Peoples’ China: What Lies Ahead?

Whither China? was the name of a widely circulated pamphlet authored by the respected Anglo-Indian Marxist author, R. Palme Dutt. Writing in 1966, with The People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the throes of the “Cultural Revolution,” the pamphlet sought to shed light on the PRC’s tortured road from liberation in 1949 to a vast upheaval disrupting all aspects of Chinese society as well as foreign relations. To most people – across the entire political spectrum—developments within this Asian giant were a challenge to understand. To be sure, there were zealots outside of the PRC who hung on every word uttered by The Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, and stood by every release explaining Chinese events in the People’s Daily, Red Flag and Peking Review. A few Communist Parties and many middle-class intellectuals embraced the Cultural Revolution as a rite of purification. Yet for most, as with Palme Dutt, the paramount question remained: Where is the PRC going? 

 Today, forty-five years later, the question remains open.

I wrote the above thirteen years ago. I contend that the question remains open today. Much has changed, however. In 2011, China-bashing was widespread especially where jobs had disappeared in manufacturing, but largely tempered by a Western business sector anxious to exploit low wages and the Chinese domestic market.

But almost simultaneously with the 2011 posting, the Obama administration made official its “pivot to Asia,” directed explicitly at Peoples’ China. As the Brookings Institute ‘diplomatically’ put it, “Washington is still very much focused on sustaining a constructive U.S.-China relationship, but it has now brought disparate elements together in a strategically integrated fashion that explicitly affirms and promises to sustain American leadership throughout Asia for the foreseeable future.” More explicitly, they intend “to establish a strong and credible American presence across Asia to both encourage constructive Chinese behavior and to provide confidence to other countries in the region that they need not yield to potential Chinese regional hegemony.”

To be sure, the officially declared Obama administration hostility to the PRC was neither a reaction to job loss nor to deindustrialization. The Administration showed no interest in recreating lost jobs or restoring the industrial cities in the Midwest. The real purpose is revealed in the simple phrase “Chinese regional hegemony.” Clearly, by 2011, ruling circles in the US had decided that the PRC was more than an economic cherry ready to be plucked. Instead, it had developed into an economic powerhouse, a true, even the true, competitor in global markets; indeed, it had become a robust threat to U.S. hegemony.

With the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the anti-PRC campaign continued, though conducted in an accelerated, cruder fashion, employing sanctions, threats, ultimatums, and even legal chicanery (the detention of one of Huawei’s executives, the daughter of the company’s founder).

The subsequent Biden administration pursued the same approach, adding another level of belligerence by stirring conflict in the South China Sea and reigniting the Taiwan issue. To anyone paying attention, successive administrations were intensifying aggression against the PRC, a process fueled by the eagerly compliant mainstream media.

It has become commonplace on the left to explain the growing hostility to the PRC by the U.S. and its NATO satellites as the instigation of a new Cold War, a revival of the anti-Communist crusades strengthening after World War II. In the past, I have suggested as much. But that would be grossly misleading.

The original Cold War was a struggle between capitalism and socialism. Whether Western critics will concede that the Soviet alternative was really socialism is irrelevant. It was a sharp and near-total alternative, and the West fought it as such. The Soviet Union did not organize its production to participate in global markets, it did not compete for global markets, nor did it threaten the profitability of capitalist enterprises through global competition. In short, the Soviet Union offered a potent option to Western capitalism, but not the threat of a rival for markets or profits. Moreover, Soviet foreign policy both condemned capitalism and explicitly sought to win other countries to socialist construction.

The same cannot be said for the Western antagonism to the PRC. The West courted Peoples’ China assiduously from the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution through the entire Deng era. Western powers saw the PRC as either an ally against the Soviet Union, a source of cheap labor, an investment windfall, or a virgin market. But with China’s success in weathering the capitalist crisis of 2007-2009, the U.S. and its allies began to look at the PRC as a dangerous rival within the global system of capitalism. Chinese technologies more than rivaled the West’s; its share of global trade had grown dramatically; and its accumulation of capital and its export of capital were alarming to Western powers bent on pressing their own export of capital.

In contrast to the actual Cold War, even the most ardent defender of the “Chinese road to socialism” cannot today cite many instances of PRC foreign policy strongly advocating, assisting, or even vigorously defending the fight for socialism anywhere outside of China. Indeed, the basic tenet of PRC policy-- the noninterference in the affairs of others, regardless of their ideologies or policies-- has more in common with Adam Smith than Vladimir Lenin.

What the Soviet Union took as its internationalist mission-- support for those fighting capitalism-- is not to be found in the CPC’s foreign policy. Nothing demonstrates the differences more than the Soviet’s past solidarity and aid toward Cuba’s socialist construction and the contrasting PRC’s commercial and cultural relations and meager aid.

Accordingly, the PRC’s commercial relations with less developed countries can raise substantial issues. Recently, Ann Garrison, a highly respected solidarity activist, often focusing on imperialism in Africa, wrote a provocative article for Black Agenda Report. In her review of Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives-- an account of corporate mining and labor exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo-- Garrison makes the following commentary guaranteed to raise the ire of devotees of the “Chinese road to socialism”:

[The author of Cobalt Red] explains battery technology and the global dominance of battery manufacture by South Korean, Japanese, and, most of all, Chinese industrial titans. Huge Chinese corporations so dominate Congolese cobalt mining, processing and battery manufacture that one has to ask why a communist government, however capitalist in fact, doesn’t at least somehow require more responsible sourcing of minerals processed and then advanced along the supply chain within its borders. I hope that Kara’s book has or will be translated into Chinese. (my emphasis)

Predictably, rejoinders came fast and furious. In both an interview and response posted on Black Agenda Report, Garrison's critics struggled to explain why PRC-based corporations were not contributing to the impoverishment and exploitation of Congolese workers. They cited Chinese investments in infrastructure and in modernization; they noted huge increases in productivity wrought by Chinese technology; they reminded Garrison of the corruption of the DRC government and local capitalists, and even blamed capitalism itself. How, one critic asked, could the PRC be singled out, when other (admittedly capitalist) countries were doing it as well?

Yet none even made a feeble attempt to explain how the extraction of one of the most sought-after minerals in modern industry could leave the people of the mineral-rich DRC with one of the lowest-- if not the lowest-- median incomes in the entire world. This striking fact points to the enormous rate of exploitation engaged in cobalt, copper, and other resource extraction in this poverty-stricken African country (for a Marxist angle on this question, see Charles Andrews’s article, cited by Garrison, but seemingly misunderstood by her).

In their zeal to defend the PRC’s Belt and Road initiative, these same defenders of the penetration of Chinese capital in poor countries often cite the frequent Chinese concept of “win-win” -- the idea that Chinese capital brings with it victory for both the capital supplier and those ‘benefitted’ by the capital. Theorists of the non-class “win-win” concept are never clear exactly who the beneficiaries are -- other capitalists, corrupt government officials, or the working class. Nevertheless, within the intensely competitive global capitalist system, this “win-win” is not sustainable and is contrary to both experience and the laws of capitalist development. Theoretically, it owes more to the thinking of David Ricardo than Karl Marx.

The PRC’s vexing relationship to capitalism has produced contradictions at home as well as globally. The ongoing collapse of the largely private construction/real-estate industry is one very large example. Once a major factor in PRC growth, overproduction of housing is now a substantial drag on economic advance. Monthly sales of new homes by private developers peaked late in 2020 at over 1.5 trillion yuan and fell to a little more than .25 trillion yuan at the beginning of 2024.

With the private real estate sector on the verge of bankruptcy and a huge number of residential properties unsold or unfinished, the PRC leadership is caught in a twenty-first-century version of the infamous scissors crisis that brought the Soviet NEP-- the experiment with capitalist development of the productive forces-- to a halt. If the government allows the private developers to fail, it will have harsh repercussions throughout the private sector, with banks, and foreign investors. If the government bails out the developers, it will remove the market consequences of capitalist excess and put the burden of sustaining capitalist failure on the backs of the Chinese people.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the government, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is considering placing “the state back in charge of the property market, part of a push to rein in the private sector.” The WSJ editors construe this as reviving “Socialist Ideas”-- a welcome thought, if true.

The article claims that in CCP General Secretary Xi’s view, “too much credit moved into property speculation, adding risks to the financial system, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and diverting resources from what Xi considers to be the ‘real economy’-- sectors such as manufacturing and high-end technology.…”

Putting aside the question of how the private real estate sector was allowed to create an enormous bubble of unfinished and unsold homes, the move to return responsibility for housing to the public sector should be welcome, restoring price stability and planning, and eliminating speculation, overproduction, and economic disparities. 

Unfortunately, there will be uncertain consequences and difficulties for banks, investors, and real estate buyers who purchased under the private regimen.

It is worth noting that no Western capitalist country or Japan has or would address a real estate bubble by absorbing real estate into the public sector.

Under Xi’s leadership, the direction of the PRC’s ‘reforms’ may have shifted somewhat away from an infatuation with markets, private ownership, and foreign capital. The former “enrich yourselves” tolerance for wealth accumulation has been tempered by conscious efforts at raising the living standards of the poorest. Xi has made a priority of “targeted poverty alleviation,” with impressive success.

Western intellectuals harshly criticize the PRC’s ‘democracy’ because it rejects the multi-party, periodic election model long-favored in the West. These same intellectuals fetishize a form of democracy, regardless of whether that particular form earns the trust of those supposedly represented. The mere fact that a procedure purports to deliver democratic or representative results does not guarantee that it actually makes good on its promise.

If China-critics were truly concerned with democratic or popular outcomes, they would turn to measures or surveys of public confidence, satisfaction, or trust in government to judge the respective systems. On this count, the PRC is always found at or near the top in public trust (for example, here and here). Moreover, Chinese society shows high interpersonal or social trust, another measure of success in producing popular social cohesion by a government.

It’s telling that with the Western obsession with democracy, there is little interest in holding bourgeois democracy up to any relevant measure of its trust or popularity. When it is done, the U.S. fares very poorly, with a six-decade decline in public trust, according to Pew. As recently as February 28, the most recent Pew poll shows that even people who do respect “representative democracy” are critical of how it's working. Their answer to their skepticism may be found “if more women, people from poor backgrounds and young adults held elective office”, say respondents. Those elites who so glibly talk of “our democracy,” in contrast to those including the CCP that they call “authoritarians,” might pause to listen to the people of their own country.

The PRC has shocked Western critics with the breakneck pace of its adoption of non-emission energy production. In 2020, the Chinese anticipated generating 1200 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2030. That goal and more will likely be reached by the end of 2024. Overall, the PRC expects to account for more new clean-energy capacity this year than the average growth in electricity demand over the last decade and a half. This means, of course, that emissions have likely peaked and will be receding in the years ahead-- an achievement well ahead of Western estimates and Western achievements, and a victory for the global environmental movement.

At the same time, the PRC’s successful competition in the solar-panel market makes it the target of global competitors, a brutal struggle that undermines the espoused “win-win” approach. Despite the benign tone of “win-win,” market competition is not bound by polite resignation, but aggression, conflict, and, as Lenin affirmed, ultimately war. That is the inescapable logic of capitalism. PRC engagement with the market cannot negate it.

Western leftists too often simplify the ‘Chinese Question’ by making it a parlor game revolving around whether China is or is not a socialist country, an error confusing a settled, accomplished state of affairs with a contested process.

As long as capitalism exists and holds seats of political power, the process of building socialism remains unstable and unfinished.

The 1936 Soviet constitution declared in Article One that the USSR was “a socialist state of workers and peasants,” a status that was under great duress over the subsequent following decades. The 1977 constitution stated even more boldly that the USSR was “a socialist state of the whole people…,” a state without classes and, by implication, class struggle. A decade and a half later, there was no USSR. Building socialism is a fragile process and one prone to reversals and defeats.

Thus, we should follow Palme Dutt’s sage advice and observe developments in the PRC with vigilance and a critical eye. If building socialism is a dynamic process, we should attend to its direction, rather than pronouncing its summary success or failure. The PRC is a complex creation with a complex-- often contradictory-- relationship with other countries as well as the socialist project. The cause of socialism is ill served by either ignoring or exaggerating both missteps and victories in the PRC’s revolutionary path.


Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

Socialism, Democracy, and the Division of Labor

Professor Richard Wolff is a prominent, influential intellectual, with a big following on the left. He is an erudite, clear, and passionate speaker and writer. He is well-regarded for his exposition of Marx’s ideas-- a “go to” when the media tolerates a conversation critical of capitalism, one even advocating “socialism.”

For all of that, he does not represent Marx’s thought well, nor does he offer a viable, serious alternative to capitalism.

It is not a question of Wolff’s scholarship or his commitment to justice. It is, instead, a deep-seated, unwavering hostility to the real existing socialism of the twentieth century and the century’s leading Marxist exponents, the Communists. Of course, Wolff is not alone in this prejudice-- and it is a prejudice and not a reasoned conclusion. Since the intense US Red Scare of the 1950s, since the demonization of everything even vaguely linked to Soviet power or Communist and Workers’ Parties, this prejudice has contaminated social, cultural, and political life in this country. Every radical upsurge was forced to or willingly submitted to ABC: Anything But Communism. 

In its place, US leftists embraced a kind of radical democracy: the view that bringing the furniture of formal democracy-- “one person, one vote, full participation, and majority rule,” quoting Wolff-- into every institution, every practice, every activity-- would in due time sweep away the exploitation, the inequalities, the indignities of capitalism. Radical, comprehensive democratic practices would be necessary and substantially sufficient to trigger the march to socialism.

There is evidence that Marx and Engels once also believed that universal suffrage alone (as advocated by the Chartist movement in England) would be an adequate measure on the road to overcoming capitalism. Their practical experience in the 1848 revolutions and the lessons of the Paris Commune dispelled that illusion. They concluded that a revolutionary defeat of the existing order and the replacement of that order with a democracy in the service of the working class would be necessary for moving beyond capitalism. The furniture of formal democracy was sometimes useful, but often unreliable elements in that endeavor. Marx and Engels did not presume that bourgeois democracy would advance those interests or protect them.

But with anti-Communism established as the national religion of the US, generations of US leftists, from the sixties’ SDS to Occupy and DSA, were hostile to Soviet socialism and repelled by Communist ideology. As a result, a “rethought” Marxism became the nourishment for young activists and the sustenance of veteran Cold War radicals. The expansion of certain democratic practices served and serves as the lodestar of these movements.

Professor Wolff rose to prominence in this milieu and it is reflected in his thought. 

A recent brief and commendably clear statement of Wolff’s views on the presumed shortcomings of real, existing twentieth-century socialism appears in the article, Socialism’s Self Criticism and Real Democracy. Originally appearing in City Watch, the piece has achieved wide currency: Economy for All, CounterPunch, LA Progressive, NewsClick, Countercurrents, Eurasia Review, and many others.

Because he takes it as a settled truth that the socialist countries lacked “real democracy,” Wolff poses the following challenge:

A certain irony of history made the absence of real democracy in socialist countries an ongoing target of many socialists in those countries…

Because this time it is many socialists who make the encounter, they ask why modern socialism, a social movement critical of capitalism’s lack of real democracy, would itself merit a parallel criticism. Why have socialist experiments to date produced a self-criticism focused on their inability to create and maintain authentic democratic systems??

Wolff searches for an explanation for this presumed lack of democracy in “socialist experiments.” The search takes him to a common feature of capitalism and socialism (and he sometimes seems to suggest in previous social formations): “The answer lies in the employer-employee relationship.”

The employer-employee relation is indeed often a feature of capitalist and socialist enterprises. Soviet enterprises had managers who presumably hired individuals at state-owned enterprises. No doubt, it could have reflected a hierarchical relationship; it could have reflected a relation of dominance; and, further, it could have reflected the exploitation relationship. But it need not do so simply because of the existence of an employer/employee relationship. That can easily be shown with a simple, mundane hypothetical example:

Faced with a plumbing catastrophe, Jones engages the Smith Plumbing Company. Jones hires Smith’s firm to fix the kitchen sink. Jones employs Smith and company; Smith sends a worker, an employee (but not an employee of Jones), to make the repair. Jones is the employer and Smith’s company is his/her employee. Yet there is no hierarchy, no dominance, nor any exploitation by Jones.

Further, Smith has five employees, who Smith lords over, dominates, and exploits. Here, the employer-employee relationship generates entirely different, negative socially-significant outcomes. 

We have one innocuous, one exploitative employer/employee relationship. 

Why does the employer/employee distinction fail to reveal anything relevant regarding real democracy or the struggle for socialism?

The character of employment, the nominal expression for the employer/employee relationship, is historically determined by the division of labor. Under capitalism, its character is tied to the exploitation relationship. That is, given that ownership of enterprises resides with private individuals or groups, owners establish employer/employee relations as hierarchical, dominating, and exploitative to secure surplus value. Capitalists engage this particular division of labor to secure their ends.

But, presumably, under socialism, with social ownership of enterprises, a non-antagonistic, non-exploitative employer/employee relationship could be established strictly based on the division of labor. The “employer”/manager could be determined by credentials, test-results, past experience, past performance, seniority, or a host of other relevant, merit-based terms. 

Formal democratic procedure is, thus, no unique, magic elixir. In these circumstances, Wolff’s democratic procedure-- election of “employer” -- might well clash with merit and/or efficiency.

That is surely why Marx and Engels placed exploitation and the relations between capitalists (owners of enterprises) and the proletariat (the workers) at the center of their analysis. They attend little specifically to the employer/employee relationship, except when it is shorthand for this exploitation nexus. 

Moreover, Marx and Engels (and many of their successors) believed that a revolution was the most democratic expression of the popular will-- what Wolff might want to call “real democracy.” While they would undoubtedly find setbacks to democracy in the historical trajectory of twentieth-century socialism, they would also have seen the removal of the power of the capitalist class and the end of labor exploitation as marking the most broadly democratic advance since the French revolution. 

Where Wolff sees a surfeit of democracy (“socialism’s self-criticism”), others see a harbinger of a far more democratic future. Wolff says correctly: “Democracy is incompatible with class-divided economic systems.” I would add that democracy is only possible with the elimination of class-divided economic systems. 

Fixated on democratic form, Professor Wolff is led away from the democratic content of Marxist socialism and its realization in real, existing socialism. Further, he fixates on a particular democratic form associated with the capitalist republic that may or may not be the best mechanism for exercising the will or interests of the working class. Every revolutionary generation is faced with a different set of challenges. Nation-states typically suffer or gain from uneven development, as Lenin always stressed. The advance of industrialization, the degree of poverty, the levels of education, external and internal opposition, complex social strata, national conflict, and a host of other factors make the choice of democratic form a test for the first and later generations of revolutionaries.

Western Marxists, often quick to measure all by the democratic forms established by the bourgeois revolutions of past centuries, just as often fail to grasp these complexities. They are willing to forgo pressing the socialist project for the “purity” of so-called “real democracy.”

In Wolff’s case, he chooses to secure this purity by basing his anti-capitalism around the idea of worker-owned cooperatives. To be sure, they could meet the cherished standards of “one person, one vote, full participation, and majority rule” in ways that the ultimate class conflict-- the overthrow of capitalism-- might not. It is possible that cooperatives can and do establish and survive on the margins of the capitalist system, but only a dreamer believes that these worker utopias will ever seriously challenge the behemoth of monopoly capitalism. 

Wolff is not alone in retailing a polite version of Marxism rather than the radical ideas that the working class so desperately needs.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

The ‘Democracy’ Wars

As part of the new Cold War orchestrated consensually by leaders of the two US political parties, a battle over democracy has emerged.

Aligned on one side are a group of bogus-independent, non-profit organizations like Freedom House (90% US government funded 2017), V-Dem Institute (funded by various governments, World Bank), Polity Data Series (funded by the CIA until 2020) that purport to rank and score nations on their level or degree of democratic governance. Not surprisingly, the countries that are aligned with their sponsors score high on democracy, while those who rival or conflict with their sponsors show poorly.

Despite these glaring conflicts of interest and transparent biases, scholars and pundits throughout the Atlantic alliance uncritically cite these results, thereby readily enlisting in the new Cold War encouraged by Western political elites.

Arrayed on the other side are those countries designated as foes of democracy-- The People’s Republic of China (PRC), The Russian Federation (Russia), The Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran), The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Venezuela), The Republic of Nicaragua (Nicaragua), (The Republic of Cuba) Cuba and others-- all of which proclaim their commitment to equal or greater democracy than their Western counterparts. 

The war over democracy escalated with the Biden administration calling for a “Summit for Democracy” on December 8-10. Foregoing any pretense of dialogue, the US State Department refused invitations to those countries on its hit list, turning the event into an orgy of self-congratulation and a rebuke of those falling short of US ideals. Other countries like Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Colombia, and India, noted for their retreat from democratic norms, were welcomed with open arms. 

At the same time, the mainstream media, including The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, are bemoaning the “backsliding,” “decline,” or “weakening” of US democracy. Establishment pundits express alarm over the Trump-turn in US politics, the increasing hostility between the two parties’ partisans, and charges and countercharges of electoral corruption.

Yet, they are oddly tolerant of the decisive role of money in “democratic” deliberation and the corrosive influence of corporate power, two anti-democratic trends that persistently worsen with the growth of economic inequality and profoundly undermine democracy. 

*****

Quoting R. Williams, Brian S. Roper in The History of Democracy makes this salient point: “Democracy ‘is a very old word… It came into English in the sixteenth century from a translation of demokratia, Greek, from the root words demos-- people, and kratos-- rule. It is at once evident from Greek use that everything depends on the senses given to people and to rule’” (page 1).

It has taken hundreds of years for capitalist ruling classes to concede that “demos” means all of the people and not merely “white males of substance.” In the US, that awakening only became nominally universal with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted fifty-six years ago as a response to a determined peoples’ movement.

As for kratos, there have been many models of democratic rule since the early Dutch, US, and French Republics, models that allow for power-sharing monarchies, socialist democracy, constitutions, multiple parties, direct and indirect elections, short or long electoral terms, single or multiple houses of congress or parliament, various vote-counting and weighing schemes, and a host of other wrinkles that democratic theorists have devised.

From even a casual glance at history, it should be, therefore, clear that who constitutes the people and what constitutes governance or rule are highly contested. Nevertheless, history does demonstrate that social movements have forced further democratization upon existing ruling classes. In general, there has been a trend towards an expanding demos and a more diverse kratos.

This suggests that perhaps it is more useful to view democracy as a process, rather than a categorical state-of-affairs, a fixed political achievement. 

Countries become more democratic or less democratic in the same way as they become more just or less just. Like justice, democracy is not a success-term, but a relation, a measure of the direction of change, a constantly moving target. For an illustrative example, consider a newly liberated former colony that is certainly more democratic than its previously dominated status regardless of the kind of political institutions that it chooses. Surely, this makes more sense of democracy than the idealized model celebrated in Western patriotic grammar school textbooks.

It is the height of arrogance for Western ideologues to insist that some countries have crossed a supposed line separating enlightened democrats from “authoritarian” pagans. Democracy is a process and not a merit badge. 

For nation-states, “democratization” should be the watchword, the never-ending process that places more and more decisions in the hands of more and more people. From this perspective, popular revolutions would count as the most democratizing process of all, liberating masses from elite oppression and imposing the rule of the majority over the former rule of a minority.

*****

The era of the great bourgeois revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-- the Dutch, English, and French risings-- were clearly and unmistakably a time of great democratization with the liberation of masses of people from feudal constraints and/or absolutist rule (the US revolution ill-fits this pattern). The new ruling classes created new procedures and institutions to guarantee both that the gains were secured and that no new challenges to the new rule would arise. They were far from completing the democratic project.

The heralded and high-minded constitutions of the period (including the US constitution) created new institutions-- parliaments, congresses, executives, etc.-- and procedures-- lawmaking, rights construction, voting regulations, etc.-- that were believed by their creators to be constitutive of democracy.

 In other words, the various “founding founders” thought they had captured the essence of democracy in a set of rules for its continued implementation, as if democratization was completed with declarations and constitutive documents.  

What the bourgeois revolutionaries failed to understand was that procedural democracy-- a worthy product at the ascendency of the bourgeoisie-- was a great achievement, but one not adequate for all times or adequate for the continued march of democratization under changing conditions. Bourgeois democracy certainly expanded the participation of the masses (and assured the dominance of the bourgeoisie as a class!), yet it too often failed to guarantee rule for the people.

In discussions of democracy, the distinction between rule by the people and rule for the people is too often overlooked or conflated. There is no reason to presume that a system constructed to establish rule by the people will necessarily produce rule for the people. Cynics can readily manipulate well-meant institutions from benefitting the people. Fair rules do not guarantee just outcomes.

There is every reason to believe that, in a class society, the best of procedural democracies will not rule in ways that favor all or even most of the people. Nowhere in the constitutions of the bourgeois democracies will be found the recognition of the existence of social classes and the question of their relationship to democracy or democratization.

Certainly, the history of the US two-party system for all of this century, last century, and beyond has seen the government generally favor the interests of a small minority of the wealthy and powerful over the interests of the majority of working people. Others can argue whether the procedures established by the supposedly all-wise “founding fathers” is the most perfect example of how a democracy should be organized. But shouldn’t its failure to rule for the people count against its democratic content? How democratic can a “democracy” be if it fails to serve the interests of the people that it rules?

The stunning growth of economic inequality-- itself a constant in the Western “democracies” --- surely demonstrates a failure to measure up to the performance test of a purported democracy: are the people better off than with any alternative political arrangement besides bourgeois democracy? 

Opinion poll after opinion poll show that the majority of the people-- the supposed beneficiaries of democracy-- want guarantees of housing, jobs, health care, education, safety, etc., guarantees that Western 'democracies' consistently fail to deliver. 

Detaching a concept of democracy from the wellbeing or interests of the people knows no greater cynicism. Democracy without a connection to the interests of the majority is faux-democracy, a mere parlor game.

Obsession with the form of democracy-- the obsession fostered by capitalist leaders-- blinds far too many to the importance and centrality of the content of democracy, a distinction too often overlooked in the conversation over democratic governance.

Democratic form that fails to deliver for the majority of the people is a mere empty shell, as the current US “democracy” demonstrates.

*****

In the ‘democracy’ wars, The People’s Republic of China is now clearly in the sights of many in the developed capitalist countries, especially the US. The rise of PRC economic power, its rivalry with US influence in the world, and PRC’s independent stance in global politics has increased the enmity of the US and its allies to the point of a new Cold War.

Like the old Cold War with the Soviet Union, PRC’s enemies focus on the fact that the PRC is a “one-party” state. That is, the Communist Party takes a leading role and the deliberative organs are not organized around two or more parties. Instead, the operative councils and parliament are non-partisan, composed of both Communists and non-Communists.

Ironically, most of the founders of the heralded Western 'democracies' never envisioned, nor wanted parties or factions; yet multiple parties have become a litmus test for democracy in the eyes of the Atlantic alliance watchdogs. Indeed, these same watchdogs have since raised the bar again to deny democratic governance exists among several countries that have party systems and robust elections. They are said to have 'authoritarian' tendencies, a slippery idea coined to obscure, rather than shed light on the democracy debate.

The People’s Republic of China has responded to the ‘democracy’ wars with a report entitled Pursuing Common Values of Humanity -- China's Approach to Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights, written by New China Research (NCR), affiliated with the Xinhua News Agency. The 88 page document is a comprehensive argument for the democratic content of PRC governance. While the report develops a number of provocative, fresh ideas, it has received no more than superficial note in the monopoly media, an indication of the deeply dogmatic prejudice of Western commentators.

The NCR report quotes PRC leader Xi on bourgeois democracy: “If the people are awakened only at the time of voting but go dormant soon after, if they listen to slogans at the time of the election but have no say after the election, or if they are favored at the time of canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) argues for a new type of democracy that it calls “whole-process democracy,” a democracy that “pursues the unification of process and results-based democracy, procedural and substantive democracy, direct democracy and indirect democracy, as well as people’s democracy and state will.” The CCP counter poses whole-process democracy to “democracy for the few,” “one-time democracy,” and “pseudo-universal democracy.”

To my mind, “Whole-process democracy” is not rendered a completely transparent concept by this report-- some formulations remain vague. Others can judge for themselves, but the document and the accompanying ideas are surely worthy of careful study.

It should be evident nonetheless that the CCP recognizes that the test of democracy is how well it delivers for the people, that robust democracy must be more than procedural, that it must be substantial (results-oriented), as well. 

To bolster the claim that the test of democracy is fidelity to the interests of the people-- substantial, material democracy-- and that People’s China meets that test, the NCR cites a Harvard Ash Center study by Cunningham, Saich, and Turiel that shows trust of the population in the Communist Party of China has exceeded 90 percent for over a decade. 

In May of 2020, I cited a similar study, the Edelman Trust Barometer, that placed the PRC at the top of the list of 26 countries surveyed in terms of popular trust (the US, Germany, France, UK, Australia, Spain, Japan, and Russia all fell into the “distrust” bottom of the survey). So much for the "rule by the people" in the heralded capitalist countries.

How do Western political theorists reconcile their consistently negative portrayal of Chinese democracy with the high level of trust held by the people of the PRC in their governance?

By simply ignoring it.

A deeper, less smug discussion of democracy might be a good antidote to Western conceit in the ‘democracy’ wars.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com 

The People Speak (and They are Angry!)

If you sometimes think that US politicians are aliens descended from another galaxy, you are not alone. A recent Pew poll conducted in November/December 2020 shows that 67% of those surveyed agreed that “most politicians are corrupt.” While the media and the two-party system have done their best to divide citizens into two warring tribes standing before an unbridgeable chasm, scorn for corrupt politicians transcends that divide.

Oddly, this opinion, held by two out of three of our neighbors does not square with the “respected” indices periodically trotted out by Transparency International or Freedom House that place the US in the upper ranks of corruption-free countries. On the other hand, these indices invariably find rampant corruption in the poorer countries of Africa, Asia, and South America. Whoever is on the US or Europe’s enemies list (Russia, PRC) also gets tarred with the corruption label.

Why the difference?

First, the indices are based upon elite opinion. They survey a sample of business people, academics and other professionals for their perceptions, experiences or anecdotes.

Second, they do not distinguish between the minor graft of a poorly paid customs official or a restaurant manager and the massive million- or billion-dollar transactions between lobbyists, contractors, and the politically powerful. Where one may be technically legal and the other a minor illegality, they are weighed the same. Nor are the vast effects on public morale and the political fate of a country weighed against the triviality of a bribe to get a better seat in a concert. 

Apparently, the US public, in its wisdom, is more indignant over millionaire politicians filling their campaign coffers and their bank accounts than with a twenty-peso note slipped into a passport.

From the same Pew poll, we learn that 56% of the US respondents think that “elected officials care what ordinary people think” does not describe their country well. In other words, most people in the US think that politicians do not care about their concerns or priorities. Further, the results suggest that politicians only care about what people other than ordinary folks think.

Then, whose thoughts do our politicians care about?

Clearly, the implication is that the “extraordinary” people who politicians listen to are the rich and powerful, the same people who corrupt politicians.

Consequently, most people have little confidence in the existing political system in the US. Fewer than half (45%) are somewhat (36%) or very (9%) “satisfied with the way democracy is working in their country.” Twenty-four percent-- nearly one in four-- of those polled were not at all satisfied, while 29% are not too satisfied with US “democracy.” 

If our understanding of democracy has something to do with the will of the people, then surely the Pew poll casts a long shadow over the popular notion that the USA is a democracy, indeed, the fullest flowering of democracy. While this finding may be discomforting for some, it expresses the sense of most people. For those talking heads who fretted over losing “our” democracy to the scurrilous Donald Trump, they may actually be concerned about something that is already gone.

The low popular opinion of how well democracy is working leads naturally to the question of its sustainability. On this question, the Pew researchers found that only 7% of those queried felt that the political system, as it exists, doesn’t need change. Another 28% maintain that it only needs minor change. Thus, a solid third of the people are relatively satisfied with the political system in the US.

But nearly two out of three are not! 

Forty-seven percent-- nearly half-- of those polled believe that the political system needs major change. And 18%-- nearly one in five-- think that the current system needs to be “completely reformed”!

Some will say that these results are ambiguous because the questions and terms are elastic. Many meanings can be attached to “major change” or “completely reformed.” Even “democracy” and “political system” are slippery. While this is true, it is true of virtually every poll; we draw conclusions based on our own, often biased, interpretation of the questions asked.

Nonetheless, the fact that nearly two-thirds of the sample express a need for at least major change-- whether that change is the electoral system, the structure of government, or the broad political-economic system-- counts as a powerful, profound expression of dissatisfaction.

Moreover, the dissatisfaction is somewhat nuanced. While respondents are cynical about politicians and their corruption, alienated from elected officials, skeptical about US democracy, and highly critical of the political system, they have a growing trust in government.

Democratic and Republican Party think-tankers may be befuddled by this distinction, puzzled that the public is inconsistent by trusting the government, but not politicians. Yet the distinction makes all the sense in the world-- the government is there to help people and, without the corruption and opportunism of the politicians, can do so. Contrary to the media and the two-party onslaught on “big” government sustained since the Reagan administration, 54% of the people trust the government to “do what is right for the country.” In fact, the percentage has risen over the last 3 years.

The Pew researchers took a further step to determine what kind of changes people would like to see become features of effective, democratic governance. 

One suggestion-- citizen assemblies-- was thought to be an action important for the national government to take. Forty-three percent agreed very much, while another 36% agreed somewhat. As the Pew pollsters noted:

“Citizen assemblies, or forums where citizens chosen at random debate issues of national importance and make recommendations about what should be done, are overwhelmingly popular.”

Respondents were almost equally enthusiastic for another democratic, but even more radical measure: “Allow citizens, and not members of the national legislature, to vote directly to decide what becomes law for some key issues.” Forty-two percent agreed very much and 31% somewhat on such a measure. Again the US public discerns the difference between government and the elected officials and prefer to keep government, while ditching their “representatives.”

The strong support for both citizen assemblies and referenda demonstrates a hunger for a political system that is both more democratic and more connected with the interests of the public than what exists.

Like earlier polls that expressed a decided retreat on the part of the public from the Cold War-imposed unthinking hostility to socialism, this poll shows that the image of the ignorant, backward, conservative masses disseminated by smug elites and media hacks is a myth. Instead, the thinking of the majority is far more advanced, more progressive, dare I say, more radical than that of its “enlightened” betters.

And there is a lesson here for the US left. Shattered into a thousand identity groups, collected around single-issue NGOs, and clinging to the tail of the Democratic Party, most of what calls itself the left is out of touch with the radical, even revolutionary potential simmering under the placid surface of daily US life.

Disillusioned by the decades of rightward drift by the two corporate parties and long since giving up any grand vision, the broad left foresees little and settles for even less.

A left that runs far ahead of mass sentiment is foolish, but a left that misses the opportunities afforded by an angry public, hungry for change, is tragically irrelevant.

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com