reading through this but does developing the productive forces necessitate the restoration of private property?
China allowed the restoration of private property because that was the Faustian deal for them to get ahead of the USSR while avoiding major confrontations with the US. Since 1991, there isn’t a network of socialist allies to help you build your forces. The few socialist countries that exist today are either blockaded in the globalized economy, or have unresolved issues that transcend ideology.
Now everyone’s economies are intertwined, no one cares about ideology, so your options are appealing to the institutions that have the resources for your people, or gamble on the lives on a billion people by being pure. Even then, becoming neutral and allowing controlled capitalism is still gambling on the lives of billions, but as we’ve seen, less disastrous than Russia post 1991, at least for now. But China has goals to develop its resources domestically and with developing nations. They likely won’t eliminate the diet of western trade, but cutting reliance on the ideological enemy is one way of hopefully cutting reliance on compromise with capitalists internationally and domestically.
You’re right that allowing a capitalist class to emerge will inevitably lead to destruction of socialism, but I don’t think it’s possible to engage in a capitalist world economy without experts in the system. And even though a lot of Marx’s work is about explaining capitalism, it doesn’t mean that every adherent of Marx is an adherent of communism. Michael Hudson wrote his books to explain the US’ parasitic drain of the world - he did not support this system, but you know who did? Neocons, the White House and the CIA - they were so drawn and needed him to break it down for them because even they didn’t know how they were pulling off the hegemony. And even then, Marx’s theories are on the backburner in China. Most of the economists in the government and in academics are western trained, but like I said, this doesn’t mean they support capitalism, just like experts and believers in Marxian economics aren’t automatically communists.
Deng is right in that we cannot allow people to oppose socialism, so ultimately, it comes down to whether China’s ideological agenda is able to retain a socialist end goal in its experts and businessmen who, on paper, support China and socialism, but in reality are free agents.
China allowed the restoration of private property because that was the Faustian deal for them to get ahead of the USSR while avoiding major confrontations with the US. Since 1991, there isn’t a network of socialist allies to help you build your forces. The few socialist countries that exist today are either blockaded in the globalized economy, or have unresolved issues that transcend ideology.
Now everyone’s economies are intertwined, no one cares about ideology, so your options are appealing to the institutions that have the resources for your people, or gamble on the lives on a billion people by being pure. Even then, becoming neutral and allowing controlled capitalism is still gambling on the lives of billions, but as we’ve seen, less disastrous than Russia post 1991, at least for now. But China has goals to develop its resources domestically and with developing nations. They likely won’t eliminate the diet of western trade, but cutting reliance on the ideological enemy is one way of hopefully cutting reliance on compromise with capitalists internationally and domestically.
You’re right that allowing a capitalist class to emerge will inevitably lead to destruction of socialism, but I don’t think it’s possible to engage in a capitalist world economy without experts in the system. And even though a lot of Marx’s work is about explaining capitalism, it doesn’t mean that every adherent of Marx is an adherent of communism. Michael Hudson wrote his books to explain the US’ parasitic drain of the world - he did not support this system, but you know who did? Neocons, the White House and the CIA - they were so drawn and needed him to break it down for them because even they didn’t know how they were pulling off the hegemony. And even then, Marx’s theories are on the backburner in China. Most of the economists in the government and in academics are western trained, but like I said, this doesn’t mean they support capitalism, just like experts and believers in Marxian economics aren’t automatically communists.
Deng is right in that we cannot allow people to oppose socialism, so ultimately, it comes down to whether China’s ideological agenda is able to retain a socialist end goal in its experts and businessmen who, on paper, support China and socialism, but in reality are free agents.