A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.
CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”
According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.
I won’t be able to explain this very well, but I think I’d frame it as an Overton Window thing. Marx railed against anarchists because tankies didn’t exist yet. If he were around today (and still held his 19th c. views) I suspect that on the spectrum of leftism, he’d find himself closer to anarchists than to tankies, i.e. his dislike of centralized authoritarianism would far outweigh his comparatively minor beefs with anarchists.
Marx railed against Anarchists because he was in favor of centralization, and believed in Scientific Socialism, rather than Utopian. He believed Socialism to be a stage in development of class society, one that emerges from Capitalism, and not something that can be established outright simply by coming up with a model and spontaneously adopting it. Marx didn’t base his views on any such “Overton Window,” he would find the concept of that ridiculous.
Why do you say Marx disliked “centralized authoritarianism?” He advocated for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, ie a democratic, centralized state, that would wither from a tool to oppress and suppress the bourgeoisie into an administration of things as global Communism is achieved. Critique of the Gotha Programme makes this expressly clear, Marx was in favor of centralization and against decentralization and Anarchism.
As for “authoritarianism,” he and Engels were often accused of it, to the point that Engels wrote about the issues with said slander in On Authority.
That isn’t my reading of him at all. He seems to me to advocate for “bottom-up” structures rather than the opposite, as tankies do. You just alluded to it yourself with his vision of an emergent system rather than something designed and imposed. The latter is what current-day communists believe, and as you just said, that doesn’t align with Marx.
I also didn’t say he based his views on an Overton Window at all. I said current-day communists have distorted communism so far beyond anything Marx would recognize that the Overton Window on what is considered communism has shifted far towards the authoritarian side.
Can you elaborate? What “bottom-up” structures did he advocate for, and how, mechanically, do they differ from what modern Communists advocate for?
When I say emerge, I mean it literally. Capitalism emerged from within feudalism with the advent of the steam engine, which allowed for industrialization and mass competition. When Marx advocates for Socialism, he does so on the basis of the Proletariat wresting control from the bourgeoisie via revolution, and maintaining absolute control via the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, just as the bourgeoisie and proletariat together wrested control from the Monarchies.
What have you read from Marx that gives you an alternate impression? Where are you getting the idea that Marx was in favor of decentralization over centralization, when he says the direct opposite clear as day in Critique of the Gotha Programme?
He constantly frames things vis-a-vis the freedom of workers and their having input in their government. Does that sound like China to you, or Cambodia under the Khmer?
Sure, but what he didn’t advocate for is for a new form of aristocracy to emerge from within workers’ ranks. I think this was Bakunin, not Marx, but the dangers of “labour aristocracy” were already known at the time.
I’ve read David Harvey’s synopsis of Capital (because life is too short to read the whole thing), Gotha, and of course the Manifesto. I’m actually puzzled that you see Gotha as advocating for authoritarianism. He talks about the eradication of class and about how people should not be “ruled”. Both of those things are endemic to current-day communism. I just can’t imagine that Marx would look at the way the CCP operates and think that was an accurate reflection of his personal politics.
How, exactly, does he frame them? Can you give an example? China practices Whole Process People’s Democracy, which absolutely isn’t liberal democracy, but does have more worker participation than Capitalist states.
As for Cambodia, the Khmer denounced Marx and were stopped by the Vietnamese Communists, no Communist supports the Khmer Rouge. No, what Marx described was not adopted by Cambodia, because the Khmer Rouge denounced Marx.
You’re confused on a few things here, the Labor Aristocracy is the Proletariat that makes more than the median wages in the global context due to the impacts of Imperialism, ie in the US median Proletarian wages far exceed that of wages in Chad not because the US Proletariat magically creates more value, but because wages are higher due to vast exploitation of the Global South.
Secondly, there was not a “new form of aristocracy” in AES states. AES presented an increase in democratization, including practices like instant recall elections, and units electing delegates. These delegates weren’t hereditary, had to be elected, and could be recalled at any time.
Critique of the Gotha Programme isn’t advocating for “authoritarianism,” nobody does. Critique of the Gotha Programme advocates for centralization, also alluded to by the “ceasing of the anarchy of Capitalist production.” Marx clearly crituques the vagueness of the Gotha Programme in question, along with its flawed conception of the state.
Engels elaborates in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (itself a phenomenal work that I highly recommend reading after this conversation), what form of government a Communist society would look like as Marx alludes to in Gotha:
You can see that, rather than the anarchy of decentralization, Marx and Engels advocated for centralization. The “centralized” society has no State, but it does have an Administration of Things. Think the Post-Office, and how it still has managers and administrators. These structures remain even into Communism, after Socialism, yet they aren’t considered a “state” by Marx nor Engels.
I won’t reply to all that because you’ve either moved the goalposts or misunderstood my original point. To wit:
Tankies are quintessentially authoritarian. That’s what I’ve been saying since the beginning. I agree that Marx doesn’t advocate for it, which is why I suggested he’d be repelled by tankies.
How can you say that without responding? It seems like you ignored what I wrote, with careful, direct references to Marx and Engels. If I am going to put in the effort of taking everything you said into consideration and responding to the best of my abilities, the least you can do is acknowledge it honestly, not dissavow my efforts entirely. I haven’t undermined your ability to understand what I am talking about, nor accused you of moving the goal posts, so I’d like respect in kind.
You’ve been saying this without qualifiers. Advocating for “authoritarianism” isn’t a thing, hence Engels writing On Authority to debunk the very subject entirely. You have yet to meaningfully prove that Communists advocate for a different system and a different process than what Marx and Engels did. Saying that Communists advocate for “authoritarianism” doesn’t mean anything, what structures do Communists advocate for that go against Marx?
I can’t parse what you’re trying to say here. I suspect we’re talking past each other because you’re arguing from a purely academic point of view, rather than taking actual self-proclaimed communist states into account. Do you believe China is communist? How about the USSR?
And what is authoritarianism? What are tankies?
For this to be a fruitful discussion, you two have to agree on what the definition of things are
Exactly. I think that’s why we’re having difficulty communicating.