- 17 Mar 2013 11:06
#14194900
As Karl Max said, communism can only succeed in the most industrialized and most developed capitalist nations. To achieve communism, you need to become industrialized and developed first. In order to do that, you need to first develop capitalism to the extreme. Mao tried to transfer to communism directly from feudalism, and it failed. A better way resembles that of Europe and Japan, which are highly developed capitalist countries turning toward socialism. US is heading to the same direction.
Besides the theory, there are quite a few policies that are indeed communist. For example, rural agricultural land are evenly distributed among farmers. These land cannot be traded as commodities. The ownership goes to the government, but individual farmers have the right to use them. If a farmer moves to big cities and changes his Hukou registration from rural to urban, his or her land will be taken by the village and distributed to the remaining villagers.
For other key natural resources like mines, large mines are all owned and operated by the state, while smaller ones can be leased (not sold) to individual entrepreneurs. Government encourages private companies to compete in any non-crucial sectors in the society, that is, excluding power grid, telecommunication infrastructure, shipping and railway, aeronautics and aerospace, mining and petroleum, weapon systems... In these key sectors, government holds majority stake to stabilize the price, production and demand against sometimes vehement capitalist fluctuations and irresponsible speculations. Agricultural, industrial, and financial security are also closely monitored by the government, albeit individual private or foreign can join these markets with a majority stake.
Chinese government calls this phase the preparatory stage toward communism, or you can call it state capitalism. It has worked very well. There will be adjustments in the future according to the development, but it is widely viewed as the ultimate model best suited for China, at least in our lifetime.