Does Communism Work Afterall?

[BayCityProgressive]

interesting article on China attaining superpower status.

http://www.solidarityeconomy.net/2007/03/07/red-china-inc/
China is securing an ever-bigger share of the world market with the methods of a planned economy. Competitors and economists alike are astounded by the country’s seemingly unstoppable march to becoming a global economic superpower. The development has left many wondering: Does communism work after all?

Nine men dressed in dark tailored suits meet behind high, Red walls. Their secret meeting place in downtown Beijing is called Zhongnanhai, or “Middle and Southern Lake.” Once part of the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai was a place where emperors, concubines and eunuchs would spend their days concocting court intrigues. Some of the buildings from those feudal days are still standing today, joined by functional, gray and white structures built when the Chinese Communist Party established its headquarters here.

The nine men — who constitute the Standing Committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo, the most-powerful political body in the Middle Kingdom — meet in the southern section of this refuge. Their discreet meeting is businesslike. The group’s members were not elected by the people and they are not interested in being observed while governing. Cameras are banned and there is a conspicuous absence of jovial pats on the back or ready smiles for the evening news.

None of the members of this sombre squad is known for his charisma. President Hu Jintao, 64, the head of state and Communist Party leader, and his eight colleagues are stiff technocrats. Hu, the son of a tea merchant from Jiangsu Province, holds a degree in hydroelectric engineering. The others are trained in fields like electrical engineering, metallurgy or geology.

[scrinmaster]

1. It may work for the few people on top,

But you have a much better chance of making a good living for yourself in a capitalist country than in a communist one.

[PhilipShore]

2. No

[BayCityProgressive]

3. I didn't post the article to take any particular side

only because I thought it was interesting. As for your assertion that only the people at the top are successful in China...you are flat wrong. Poverty has been reduced from 52% to 8%. My uncle does bussiness in China and people generally have a good standard fo living in the cities. The rural areas are where many fo the 8% live. The country is interesting because it houses so many contradictions and is so wildly successful.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Not even remotely communism.

China made the transition from totalitarian communism to totalitarian fascism.

[Kelly Rupert]

5. China attained superpower status entirely due to Deng Xiaoping's market reforms.

It was only in abandoning the staunch Communism of Mao that the PRC was able to finally commence growth. I believe the CCP did good work in uniting the country, laying down an educational infrastructure, restoring central authority, and abolishing feudal warlordism. However, China didn't begin to take off until Deng opened the Middle Kingdom to the West.

China is not a Communist state today. At all.

[Jcrowley]

6. China

is hard-core oligarchical state run capitalism.

Comm-unism

Comm-unity

Comm-unication

Comm-onality

and so on...

[ComerPerro]

7. problem is, when you put communism into practice, you end up with some

RW conservative asshole at the top somehow, and they abuse the system to piss on everyone else.

[Kelly Rupert]

8. Mao was as left-wing as you get.

And quite frankly the system pissed all over everyone without him having to demand it.

[otherlander]

9. If you want to show that communism works

don't use China as your example. Labor laws are so bad that jobs are outsourced to there from Mexico. Napoleon turned to Jones long ago.

[Bucky]

12. Evil labor laws are a necessary component of a command economy.

If you give people non-farm work, they'll start to make some money. If they start to make some money, they'll want to make more money. To do that, they'll start to form workers' organizations to organize their interests. Any command economy that wants to stay in power will realize that it NEEDS to destroy their competing organizations representing workers' rights.

Show me a commie with power and I'll show you a union buster.

[MN ChimpH8R]

10. No, but Scandinavian style social democracy sure does.

The Chinese are mere authoritarians who tart up capitalism in the garb of "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

[Bucky]

11. Oh lordy no! All command economies fall apart eventually. Here's how

Communism is the worst of the lot for industrial societies, because they divorce production from demand. If the politburo says, "let's show those capitalists who's boss and build a 1000 tractors and mine a zillion pounds of iron next month" you get falsified production stats, labor abuses, production gluts, unnatural shortages in complimentary and competing goods, declines in quality control standards because of production quotas, and zero corrective feedback from consumers. The result is a massively wasteful, corrupt, and nonresponsive economy.

Big empty store shelves in 1980s Russia is a great example. Today's Cuba is another. Castro can raise the adult literacy rate to 99% with his command economy, but the buildings that people live in are still falling apart because consumer demand is utterly ignored in Big Brother Havana.

China's running its economy a lot smarter than Havana, but they're still among the world's most brutal suppressors of worker's rights and independent trade unions.

[BayCityProgressive]

13. Thanks for everyones comments

I know China is a topic of interest here, so if you get the chance to read the whole article...all the contradictions in the country are interesting.

[piedmont]

14. China is going through the last chapter of Animal Farm-- it's communist in name only nt

[Hippo_Tron]

16. Yea, but what's next?

As I recall, the animals discover that Napoleon is a fascist and has been taking advantage of them. I don't think that scenario is playing out in China.

[piedmont]

17. They may figure it out, but fat lot of good it will do.

They're even more opressed than before the revolution, and since the pigs led the first revolution, they're much more keen on quashing any attempt at a second one.

[Kelly Rupert]

18. I assume you haven't been n/t

[piedmont]

19. Uh, been what?

were you addressing me?

[Kelly Rupert]

20. Yes, and "been there."

To China.

[piedmont]

21. No, but I'd like to visit.

I was referring specifically to Animal Farm in the post you responded to, not to China.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

15. It did for the Apostles in Acts.

See 4.35-37 (Ananias was the first example of the "gotta-get-mine" Christian).

Oh yeah, and for the Eastern Christian monastics over the next 2000 years who followed this example.

This was Dostoevsky's vision as well, having rejected Western socialism, Catholicism, and the bourgeois.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Lord Acton's axiom applies to all form of government.

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."