Getting the family together always seems to have a great affect of stirring the intellectual pot. I love it.
My question, in after dinner discussions, was "how strained is the adoption relationship between the U.S. a democracy and China a communist state." One of our dinner guests suggested that China is, in fact, a republic; suggesting it's name The People's Republic of China. Unfortunately, due to my own lack of research on the subject, I could not argue this suggestion.
While looking for this on the web it seems, despite its name, The People's Republic of China, is in fact a communist state. Thier leader, Hu Jintao while holding one democratic title of President of the People's Republic of China, is also the General Secratary of the Communist Party of China. In fact, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been the constitutionally gauranteed rulers of China since Mao Zedong.
It seems, while Mao initially baised the CPC on Marxism-Leninism principals, currently, the Chinese economic practice is described as a socialist market economy. This economic principal, while socialist, the "state retained ownership of large enterprises, it does not use this ownership to intervene to change prices which are set by the market."
Of course this just scratches the surface on an interesting after dinner conversation. Love to hear any feedback. Thanks again family for the always stimulating time.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving Communism and China
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1 comment:
Michael wonders, "where was I, during this conversation?" He says it is a very interesting conversation!
OK--from Michael now: Where was I during this conversation?
It's my belief that lots of folks today mix up economic systems and polical systems. Communism is best understood as an economic system. Its variants all aim to overthrow systems in which rich elites own the means to make money (they own the land, the factories, the machinery, etc--as well as have the education and connections).
Communists want a system that provides equally for all--no classes, no poor and no rich, generally speaking.
One opposite of this is laissez faire capitalism, in which the government restricts nothing, and the elites can do those things that will keep them in power and improve their position--they'll join in "trusts" with other elites against the working classes, pressure governments against reform, militate against anything that might improve the lot of the working class.
(There are other "opposites" to communism; serfdom from European middle ages [?] is one.)
But democracy and republicanism are types of government--they dictate how a people are ruled (or rule themselves). In a democratic republic the people rules itself through elected representatives.
(It's notable that communist revolutionaries in both China and Russia saw themselves as HUGE democrats, and that their followers saw the revolutions as enormous strides for democracy. The ruling elites--who had been oppressing the working classes in both countries for a LONG time--would be cast down, and the people would all rule together! Unfortunately, it didn't end up that way.)
Interesting aside: I'm reading a history book right now that is describing the late 1800's and early 1900's in the US--there was widespread communist sentiment here in America, as a backlash against the substantial injustices done to working class folks.
In the end, though, it's hard to find a "pure" capitalist or communist system today, anyway. The US has Social Security, welfare, anti-trust law, and lots of other buffers in place to keep the working men and women afloat and to keep things "fairer" than they might otherwise be.
And China has, in the past couple of decades, seen that its form of communism was disastrous, and they've opened up significantly to free trade. In fact, China is the greatest supplier of goods to the US--dude, they're a BIG fan of trade with the US!
And they've democratized quite a bit, too, since Mao--but they're not yet a democracy, according to most people. They still appoint their national leaders, though rural ones are elected. And the Communist Party remains the only political party there.
So, I think it's best to see that there are lots of ways to rule a country (democracy, autocracy [which is closer to what Mao and Stalin had], oligarchy, etc), and lots of economic systems (capitalism, communism, feudalism, etc)...but most of those -isms describe IDEAL states; most nations in our world today are somewhere between them. The US is closer to capitalism than communism, certainly, but not totally capitalist.
Fascinating topic! So like I said, where was I when it came up? Maybe playing Pokemon?
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