There can be no communism with pauperism, or socialism with pauperism. So to get rich is no sin. However, what we mean by getting rich is different from what you mean. Wealth in a socialist society belongs to the people. To get rich in a socialist society means prosperity for the entire people. The principles of socialism are: first, development of production and second, common prosperity. We permit some people and some regions to become prosperous first, for the purpose of achieving common prosperity faster. That is why our policy will not lead to polarization, to a situation where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. To be frank, we shall not permit the emergence of a new bourgeoisie.
Though it can be argued that in China there is no bourgeoisie because the bourgeois elements are not organized as a class, there is no doubt about the polarization and inequality. The rich have indeed gotten richer, while the poor have not gotten much poorer, but compared to the rich, they are still very poor. The consequences of this inequality can be seen in the increasing number of “mass incidents” from 2010s forward. Class struggle still exists in China, and it’s getting increasingly intense.
The latest Congress in China, establishing full employment as a goal, will definitely be an improvement in the direction of socialism. China will finally overcome the Deng Xiaoping era, and enter into a new era of socialism.
Not bad, but of course it still has limitations. When I mentioned Deng Xiaoping era, I referred to the whole Reform and Opening Up which is still in practice up to this day. There’s still a huge degree of exploitation, inequality and other social problems like prostitution, all caused by the influence of capital.
Overcoming, in the dialectical sense, means preserving what’s useful and discarding what’s not. It has nothing to do with the period being “bad”, it had its moments, but obviously it’s not eternally sustainable, the Chinese leadership will have to break with Reform and Opening up sooner or later, and I believe the 20th Congress is precisely this rupture.
Yes, I thought you meant to say that he was a contrarevolutionary. In my understanding Deng’s policies are not something specificallt developed by him but a clear analysis of Marxist theory in accordance with the particular material reality in China. This process is necessary if you want to accumulate wealth and make capital grow, at least under current global conditions. Of course this can only be prolonged for only a period where a higher state of industrialization and socialism are achieved, but in my opinion China has not sinned of being too long in it. During this short decades China has advance from a country barely able to feed its citizen to a prosperous nation, there are issues, but the quality of life has been improving.