02/04/2013 | Samir Amin | Monthly
Review 2013, Volume 64, Issue 10 (March) ｜ 观察者网｜东方木雅翻译
围绕在中国这样一个新兴国家的现在和未来的辩论，总是让我感到疑惑。有些人说中国已经彻底地走上“资本主义道路”，甚至有意图地加快其整合入当代资本主义全球化体系的步伐。他们十分乐见此事，并期望这种“回归正常”（也就是资本主义所说的“历史的终结”）能够伴随着西式民主体系（多党制、选举、人权）的发育。我认为这并不可能。但是他们相信，或者他们需要相信的是——中国将有可能通过这种方式“追赶”按照人均收入而言可以算的上富裕的西方社会，尽管这可能只是渐进的。中国的右翼也与他们持有类似的观点。其他人则以一种被称为“被背叛的社会主义”的价值观来谴责这种观点。有些人与西方世界中占据主导的打压中国的言论宣传勾结起来。而最后剩下的那些人，也就是北京的执政者们——认为中国选择的道路最精确的说法应该是“中国特色社会主义”。然而，仔细阅读官方文献（尤其是被精确、严格执行的五年计划），我们就可以很清楚地辨明其特征。
事实上，“中国是资本主义还是社会主义？”这个问题问的并不好，对于任何一个人而言，要在这两个非此即彼的选项中做出一个言之有理的选择，实在是过于笼统和抽象。实际上，中国从1950年开始就已经走上了一条独创的道路，而这一道路的起源甚至可能追溯到19世纪的太平天国革命。在本文中，我将尝试在其发展历程（也就是从1950年到现在——2013年）的每一幕中阐述这一条独创道路的本质。
土地问题
毛泽东将由共产党发动的中国革命的本质描述为以社会主义为目标的反帝反封建革命。但是他从未抱有幻想，以为只要推翻了帝国主义和封建主义，中国人民就已经“建成”了社会主义社会。他总是将这种建设称为社会主义万里长征的第一步。
我必须强调中国革命解决土地问题的独特之处。农民分得的耕地并未私有化；它仍然是国家财产（这里，农村公社是国家的代表），而农村家庭所使用的仅仅是使用权。这和列宁时代的俄罗斯并不相同，俄国在当时面对1917年农民骚乱的既成事实，只能承认受益人对分配土地的所有权。
为什么在中国（以及越南），农业用地不可能成为商品这样一个原则得以实现？很多人都持有这样的观点，即全世界各地的农民都想要（土地的——译注）所有权，也只追求所有权。如果在中国也是如此的话，土地国有化的决定将会导致漫无止境的农民战争，就像斯大林在苏联强制推行集体化政策，所发生的那样。
中国和越南农民的绝无仅有的态度不能用假定的 “传统”——即中越两国的农民没有私有产权观念——来解释。这种态度是中越两国共产党所实施的聪明的、特殊的政治路线所结出的果实。
第二国际将农民对私有产权的难以遏制的渴求视为理所当然，这符合19世纪欧洲的现实。在欧洲从封建主义向资本主义的漫长转化过程中(1500-1800)，之前习以为常的对土地的封建使用方式——由国王、领主和农奴分享权利，逐渐被现代资本主义的私有财产制度所消解、取代。而这种新制度将土地视为一种商品，即所有者可以自由处分（也就是买卖）的货物。尽管第二国际的社会主义者们谴责这种观念，但他们还是接受了“资本主义革命”所造就的既成事实。
他们还认为小农经营是没有未来的，而未来属于类似于大工业的、大规模机械化的农业企业。他们认为资本主义自身的发展将使土地高度集中，并使土地的利用率最大化（参见考茨基对这一问题的著述）。历史证明，他们错了。在两种意义上，农民经济被资本主义家庭农业取代：一是后者为了市场而生产（农场自身的消费变得无足轻重）；而另一个是对现代农业装备、工业上游产品（指的是农药、化肥、种子等农资——译注）和银行信贷的利用。更有甚者，用每名工人每年每公顷的产量作为口径进行比较，这种资本主义家庭农业也比大农场更有效率。这个结果并没有排除这样一个事实，即现代资本主义的农民普遍地受到垄断资本的剥削。这些垄断资本控制了上游产品和信贷的供应，以及农业产品的下游市场。这些农民已经被转变为主导资本的分包商。
因此，由于第二国际的激进社会主义者们抱有这样的错误观念，即在每个经济领域中（工业、服务业和农业）大企业都总是要比小企业更有效率，他们认为土地所有权的废除（也就是土地的国有化）将建立大型社会主义农场（和未来苏联的国营农场和集体农庄类似）。然而因为革命并未在他们所在的国家中（即帝国主义中心国家）发生，他们未能对这些措施进行任何试验。
布尔什维克们一直到1917年都笃信这种教条。他们计划着要把俄罗斯贵族的大地产国有化，而将公社土地保留归农民所有。然而，他们随后就被夺去了大量地产的骚动农民打了个猝不及防。
毛泽东从这段历史中吸取了教训，发展出一条完全不同的政治行动路线。毛泽东以日益明确的政策，即坚持联合占多数的贫农和无地农民（即雇农——译注）、团结中农、孤立富农（使其在战争中不采取敌对态度），使共产党从20世纪30年代开始在中国南方发展壮大，一直到漫长的内战和解放战争结束（这里作者使用的是the long civil war of liberation，直译应为漫长的内部解放战争，但是中国国内一般将这段历史分为国共内战<或者叫土地革命战争>和解放战争两段，它们被抗日战争分割开来——译注）。该路线的成功，使绝大多数农村居民开始考虑并准备接受一种排除了土地再分配并私有化的方案。我认为毛泽东的想法及其成功施行都能在十九世纪的太平天国运动中找到其历史根源。于是，毛泽东就做到了布尔什维克所没有做到的事情——与绝大多数农村人口建立稳固的同盟关系。在俄罗斯，1917年夏天造成的既成事实（即农民骚乱——译注）抹杀了在之后的时间里，与贫农、中农建立反抗富农的联盟的可能性。这是由于前两者急于保卫其获得的私有财产，因而更倾向于跟从富农而非布尔什维克。
这样的“中国特色”——其影响非常重要，使我们不能把当代（即使迟至2013年）的中国贴上“资本主义”的标签，因为资本主义道路的基础是把土地转化为商品。
小农生产的现在和未来
可是，一旦认可了这一原则（指的是在中国和越南，农村土地不能成为商品的原则——译注），使用这种公共财产的方式却可以变得十分多样化。为了理解这一点，我们必须把小农生产和小型产业（指的是有所有权的私有小产业——译注）区分开来。
在过去所有形式的社会中，小农生产——即农业和手工业——都占据着主导地位。它在现代资本主义中仍然有重要地位。它与小型产业联系在一起，出现在农业、服务业甚至是某些工业部门中。当然，在主导当代世界的三驾马车（美国、欧洲和日本）那里，这种模式正在衰退。这种衰退现象的一个例证就是小型企业的消失、并被大型商业实体所取代。然而从效率上来说，并不能说明这种变化是“进步的”。如果将社会、文化和文明等维度纳入考虑范围，这种程度还会进一步加深（即非进步、反动的程度——译注）。事实上，这就是由于普遍的垄断（generalized monopolies）的寻租行为的支配所产生扭曲的一个例证。因而，在未来的社会主义社会中，小农生产的地位也许仍会像先前一样重要。
无论如何，在当代中国的国民生产中，并不必然与小型产业联系起来的小农生产仍然占据重要地位。而且，不光农业，城市生活也是如此。
将土地作为一种普通商品使用时，中国有着多种多样、乃至相互矛盾的方式。一方面，我们要讨论所谓效率（即每名工人每年每公顷的产量）；另一方面我们还要讨论这种转型的动态过程。土地的使用方式或将巩固资本主义，从而引发人们质疑土地的非商品性的存在；或将导向社会主义。从20世纪50年代到当代中国，只有通过对这些土地使用方式进行具体的考察，才能回答以上质疑。
起初，20世纪50年代实行的是结合了小农家庭生产与简单合作形式的制度。这些合作形式包括管理灌溉、协调工作和使用农业设备。与之相伴的是将这种小农家庭生产嵌入到国家经济中的过程，而这个国家经济体系基于（中央决定的）计划价格垄断收购在市场上出售的产品、并提供信贷和上游产品。
20世纪70年代，在生产合作组织的建立之后开展的人民公社运动带来了极为重要的经验。即使大农场的优越性激励了该制度的一些支持者，但从小生产过渡到大农场的过程并不必然会带来问题。这种制度的必然性来源于分散化的社会主义建设的需求。人民公社不仅要对一个大村子或者数个小村落（这种组织本身是小农家庭生产与更大规模的专业化生产形式的杂糅）的农业生产负责，它们还有更大的目标：(1)开展在特定季节雇用农民的工业生产活动；(2)将生产的经济活动与对社会服务（比如教育、医疗和住房）的管理联系起来；并(3)推动对社会进行政治治理的分权化。就像巴黎公社设想的那样，社会主义国家应该（至少部分）是一个社会主义公社的联邦。
毫无疑问，人民公社在许多方面超前于历史。而决策权的分散与无所不在的共产党所体现的集权之间的辩证关系也并不总能平稳的运行。然而从文献记录来看，情况远远没有到右派总想让我们相信的灾难性地步。北京地区的一个拒绝接受解散命令的公社，其经济指标仍然表现突出，而且还存在高质量的政治辩论，这在其他地方已经难以寻见了。现在在中国的很多地区的农村社区推动的“乡村重建”（可能是指建设新农村计划——译注）计划，看上去就是受到人民公社经验的启发。
邓小平在1980年解散人民公社的决定加强了小农家庭生产，这种模式在该决定做出后的三十年间一直处于主导地位。然而，（土地）使用者（即农村公社和家庭单位）权利的范围发生了相当程度的扩张。对于这些土地使用权的所有者而言，将土地“租出”成为可能（但绝对不能“出售”）。出租的对象可以是其他的小生产者（这促进了居民——尤其是受过教育、不愿意留在农村居住的年轻人——向城市涌入），也可以是运营大型现代化农场的企业（这种企业虽然比家庭农场而言相当庞大，但却并不是大型庄园——这种实体在中国并不存在）。这种模式可以鼓励专业化生产（比如优质葡萄酒——中国从勃艮第请来专家对此进行技术支持）、或者试验新型科学种植方法（转基因作物等）。
以我所见，先验地“赞成”或者“反对”这些制度的多样性毫无意义。我再重复一遍，具体地分析这些制度中每一种模式的设计和实施结果是至关重要的。事实就是——使用公有土地的方式的独树一帜的多样化带来了显著的成果。首先，从经济效率上来说，尽管城市人口从总人口的20%上升到50%，中国还是成功的增加了农产品产量，满足了城市化的庞大需求。这个“资本主义”的南方国家（ “capitalist” South 指欠发达或者发展中国家——译注）所取得的成绩不可比拟，而且极其特殊和卓越。即使面临着要以世界6%的耕地养活世界22%的人口的不利条件，中国也保持并强化了食品自给能力。此外，在农村人口的生活方式和水平上，中国的农村与资本主义化的第三世界也毫无共同之处。舒适且装备完善的农村永久性建筑不仅与过去极度饥饿、贫困的中国形成鲜明对比，也和被极端贫困所困扰的印度和非洲农村截然不同。
这些无与伦比的成绩，其主要原因就在于中国所实行的原则和政策（即土地公有，在不提供产权的情况下鼓励小生产）。这使得从农村向城市的相对可控的移民过程成为可能。我们可以将其与资本主义道路进行比较，比如说巴西。农业用地的私有产权制度掏空了巴西的农村，现在其全国人口只有11%居住在农村。但是城市居民却至少有一半住在贫民窟，并只能依靠所谓“非正式经济”（包括有组织的犯罪）维生。这与中国有着天壤之别，总体来看，中国的城市人口享受着适宜的工作和居住条件，甚至可以和很多“发达国家”一较高下，更别提那些与中国的人均GDP处于同一水平的国家了！
从人口极其稠密的中国农村迁出人口是必要的（只有越南、埃及和孟加拉国有着类似的农村人口密度）。这种迁移可以空出更多土地，改善农村小农生产的条件。尽管相对受到管控（我要再一次说明，无论是中国还是在其他什么地方，人类的历史上就不存在十全十美），这种迁移仍可能因为速度过快而造成危害。中国人已经意识到了这个问题。
中国的国家资本主义
描述中国现实的时候，我们最容易想到的标签就是国家资本主义。但只要不仔细分析这个标签的具体内涵，它就仍然是模糊而肤浅的。
确实，工人与组织生产的政权之间的关系符合资本主义的特征，比如说顺从而异化的劳动力，剩余劳动的榨取。中国的一些地方存在着对工人的残酷剥削，例如雇佣女性在煤矿和其他极为艰苦的环境中工作。对于一个宣称迈向社会主义道路的国家来说，这些事是很可耻的。但是，国家资本主义政体的形成是不可避免的，而且每个地方都将如此。不经历这一过程，发达资本主义国家自己并不能自动走上社会主义道路（虽然现阶段这并没有提上日程）。对于任何社会而言，要将自己从资本主义解放出来，并迈向社会主义/共产主义的漫长道路，国家资本主义是最初阶段。所有层面上的经济体系的社会化和再组织——从公司（基本单元）到国家、世界——都需要在历史的周期中做不可跨越的漫长斗争。
除了以上的初步思考，我们还必须从国家的本质和规划上，来具体的描述国家资本主义。因为国家资本主义有很多不同的种类，而不仅仅只有一种。1958年到1975年间，法兰西第五共和国的国家资本主义就是为了服务和加强法国的私有垄断行业，而不是走向社会主义。
中国的国家资本主义意在实现三个目标：1、建设一套完整的、独立自主的工业体系；2、调节这套体系与农村小农生产之间的关系；3、控制中国与被帝国主义三驾马车（美国、欧洲和日本）的普遍垄断所支配的世界体系的整合。对这三个主要目标的追求是不可避免的。结果就是，中国的国家资本主义一方面使其许诺了一条通向社会主义的漫长道路，但同时也加强了摈弃这种道路而纯粹发展资本主义的可能性。应该认识到，这两者的冲突是不可避免的，也是一直存在的。问题是，中国的选择会偏向其中的一条道路吗？
在中国国家资本主义的第一阶段（1954-1980），它要求所有企业，无论大小都进行国有化（与此相伴的还有土地的国有化）。此后，它又对国内外的私人企业，以及自由化的城乡小产业（小企业，贸易业以及服务业）开放。然而，毛泽东时代建立起来的庞大的基础工业和信贷系统仍然没有去国有化，虽然它们的组织形式得到了修改以与“市场”经济接轨。同时，与这些政策相伴随的，是确立对私营企业以及与外资合伙的控制措施。这些措施能在多大程度发挥其预想中的作用，或者反过来（通过管理层的“腐败”）与私人资本勾结而变成空壳，还有待观察。
但是，中国的国家资本主义在1950-2012年间的成就仍然是惊人的。如此庞大的一个国家建立了与其规模相适应的、自主的、完整的现代生产体系，其成就只有美国可与之相媲美。通过发展自身的技术创新能力，它已经成功地摆脱了对苏联和西方模式的高度技术依赖。但是，它还没有开始从经济管理的社会化角度去重新组织劳动力。计划——而不是“开放”——仍然是这个系统建设的核心措施。
在这个发展计划的毛泽东主义阶段，强制性的计划无所不在：新建设的性质和位置，生产的目标以及价格。在这个阶段，不存在任何合理的替代品。我要在这里提一下这一时期关于价值规律本质的、为该时期的计划体制提供了理论基础的有趣辩论，但不做深入阐述。这一阶段的成功——而非失败——要求为了追求快速发展而做出改变。为了避免苏联的致命经济停滞，对私有经济的“开放”——从1980年开始，特别在1990年之后——是必须的。尽管这个开放过程刚好与新自由主义的全球化浪潮相一致——我将在后面再提到这个一致性的负面影响——选择一个“市场社会主义”（ socialism of the market），或者更好的说，“有市场的社会主义”（ socialism with the market），作为加速发展第二阶段的基础，在我看来是合理的。
这个选择再一次的让人震惊。在寥寥几个年代里，中国建成了一套将6亿人集合起来的高效的、工业化的城市化进程，其中三分之二的人口（几乎相当于欧洲人口）是在过去20年内进入城市的。这是计划而非市场的功劳。中国现在切实存在一个独立自主的生产体系。没有任何南方国家和地区（除了韩国和台湾）成功地做到这一点。在印度和巴西，在同类的自主计划中只有很少的一些互不相干的元素，除此之外别无其他。
在这些新条件下，设计和实现计划的方法发生了转型。对于大型基础设施投资而言，计划依然是不可或缺的：为4亿城市新居民提供适宜居住的房屋，同时建立一套空前的高速公路、公路、铁路、大坝、电网等的体系；去开发中国全部，或者说几乎全部的乡村；以及把发展的中心从东海岸转移到西部内陆。同时，计划对于公有企业（由国家、省、市所有的）的规划和财政资源来说，也至少部分上仍然是必要的。对于其他经济形式而言，有可能存在城市小规模商品生产的扩张以及工业和其他的私人（经济）活动。这些目标都得到了重视，同时实现这些规划的政治经济资源也得到了明确。总的来看，最终的结果和“计划”的预测没有太多不同。
中国国家资本主义同时也将可见的社会（我没有说“社会主义的”）维度也整合进了其发展计划中。这些目标在毛泽东时代就已经存在了：比如说，消除文盲，全民基本医疗保障等。在后毛泽东时代的第一个部分（20世纪90年代），总趋势无疑忽视了这些目标。然而，应该注意到，作为对积极的和有力的社会运动的回应，这些规划中的社会维度重新赢得了其应有的地位，并被期待着能催生更多的进步。这个新的城市化进程在其他南方国家是无有其匹的。当然，有很多“时尚”街区和其他完全算不上富裕的街区；但中国却没有贫民窟，而在其他第三世界国家的城市里这些贫民窟却长期持续存在并到处扩张。
中国整合进资本主义全球化体系
如果不去考虑其与全球化的整合，我们就无法分析中国的国家资本主义（官方称之为“社会主义市场经济”）。
社会主义阵营一直希望与世界资本系统脱钩，通过建设一个完整的包含苏联和东欧的社会主义体系完成这个脱钩过程。苏联很大程度上实现了这种脱钩，尽管这更多的是因为西方的敌对，而苏联甚至谴责西方为孤立苏联而推动的封锁。然而，尽管建立了经互会（应该是Comecon，The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance，作者原文为Comecom, 疑为笔误，——译注），整合东欧的计划却没有多少进展。东欧国家的地位仍然不确定且脆弱，虽然与西欧部分脱钩，但是在严格的国家基础上，从1970年开始就部分对西欧开放。而中国和苏联整合的问题从来没有存在过，不仅由于中国民族主义不接受这样的整合，可能更多地是由于中国的首要任务不需要整合。毛泽东时代的中国尝试着用着自己的方式脱钩。那么我们是不是应该说，从20世纪90年代开始中国重新融入到全球化的过程，已经彻底、永久地放弃了脱钩呢？
通过倾尽产业系统的能力，加速发展出口导向的制造业，中国从20世纪90年代开始进入全球化，这条道路使得中国将出口放在首要位置，表现为出口增长率超过了GDP的增长。十五年来（从1990年到2005年），新自由主义潮流偏爱这个选择的成功。单纯追求出口是有问题的，这个问题不仅仅是由于它的政治和社会影响，同时也因为它受到了2007年开始的、新自由全球资本主义的内爆的威胁。中国政府似乎意识到了这个问题，并很早就开始试图通过更重视内需和中国西部的发展来纠正这个问题。
很多人反复听到这样的说法，即中国的成功得益于对（显而易见“失败了的”）毛泽东思想的抛弃、对外开放以及外国资本的注入。这个观点是非常愚蠢的。没有毛泽东时代的建设作为基础，开放不可能达到众所周知的成功。和没有发生过类似革命的印度的对比能够很好的说明这个问题。没有什么比下面的说法更荒谬的了：中国的成功主要（甚至完全）归功于对外来资本的引入。建立了中国的工业系统并完成了城市化和基础建设的目标的并不是跨国资本。中国90%的成功应该归功于其独立自主的规划。当然，对国外资本的开放实现了一些有用的规划：这增加了现代技术的输入。然而，由于中国的合资模式，中国吸收了这些技术并且能够掌控它们的发展。其他地方都没有发生过这种事情，即使在印度或巴西，更不用说泰国、马来西亚、南非和其他地方。
中国和全球化的融合仍只是部分完成、且受到控制的（或者说至少是可控的，如果非要这样说的话）。中国仍然置身于金融全球化之外。它的银行系统仍然完全国有，并主要服务于国内的信贷市场。对人民币的管理仍然由中国自主决定。人民币并不是金融全球化所强加的难以预测的兑换的主体。北京可以对华盛顿说，“人民币是我们的货币，你们的难题。”，就像美国1971年对欧洲说的，“美元是我们的货币，你们的难题。”进一步来说，中国在其公有的信贷系统中保持了大量准备金。相比美国、欧洲、日本以及许多南方国家的被人认为不可忍受的负债率，中国的公共债务几乎可以忽略。因此，中国可以扩大公共支出，而没有引发恶性通胀的危险。
吸引外资虽然使中国获益，但这并不是其规划成功的主要原因。相反地，正是中国的规划的成功使得中国对西方跨国资本产生吸引力。而比中国开放程度更大、并且无条件服从全球化金融资本的南方国家，并没有相同程度的吸引力。跨国资本被吸引到中国来，并不是来掠夺这个国家的自然资源；也不是剥削廉价劳动力获利却不转移技术；也不是像在摩洛哥和突尼斯那样，外资通过对其不存在的国内生产体系进行训练并将其整合进离岸交易而获利；甚至不是像在墨西哥、阿根廷和东南亚一样为了实现金融掠夺的目的，让帝国主义银行掠夺国家储蓄。相比较而言，外国投资在中国可以从低工资中获利并得到比较高的利润，但前提是它们的计划与中国的计划相吻合，并且允许技术转移。总之，这些都是“通常的”的利润，但如果和中国当局可以进行更多合作，那就会有更大的利润。
中国，新兴大国
没有人会怀疑中国是一个新兴的大国。一种流行的观点是，中国只是正在试图恢复其几百年来的地位。然而，这个观点——当然是正确的，但更是谄媚的——无助于我们理解这股新兴力量的性质和它在当今世界中的现实处境。顺便说一句，那些宣传这个笼统而含糊不清的观点的人，并没有兴趣去思考中国的兴起是通过恢复资本主义的普遍原则（他们认为或许有这种必要），还是严格地执行“中国特色的社会主义”计划而实现的。对我来说，我认为倘若中国确实是一个新兴的大国，这恰恰是因为它没有选择纯粹的资本主义发展道路；并且，倘若真的走上资本主义的道路，其振兴计划将会陷入失败的危机。
我之所以这么说，是因为我反对这样的观点：人们不能跨越必要的阶段，因此中国在考虑其可能的社会主义未来之前必先发展资本主义。历史上不同的马克思主义流派对这个问题的争论从未得出结论。在这个问题上，马克思始终犹豫不决。我们知道，欧洲的第一次攻击（鸦片战争）刚过，他就写道：下次你再派军队去中国时，迎接他们的将是这样的标语：“注意，你正处于资产阶级的中华共和国的边境线上。”（原文没有注明这句话的出处，马克思的著作中类似的表述是在发表于1850年“新莱茵报•政治经济评论”第2期的《国际述评（一）》：“如果我们的欧洲反动分子不久的将来会逃奔亚洲，最后到达万里长城，到达最反动最保守的堡垒的大门，那末他们说不定就会看见这样的字样：中华共和国——自由，平等，博爱。”本文出自《马恩全集》中文第一版第七卷。马克思的本意是说，欧洲人在中国的商品倾销解体了中国传统的经济模式和社会基础，为中国的资本主义变革提供了可能。——译注）这是种了不起的直觉，说明他相信中国人民应对挑战的能力，但同时，这个论断又是错误的，因为标语事实上写着：“你正处于中华人民共和国的边境线上。”然而，我们知道，在论及俄国时，马克思也没有否认可以跳过资本主义阶段（参见他对维拉•查苏利奇的回复，“在《资本论》中所作的分析，既不包括赞成俄国农村公社有生命力的论据，也不包括反对农村公社有生命力的论据。但是，从我根据自己找到的原始材料所进行的专门研究中，我深信：这种农村公社是俄国社会新生的支点；可是要使它能发挥这种作用，首先必须肃清从各方面向它袭来的破坏性影响，然后保证它具备自由发展所必需的正常条件。”出自马克思：《给维•伊•查苏利奇的复信》，《马恩全集》中文第一版第十九卷。——译注）。今天，有人可能会相信马克思的前一个判断是正确的，中国确实走上了资本主义发展的道路。
但是毛泽东比列宁更加理解资本主义的道路将导致一事无成，而且中国的复兴只能由共产主义者来完成。十九世纪末的清朝皇帝，以及后来的孙逸仙和国民党，已经规划了中国的复兴，以应对西方的挑战。然而，他们无法想象，除了资本主义之外，还有另一条路可以走；另外，他们也没有能力理解“真正的资本主义是什么”和“为什么这条道路不适合中国”。作为一个具有独立精神的马克思主义者，毛泽东理解了这一点。不仅如此，毛还认识到1949年的胜利也不意味着革命提前成功，和长期坚持社会主义路线这个中国复兴的前提条件，与可预见将来的资本主义信徒复辟之间存在的冲突。
就个人而言，我一向认同毛的分析，而且我将回到这个主题，这与我下面一些想法紧密相关：太平天国革命（我将其视作为毛泽东思想遥远的源头）、辛亥革命、二十世纪初期其他南方国家革命所扮演的角色，万隆时期开始时的争论，以及对所谓“南方新兴国家”受阻于资本主义道路而造成的僵局的分析。所有这些思考都是我中心论点的推论，这个论点涉及资本主义世界发展史上内在的两极分化（也就是中心/边缘差别的构建）。这种两极分化抹杀了边缘国家“追赶”资本主义中心的可能。我们必须得出这样的结论：如果“追赶”富裕国家是不可能的，那么就必须做出另外一种选择——走上社会主义道路。
不是从1980年，而是从1950年起，中国就走上了一条特殊的道路，尽管这条道路经历了许多方面都不同的很多阶段。中国根据自身的需要发展出了清楚的、自主的计划。这当然不是资本主义，因为对于资本主义而言将土地商品化是合乎逻辑的要求。只要中国始终站在当今的金融全球化之外，这个计划就能保持独立自主。
中国的这个计划不是资本主义，这并不意味着它“就是”社会主义，而只是意味着，这使得它有可能迈步走上通向社会主义的漫漫长路。然而，它也仍旧受到这样的威胁：离开那条道路，并且以完全回到纯粹的资本主义上而告终。
中国的成功兴起完全是这个自主计划的结果。从这个意义上讲，中国是唯一一个名副其实的新兴国家（还有韩国和台湾地区，我们后面再谈）。在这么多被世界银行授予“新兴国家”证书的国家中，没有一个是真正兴起的，因为这些国家中没有一个坚持清楚的、自主的计划。所有国家，甚至是那些隐性的国家资本主义部门，都完全服从资本主义的基本原则。所有国家在包括金融领域的所有层面上都屈从于当今的全球化。就后一点而言，俄罗斯和印度，而不是巴西、南非等国，有部分例外。它们有一些“国家产业政策”，但与中国系统地建立完整的、独立自主的工业体系（尤其是需要专业技术的领域）的计划相比，相去不可以道里计。
基于这些原因，所有这些被过于轻率地打上新兴标签的国家始终在不同程度上脆弱不堪，但总是比中国更加脆弱。基于所有这些原因，新兴经济体的出现——体面的增长率，出口制成品的能力——常常与这些国家大多数人（特别是农民）的贫困化联系在一起，而中国却与此不同。当然，不平等的加剧在任何地方都是显而易见的，包括中国；但这样看问题是肤浅地，也带有误导性。在一个不排除任何人（甚至伴随着贫困人口的减少——这是中国的情况）的增长模式中出现利益分配的不平等，是一码事；在使少数人（总人口的5%到30%，时情况而定）获利的同时又使大多数人陷入绝望的命运，这样一种增长所导致的不平等则又是另外一码事了。宣传打压中国言论的人不知道或假装不知道这种决定性的差异。在豪华别墅与中产和工薪阶层的舒适住房之间出现的不平等，不同于在犬牙交错的富人别墅、中产阶级的住房和大多数人的贫民窟之间出现的不平等。在一个结构稳定的系统中，作为衡量年度间变化的手段（基尼系数）是有价值的。然而，在具有不同结构的系统的国家间比较中，基尼系数就失去了作用，就像其它所有在国民经济核算中用于衡量宏观经济规模的手段一样。新兴国家（除中国以外）的确是“新兴的市场”，任由帝国主义三驾马车的垄断组织所渗透。这些市场允许后者为了他们自己的利益而榨取该国所生产的庞大的剩余价值。中国则不同：它毋宁是这样一种“新兴国家”——在其体系中可能保留绝大多数在该国所产出的剩余价值（在其他国家的体系中，该国所产出的剩余价值很大一部分被全球化的金融资本掠夺回帝国主义中心国家——译注）。
韩国和台湾是走资本主义道路而真正兴起的绝无仅有的两个成功例子。这两个地区获得成功只是由于地缘政治的因素，由于这种因素美国允许它们去做华盛顿禁止其它国家做的事情。正因如此，美国对这两个国家的国家资本主义的支持，与它对纳赛尔执政的埃及和布迈丁执政的阿尔及利亚两国的国家资本主义的极其暴力地反对之间形成了鲜明的对比。
在越南和古巴可能出现的振兴计划，或俄罗斯可能的复兴进程所需要的条件，但这些不是我在这里所要关注的问题。我也不会讨论其它南方资本主义国家，如印度、东南亚、拉丁美洲、阿拉伯世界和非洲的进步力量在斗争中的战略目标。这些进步力量有利于摆脱当前的僵局，且能促进自主计划的出现，这为与占统治地位的资本主义逻辑做出真正的决裂提供了前提条件。
伟大的成功，新的挑战
中国不是才走到了十字路口；自打1950年以来，它每天都站在十字路口。来自左、右派的社会、政治力量，活跃于社会上和政党内，持续不断地产生碰撞冲突。
中国的右派从何而来？当然，前国民党政权的买办和官僚资产阶级已经被驱逐出了权力之外。然而在解放战争的过程中，全部的中产阶级、专家、公务员和实业家都对国民党在抗日战争中的无能失望不已，于是他们接近、甚至加入共产党。他们中的许多人——当然不是所有人——始终只是民族主义者。后来，随着从20世纪90年代开始的对私营企业的开放，一个新的、更强大的右派出现了。不应将那些成功积累了（有时是巨大的）财富，并且由他们的客户——包括国家和政党官员——支持的人简单的视为“商人”。后者与他们相互勾结，甚至进行权钱交易。
他们的成功，一如既往地在不断壮大的受过教育的中产阶级中激发对右派理念的支持。在这个意义上，不平等的扩大——即使这与其它南方国家的不平等毫不相同——是一个主要的政治威胁，是传播右派理念、天真幻想和去政治化的利器。
在此，我要提出另外一个我认为很重要的观点：正如列宁认为的那样（这非常适用于俄国的状况），小生产者（尤其是农民）不会被右派理念所鼓动。这里可以用中国与前苏联做个比较。就整体而言中国的农民并不反动，中国的农民则不拥护私有财产的原则。而相比之下，苏共从来没有能够让苏联的农民停止支持富农的私有财产。相反地，今天作为小生产者（而非小财产所有者）的中国农民成为了一个不持右派立场的阶级，却会成为推动最为大胆的社会和生态政策的力量阵营的一部分。“乡土社会重建”（renovating rural society），这一强有力的运动证明了这点。中国的农民基本上与工人阶级一道站在了左派阵营一边。左派有自己的有机知识分子，且向国家和政党机器施加了一定的影响。（有机知识分子是葛兰西在《狱中札记》中所提出的关于知识分子的重要论断。有机知识分子与传统知识分子相对，葛兰西指出，每个社会集团都会同时有机地制造出一个或多个知识分子阶层，并在自身的发展过程中进一步加以完善“有机的”知识分子，这样的阶层在多个领域将同质性以及对自身功用的认识赋予该社会集团。“有机性”有两层意思，一是与特定社会历史集团的“有机性”，即每一个社会集团都会产生与其保持紧密联系的知识分子阶层；知识分子有机性的另一层就是与大众的“有机性”，这种有机性即知识分子与大众的辩证法。知识分子不仅仅教育和启蒙大众，其自身的发展、壮大和提高，与群众运动是紧密相连的。——译注）
在中国左右之间的冲突持续不断，这反映在由国家和政党领导层实施的一连串的政治路线上。在毛泽东时代，左的路线不经过斗争就不会获胜。在评估右派理念在党和党的领导层中的发展时，毛泽东认识到这有点像苏联模式，于是他发动了文化大革命与之进行斗争。“炮打司令部”正指向党的领导阶层——这个“新资产阶级”形成的地方。然而尽管文化大革命在其最终两年中达到了毛的预期，随后便逐渐偏向了无政府状态，这时毛和党内的左派对一系列事件失去控制。这种“偏离”导致了国家和政党重新掌控局面，这给了右派机会。自此，右派始终在领导集体中占据了强有力的部分。然而，左派始终存在，约束最高领导层妥协于“中间派”——但那是中右，还是中左？
要了解今天中国所面临的挑战的实质，就必须了解中国的自主计划与北美帝国主义及其欧洲和日本小盟友之间的冲突的强度将随着中国在何种程度上不断地取得成功而增加。冲突表现在几个领域：中国对现代技术的掌握；对地球资源的利用；中国军力的增强；在人民有权自主选择其政治经济体系的基础上追求重建国际政治。上述每个目标都与帝国主义三驾马车所寻求的目标发生直接冲突。
美国政治的战略目标是对地球的军事控制，这是华盛顿能维护自身优势并获得霸权的唯一办法。在中东发动先发制人的战争是达成这一目标的手段。而且从这个意义上讲，这些战争是在为由美国人冷血的出于“防患于未然”的可能必要性而假想出来的对中国发动先发制人的（核）打击做前期准备。煽动对中国的敌视与此种全球战略互为表里，这在其支持西藏和新疆的奴隶主登台表演、在中国海加强海军存在、以及无条件鼓动日本建立军事力量时已经显露无疑。那些以打压中国的为业的人们，则对这种敌视推波助澜。
与此同时，华盛顿致力于通过建立20国集团来安抚中国和其它所谓新兴国家可能抱有的雄心壮志，以此操纵局势。20国集团意在给这些新兴国家以幻觉，以使它们相信只要实施自由的全球化，就会给它们带来好处。在这一方面，G2（美/中）是一个陷阱，通过把中国变为美帝国主义冒险投机的同谋，使北京的和平外交政策丧失它所有的公信力。
对这种战略唯一可能有效的回应必须在两个层面上进行：（1）增强中国的军力，且用潜在的威慑能力武装它们；（2）坚持致力于重建一个多极的国际政治体系，尊重所有国家的主权，并且为达到这个目的，采取行动恢复已被北约边缘化的联合国。我认为第二个目标至关重要，为此需要优先重建一个“南方战线”（第二个“万隆”？），去支持南方国家和人民的独立自主。这就意味着，中国应当清楚它没有方法实现与帝国主义一道进行掠夺（抢夺地球的自然资源）的荒唐念头，因为它不具备美国那样的军事实力，而这是保障帝国主义计划得以成功的终极手段。相反，中国可以从加强对南方国家工业化的支持中获益良多，而帝国主义“捐赠国”俱乐部正试图扼杀这些国家的工业化。
中国政府在谈及国际问题时的用语克制之极（这是可以理解的），这让人搞不清楚这个国家的领导人在何种程度上意识到了前面所分析的这些挑战。更严重的是，这种遣词造句强化了公众舆论中的天真幻想和去政治化思维。
挑战的另一个部分关涉到了这个国家的政治、社会治理民主化的问题。
毛泽东概括和运用了新中国政治治理的一条普遍原则，他将其总结为以下几点：团结左派，中立（补充一下，是“中立”而不是消灭）右派，争取中左翼（“团结左派，孤立右派，争取中间派，这是一套很好的马克思主义的策略。”（毛泽东：《一九五七年夏季的形势》，《毛选》第五卷——译注）。在我看来，这是取得一系列进步，获得绝大多数人理解和支持的最佳道路。在这条道路上，毛泽东给社会民主化这个概念以积极的内容，使它与通向社会主义的漫长道路的社会进步合而为一。他总结出了执行这条道路的方法：“群众路线”（从群众中来，到群众中去）。林春准确地分析了这个方法及其可能造成的结果。
民主化与社会进步相联系的问题——相对于“民主”与社会进步相脱离（甚至常常与社会退步相联系）——不仅只牵扯到了中国，还关系到全世界人民。这个应该被成功地运用的方法，不能抽象概括为一个放之四海而皆准的简单公式。无论如何，由西方媒体宣传所给出的公式——多党制和选举——应该彻底地被抛弃。进而言之，这类“民主”甚至在西方都变成了闹剧，更别说其它地方了。“群众路线”是在一系列不断进步的战略目标的问题上产生共识的手段。这与西方国家通过操纵媒体和选举闹剧而获得的“共识”（其不外乎是与资本的需求同流合污罢了）泾渭分明。
然而，在今天新的社会条件下中国应该如何开始重建一条新的群众路线？这并不容易，因为共产党内的领导权已经基本为右派所掌握，并以去政治化和由其所引发的天真幻想为基础建立了其稳固的治理。发展政策的极大成功强化了这个方向的无意识倾向。现在中国的中产阶级的许多人都相信追赶富裕国家生活方式的皇家大道，是毫无保留的开放；他们也都认为三驾马车国家（美国、欧洲、日本）不会反对这点；甚至毫无保留地崇拜美国的方式等等。对于那些迅速壮大且生活水平得到前所未有提高的城市中产阶级而言，这是尤其真实的。官方毫无想象力的、乏味的马克思主义教学被抛弃，与在美国的中国学生（特别是从事社会科学研究的那些学生）被洗脑的事实极大地缩小了彻底地批判性辩论的空间。
中国政府对社会问题并非无动于衷，这不只是因为马克思主义的话语传统在起作用，更是因为懂得如何不断斗争的中国人民迫使政府采取了行动。如果在20世纪90年代，这一社会维度在加速发展的迫切需求面前业已式微，那么今天的趋势得到了逆转。恰恰就在富裕西方国家社会民主党所赢得的社会保障被侵蚀之际，贫穷的中国却扩大了医疗、住房和养老金这三个层面的社会保障。虽然遭到了欧洲左翼和右翼的恶意中伤，中国的公共住房政策却让印度或巴西，乃至巴黎、伦敦或芝加哥的贫民区都嫉妒不已！
社会保障和养老金体系已经覆盖了50%的城市人口（这期间城市人口从2亿增加到了6亿！）。并且根据“五年计划”（仍在中国得到执行）的预期，在未来几年内，覆盖率将达到85%。让热衷于抨击中国的记者们在他们一直吹捧的“走上民主道路的国家”中找一个类似的例子吧！然而在实行社会保障体系的方法上，争论依然存在。左派提倡建立基于几代工人团结的原则之上的法国分配体系（这是在为迎接社会主义做准备），而右派显然喜欢美国可恶的养老金体系——它把工人分化开来，并把风险从资本转嫁到了劳动者头上。
然而，如果不与社会政治治理的民主化相结合，不与以增强对社会主义/共产主义未来体制的创造性发明为方式的社会福利的再政治化相结合，社会福利就是有所欠缺的。
多党选举制的原则被西方媒体和抨击中国的专业户们，一再令人作呕地鼓噪着，以真正的“民主人士”面貌出现的“异见人士”支撑着这种观念，他们却不能应对上述挑战。相反，就像当今世界（俄罗斯、东欧和阿拉伯世界）所展示的所有经验那样，在中国实行这些原则只能使新兴计划和社会复兴计划自我毁灭。事实上，这就是这些由空洞而花哨的辞藻（“除多党选举之外，别无选择！”）伪装起来的原则的真实目的。然而，通过倒退到保卫“党”（它自己就僵化了，并且已沦为一个致力于为国家行政机关招募官员的机构）的特权的刻板姿态，并不足以抗击这种坏的选择。我们必须发明出一些新东西。
再政治化和为应对新挑战创造条件，这些目标不能靠“宣传”而实现。它们只能通过社会、政治和意识形态的斗争得到促进。这意味着这些斗争必先得到法律的承认，并且要在结社、言论和提出法案等集体权利的基础上进行立法。这反而意味着，党自己要投入到这些斗争中去；换言之，要重拾毛泽东主义的群众路线。再政治化如果不与一切层面上（如公司、地方和国家）鼓励工人逐步夺取社会的管理责任，它就毫无意义可言。这种进程并不排除对个人权利的承认，而是相反地意味着个人权利的制度化。这种制度化的实施将可能彻底地改造领导人的选举方式。
作者致谢
本文得益于刘健芝（香港岭南大学）组织的辩论、和重庆的西南大学（温铁军）、北京的人民大学、清华大学（戴锦华、汪晖）和中国社会科学院（黄平），还有与来自山西、陕西、湖北、湖南和重庆的乡村运动团体所进行的讨论。我谨对他们所有人表示感谢，并希望本文对他们正在进行的讨论有所帮助。温铁军和汪晖的著作亦使我获益匪浅。
China 201302/04/2013 | Samir Amin | Monthly Review 2013, Volume 64, Issue 10 (March)
The debates concerning the present and future of China—an “emerging” power—always leave me unconvinced. Some argue that China has chosen, once and for all, the “capitalist road” and intends even to accelerate its integration into contemporary capitalist globalization. They are quite pleased with this and hope only that this “return to normality” (capitalism being the “end of history”) is accompanied by development towards Western-style democracy (multiple parties, elections, human rights). They believe—or need to believe—in the possibility that China shall by this means “catch up” in terms of per capita income to the opulent societies of the West, even if gradually, which I do not believe is possible. The Chinese right shares this point of view. Others deplore this in the name of the values of a “betrayed socialism.” Some associate themselves with the dominant expressions of the practice of China bashing1 in the West. Still others—those in power in Beijing—describe the chosen path as “Chinese-style socialism,” without being more precise. However, one can discern its characteristics by reading official texts closely, particularly the Five-Year Plans, which are precise and taken quite seriously.
In fact the question, “Is China capitalist or socialist?” is badly posed, too general and abstract for any response to make sense in terms of this absolute alternative. In fact, China has actually been following an original path since 1950, and perhaps even since the Taiping Revolution in the nineteenth century. I shall attempt here to clarify the nature of this original path at each of the stages of its development from 1950 to today—2013.
The Agrarian Question
Mao described the nature of the revolution carried out in China by its Communist Party as an anti-imperialist/anti-feudal revolution looking toward socialism. Mao never assumed that, after having dealt with imperialism and feudalism, the Chinese people had “constructed” a socialist society. He always characterized this construction as the first phase of the long path to socialism.
I must emphasize the quite specific nature of the response given to the agrarian question by the Chinese Revolution. The distributed (agricultural) land was not privatized; it remained the property of the nation represented by village communes and only the use was given to rural families. That had not been the case in Russia where Lenin, faced with the fait accompli of the peasant insurrection in 1917, recognized the private property of the beneficiaries of land distribution.
Why was the implementation of the principle that agricultural land is not a commodity possible in China (and Vietnam)? It is constantly repeated that peasants around the world long for property and that alone. If such had been the case in China, the decision to nationalize the land would have led to an endless peasant war, as was the case when Stalin began forced collectivization in the Soviet Union.
The attitude of the peasants of China and Vietnam (and nowhere else) cannot be explained by a supposed “tradition” in which they are unaware of property. It is the product of an intelligent and exceptional political line implemented by the Communist Parties of these two countries.
The Second International took for granted the inevitable aspiration of peasants for property, real enough in nineteenth-century Europe. Over the long European transition from feudalism to capitalism (1500–1800), the earlier institutionalized feudal forms of access to the land through rights shared among king, lords, and peasant serfs had gradually been dissolved and replaced by modern bourgeois private property, which treats the land as a commodity—a good that the owner can freely dispose of (buy and sell). The socialists of the Second International accepted this fait accompli of the “bourgeois revolution,” even if they deplored it.
They also thought that small peasant property had no future, which belonged to large mechanized agricultural enterprise modeled on industry. They thought that capitalist development by itself would lead to such a concentration of property and to the most effective forms of its exploitation (see Kautsky’s writings on this subject). History proved them wrong. Peasant agriculture gave way to capitalist family agriculture in a double sense; one that produces for the market (farm consumption having become insignificant) and one that makes use of modern equipment, industrial inputs, and bank credit. What is more, this capitalist family agriculture has turned out to be quite efficient in comparison with large farms, in terms of volume of production per hectare per worker/year. This observation does not exclude the fact that the modern capitalist farmer is exploited by generalized monopoly capital, which controls the upstream supply of inputs and credit and the downstream marketing of the products. These farmers have been transformed into subcontractors for dominant capital.
Thus (wrongly) persuaded that large enterprise is always more efficient than small in every area—industry, services, and agriculture—the radical socialists of the Second International assumed that the abolition of landed property (nationalization of the land) would allow the creation of large socialist farms (analogous to the future Soviet sovkhozes and kolkhozes). However, they were unable to put such measures to the test since revolution was not on the agenda in their countries (the imperialist centers).
The Bolsheviks accepted these theses until 1917. They contemplated the nationalization of the large estates of the Russian aristocracy, while leaving property in communal lands to the peasants. However, they were subsequently caught unawares by the peasant insurrection, which seized the large estates.
Mao drew the lessons from this history and developed a completely different line of political action. Beginning in the 1930s in southern China, during the long civil war of liberation, Mao based the increasing presence of the Communist Party on a solid alliance with the poor and landless peasants (the majority), maintained friendly relations with the middle peasants, and isolated the rich peasants at all stages of the war, without necessarily antagonizing them. The success of this line prepared the large majority of rural inhabitants to consider and accept a solution to their problems that did not require private property in plots of land acquired through distribution. I think that Mao’s ideas, and their successful implementation, have their historical roots in the nineteenth-century Taiping Revolution. Mao thus succeeded where the Bolshevik Party had failed: in establishing a solid alliance with the large rural majority. In Russia, the fait accompli of summer 1917 eliminated later opportunities for an alliance with the poor and middle peasants against the rich ones (the kulaks) because the former were anxious to defend their acquired private property and, consequently, preferred to follow the kulaksrather than the Bolsheviks.
This “Chinese specificity”—whose consequences are of major importance—absolutely prevents us from characterizing contemporary China (even in 2013) as “capitalist” because the capitalist road is based on the transformation of land into a commodity.
Present and Future of Petty Production
However, once this principle is accepted, the forms of using this common good (the land of the village communities) can be quite diverse. In order to understand this, we must be able to distinguish petty production from small property.
Petty production—peasant and artisanal—dominated production in all past societies. It has retained an important place in modern capitalism, now linked with small property—in agriculture, services, and even certain segments of industry. Certainly in the dominant triad of the contemporary world (the United States, Europe, and Japan) it is receding. An example of that is the disappearance of small businesses and their replacement by large commercial operations. Yet this is not to say that this change is “progress,” even in terms of efficiency, and all the more so if the social, cultural, and civilizational dimensions are taken into account. In fact, this is an example of the distortion produced by the domination of rent-seeking generalized monopolies. Hence, perhaps in a future socialism the place of petty production will be called upon to resume its importance.
In contemporary China, in any case, petty production—which is not necessarily linked with small property—retains an important place in national production, not only in agriculture but also in large segments of urban life.
China has experienced quite diverse and even contrasting forms of the use of land as a common good. We need to discuss, on the one hand, efficiency (volume of production from a hectare per worker/year) and, on the other, the dynamics of the transformations set in motion. These forms can strengthen tendencies towards capitalist development, which would end up calling into question the non-commodity status of the land, or can be part of development in a socialist direction. These questions can be answered only through a concrete examination of the forms at issue, as they were implemented in successive moments of Chinese development from 1950 to the present.
At the beginning, in the 1950s, the form adopted was petty family production combined with simpler forms of cooperation for managing irrigation, work requiring coordination, and the use of certain kinds of equipment. This was associated with the insertion of such petty family production into a state economy that maintained a monopoly over purchases of produce destined for the market and the supply of credit and inputs, all on the basis of planned prices (decided by the center).
The experience of the communes that followed the establishment of production cooperatives in the 1970s is full of lessons. It was not necessarily a question of passing from small production to large farms, even if the idea of the superiority of the latter inspired some of its supporters. The essentials of this initiative originated in the aspiration for decentralized socialist construction. The Communes not only had responsibility for managing the agricultural production of a large village or a collective of villages and hamlets (this organization itself was a mixture of forms of small family production and more ambitious specialized production), they also provided a larger framework: (1) attaching industrial activities that employed peasants available in certain seasons; (2) articulating productive economic activities together with the management of social services (education, health, housing); and (3) commencing the decentralization of the political administration of the society. Just as the Paris Commune had intended, the socialist state was to become, at least partially, a federation of socialist Communes.
Undoubtedly, in many respects, the Communes were in advance of their time and the dialectic between the decentralization of decision-making powers and the centralization assumed by the omnipresence of the Communist Party did not always operate smoothly. Yet the recorded results are far from having been disastrous, as the right would have us believe. A Commune in the Beijing region, which resisted the order to dissolve the system, continues to record excellent economic results linked with the persistence of high-quality political debates, which disappeared elsewhere. Current projects of “rural reconstruction,” implemented by rural communities in several regions of China, appear to be inspired by the experience of the Communes.
The decision to dissolve the Communes made by Deng Xiaoping in 1980 strengthened small family production, which remained the dominant form during the three decades following this decision. However, the range of users’ rights (for village Communes and family units) has expanded considerably. It has become possible for the holders of these land use rights to “rent” that land out (but never “sell” it), either to other small producers—thus facilitating emigration to the cities, particularly of educated young people who do not want to remain rural residents—or to firms organizing a much larger, modernized farm (never a latifundia, which does not exist in China, but nevertheless considerably larger than family farms). This form is the means used to encourage specialized production (such as good wine, for which China has called on the assistance of experts from Burgundy) or test new scientific methods (GMOs and others).
To “approve” or “reject” the diversity of these systems a priori makes no sense, in my opinion. Once again, the concrete analysis of each of them, both in design and the reality of its implementation, is imperative. The fact remains that the inventive diversity of forms of using commonly held land has led to phenomenal results. First of all, in terms of economic efficiency, although urban population has grown from 20 to 50 percent of total population, China has succeeded in increasing agricultural production to keep pace with the gigantic needs of urbanization. This is a remarkable and exceptional result, unparalleled in the countries of the “capitalist” South. It has preserved and strengthened its food sovereignty, even though it suffers from a major handicap: its agriculture feeds 22 percent of the world’s population reasonably well while it has only 6 percent of the world’s arable land. In addition, in terms of the way (and level) of life of rural populations, Chinese villages no longer have anything in common with what is still dominant elsewhere in the capitalist third world. Comfortable and well-equipped permanent structures form a striking contrast, not only with the former China of hunger and extreme poverty, but also with the extreme forms of poverty that still dominate the countryside of India or Africa.
The principles and policies implemented (land held in common, support for petty production without small property) are responsible for these unequalled results. They have made possible a relatively controlled rural-to-urban migration. Compare that with the capitalist road, in Brazil, for example. Private property in agricultural land has emptied the countryside of Brazil—today only 11 percent of the country’s population. But at least 50 percent of urban residents live in slums (the favelas) and survive only thanks to the “informal economy” (including organized crime). There is nothing similar in China, where the urban population is, as a whole, adequately employed and housed, even in comparison with many “developed countries,” without even mentioning those where the GDP per capita is at the Chinese level!
The population transfer from the extremely densely populated Chinese countryside (only Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Egypt are similar) was essential. It improved conditions for rural petty production, making more land available. This transfer, although relatively controlled (once again, nothing is perfect in the history of humanity, neither in China nor elsewhere), is perhaps threatening to become too rapid. This is being discussed in China.
Chinese State Capitalism
The first label that comes to mind to describe Chinese reality is state capitalism. Very well, but this label remains vague and superficial so long as the specific content is not analyzed.
It is indeed capitalism in the sense that the relation to which the workers are subjected by the authorities who organize production is similar to the one that characterizes capitalism: submissive and alienated labor, extraction of surplus labor. Brutal forms of extreme exploitation of workers exist in China, e.g., in the coal mines or in the furious pace of the workshops that employ women. This is scandalous for a country that claims to want to move forward on the road to socialism. Nevertheless, the establishment of a state capitalist regime is unavoidable, and will remain so everywhere. The developed capitalist countries themselves will not be able to enter a socialist path (which is not on the visible agenda today) without passing through this first stage. It is the preliminary phase in the potential commitment of any society to liberating itself from historical capitalism on the long route to socialism/communism. Socialization and reorganization of the economic system at all levels, from the firm (the elementary unit) to the nation and the world, require a lengthy struggle during an historical time period that cannot be foreshortened.
Beyond this preliminary reflection, we must concretely describe the state capitalism in question by bringing out the nature and the project of the state concerned, because there is not just one type of state capitalism, but many different ones. The state capitalism of France of the Fifth Republic from 1958 to 1975 was designed to serve and strengthen private French monopolies, not to commit the country to a socialist path.
Chinese state capitalism was built to achieve three objectives: (i) construct an integrated and sovereign modern industrial system; (ii) manage the relation of this system with rural petty production; and (iii) control China’s integration into the world system, dominated by the generalized monopolies of the imperialist triad (United States, Europe, Japan). The pursuit of these three priority objectives is unavoidable. As a result it permits a possible advance on the long route to socialism, but at the same time it strengthens tendencies to abandon that possibility in favor of pursuing capitalist development pure and simple. It must be accepted that this conflict is both inevitable and always present. The question then is this: Do China’s concrete choices favor one of the two paths?
Chinese state capitalism required, in its first phase (1954–1980), the nationalization of all companies (combined with the nationalization of agricultural lands), both large and small alike. Then followed an opening to private enterprise, national and/or foreign, and liberalized rural and urban petty production (small companies, trade, services). However, large basic industries and the credit system established during the Maoist period were not denationalized, even if the organizational forms of their integration into a “market” economy were modified. This choice went hand in hand with the establishment of means of control over private initiative and potential partnership with foreign capital. It remains to be seen to what extent these means fulfill their assigned functions or, on the contrary, if they have not become empty shells, collusion with private capital (through “corruption” of management) having gained the upper hand.
Still, what Chinese state capitalism has achieved between 1950 and 2012 is quite simply amazing. It has, in fact, succeeded in building a sovereign and integrated modern productive system to the scale of this gigantic country, which can only be compared with that of the United States. It has succeeded in leaving behind the tight technological dependence of its origins (importation of Soviet, then Western models) through the development of its own capacity to produce technological inventions. However, it has not (yet?) begun the reorganization of labor from the perspective of socialization of economic management. The Plan—and not the “opening”—has remained the central means for implementing this systematic construction.
In the Maoist phase of this development planning, the Plan remained imperative in all details: nature and location of new establishments, production objectives, and prices. At that stage, no reasonable alternative was possible. I will mention here, without pursuing it further, the interesting debate about the nature of the law of value that underpinned planning in this period. The very success—and not the failure—of this first phase required an alteration of the means for pursuing an accelerated development project. The “opening” to private initiative—beginning in 1980, but above all from 1990—was necessary in order to avoid the stagnation that was fatal to the USSR. Despite the fact that this opening coincided with the globalized triumph of neo-liberalism—with all the negative effects of this coincidence, to which I shall return—the choice of a “socialism of the market,” or better yet, a “socialism with the market,” as fundamental for this second phase of accelerated development is largely justified, in my opinion.
The results of this choice are, once again, simply amazing. In a few decades, China has built a productive, industrial urbanization that brings together 600 million human beings, two-thirds of whom were urbanized over the last two decades (almost equal to Europe’s population!). This is due to the Plan and not to the market. China now has a truly sovereign productive system. No other country in the South (except for Korea and Taiwan) has succeeded in doing this. In India and Brazil there are only a few disparate elements of a sovereign project of the same kind, nothing more.
The methods for designing and implementing the Plan have been transformed in these new conditions. The Plan remains imperative for the huge infrastructure investments required by the project: to house 400 million new urban inhabitants in adequate conditions, and to build an unparalleled network of highways, roads, railways, dams, and electric power plants; to open up all or almost all of the Chinese countryside; and to transfer the center of gravity of development from the coastal regions to the continental west. The Plan also remains imperative—at least in part—for the objectives and financial resources of publicly owned enterprises (state, provinces, municipalities). As for the rest, it points to possible and probable objectives for the expansion of small urban commodity production as well as industrial and other private activities. These objectives are taken seriously and the political-economic resources required for their realization are specified. On the whole, the results are not too different from the “planned” predictions.
Chinese state capitalism has integrated into its development project visible social (I am not saying “socialist”) dimensions. These objectives were already present in the Maoist era: eradication of illiteracy, basic health care for everyone, etc. In the first part of the post-Maoist phase (the 1990s), the tendency was undoubtedly to neglect the pursuit of these efforts. However, it should be noted that the social dimension of the project has since won back its place and, in response to active and powerful social movements, is expected to make more headway. The new urbanization has no parallel in any other country of the South. There are certainly “chic” quarters and others that are not at all opulent; but there are no slums, which have continued to expand everywhere else in the cities of the third world.
The Integration of China into Capitalist Globalization
We cannot pursue the analysis of Chinese state capitalism (called “market socialism” by the government) without taking into consideration its integration into globalization.
The Soviet world had envisioned a delinking from the world capitalist system, complementing that delinking by building an integrated socialist system encompassing the USSR and Eastern Europe. The USSR achieved this delinking to a great extent, imposed moreover by the West’s hostility; even blaming the blockade for its isolation. However, the project of integrating Eastern Europe never advanced very far, despite the initiatives of Comecom. The nations of Eastern Europe remained in uncertain and vulnerable positions, partially delinked—but on a strictly national basis—and partially open to Western Europe beginning in 1970. There was never a question of a USSR–China integration, not only because Chinese nationalism would not have accepted it, but even more because China’s priority tasks did not require it. Maoist China practiced delinking in its own way. Should we say that, by reintegrating itself into globalization beginning in the 1990s, it has fully and permanently renounced delinking?
China entered globalization in the 1990s by the path of the accelerated development of manufactured exports possible for its productive system, giving first priority to exports whose rates of growth then surpassed those of the growth in GDP. The triumph of neoliberalism favored the success of this choice for fifteen years (from 1990 to 2005). The pursuit of this choice is questionable not only because of its political and social effects, but also because it is threatened by the implosion of neoliberal globalized capitalism, which began in 2007. The Chinese government appears to be aware of this and very early began to attempt a correction by giving greater importance to the internal market and to development of western China.
To say, as one hears ad nauseam, that China’s success should be attributed to the abandonment of Maoism (whose “failure” was obvious), the opening to the outside, and the entry of foreign capital is quite simply idiotic. The Maoist construction put in place the foundations without which the opening would not have achieved its well-known success. A comparison with India, which has not made a comparable revolution, demonstrates this. To say that China’s success is mainly (even “completely”) attributable to the initiatives of foreign capital is no less idiotic. It is not multinational capital that built the Chinese industrial system and achieved the objectives of urbanization and the construction of infrastructure. The success is 90 percent attributable to the sovereign Chinese project. Certainly, the opening to foreign capital has fulfilled useful functions: it has increased the import of modern technologies. However, because of its partnership methods, China absorbed these technologies and has now mastered their development. There is nothing similar elsewhere, even in India or Brazil, a fortiori in Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, and other places.
China’s integration into globalization has remained, moreover, partial and controlled (or at least controllable, if one wants to put it that way). China has remained outside of financial globalization. Its banking system is completely national and focused on the country’s internal credit market. Management of the yuan is still a matter for China’s sovereign decision making. The yuan is not subject to the vagaries of the flexible exchanges that financial globalization imposes. Beijing can say to Washington, “the yuan is our money and your problem,” just like Washington said to the Europeans in 1971, “the dollar is our money and your problem.” Moreover, China retains a large reserve for deployment in its public credit system. The public debt is negligible compared with the rates of indebtedness (considered intolerable) in the United States, Europe, Japan, and many of the countries in the South. China can thus increase the expansion of its public expenditures without serious danger of inflation.
The attraction of foreign capital to China, from which it has benefitted, is not behind the success of its project. On the contrary, it is the success of the project that has made investment in China attractive for Western transnationals. The countries of the South that opened their doors much wider than China and unconditionally accepted their submission to financial globalization have not become attractive to the same degree. Transnational capital is not attracted to China to pillage the natural resources of the country, nor, without any transfer of technology, to outsource and benefit from low wages for labor; nor to seize the benefits from training and integration of offshored units unrelated to nonexistent national productive systems, as in Morocco and Tunisia; nor even to carry out a financial raid and allow the imperialist banks to dispossess the national savings, as was the case in Mexico, Argentina, and Southeast Asia. In China, by contrast, foreign investments can certainly benefit from low wages and make good profits, on the condition that their plans fit into China’s and allow technology transfer. In sum, these are “normal” profits, but more can be made if collusion with Chinese authorities permits!
China, Emerging Power
No one doubts that China is an emerging power. One current idea is that China is only attempting to recover the place it had occupied for centuries and lost only in the nineteenth century. However, this idea—certainly correct, and flattering, moreover—does not help us much in understanding the nature of this emergence and its real prospects in the contemporary world. Incidentally, those who propagate this general and vague idea have no interest in considering whether China will emerge by rallying to the general principles of capitalism (which they think is probably necessary) or whether it will take seriously its project of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” For my part, I argue that if China is indeed an emerging power, this is precisely because it has not chosen the capitalist path of development pure and simple; and that, as a consequence, if it decided to follow that capitalist path, the project of emergence itself would be in serious danger of failing.
The thesis that I support implies rejecting the idea that peoples cannot leap over the necessary sequence of stages and that China must go through a capitalist development before the question of its possible socialist future is considered. The debate on this question between the different currents of historical Marxism was never concluded. Marx remained hesitant on this question. We know that right after the first European attacks (the Opium Wars), he wrote: the next time that you send your armies to China they will be welcomed by a banner, “Attention, you are at the frontiers of the bourgeois Republic of China.” This is a magnificent intuition and shows confidence in the capacity of the Chinese people to respond to the challenge, but at the same time an error because in fact the banner read: “You are at the frontiers of the People’s Republic of China.” Yet we know that, concerning Russia, Marx did not reject the idea of skipping the capitalist stage (see his correspondence with Vera Zasulich). Today, one might believe that the first Marx was right and that China is indeed on the route to capitalist development.
But Mao understood—better than Lenin—that the capitalist path would lead to nothing and that the resurrection of China could only be the work of communists. The Qing Emperors at the end of the nineteenth century, followed by Sun Yat Sen and the Guomindang, had already planned a Chinese resurrection in response to the challenge from the West. However, they imagined no other way than that of capitalism and did not have the intellectual wherewithal to understand what capitalism really is and why this path was closed to China, and to all the peripheries of the world capitalist system for that matter. Mao, an independent Marxist spirit, understood this. More than that, Mao understood that this battle was not won in advance—by the 1949 victory—and that the conflict between commitment to the long route to socialism, the condition for China’s renaissance, and return to the capitalist fold would occupy the entire visible future.
Personally, I have always shared Mao’s analysis and I shall return to this subject in some of my thoughts concerning the role of the Taiping Revolution (which I consider to be the distant origin of Maoism), the 1911 revolution in China, and other revolutions in the South at the beginning of the twentieth century, the debates at the beginning of the Bandung period and the analysis of the impasses in which the so-called emergent countries of the South committed to the capitalist path are stuck. All these considerations are corollaries of my central thesis concerning the polarization (i.e., construction of the center/periphery contrast) immanent to the world development of historical capitalism. This polarization eliminates the possibility for a country from the periphery to “catch up” within the context of capitalism. We must draw the conclusion: if “catching up” with the opulent countries is impossible, something else must be done—it is called following the socialist path.
China has not followed a particular path just since 1980, but since 1950, although this path has passed through phases that are different in many respects. China has developed a coherent, sovereign project that is appropriate for its own needs. This is certainly not capitalism, whose logic requires that agricultural land be treated as a commodity. This project remains sovereign insofar as China remains outside of contemporary financial globalization.
The fact that the Chinese project is not capitalist does not mean that it “is” socialist, only that it makes it possible to advance on the long road to socialism. Nevertheless, it is also still threatened with a drift that moves it off that road and ends up with a return, pure and simple, to capitalism.
China’s successful emergence is completely the result of this sovereign project. In this sense, China is the only authentically emergent country (along with Korea and Taiwan, about which we will say more later). None of the many other countries to which the World Bank has awarded a certificate of emergence is really emergent because none of these countries is persistently pursuing a coherent sovereign project. All subscribe to the fundamental principles of capitalism pure and simple, even in potential sectors of their state capitalism. All have accepted submission to contemporary globalization in all its dimensions, including financial. Russia and India are partial exceptions to this last point, but not Brazil, South Africa, and others. Sometimes there are pieces of a “national industry policy,” but nothing comparable with the systematic Chinese project of constructing a complete, integrated, and sovereign industrial system (notably in the area of technological expertise).
For these reasons all these other countries, too quickly characterized as emergent, remain vulnerable in varying degrees, but always much more than China. For all these reasons, the appearances of emergence—respectable rates of growth, capacities to export manufactured products—are always linked with the processes of pauperization that impact the majority of their populations (particularly the peasantry), which is not the case with China. Certainly the growth of inequality is obvious everywhere, including China; but this observation remains superficial and deceptive. Inequality in the distribution of benefits from a model of growth that nevertheless excludes no one (and is even accompanied with a reduction in pockets of poverty—this is the case in China) is one thing; the inequality connected with a growth that benefits only a minority (from 5 percent to 30 percent of the population, depending on the case) while the fate of the others remains desperate is another thing. The practitioners of China bashing are unaware—or pretend to be unaware—of this decisive difference. The inequality that is apparent from the existence of quarters with luxurious villas, on the one hand, and quarters with comfortable housing for the middle and working classes, on the other, is not the same as the inequality apparent from the juxtaposition of wealthy quarters, middle-class housing, and slums for the majority. The Gini coefficients are valuable for measuring the changes from one year to another in a system with a fixed structure. However, in international comparisons between systems with different structures, they lose their meaning, like all other measures of macroeconomic magnitudes in national accounts. The emergent countries (other than China) are indeed “emergent markets,” open to penetration by the monopolies of the imperialist triad. These markets allow the latter to extract, to their benefit, a considerable part of the surplus value produced in the country in question. China is different: it is an emergent nation in which the system makes possible the retention of the majority of the surplus value produced there.
Korea and Taiwan are the only two successful examples of an authentic emergence in and through capitalism. These two countries owe this success to the geostrategic reasons that led the United States to allow them to achieve what Washington prohibited others from doing. The contrast between the support of the United States to the state capitalism of these two countries and the extremely violent opposition to state capitalism in Nasser’s Egypt or Boumedienne’s Algeria is, on this account, quite illuminating.
I will not discuss here potential projects of emergence, which appear quite possible in Vietnam and Cuba, or the conditions of a possible resumption of progress in this direction in Russia. Nor will I discuss the strategic objectives of the struggle by progressive forces elsewhere in the capitalist South, in India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Arab World, and Africa, which could facilitate moving beyond current impasses and encourage the emergence of sovereign projects that initiate a true rupture with the logic of dominant capitalism.
Great Successes, New Challenges
China has not just arrived at the crossroads; it has been there every day since 1950. Social and political forces from the right and left, active in society and the party, have constantly clashed.
Where does the Chinese right come from? Certainly, the former comprador and bureaucratic bourgeoisies of the Guomindang were excluded from power. However, over the course of the war of liberation, entire segments of the middle classes, professionals, functionaries, and industrialists, disappointed by the ineffectiveness of the Guomindang in the face of Japanese aggression, drew closer to the Communist Party, even joining it. Many of them—but certainly not all—remained nationalists, and nothing more. Subsequently, beginning in 1990 with the opening to private initiative, a new, more powerful, right made its appearance. It should not be reduced simply to “businessmen” who have succeeded and made (sometimes colossal) fortunes, strengthened by their clientele—including state and party officials, who mix control with collusion, and even corruption.
This success, as always, encourages support for rightist ideas in the expanding educated middle classes. It is in this sense that the growing inequality—even if it has nothing in common with inequality characteristic of other countries in the South—is a major political danger, the vehicle for the spread of rightist ideas, depoliticization, and naive illusions.
Here I shall make an additional observation that I believe is important: petty production, particularly peasant, is not motivated by rightist ideas, like Lenin thought (that was accurate in Russian conditions). China’s situation contrasts here with that of the ex-USSR. The Chinese peasantry, as a whole, is not reactionary because it is not defending the principle of private property, in contrast with the Soviet peasantry, whom the communists never succeeded in turning away from supporting the kulaks in defense of private property. On the contrary, the Chinese peasantry of petty producers (without being small property owners) is today a class that does not offer rightist solutions, but is part of the camp of forces agitating for the adoption of the most courageous social and ecological policies. The powerful movement of “renovating rural society” testifies to this. The Chinese peasantry largely stands in the leftist camp, with the working class. The left has its organic intellectuals and it exercises some influence on the state and party apparatuses.
The perpetual conflict between the right and left in China has always been reflected in the successive political lines implemented by the state and party leadership. In the Maoist era, the leftist line did not prevail without a fight. Assessing the progress of rightist ideas within the party and its leadership, a bit like the Soviet model, Mao unleashed the Cultural Revolution to fight it. “Bombard the Headquarters,” that is, the Party leadership, where the “new bourgeoisie” was forming. However, while the Cultural Revolution met Mao’s expectations during the first two years of its existence, it subsequently deviated into anarchy, linked to the loss of control by Mao and the left in the party over the sequence of events. This deviation led to the state and party taking things in hand again, which gave the right its opportunity. Since then, the right has remained a strong part of all leadership bodies. Yet the left is present on the ground, restricting the supreme leadership to compromises of the “center”—but is that center right or center left?
To understand the nature of challenges facing China today, it is essential to understand that the conflict between China’s sovereign project, such as it is, and North American imperialism and its subaltern European and Japanese allies will increase in intensity to the extent that China continues its success. There are several areas of conflict: China’s command of modern technologies, access to the planet’s resources, the strengthening of China’s military capacities, and pursuit of the objective of reconstructing international politics on the basis of the sovereign rights of peoples to choose their own political and economic system. Each of these objectives enters into direct conflict with the objectives pursued by the imperialist triad.
The objective of U.S. political strategy is military control of the planet, the only way that Washington can retain the advantages that give it hegemony. This objective is being pursued by means of the preventive wars in the Middle East, and in this sense these wars are the preliminary to the preventive (nuclear) war against China, cold-bloodedly envisaged by the North American establishment as possibly necessary “before it is too late.” Fomenting hostility to China is inseparable from this global strategy, which is manifest in the support shown for the slaveowners of Tibet and Sinkiang, the reinforcement of the U.S. naval presence in the China Sea, and the unstinting encouragement to Japan to build its military forces. The practitioners ofChina bashing contribute to keeping this hostility alive.
Simultaneously, Washington is devoted to manipulating the situation by appeasing the possible ambitions of China and the other so-called emergent countries through the creation of the G20, which is intended to give these countries the illusion that their adherence to liberal globalization would serve their interests. The G2 (United States/China) is—in this vein—a trap that, in making China the accomplice of the imperialist adventures of the United States, could cause Beijing’s peaceful foreign policy to lose all its credibility.
The only possible effective response to this strategy must proceed on two levels: (i) strengthen China’s military forces and equip them with the potential for a deterrent response, and (ii) tenaciously pursue the objective of reconstructing a polycentric international political system, respectful of all national sovereignties, and, to this effect, act to rehabilitate the United Nations, now marginalized by NATO. I emphasize the decisive importance of the latter objective, which entails the priority of reconstructing a “front of the South” (Bandung 2?) capable of supporting the independent initiatives of the peoples and states of the South. It implies, in turn, that China becomes aware that it does not have the means for the absurd possibility of aligning with the predatory practices of imperialism (pillaging the natural resources of the planet), since it lacks a military power similar to that of the United States, which in the last resort is the guarantee of success for imperialist projects. China, in contrast, has much to gain by developing its offer of support for the industrialization of the countries of the South, which the club of imperialist “donors” is trying to make impossible.
The language used by Chinese authorities concerning international questions, restrained in the extreme (which is understandable), makes it difficult to know to what extent the leaders of the country are aware of the challenges analyzed above. More seriously, this choice of words reinforces naive illusions and depoliticization in public opinion.
The other part of the challenge concerns the question of democratizing the political and social management of the country.
Mao formulated and implemented a general principle for the political management of the new China that he summarized in these terms: rally the left, neutralize (I add: and not eliminate) the right, govern from the center left. In my opinion, this is the best way to conceive of an effective manner for moving through successive advances, understood and supported by the great majority. In this way, Mao gave a positive content to the concept of democratization of society combined with social progress on the long road to socialism. He formulated the method for implementing this: “the mass line” (go down into the masses, learn their struggles, go back to the summits of power). Lin Chun has analyzed with precision the method and the results that it makes possible.
The question of democratization connected with social progress—in contrast with a “democracy” disconnected from social progress (and even frequently connected with social regression)—does not concern China alone, but all the world’s peoples. The methods that should be implemented for success cannot be summarized in a single formula, valid in all times and places. In any case, the formula offered by Western media propaganda—multiple parties and elections—should quite simply be rejected. Moreover, this sort of “democracy” turns into farce, even in the West, more so elsewhere. The “mass line” was the means for producing consensus on successive, constantly progressing, strategic objectives. This is in contrast with the “consensus” obtained in Western countries through media manipulation and the electoral farce, which is nothing more than alignment with the requirements of capital.
Yet today, how should China begin to reconstruct the equivalent of a new mass line in new social conditions? It will not be easy because the power of the leadership, which has moved mostly to the right in the Communist Party, bases the stability of its management on depoliticization and the naive illusions that go along with that. The very success of the development policies strengthens the spontaneous tendency to move in this direction. It is widely believed in China, in the middle classes, that the royal road to catching up with the way of life in the opulent countries is now open, free of obstacles; it is believed that the states of the triad (United States, Europe, Japan) do not oppose that; U.S. methods are even uncritically admired; etc. This is particularly true for the urban middle classes, which are rapidly expanding and whose conditions of life are incredibly improved. The brainwashing to which Chinese students are subject in the United States, particularly in the social sciences, combined with a rejection of the official unimaginative and tedious teaching of Marxism, have contributed to narrowing the spaces for radical critical debates.
The government in China is not insensitive to the social question, not only because of the tradition of a discourse founded on Marxism, but also because the Chinese people, who learned how to fight and continue to do so, force the government’s hand. If, in the 1990s, this social dimension had declined before the immediate priorities of speeding up growth, today the tendency is reversed. At the very moment when the social-democratic conquests of social security are being eroded in the opulent West, poor China is implementing the expansion of social security in three dimensions—health, housing, and pensions. China’s popular housing policy, vilified by the China bashing of the European right and left, would be envied, not only in India or Brazil, but equally in the distressed areas of Paris, London, or Chicago!
Social security and the pension system already cover 50 percent of the urban population (which has increased, recall, from 200 to 600 million inhabitants!) and the Plan (still carried out in China) anticipates increasing the covered population to 85 percent in the coming years. Let the journalists of China bashing give us comparable examples in the “countries embarked on the democratic path,” which they continually praise. Nevertheless, the debate remains open on the methods for implementing the system. The left advocates the French system of distribution based on the principle of solidarity between these workers and different generations—which prepares for the socialism to come—while the right, obviously, prefers the odious U.S. system of pension funds, which divides workers and transfers the risk from capital to labor.
However, the acquisition of social benefits is insufficient if it is not combined with democratization of the political management of society, with its re-politicization by methods that strengthen the creative invention of forms for the socialist/communist future.
Following the principles of a multi-party electoral system as advocated ad nauseam by Western media and the practitioners of China bashing, and defended by “dissidents” presented as authentic “democrats,” does not meet the challenge. On the contrary, the implementation of these principles could only produce in China, as all the experiences of the contemporary world demonstrate (in Russia, Eastern Europe, the Arab world), the self-destruction of the project of emergence and social renaissance, which is in fact the actual objective of advocating these principles, masked by an empty rhetoric (“there is no other solution than multi-party elections”!). Yet it is not sufficient to counter this bad solution with a fallback to the rigid position of defending the privilege of the “party,” itself sclerotic and transformed into an institution devoted to recruitment of officials for state administration. Something new must be invented.
The objectives of re-politicization and creation of conditions favorable to the invention of new responses cannot be obtained through “propaganda” campaigns. They can only be promoted through social, political, and ideological struggles. That implies the preliminary recognition of the legitimacy of these struggles and legislation based on the collective rights of organization, expression, and proposing legislative initiatives. That implies, in turn, that the party itself is involved in these struggles; in other words, reinvents the Maoist formula of the mass line. Re-politicization makes no sense if it is not combined with procedures that encourage the gradual conquest of responsibility by workers in the management of their society at all levels—company, local, and national. A program of this sort does not exclude recognition of the rights of the individual person. On the contrary, it supposes their institutionalization. Its implementation would make it possible to reinvent new ways of using elections to choose leaders.
Acknowledgements
This paper owes much to the debates organized in China (November–December 2012) by Lau Kin Chi (Linjang University, Hong Kong), in association with the South West University of Chongqing (Wen Tiejun), Renmin and Xinhua Universities of Beijing (Dai Jinhua, Wang Hui), the CASS (Huang Ping) and to meetings with groups of activists from the rural movement in the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan and Chongqing. I extend to all of them my thanks and hope that this paper will be useful for their ongoing discussions. It also owes much to my reading of the writings of Wen Tiejun and Wang Hui.
Notes
- ↩ China bashing refers to the favored sport of Western media of all tendencies—including the left, unfortunately—that consists of systematically denigrating, even criminalizing, everything done in China. China exports cheap junk to the poor markets of the third world (this is true), a horrible crime. However, it also produces high-speed trains, airplanes, satellites, whose marvelous technological quality is praised in the West, but to which China should have no right! They seem to think that the mass construction of housing for the working class is nothing but the abandonment of workers to slums and liken “inequality” in China (working class houses are not opulent villas) to that in India (opulent villas side-by-side with slums), etc. China bashing panders to the infantile opinion found in some currents of the powerless Western “left”: if it is not the communism of the twenty-third century, it is a betrayal! China bashing participates in the systematic campaign of maintaining hostility towards China, in view of a possible military attack. This is nothing less than a question of destroying the opportunities for an authentic emergence of a great people from the South.
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is director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal. His books includeThe Liberal Virus, The World We Wish to See, and The Law of Worldwide Value (all published by Monthly Review Press). This article was translated from the French by James Membrez.
