/lit/ - Literature

>>19863646
>So yes, it makes no sense under Communism to do what China is doing, but remember that they aren't "Communist", they just occasionally "do Communism" because it fits certain ends.
One thing that Marxism predicts is that socialism will come about as the result of very advanced productive forces. Marx put forward the theory that under capitalism, you develop the productive forces, improve social productivity, and then you have to carry out a revolution and socialize the means of production. But what if there are no means of production? What if the productivity isn't there? What if you have no factories and only poor peasants? How would you build socialism in a place like this? The twist of history is that socialist experiments have been carried out in poor countries. Not a single developed capitalist country has moved towards socialism.

So, I think Deng and the reformers around him decided that you have to experiment, you have to build productive forces, build a socialist culture, and so on. And this will occur over a long historical period. And I think the CPC decided along the way that you have to allow various forms of private enterprise to operate at some point, while also limiting private business in other respects, and making it clear to the people who run these companies that they're not actually in charge of the country.

I think Western socialists tend to have this utopian idea that socialism is about eliminating capital and making everyone equal, while the people who support capitalism think that socialism means everyone being equally poor together. Cambodia is a real-life example of that. But I think the difference between socialism and capitalism -- from the perspective of these Chinese communists -- is the role capital plays in it. In capitalist society, the entire society serves capital, and capital controls real social resources and power. A socialist society requires capital to serve society, and capital can never be above society. Therefore, the top 10 capitalists in the United States can easily control the decisions of the White House, but the top 10 capitalists in China don't control the Zhongnanhai.

https://youtu.be/OIfPVO6FKgQ