A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.
CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”
According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.
I can’t parse what you’re trying to say here. I suspect we’re talking past each other because you’re arguing from a purely academic point of view, rather than taking actual self-proclaimed communist states into account. Do you believe China is communist? How about the USSR?
I’m arguing for academic analysis of self-proclaimed Marxists.
China is Socialist. It practices Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, maintaining a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over a Market Economy. The CPC is Communist by ideology, but of course they haven’t achieved Communism yet, nor do they claim to. They tried to directly implement Communism under Mao and later under the Gang of Four, which ended up being a critical error in judgement as the Means of Production were not at all developed enough for it, hence the Gang of Four claiming it was “better for the Proletariat to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism.”
The USSR was Socialist. They never achieved Communism, largely due to refusing to interlock with the rest of the world economy. While they managed to provide many critical necessities like healthcare, education, and so forth for free, shutting out the global market led to consumer jealousy over consumer commodities from the west, which led to democratically instating liberal market reforms, which worked against the centralized nature of the economy, leading to its dissolution.
So your stance is essentially “real communism has never been tried”? Technically correct, I suppose, but what really matters is the actions of people who claim to be communists. I refer back to my first post in this conversation where I said “insofar as those labels are used today”. I can’t think of a single practical implementation of political systems by these self-proclaimed communists that makes me think “this is what Marx would have wanted”.
No, his stance is that Communism, or as I believe Marx called it upper stage communism, has not been achieved. Lower stage communism‒or socialism‒has, as seen in China and the USSR. Both of these are/were communist, as in they are/were led by Marxist/communist parties working towards Communism.
So your stance is essentially “real communism has never been tried”?
No. My stance is that Communism is a stage of development that comes after Socialism, and no existing Socialist society has yet made it to Communism. This is the standard Marxist view of societal development, you cannot adopt Communism through fiat. The CPC tried under Mao and the Gang of Four, and failed because they didn’t develop the Means of Production beforehand.
Technically correct, I suppose, but what really matters is the actions of people who claim to be communists. I refer back to my first post in this conversation where I said “insofar as those labels are used today”. I can’t think of a single practical implementation of political systems by these self-proclaimed communists that makes me think “this is what Marx would have wanted”.
Then I suggest you explain why. I have offered context and analysis of the USSR and PRC as they directly relate to Marx and Engels, without needing to reference Lenin or other Marxists. I would say my number one reading recommendation, if you don’t feel like elaborating on why you believe AES states to be not “Marx approved,” would be Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. Additionally, the previously linked Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is critical for understanding the Marxist theory of development via Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
