Judging China using western economic criteria

China is different - as I argue below in a FaceBook discussion

China's epic hangover begins - Telegraph

www.telegraph.co.uk

China's credit bubble has finally popped. The property market is swinging wildly from boom to bust, the cautionary exhibit of a BRIC's dream that is at last coming down to earth with a thud.

December 15, 2011 at 10:53am

Choppa Morph China can't be judged using western economic criteria. In the first place western economic theory is bollocks - they can't understand their own economy (nation-based imperialism and world capitalism) for starters - just look at the mess in the US and Europe that they are helpless before and can't give any coherent explanation for. In the second place - and I assert this with tremendous confidence - China is not fundamentally capitalist. It's still a deformed workers state. The Stalinist USSR degenerated monstrously in the political field, less in the economic. China is monstrously deformed economically, less in the political field (Trotsky made direct comparisons with fascism, and was right - this can't be done with China, however much we detest its repression.
So it's a proto-socialist state that is mismanaging this appallingly - cos it doesn't understand or want to understand Marx's economic theory. But as such it isn't subject to capitalist laws of investment or credit. Above all it doesn't need to subject itself to western-style demands for short and medium term returns on infrastructural/large-scale productive investment. The USSR outperformed all the imperialists in terms of pave of development throughout the 30s. (Good stuff on this in The Revolution Betrayed by Trotsky, of course.)
Mistakes will be made and losses and lurches - how not?! - but they will have nothing   the effect such things have in the imperialist world.
If China fucks up it will be because of political action by the top bureaucracy changing horses and selling out to imperialism - as in the USSR. I don't think the conditions for this are present now, for lots of reasons. The most obvious one at the moment is that imperialism is an visibly stinking and bubbling economic cesspool and who would voluntarily jump into that? The top bureaucrats can do very well thank you expanding their present positions as is.

December 15, 2011 at 10:53am ·   ·  1

Kriya Zur I don't think real estate and "property market" constitutes fixed capital investments... That is allowed greater flexibility in China than fixed Capital investments . Additionally, since land below the structure is all nationalized in China the real estate market appears very different than what it does in India which also means that the property market "swindling" in China would have much lesser effect

December 15, 2011 at 11:58am · 

R H S ‎> since land below the structure is all nationalized in China...
Just   in Australia....

December 15, 2011 at 12:06pm · 

Kriya Zur Eminent domain ?

December 15, 2011 at 12:07pm · 

Kriya Zur ‎@Robert : What acc. to you would be non-capitalist ownership of land then ?

December 15, 2011 at 12:24pm · 

R H S Not sure if state ownership is necessarily non-capitalist. In Australia you only can rent land, not buy. This gives income to the state and a certain 'grip' on real estate, but the overall effect does not seem to be very different from owning land and pay taxes over it perceived value.

December 15, 2011 at 12:45pm · 

Kriya Zur That still doesn't answer my question. Presuming that government ownership of land is merely another form of capitalism where private property technically doesn't exist, what then IS non-capitalist property ? Also there's a contradiction and vagueness in your comment you say that the government has a "grip" over real estate but then say that "the overall effects don't seem to be very different from owning land and pay taxes over it perceived value" . The contradiction is that there is no ownership of land by private persons and all land is owned by the government so how is the tenant able to SELL the land which he does not own ?

December 15, 2011 at 12:57pm · 

R H S The very word property is a capitalist concept, so I'm at a loss what you're looking for.
When the stae owns all land, the possesor of a certain piece of land does not sell, it, but just passes the lease contract to somebody else. He can charge whatever he  s, providing he finds a candidate. I assume however that 'the state' (/municipality/whatever) has a veto. Not very different from the western concept where the state may veto or regulate the *use* of any land, whoever the owner.

December 15, 2011 at 1:04pm · 

O C China is not so strong than we believe. Not all people live well. There is a big difference between towns and country. The last people live   Mao´s times.

December 15, 2011 at 3:11pm · 

Adhiraj Bose ‎@Robert : There cannot not be a Socialist property that is an impossibility. Every social form be it Capitalist or Socialist is based on how property is used and organized. In fact the very difference between systems in how property is organized between one and the other. Capitalism differs from Feudalism in that it can be freely transferred and owned by private persons excersizing their free will based on their wealth rather than their birth as it was with feudal nobility. Under Socialism the private aspect of ownership logically would stand abolished in favor of Social ownership. In transition this necessarily means the state having complete ownership of property. More important than that of course ... is who controls the state i.e. which class controls the state.

December 15, 2011 at 5:09pm · 

R H S Evidently we live a world apart, both geographically and historically. When we had a feudal system, in what we call the Middle Ages, a big and wealthy middle class existed and they transferred property between them all the time.
"Social ownership" as in 'Everything belongs to all of us and nobody is responsable'? I wish you a great future.
The question 'Which class controls the state' reveals where you're coming from; in a functional democracy there are no classes and the state is controilled by whover won the last elections.
BTW My son H S lived in Pune the last half year!

December 15, 2011 at 7:39pm · 

Kriya Zur ‎@Robert : Read up some English history then :-) and see how Common law came into existence. On the point of 'responsibility' have you heard of such things as COOPERATIVES ! :-) *( P.S : Amul cooperative is a $3bn enterprise :) )

December 16, 2011 at 9:35am ·