Why Labeling China ‘State Capitalist’ Misses the Point.
By Frustrate D. Marsupial
Scrolling through fedtok and saw another post calling China “State Capitalist”
China is “State Capitalist.” Right? I mean that makes sense, huh? Workers in China are still paid a wage and profits ultimately serve the accumulation of capital, which is ultimately directed by the state rather than a private capitalist. The state acting as the Capitalist.
This misses the point of what we call the “vanguard.”
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is “a dictatorship of the proletariat” or the working class in control of the state apparatus. What they call “ the commanding heights” keeps profits made by corporations going towards things like infrastructure and social programs. This is similar to what Lenin said the state should be post revolution, a tool for suppressing the bourgeoisie and defending the revolution. The accumulation of capital by the state, and therefore people of China allows them to defend their revolution on a global scale from the capitalist powers of the west while also building things at home. China’s investments into high speed rail and poverty alleviation programs are funded by profits made by state owned enterprise.
To understand why this is, one must have historical context. Pre revolution China had never gone through the capitalist phase that was necessary for a transition into Socialism. As a result, China was not as developed as many of its western counterparts and would potentially struggle on the global scale in the future. The implementation of the free market tools into their framework was simply a way to ensure that Chinese Socialism could not only continue to exist into the future but thrive in an increasingly capitalist world.
This type of thinking, the thought to implement markets as a way to build socialism is not an idea that started with China. You can look all the way back to 1921 and the Soviet Union for the kernels of this idea. After the revolution, ole Vlad realized that purely socialist policies were not going to be adequate, the country was in the throws of civil war and economic collapse. What he did was introduce NEP (New Economic Policy) allowing private enterprise as a way of rebuilding the economy. The logic used by the CCP with their market reforms is the same logic Lenin used when implementing NEP. Both examples show that market tools can be used under a socialist framework.
It is my personal belief that, instead of viewing Marxism Leninism as some form of rigid dogma, we should view it for what it is. A seed that, once planted, will take whatever form it needs to grow.