Dwane Monroe wondered how we should react to Hart-Landsberg & Burkett's conclusions in their Monthly Review monograph (July-August, 04) that China has gone well beyond their earlier 'market socialism' rhetoric into the realm of full-fledged capitalism. As Marxists, they abhore it because it's another representation of capitalist roading and another abandonment of an interesting experiment in socialist construction. Not only that, they say China is becoming a highly authoritarian form of capitalism, with no independent workers' representation and little democracy, rapid privatization of the means of production, growing extremes of wealth ownership, reductions in public services and the safety net, rising unemployment, popular dissatisfaction, etc. What the authors' report, however, already has been said in many left and main stream sources over the years, so I wasn't too surprised by this document that pulled so much together. I reckon it's the truth, however disappointing. Dwane's point about the riches of capitalism being distributed (through investment) to poorer countries has some limited merit, I suppose, but I doubt if Hart-Landsberg & Burkett would buy wholesale into that idea. Apparently such riches as enter the country become very unevenly distributed. But what do I know? It will be up to the Chinese working class to facilitate another socialist revolution when that class is ready. My feeling also is that socialist projects elsewhere must be started all over again, building from any achieved pinnicles or bodies of experience that working classes in many nation states had once achieved, and learning from that experience how not to repeat past errors. The challenge in the U. S. is immense.
Bob Mast