u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Hello all,
I recently watched Bay Area415’s video that details SWCC and found it very informative - he makes very clear what China’s goals are and how they’re taking a scientific approach to achieve them.
One thing that I felt he glossed over, however, was the existence of Chinese billionaires. He addresses the topic, but his explanation of their existence boils down to, “they must adhere to the long term goals of the CPC”.
He claims they are not capitalist, but I have trouble imagining how someone could possibly amass even a hundred million dollars, let alone a billion, without extracting surplus value from labor. I know some tech industries have a very high profit:labor ratio, which goes a long way to explaining the wealth of Jack Ma & Ma Huateng (Alibaba & Tencent, respectively). But what about Zhong Shanshan (pharmaceuticals) and Wang Wei (package delivery)? How is their net worth in the billions if workers are not being exploited?
u/stalbox - originally from r/GenZhou
Workers are exploited and their surplus value is extracted. The law of value still operates in China’s socialist market economy as it does in capitalist economies, and the billionaires are part of a Chinese bourgeoisie. The point that Bay is trying to make is that the existence of billionaires, at least right now, benefits China more than it harms it, because they help centralize and expand capital (and in doing so develop part of the productive forces of Chinese society). Of course, a proletarian state must carefully control the national bourgeoisie (for that is the function of the proletarian state), and ensure that its members do not infiltrate the government, even if their existence is temporarily beneficial. This can be seen in China’s recent crackdowns on Jack Ma and the private tuition sector.u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Is there a stated plan for how to handle the dissolution of the bourgeoisie? Thanks to BA415 I now understand that SWCC is not dogmatic and therefore the plan must adapt to meet the material demands of that future point, but is there a rough outline?u/veinss - originally from r/GenZhou
The very rough outline is that they’ll be slowly squeezed out of existence over the next 30 years as the chinese economy flattens at the top and at the bottom. There really isn’t any particular need to “handle” them since they’re not a problem, they’re useful assets and are completely under control.u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Is there no fear whatsoever that they won’t try to hold on to their wealth? Obviously much of their net worth represents assets which can be seized, but if history tells us anything it’s that the bourgeoisie does not willingly relinquish their capital.u/stalbox - originally from r/GenZhou
The Chinese bourgeoisie has no state apparatus to allow them to hold power. Sure, they may try to resist, but all oppressive functions of the state are under the control of the proletariat, and there is no “reserve” class for the bourgeoisie to call on to help restore capitalism. They have no genuine political power. I see no reason to doubt the PRC’s intention or ability to defeat their resistance. Capitalist infiltration into the CPC a la Yeltsin is imo the biggest threat to socialism in China but Xi in particular has addressed corrupt and right-opportunist officials, and has been effective in weeding out foreign influence in e.g. Hong Kong. Thus far the bourgeoisie has more or less meekly complied with the CPC’s demands.u/Reticent_Dorothy - originally from r/GenZhou
How does the party keep itself (at least mostly) free of corruption and bribery, compared to a place like the US, where the entire country is owned by capitalists?u/stalbox - originally from r/GenZhou
Obtaining CPC membership is not easy. Even Xi, whose father was a relatively high ranking official, was rejected a few times before being admitted into the communist youth league. Applicants attend courses and are tested for their knowledge of CPC history and communism. Getting into local government requires nomination by the party, and the members of higher legislative bodies (county, prefecture, provincial, and national) are voted in by other legislators.Furthermore, the lobbying mechanisms that completely destroy any semblance of American democracy barley exist in China because political organisations independent of the CPC aren’t really a thing. The other 8 political parties in China must adhere to SWCC and cannot hold executive power. Politicians are not elected through political campaigns funded by private interests. Even in private corporations, any company with more than 3 CPC members is obliged to establish a party cell to influence corporate governance (though this has not been strictly enforced until recently).
Of course, these safeguards are not infallible. One of the people arrested under Xi’s anti-corruption drive was a former politburo standing committee member. Corruption has penetrated to high levels of the CPC government before. Bribery is an issue. But the PRC’s institutions are not intentionally designed to enable these deficiencies, whereas in capitalist countries corporate control over politics is the norm.
u/Reticent_Dorothy - originally from r/GenZhou
Thank you for the overview and explanation. I really appreciate it.
u/Lenins2ndCat - originally from r/GenZhouIs there no fear whatsoever that they won’t try to hold on to their wealth?
There is, but you won’t get that stated in outward reports. Instead you have to look at what measures are being implemented organisationally that would effectively act as control.
The most significant one I believe is the legislation that requires companys to have a certain percentage of their workforce be CPC members.
This legislation essentially places a party wing within every single company. This wing acts as a check on the legal actions of every company and if any billionaires attempt to use their companies in a way that is intentionally agitative or harmful they’re a check against that.
The goal is to transition without a massive amount of unrest by preemptively organising things in such a way that there are no avenues for such attempts to stop the CPC to come through.
u/FerrisTriangle - originally from r/GenZhou
The lever of power that allows the bourgeois to hold onto power in capitalist countries like America is a militarized police state that is primarily tasked with enforcing the institution of private property, as well as a political system which is dominated by capitalists who get to write the rules of how this police state is administered and which laws they uphold.The Chinese bourgeois may fight back as their wealth and power diminishes, but they do not have these same levers of power available to them in the Chinese government.
u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Ah, and China’s military power is held by the proletariat. I still might ask a follow up question about Chinese censorship & governance in the next few days but I think this discussion alone has made a lot of that clear.
u/ScienceSleep99 - originally from r/GenZhou
The mechanisms of control are exactly what the New Left in China are afraid was being eroded during the 90s and early 2000s. This is changing under Xi, but let’s not act as though everything worked according to plan. What I find highly revisionist and led to the entrance of roaders into the party, I.e. the billionaires, was the Three Represents under Jiang Zemin.u/gandhiissquidward - originally from r/GenZhouThis can be seen in China’s recent crackdowns on Jack Ma and the private tuition sector.
as an ML its so based to see daddy Xi snap his fingers and Delete 1 Trillion Dollars
and execute billionaires lol
u/parwa - originally from r/GenZhou
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Great article so far.I intend to read it fully but I’m going to discuss in the comments for some more quick clarification, no offense intended.
u/rivainirogue - originally from r/GenZhou
I know this is a subject that can be a little contentious, and understandably so since it’s a serious contradiction. This article here helped me understand it and I do recommend giving it a look. It’s a little long, as the author has a lot of historical context to analyze but ultimately the point is that the billionaires in China do not operate the same way as billionaires in other countries. Full stop.“Is it possible that a new bourgeoisie will emerge? A handful of bourgeois elements may appear, but they will not form a class.” Deng 1985
This is important to note. And in the decades following reform and opening up there have been many strides in curbing those billionaire tendencies towards corruption and exploitation. For example, the implementation of new labor laws and the formation of civil society labor groups skyrocketed in the early 2000’s. And even though China has a greater proportion of its workforce employed in more dangerous industries (like heavy industry and mining) because of the above, the annual worker death’s per 100k people has dropped steadily each year since.
China is not free from exploitation, but it does try to curtail that in a manner that capitalist countries do not.
u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Thanks for your response!
u/Avatar_of_me - originally from r/GenZhou
I think it’s important to remember that the transition to communism will not change things overnight. We have this idea that revolution means a radical change in a short period of time, but the transition from slavery to feudalism took hundreds of years, as well as the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The existence of billionaires in this particular stage isn’t something strange, it’s just that the transition is gradual. To be a part of a global economic system where capitalism still dominates, we still have to have some elements from capitalism for us to be able to operate in such environment. In this particular aspect, the existence of massive amounts of capital concentrated is needed for this capital to be reinvested somewhere else. As long as it is invested in actual economic development projects, as it is in China, it will help the socialist system develop economically. In contrast, in the US, all this capital is invested in the financial markets, which don’t actually produce material economic development, and materializes in the decaying infrastructure and massive amounts economic inequality.u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Absolutely, I’m 100% in agreement and I see the value of markets in the Chinese economy - hell, I gravitate towards Mutualism as an ideology because I think markets may indefinitely be valuable to human development.What struck me as odd is that the Chinese government allows these corporations / people to exist when citizen labor is being exploited to prop them up. The argument that it concentrates wealth in China is very strong, however, and everyone’s responses here have solidified my understanding.
u/Avatar_of_me - originally from r/GenZhou
Labor laws are slowly, but surely, being implemented to the benefit of the working class. For example, the recent regulations on the cram schools education industry, which are being required to turn non-profit, so that workers can have better access to it, and teachers can better focus on basic education, are signs of it. Not only that, but law in China doesn’t treat the billionaires any different. Where else in the world will you see a billionaire being condemned with the death penalty for corruption? Furthermore, when the Chinese government finds a problem with the economy, they’re quick to regulate industries and punish individuals when necessary. Jack Ma and the Ant group were stopped from doing an IPO because they were giving out loans that could potentially destabilize the economy. Not to mention the poverty alleviation campaign that lifted millions out of extreme poverty. These are all signs of the direction that China is going. Sure there are problems here and there, but these are being actually addressed moving forward.
u/bengrf - originally from r/GenZhou
This question has produced a lot of answers which I’m less than happy with, so I’m going to add my own.Chinese billionaires don’t actually own their companies. Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, Zhong Shanshan, and Wang Wei all run their businesses as part of the Chinese central plan. If they or any other capitalist acted against the will of the party they would be removed and replaced. The surplus labor that these capitalists exploit out of the their workers is similarly controlled by the CPC who reinvests that value according to a centralized plan. Strictly speaking these people are only “billionaires” in the sense that they manage a billion dollars worth of capital on behalf of the CPC. They do not own a billion dollars worth of capital.
This change does not make China capitalist despite the insistence of many because China does not organize production for profit, but instead they organize production for social use. Profit driven enterprises are mearly a part of the much larger economic plan.
u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
Do you have a source for that? I don’t see why they would be referred to as billionaires if the function they serve is merely to manage multi-billion dollar corporations and do not actually hold billions of dollars.u/bengrf - originally from r/GenZhou
Well they are still rich powerful people with certain rights to billions of dollars worth of capital. It’s just that their rights over that capital are less than ownership rights.I don’t really know where to give you a source besides to note the long list of rich and powerful people prosecuted by Xi for not following the parties detectives. The amount of freedom these capitalists have has varied over time, but this recent crackdown has made it very clear that they follow the command of the party or get hit.
u/lekarstvi - originally from r/GenZhou
Can’t remember if it’s still the case, but isn’t Alibaba (Jack Ma’s company) and Tencent (Ma Huateng’s company) majorly owned by foreigners from Japan and South Africa respectively?
u/Jon_Boopin - originally from r/GenZhou
It’s important to recognize something Lenin wrote in State and Revolution. Specifically, the fact that as long as class society exists, a state will exist, because the ruling class always acts in self-interest. And with their might of capital, they rule with armed soldiers and police. The final authority of violence is what the proletariat must use to switch the situation around. Instead of the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat with the powers that give way to the state, the proletariat must oppress the bourgeoisie with the powers that give way to the state – the monopoly of violence.China’s intention is to do several things:
- Oppress the bourgeoisie by using state power (Strict regulations economically, strict filtering socially)
- Develop their own productive forces, as Marx/Lenin put it, so that they are no longer dependent on one or few types of commerce to develop their economy and technological advancements, i.e. they can self-sustain and the US Empire loses the imperialist power of being able to choke them of resources should they decide to implement Communism/stricter socialist policies
These billionaires are indeed capitalists. In fact, a few select ones are in the government as a means of the CPC working with what they call the national bourgeoisie, i.e. bourgeoisie who is oppressed from using state power (lobbyism) and must obey the orders of the proletarian state. However, the CPC sees this as a temporary step; rightfully so (They tried the purist socialist route, which led to the many mistakes of the Cultural Revolution, including the somewhat successful but riddled with death industrial/agricultural plans). Marx talked very heavily about the importance of evolutionary technology being a necessity for the sequential steps of societal development, and given that they tried to veer off this path of Marxism-Leninism during the CR, they failed because they lost the fundamental historical and material analysis needed in a proletarian state, as described by Marx. China will continue to develop the productive forces of the state until the contradictions of imperialism are settled, i.e. class society has been abolished.
tl;dr Marx and Engels emphasized that private property could not be abolished in one stroke, but rather that a temporary transition would take place, because that is simply the nature of reality analyzed with dialectical materialism. Also the Imperialist US exists and will stop at literally nothing to prevent them from threatening their grip on the world, so they have to become resource independent.
Finally, a word from a great revolutionary:
The national bourgeoisie at the present stage is of great importance. Imperialism, a most ferocious enemy, is still standing alongside us. China’s modern industry still forms a very small proportion of the national economy. No reliable statistics are available, but it is estimated, on the basis of certain data, that before the War of Resistance Against Japan the value of output of modern industry constituted only about 10 per cent of the total value of output of the national economy. To counter imperialist oppression and to raise her backward economy to a higher level, China must utilize all the factors of urban and rural capitalism that are beneficial and not harmful to the national economy and the people’s livelihood; and we must unite with the national bourgeoisie in common struggle. Our present policy is to regulate capitalism, not to destroy it. But the national bourgeoisie cannot be the leader of the revolution, nor should it have the chief role in state power. The reason it cannot be the leader of the revolution and should not have the chief role in state power is that the social and economic position of the national bourgeoisie determines its weakness; it lacks foresight and sufficient courage and many of its members are afraid of the masses.
-Mao Zedong
u/NoverMaC - originally from r/GenZhou
Adding to what the others have said-incentive for national bourgeoisie to remain in the country to develop productive forces -not to distance themselves from the global financial system too access their productive forces -allow billionaires in the political system to keep tabs on them. As the capitalists will inevitably exercise political power to protect their economic interests so better to keep them operating within a set framework than to left unchecked and possibly collaborate with foreign imperialists. -history has shown China can and will prosecute billionaires who stepped out of line.
u/lemonxgrab - originally from r/GenZhou
I don’t think anyone is claiming they aren’t capitalist. Of course they are. They are tolerated at this point and yes some are allowed in the party because China thinks that for the time being it is better to keep class enemies close in order to keep tabs on them.u/roosterkun - originally from r/GenZhou
The video I watched specifically claimed that there are no capitalists in China, but I think it’s just semantics.u/lemonxgrab - originally from r/GenZhou
Nah he’s straight up wrong
[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
To add to other comments, something I responded to someone saying China cant be Socialist because it has billionaires.The problem with this logic is that “Western” billionaires and Chinese billionaires are completely different. Billionaires in the West have a gigantic portfolio of assets spreading their money in multiple places and investments. This is because at some point they sold a large number of shares of the company or investment that made them rich (typically). Chinese billionaires can’t do that, not only would they only get a fraction of the value but they would also need the government to approve it in the first place. That’s why you have billionaires like Hui Ka Yan which Bloomberg gives a value of 25.9 billion dollars, however, 77% of that is in Evergrande, and of that value only 20% is actually the value he would get, assuming he would be allowed to sell in the first place. Chinese billionaires all have their money stuck in the large stake they hold of the company that made them “rich”, the problem is they can never access that money, there is no exit route for their money.
u/zuicun - originally from r/GenZhou
I think you also have to remember the social function of why they are allowed to exist. Socialism allows for the liquidation of a type of commodities once their function has run their course.Take Chinese education for example. Ed corporations grew by billions while luring international talent into China. China is now a leader in technological developments, as well as a respected education provider in it’s own rights surpassing even Japan.
The issue was the overstay of those corporations now that China has developed those native capacities. While they helped boost the education system, they also consume a significant percentage of family income. The government’s liquidation of that industry shows us that they’re not afraid of doing just that once the purpose of capital accumulation has run it’s course.
u/ccpshill_tankiebot - originally from r/GenZhou
I don’t much theory, but I’ll add that China definitely seems to have better control of their billionaires, whether though charging them with financial crimes or through regulating their industries (the recent changes to the education, food delivery and property sectors).