Just got finished with A People’s History of the US. I was going to go over some of Mao’s works next. Are y’all reading anything right now? Got any plans to read anything soon? Have any suggestions?
Just got finished with A People’s History of the US. I was going to go over some of Mao’s works next. Are y’all reading anything right now? Got any plans to read anything soon? Have any suggestions?
Wang Huning’s America Against America. I was told by the Economist (lol) that Mr Wang is some kind of ideological chameleon and antimarxist and this book and his tenure among the inner circle of 3 different Chinese presidents are proof of this.
The book is pretty vanilla lmao. It’s the casual observations of a Chinese boomer during his time in America. I’m halfway through and I don’t see the antimarxism, it’s pretty materialist observations about assorted contradictions and their amelioration in American society…
Did he say anything nice about people in the US? Cause they like to make it out as if Marxism is just hating everyone in the west. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was the reasoning.
He has some positive things to say about Americans. For example they are less superstitious and more pragmatic.
There’s a bit about micromanaging and planning the whole of society is an enormous task and letting the market paint in broad strokes so that the government can firmly do the whole regulation part and not the resource allocation. I suspect this is what these commentators latched onto. The same ones who were overjoyed “Xi’s China” was “privatizing” state enterprises by exposing them to greater market pressures. This was offset by larger membership of party members among leadership of the “privatized” state enterprises and 2 weeks later said commentators all complained about “Xi’s Maoist China” so go figure.
Oh, hahaha! Of course it comes down to them feeling rejected more than anything else.