[lbo-talk] [pen-l] China aims at electric car domination

Cox, Carrol cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Sep 13 15:56:29 PDT 2017


I think it essential to recognize that soc ialism is not the only (or even the most probable) alternative for capitalism.

Thise following is crude but I fthnk, accurate: A major distinction between capitalism and other social orders (including many highly commercialized societies) is that the ruling calss in capitalism generates major (even "antagonistic") contradictions (struggles) _within_ the capitalist class itself.

Feudal lords may _choose_ tofight each other to the death, but it _is_ a choice.

Each capitalist firm _must_, willy nilly, compete furiously against all other capitalist firms. Money spent on Rice Krispies is not spent on the local movie parlor & so forth. Rice Krispies are ultimately in competition (deadly competition) with BMWs. That is the point of Marx's concept of commodity fetishism.

Much of the Chinese economy has been capitalized, and competition in that area must be growing.

But those areas which are state owned are free from the domination of capitalist economic competition. (For how long, who knows.) And the managers of state-owned enterprises are as free as feudal lords to determine their policies on whatever grounds they freely choose. (Feudal literature is rich in the stories of the varying ethics of different lorsd. That is why ethics make a difference in feudal estate management but not in different capitalist concerns.) The state is quite free to manage state-owned enterprises on quite other grounds than either greed or market pressure.

That does _not_ make China socialist, but that question is an empty one in a world ruled by by imperialist powers.

Carrol

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: pen-l at mail.csuchico.edu [mailto:pen-l at mail.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Jean-Christophe Helary Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 7:38 AM To: LBO; Pen-L Economics; Socialist Project Subject: Re: [pen-l] [lbo-talk] China aims at electric car domination


> On Sep 13, 2017, at 21:27, Michael Meeropol <mameerop at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Chinese people do not make decisions on national economic policy -- an elite does that --- understanding a problem is not the same as having the power to deal with it when it steps on powerful toes ...

Oops, sorry for the poor wording. I meant the "Chinese elite" of course. Since it is the elite that is pushing for electric cars and clean energy, not the "people".

So, back to the point, why do you think that the elite understands that pollution is a problem when it comes to cars and is aggressively pushing toward less emissions there, but not when it comes to power plants?

Jean-Christophe

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