Despite occasional exceptions,
it was once considered almost gospel that democracy and capitalism went hand in
hand. China's successful rise knocks the notion on the head.
Official Chinese social
theorists paint a picture of today's world which basically remains the same as
that of the Cold War.
Thus, the worldwide struggle
between capitalism and Socialism goes on unabated, the fiasco of 1990 was just
a temporary setback and, today, the big opponents are no longer the US and USSR
but America and China, which remains a Socialist country.
Here, the explosion of
capitalism in China is read as a gigantic case of what in the early Soviet
Union they called New Economic Policy, so that what we have in China is a
new "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" but still
Socialism. The Communist party remains in power and tightly controls and direct
market forces.
Indeed, Domenico Losurdo, the
Italian Marxist who died in June this year, elaborated this point in detail,
arguing against the "pure"Marxism which wants to establish a new
Communist society directly after the revolution, and for a more "realist" view
which advocates a gradual approach with turnarounds and failures.
Rationalising Reality
Roland Boer, a Beijing-based
professor, evokes the memorable image of Losurdo drinking a cup of tea on a
busy Shanghai street in September 2016: "In the midst of the bustle,
traffic, advertising, shops, and clear economic drive of the place, Domenico
said, 'I am happy with this. This is what socialism can do!' To my quizzical
look, he replied with a smile, 'I am strongly in favour of the reform and
opening up'."
Boer then goes on to resume
the argument for this "opening up": "Most efforts had
been directed at the relations of production, focusing on socialist equality
and collective endeavour. This is all very well, but if everyone is equal
simply because they are poor, few would see the benefit. So Deng and those
working with him began to emphasise another dimension of Marxism: the need to
unleash the forces of production."
For Marxism, however, "unleashing
the forces of production" is not "another dimension" but
the very goal of transforming relations of production.
And here is Marx's classic
formulation: "At a certain stage of development, the material
productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of
production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the
property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.
From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into
their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution."
The irony is that, while, for
Marx, Communism arises when capitalist aspects of production became an obstacle
to the further development of the means of production. Which means this
development can be secured only by (sudden or gradual) progress from a
capitalist market economy to a socialized economy.
But Deng Xiaoping's "reforms" turn
Marx around. At a certain point, one has to return to capitalism to enable the
economic development of Socialism.
Complete Change
Of course, there is a further
irony here that is difficult to surpass. The 20th century Left was defined by
its opposition to two fundamental tendencies of modernity: the reign of capital
with its aggressive individualism and alienating dynamics and authoritarian-bureaucratic
state power.
What we get in today's China
is exactly the combination of these two features in its extreme form: a strong
authoritarian state and wild capitalist dynamics.
Orthodox Marxists liked to use
the term "dialectical synthesis of the opposites": suggesting
true progress takes place when we bring together the best of both opposing
tendencies. But it looks like China succeeded by way of bringing together what
we considered the worst in both opposing tendencies (liberal capitalism and
Communist authoritarianism).
Years ago, a Chinese social
theorist, with links to Deng Xiaoping's daughter, told me an interesting
anecdote. When Deng was dying, an acolyte who visited him asked him what he
thought his greatest act was, expecting the usual answer that he will mention
his economic opening that brought such development to China.
To their surprise, he
answered: "No, it was that, when the leadership decided to open up
the economy, I resisted the temptation to go all the way and open up also the
political life to multi-party democracy." (According to some sources,
this tendency to go all the way was pretty strong in some Party circles and the
decision to maintain party control was in no way preordained.)
Test case
We should resist here the liberal
temptation to dream about how, in the case China were to open up also to
political democracy, its economic progress would have been even faster: what if
political democracy would have generated new instabilities and tensions that
would have hampered economic progress? Such as were witnessed in most of the
old USSR?
What if this (capitalist)
progress was feasible only in a society dominated by a strong authoritarian
power? Recall the classical Marxist thesis on early modern England: it was in
the bourgeoisie's own interest to leave the political power to the aristocracy
and keep for itself the economic power. Maybe something homologous is going on
in today's China: it was in the interest of the new capitalists to leave
political power to the Communist Party.
The German philosopher Peter
Sloterdijk remarked how if there is a person to whom they will build monuments
a hundred years from now, it is Lee Kuan Yew, the Singaporean leader who
invented and implemented so-called "capitalism with Asian
values." (Which, of course, have nothing to do with Asia and all to
do with authoritarian capitalism.)
Nevertheless, the virus of
this authoritarian capitalism is slowly but surely spreading around the globe.
Before setting in motion his reforms, Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore and
expressly praised it as a model all of China should follow.
This change has a
world-historical meaning. Because, until now, capitalism seemed inextricably
linked with democracy. There were, of course, from time to time, recourses to
direct dictatorship, but, after a decade or two, democracy again imposed itself
(recall just the cases of South Korea and Chile).
Now, however, the link between
democracy and capitalism is broken. So it is quite possible that our future
will be modelled upon a Chinese "capitalist socialism" –
definitely not the socialism we were dreaming about.
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