-Money-Commodity (C-M-C). In modern economy, with ‘money’ as the exchange medium as well as store of value, one can buy in order to sell at a higher price – Marx defined this as Money-Commodity-Money (M-C-M), the formula for capital. Free from the use-value of an item, this ‘money’ can move on continuously as profit-making finance capital. For the business of usury, the cycle becomes even sharper – Money-Money (M-M). Till 1970 CE, the traditional capitalist concept of accumulation of monetary capital as ‘profit from business operation’ continued as usual. Money supply through banking system (exogenous money created either by manufacturing paper/metal currency or by fractional reserve system, also called money multiplier model) of a country not only positively impact the business cycle, but it has an impact on inflation, and the price level also. Empirical evidence suggests a direct relation between growth in the money supply and long-term price inflation. In the post-Keynesian Europe and America, Zionist-capitalist oligarchy found that, in order to tackle inflation and price more effectively, the central banking institutions of countries across the globe (including the countries in European and American continents) were restricting the money supply for their economy (by NOT creating new money), which in turn restricted the flow of credit money to grow businesses owned by the capitalists. On the other hand, in the 1970s and 1980s most of the businesses were operating in severe competitive environment across the globe, input costs were not favourable always, fuel costs were up, product prices were too competitive with Japanese companies becoming more cost-effective – all these factors impacted the traditional process of seeking exorbitant profit from businesses in the era of ‘industrial capitalism’. Thus, as a result of two simultaneous pressures, the endless accumulation of (money) capital became much more difficult than the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy expected.
Hence, the academia and media funded by the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy dusted off an old theory of endogenous money and gave it a new life – credit creation theory of banking. This concept of credit money heralded a new era of Zionist-capitalist exploitation of the earth and humanity through ‘financial capitalism’. Starting in 1980s beginning, financial capitalism saw its ‘golden era’ during the 1990s and 2000s until the financial crisis overwhelmed American and European economy in 2007. But soon after the financial shock, financial capitalism found its way in the same fashion like before. Central banks in advanced countries maintain their official stand as exogenous money creation through fractional reserve system, but in practice, many banks in developed countries create endogenous credit money while paying lip service to principles of prudence and conservatism (refer “Post Keynesian Endogeneity of Money Supply: Panel Evidence” from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257594497_Post_Keynesian_Endogeneity_of_Money_Supply_Panel_Evidence). Under the endogenous money theory (and, practice), ‘the supply of money is a function of profit expectation’. As per the Jewish tradition of banking and usury, the central theme of this theory is endless accumulation of money. The bourgeois capitalist businessmen would start calculation from ‘profit expectation’ which would derive the ‘income of firm’, this in turn would derive the ‘demand for credit’ as per which the ‘credit money creation’ would become the responsibility of the banker (the leader of the team of capitalists). Hence, the traditional flow of causality through fractional reserve system (Reserve → Deposits→Loan) gets reversed as Loan → Deposits → Reserve under this endogenous credit creation system. For endogenous money, the interest rate is not determined by the market mechanism (like the supply of and the demand for savings, the supply of and the demand for money). Nominal interest rate set by the central bank is applicable.
During past 4 decades of the era of financial capitalism, as and when the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy in a country decide to accumulate more money without going into the ‘painful’ mode of industrial capitalism, they create a flow of credit money through connivance with the management of commercial banks (staff at the higher positions in industry and banking are ALWAYS selectively appointed by the oligarchy) each of which has country-wide network of regional offices and branch offices, ostensibly for growing business operations. Question can be raised, “so what, the credit money drives creation of new business that helps growth of the overall economy”. The answer is, “no, it is not so”. Apart from a glitzy ‘project report’, none of the business objectives are ever honestly mentioned. Industrial and Service sectors are the prime target areas where hundreds of millions of investments are demanded as ‘project loan’ from commercial banks, and after receiving the amount, half of the amount gets transferred the foreign/domestic accounts of the ‘businessman’ and their accomplices, remaining half may be actually invested in the project. In many cases, after couple of years the businessman declares the project as dead and business operation as bankrupt. In many other cases, where the targeted project came to fruition, it can be easily proved through post-completion report that, the loan taken from bank was about 150 – 200% more than the actual project expenditure. This is how, in all countries throughout the world the wealthy oligarchs have been accumulating money, only a small part of which comes through profit from business operation. And, this ‘mechanism’ of ‘getting rich fast’ has been popular among senior-level technocrats of state-owned enterprises in all developing countries (including China) – Zionist-capitalist oligarchy happily accommodates such turncoats as part of the oligarchy. On the other hand, this swindle of a very large section of Zionist-capitalist business-owners results in bad debt problems for the country.
Government of China has to grapple with the bad debt problem continuously for past two decades (refer link:
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-s-bad-loan-season-descends-again-and-this-time-it-may-be-really-bad-121021700184_1.html). Writing off trillions of bad debt as non-performing asset from the books year-after-year is not really a solution. Unless and until the procedures and systems of banking-financing and money circulation are made full-proof along with complete prohibition of the endogenous credit money, PBoC won’t be able to see a clean slate ever in the banking sector.
As proposed in action point 2, the worst performers among banks and financial institutions should be converted into ‘narrow banks’ where deposits would be used to buy government bonds, but no investments in shares. Lending would be done using the deposits only (following ‘financial intermediation theory of banking’). Narrow banks are safe banks; there would be very limited credit risk. The danger of non-performing loans and subsequent injections of capital (using taxpayers’ money) would be grossly mitigated through narrow banks. Remaining banking institutions should religiously follow ONLY the money multiplier model of the fractional reserve system for creating credit money required for economic growth. PBoC should keep reserve requirement ratio at 25 – 30% which may be considered as a prudent base for credit money creation through fractional reserve system. Thus supply of money would be maintained, but unscrupulous capitalists won’t find a route to carry out bank robbery any time they wish.
3.1.3 Action Point 3:
Agriculture and related sectors in China has innate unbalances – the country has only 9 – 10% of the total arable land in the world, and 7 – 8% of its fresh water, but the sector’s output has to feed about 18 – 20% of the world’s population. Agriculture in China had been the core economic activity since ancient era. In the post-WW II when PLA won the civil war against Kuomintang, rural peasants were the most significant base of the communist party. The people’s commune system was established in Mao era, which was changed into the household responsibility system in Deng era. With progress of time, the improvement in productivity and income per capita as a result of such structural changes always taper down. Agricultural output has increased leaps and bounds over past 7 decades (with temporary dips). However, current problems of the agriculture and related sectors can’t be wished away:
(a) Diminishing plot size of the arable land (average size – less than 1 hectare) due to division among family members with each generation,
(b) Availability of water for irrigation remains a challenge especially in the northern half of the country
(c) Income of farmers lag behind the urban population by a very large gap
(d) Increasing demands for agricultural and dairy products, meat, and fish due to two simultaneous factors – population growth as well as change in dietary patterns especially in the urban regions
(e) Environmental degradation due to the ever increasing use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
(f) Decreasing area under cultivation due to rapid township development projects
There are unresolved dichotomies in the agriculture sector in China:
1. If farmers’ income rise becomes more important, then high-value crops need to be cultivated; but that would require releasing arable land currently under food-grain cultivation, which in turn would affect the goal of self-sufficiency in growing food-grain
2. If afforestation is increased as a measure to address environmental pollution, semi-arable land should be released for that purpose; however, that would result in further reduction in the agricultural land, which in turn would impact production of both food-grains and high value crops
Under the restructuring of agriculture and related sectors action point, government should consider a mid-way between village-level people’s commune and household responsibility – contiguous plot-owners should form cooperative enterprises so that plot size remain above 10 hectares. Such plot sizes would enable the cooperative to deploy most modern farm equipment. Government should ensure that farmers’ produces are picked up at farm-gate at a price that covers the cost of inputs, labour, and a net income that is significantly higher than current income per capita in rural regions – essentially it would require subsidy payments in a systematic way. Finally, such cooperatives would indirectly result in release of the surplus labour into industrial and service sectors – migration to urban areas is highly probable, unless government launch new initiatives for agro-based industry and electricity generation system through renewable sources like solar and wind energy.
3.1.4 Action Point 4:
In a brief, accurate write-up, The Guardian website provided the economic data related to Chinese economy from 1980 to 2016 (Link: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/23/china-gdp-since-1980). The export-oriented economy that Deng set in motion (following other East Asian success stories in 1970s and 1980s) during 1980s has been performing with extreme efficiency and effectiveness till now. The statistical indicators point out to that fact. However, household consumption expenditures remaining slightly below 40% of the GDP still remains a matter of concern for the policy making body of the CPC (GDP of China in 2019 CE was Yuan 99492.74 billion by expenditure approach, out of which Household Consumption Expenditure was Yuan 38589.56 billion i.e. 38.78% of GDP). There are two sides of the issue – (a) household consumption expenditure has been increasing steadily for past few decades, but the growth in GDP due to exports (and investments in infrastructure asset creation) readily outsmarted the household consumption growth, and (b) the potential for household consumption contributing a minimum of 50% of the GDP has not been unleashed yet.
In my opinion, both the perspectives of household consumption ‘dilemma’ need to be seriously addressed. After 2008 CE, the steadily growing trade and commerce between China and USA as well as China and West Europe has been a boon for the Chinese economy and bane for the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy. On top of it, the BRI programme, that aims to revolutionize the infrastructure and trade in Asia, Africa and South America, has sounded the alarm for the existing Zionist-capitalist world order. The existing world order would explore all type of ‘programme’ that attempts to hinder the existing trade and commerce between China and USA-West Europe-Japan triad (link: https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/american-decoupling-from-china-deconstructed/ ) as well as implementation of BRI programme. The CPC leadership should take note of it, and make preparations for absorbing a possible dent in exports (and imports). And, the question of substantial increase in household consumption appears on the horizon right away.
Under the scheme for boosting household consumption, the purchasing power of the rural population needs to be enhanced substantially. For the urban citizens of China, consumption is a way of life – generally, they enjoy life with increased income. However, for the entire country, apart from enacting laws that would ensure increase in salaries-wages-bonus in every types of enterprises, the government has to explore a creative way that would indirectly increase the propensity for consumption expenditure. Chinese government should seriously consider making education and healthcare a subject of governance. Thus, all arrangements, from creation of infrastructure to providing services, related to education and healthcare should be made by the government for every citizen of China. Citizens, as per their income category, would make payments for such services – this would require subsidies, since the poor section of the society won’t be in a position to cover the expenditures fully. However, once the population is free from the biggest concerns of daily life, the consumption expenditure would increase in true sense. (It won’t be inappropriate to mention here that, in the USA, education and healthcare services form a substantial part of the consumer expenditures, because the general population is turned into debt-serfs through credit money created out of thin air by the Zionist-capitalist banking cabal – but following USA as the role model for society and economy is hardly an intelligent decision for a Marxist socialist government).
3.2 Debate on Four Action points
There would be couple of valid questions from China watchers:
1) Question from intellectuals who identify themselves as ‘ideologically pure Marxist socialist/ Communist’ would be invariably on whether the continued presence of ‘market’ and ‘money’ in China (as I envisage in this article) would allow transformation of the society into a stage 1 socialist society. True, most of the early socialists detested market and money by assuming these as the root cause of all evils, and there were serious research in inter-war Europe and Soviet Union to propose how socialist society can function without market and money. The famous socialist calculation debate during the inter-war period between Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek) and neo-classical and Marxists (Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, Fred Taylor, Maurice Dobb, and others) was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation in the absence of the price, money, capital market, and private ownership of the means of production. Without getting into the logic and analysis of such research provided by either side, I would like to maintain that socialism as an economic system is far more efficient than capitalism from social and environmental perspective, and that socialism is highly feasible. In my opinion, Socialism won’t be mortally wounded, if centralized economic planning work as complementary to market mechanism, enterprise functions with restricted profit accumulation, and money is used as a medium of exchange and an unit of calculation (instead of labour-time or physical unit of measure). In defense of my stand, I would quote David McMullen from his working paper titled “Re-Opening the Debates on Economic Calculation and Motivation under Socialism”, “there is nothing preventing an economy where the means of production are socially owned from having an effective price system as long as it can replace the profit motive with a desire by people to undertake work for its own sake and to serve the common good.”;
2) The intellectuals who wouldn’t give a damn to ideology, would like to ask, now that China has almost become a superpower in the realms of industry, technology, defense and space, why to bother about little ideological things like ‘yes to community ownership’ and ‘no to endogenous credit money’, that would be akin to rocking the boat. My response would be, without appropriate ideology, CPC members would become a class unto itself and would not be able to keep its mass base intact over the next 50 years. As a result, corruption, manipulation, nepotism and irresponsible behaviour would increase dramatically leading to loss of public support. Thereafter, it would be just a matter of time that, CPC would be challenged by a political entity (created-aided-abated by the Zionist-capitalist world order). Whether China sets up a base in Mars, in my opinion, is less important than whether China implement the crucial aspects of the stage 1 socialism.
3) Inquisitive readers may come forward with a very practical question – what would happen to people and society in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Well, I would like to keep them separate as part of the “one country two systems” policy. It would be better for everybody if the regions of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are kept outside of this proposed program of final aspects of the stage 1 socialism in China. Let free entrepreneurship operate in these places, including operation of a business enterprise with even 100% private ownership (if the existing laws of those quasi-states permit). After all, those regions didn’t go through the transformation brought out by the Chinese Revolution.
4) Yet another group of informed readers might like to ask if the CPC has the organizational strength, leadership with ideological bent of mind, and all sorts of resources required to implement such an ambitious program. The question of whether the CPC can lead, whether the CPC can prepare a blueprint, and whether the CPC leadership can mobilize resources required for such a mammoth transformation is, actually, the most important issue for eventual success or failure. If a serious reader scans through the 100-year history of the CPC, he/she can come to a conclusion that the party was not built in a day – over the 100 year period, the Chinese leaders kept no stone unturned to keep the socialist dream alive. Extreme hard work by the leaders and members of all factions strengthened the CPC. Hence, in my opinion, the CPC would be able to register a complete success.
There are couple of key suggestions for strengthening the organization to prepare itself better for any eventuality, like: (a) expand membership strength to 140 million (equivalent to 10% of population), new recruits should cover all regions and at least 80% should come from proletariat and petit bourgeois family background; (b) vigorous training sessions for all party members through class-room and practical training, training should be imparted at least once in every 5 years; (c) while 80 years age should be maximum allowable age for a member in the party, average age should be lowered, so that members are physically fit to perform in difficult circumstances.
4. Conclusion
Coming back to the elders’ discussion in Heaven. China has achieved wonderful all-round progress towards building of social capital in the country. Now, to complete the first stage of socialism, China needs to shift the gear to adopt the cycle: Ecosystem → Economic Base → Community → Ecosystem.
It is time for the CPC to undertake the next journey on the socialist road with careful planning and implementation of the milestones. Couple of afterthoughts:
1. Two most crucial objectives for the CPC – socialist transformation and Taiwan reunification – should be undertaken simultaneously, for any attempt to plan those two objectives at staggered timeline may result in disappointment and stagnation. China (and Taiwan) can continue their journey towards more economic prosperity (with considerable inequality) even without achieving socialist transformation objectives, but the main issue refuses to go away – what happens when the Zionist-capitalists in China organize themselves to seize the political power (as they did in Soviet Union)? So, it is not a question of making a decision so that the elders like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao would be delighted in heaven, it’s a question of life and death for socialism, which the CPC would have to confront, most probably before the centenary of PRC appears on the horizon.
2. The CPC Politbureau should own the entire initiative and meticulously prepare two options (plan A and plan B) on detail roadmap containing high-level tasks, sub-tasks, task-owners, task-locations, resource requirement, and timelines to achieve the objectives between 2026 CE and 2030 CE. It is imperative that pre-requisites for and implications of each task pertaining to each of the two plans are deliberated upon in detail before a plan is approved for implementation. Politbureau may involve all members of the Central Committee in thorough discussions on the final aspects of the stage 1 socialism in China and 2 optional plans, and if required, modify the plans with inputs from these two very important groups.
3. For a trouble-free implementation, the CPC should maintain the same senior level team, hence the CPC and the National People’s Congress should re-elect Xi Jinping as President and Li Keqiang as Premier in March 2023 for next 10 years circumventing the existing party constitution, as a special gesture. President, Premier, and all other Politbureau members should visit the building at Shanghai’s French Concession and Jiaxing site that hosted the party’s founding congress in 1921, and reiterate the commitment to maintain the original aspiration of the founding members and continue the journey towards socialism.
4. In this article, I haven’t touched upon the geopolitical and geo-economic themes that permeate the overall architecture within which the Zionist-capitalist world order has been operating since the dawn of 20th century. Since that invariably includes the Chinese state and its people, the existing fabric of geopolitics and geo-economics would certainly get squeezed to some extent with the proposed implementation of the final aspects of stage 1 socialism in China. The surest way for China to confidently face any unforeseen turmoil outside its border is to maintain an unwavering deep strategic partnership with Russia through thick and thin, as we notice currently.
5. Would an auspicious moment arrive in 2031 when people across the world come to know that the stage 1 socialism fully arrived in China? I am one of them who are convinced that, the CPC has the resources, analytical ability, and organizational wherewithal to do it. If it really happens, there would be a tremendous wave of optimism about the possibility of a society based on truth-justice-equality-morality across the poor sections of the society around the world; the Marxist socialist dream that went sour with the dissolution of the USSR, would get a fresh lease of life!
Short profile:
Straight-Bat is an Engineer by profession, currently pursuing higher study in Economics. A keen observer of global affairs, Straight-Bat enjoys being an analyst of history, politics, economy, and geopolitics.
One of the few decade-old members of The Saker blog-site, Straight-Bat finds this website as a capstone entity that is dedicated to focus on truth and justice in public life across the world.
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