[nucklepunche]

This is something that genuinely confuses me. Who are they trying to fool? On what planet is China remotely communist. I don't understand why they don't just up and admit that they are no longer communist and drop the whole charade of calling the ruling party Communist and China the People's Republic. If they are so hellbent on single party rule perhaps they ought to change the name of the party to the Nationalist Party or what not. Does anybody have any ideas as to why they are so insistent on keeping the Communist name? Is it because saying, "I am a communist," still has more humanitarian overtones than simply calling oneself an authoritarian capitalist, which is what they really are?

[Rei Murasame]

It may be that they still believe that they are on the path to communism somehow, and that this phase they are going through is a temporary phase of 'state capitalism' which they must first pass through before they have the industrial base on which to carry out the rest of the communist programme.

Of course, that they might believe that, doesn't mean it will actually happen. But it's probably what they are believing.

[Sithsaber]

They keep it for propaganda and brand recognition mostly. Openly declaring yourself capitalist both deligitimizes much of your practices and pushes the populace to realize that their is no reason why they can't have a more direct say in things controlled by the party apparatus and their benefactors.

ps: From what i've heard i doubt they believe this. The oen flaunting of party members wealth and the integration of the rich into the communist party's decision making, along with the purging of more leftist factions, excludes this possibility.

[Decky]

It may be that they still believe that they are on the path to communism somehow, and that this phase they are going through is a temporary phase of 'state capitalism' which they must first pass through before they have the industrial base on which to carry out the rest of the communist programme.

The same as the "socialist" republic of Vietnam.

Marxists (and presumably Maoists) believe that capitalism is the best tool to industrialise a country that exists (hence Marx wanting to workers to seize power in countries that the capitalists had already industrialised).

When reds come to power in third world largely industrialised countries this causes problems. You have to either go for guided crash industrialisation (5 year plans etc, mixed results) of have a nice big dose of New Economic Policy to get the country industrialised.

[ThirdTerm]

The Chinese leadership has no intention of abandoning its one-party communist rule but after seeing the demise of the Soviet Union, it had to make some compromises to survive as a communist country. China has been setting up Confucius Institutes at Western universities to promote Chinese language and culture, which are comparable to Britain's British Council, and as long as China can pass itself as a liberal democracy in transition by projecting a softer image abroad through its propaganda campaigns, it can deflect criticisms about the lack of political freedom and human rights abuses in China.

For over a year, Ren Jianyu worked 10 hours a day in a factory surrounded by high prison walls, welding tiny copper rings together alongside hundreds of other inmates. He didn’t know what he was making. He didn’t know why he was there. The 25-year-old civil servant was just one of an estimated 190,000 Chinese sentenced to serve into the country’s network of 350 work camps, a penal system designed by Mao Zedong to dispense with political opponents without the bother of a trial. Long after the Chairman’s death, Chinese citizens can still be sentenced to up to four years of “re-education through labour.” No charges, no lawyers, no appeals. It seems unlikely the Chinese power apparatus will abolish the labour camp system completely, largely because it remains a handy way for the state to lock up those who disagree with it. Liu Xiaobo, the dissident and Nobel Peace prize laureate, spent three years in a labour camp in the 1990s for questioning the Communist Party’s right to rule (he’s now serving a separate 11-year jail sentence for publishing a pro-democracy manifesto). Thousands of adherents of the Falun Gong religious sect have disappeared into the labour camp system over the past 15 years
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/civil-servant-rallies-resistance-to-chinas-re-education-camps/article9582068/

[Salohcin]

I always find it amusing that China ended up one of the most capitalist countries in the world and Japan ended up arguably the closest country to being Communist.

[Sithsaber]

I've never heard that one before. Are you the guy that said toyota was behind 911?

[Rei Murasame]

Japan is many things, 'communist' is not one of them. I have no idea how you could arrive at that conclusion, Salohcin.

[neopagan]

This subject is more than what's in a name, or even political philosophy. Look at the history of the Chinese, they are extremely patient. There have no need to change anything quickly the way we do in the West. I doubt the influencial people in China are under any illusions about the changes taking place in their country. They have always been canny businessmen and that has won out over imported western socialist/communist ideas, and the fascism of the cultural revolution. But they are also canny enough not to throw away a system that is very effective in handling a population their size.

[colliric]

Simply because there are still powerful supporters of the Communist Party that believe that they are.

So long as the party is in power, they will never admit they aren't communist.

[feihua]

Japan is very socialist.

If there is any place you wanna be poor, it is very very good.

[luketao]

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.

[Sithsaber]

Social democracy isn't socialism, and much of the benefits were strategies to reduce revolutionary movements linked to MLism during the cold war. Now that that threat has passed, you can see how social democracy is panning out.

[Travesty]

Social Democracy works in Scandianavia. They're fine they're not in the EU. Works in Canada. You have to be resource rich and in the North apparently, so after I take power in Russia that's what I'm doing. Don't see how it is declining if anything its gaining popularity.

[Sithsaber]

1. The bitching about Harper seems to show that Canada is moving back. That and the fact that the benefits were spread uniformly, just ask the indigenous and the Quebecois.

2. Scandanavia is a mystery shrouded in snow and ice, but i think the population uniformity, level of insulararity and odd social dynamic make it unique. But didn't Scandanavia start bitching when immigrants came in and tried to pass a few reactionary statutes and force them into close proximity squalor? That and an old american textbook said that they would run out of money when the elderly demographic got to a certian point, but than again american textbooks are evil.

[Travesty]

Oh please what can Canadians possibly bitch about?

The indigenous and the Quebecois are major beneficiaries of the system as far as I know. I mean if you are a Native Canadian then you are tax free and tuition free for ever. Somebody Canadian can correct me if I'm wrong.

[quetzalcoatl]

China is neither communist nor capitalist. It has imported, on an ad hoc basis, elements of capitalism that can be harmonized with Chinese culture. Their approach is empirical/experimental - they use what works for them, while completely rejecting the pseudo-liberal rationalizations of free-market theorists.

[Ahovking]

Social democracy isn't socialism, and much of the benefits were strategies to reduce revolutionary movements linked to MLism during the cold war. Now that that threat has passed, you can see how social democracy is panning out.

Social democracy is the creation of socialism though democratic means, Resorting with a socialist democracy or a Social democracy.

[nucklepunche]

I think social democracy is capitalism with some socialism put in place. It is no different than a mixed economy however it is usually used to define economies that have a larger mix of socialism versus capitalism. The only difference between social democracy and more economically liberal nations with limited welfare states like the US is the matter of degree.

At some level I view China as hybrid of authoritarian nationalism and social "democracy" or social democratic economics minus the democracy.

[KlassWar]

Because the political line of the CCP is that they're on the path of socialism via state-capitalist development of the productive forces, the same line that's been adopted in most socialist countries after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Vietnam, for example, has already announced they want to establish socialism by 2020, as they consider productive forces have already developed.

It has indeed worked to develop productive forces, except it's also been way too fucking long and corrupted the Chinese Communist Party to the core. On the plus side, with the facts as they stand on the ground, at this point, what China needs is a second Cultural Revolution to put the country back on the right track.