> Response from Henry Liu to Stephen Philion's comments
>
>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >
> > > > . Labor should take a lesson from what happened with
> > > > the overturning of socialism in the former Soviet Union.
> > > > There, life for workers has seriously deteriorated. Pay and
> > > > working conditions have gone from being some of the best in> the world to among the worst. Industrial accidents and
> > > > pollution have risen sharply. This and worse is what would
> > > > happen to workers in China if the socialist state were
> > > > dismantled.
> > > >
> > >
> > > This is happening right now in China, at a less advanced pace than in Russia, but certainly occurring apace. Denying it will get us none too far.
>
> Henry Liu:
> This is simply a distortion. The difference between Russia and China
is not a matter of degree. China, despite all the
noise of reforming towards a socialist market economy, a bound by its constitution to adhere to socialism, through
the dictatorship of the poletariat undr the leadership of the CPC.
Stephen Phillon needs to fantasize that China has gone capitalist
in order to justify his promotion of capitalist unions in China.
Steve responds: Yes, it is true that legally the constitution still requires certain restrictions on capitalist development. The same however could be said of the constitution in the former SU right up until the coup of mr. yeltsin. I don't recall arguing for 'capitalist unions' in China. I would, for the moment, argue that the ACFTU should be playing this role, and the reasons why it does not should be seriously discussed. That discussion needs to be informed not only by its critics, but also by a serious examination of the problems as they are discussed within China by all parites.
I am sometimes confused by Henry's argument against 'capitalist' unions. The Chinese constitution is funny this way, considerable leeway in terms of certain interesting issues. Eg. strikes. It neither forbids nor allows, although critics have argued that they are strictly forbidden, I believe this is not correct (as numerous union cadres explained to me in China). Now, strikes,are perhaps categorizable as 'capitalist', yet even if we didn't support 'capitalist' unions in China, we could, indeed, support workers who strike or have reason to strike. And we could examine why it is that workers exercise or don't exercise that option...all without necessarily calling for capitalist trade unions. Either or equations hardly help to unravel reality of class relations, since the latter are hardly black and white to begin with.
I would agree with Henry that there is much nonsense about reality in China and it should be countered with factual information.
I would not, as he seems to think, argue that China is necessarily capitalist at the moment, or necessarily going to become capitalist, in the systemic sense. I would even argue that, along with Simon Clarke, that Russia is not capitalist if we mean a country whose relations of production are systematically conducted in subordination to the law of value. There is plenty of evidence that likewise in China that is not the case at the moment. That does not, in my book, make China socialist in any Marxist sense of the word. But that is another issue.