ANYONE WHO HAS SEEN the wonders of modern Chinese architecture might easily be persuaded that “neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics” is a spectacular success. But the skylines of Shanghai and Beijing testify not to the emancipation of the Chinese masses, but to the burgeoning power of the Chinese elites. Like the futuristic skyline of Los Angeles in the sci-fi movie Bladerunner, they are symbols of a deeply dystopic state.
For close to forty years the Chinese Communist Party has presided over the economic modernisation of China. From its state of near collapse following the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, the “capitalist roaders” so despised by Chairman Mao have steered their country to its present position as the world’s industrial powerhouse. Step-by-step they have mounted the staircase of economic growth and sophistication, freely borrowing techniques and ideas from the capitalist West, but never permitting modernisation to cross over into the development of a recognizably capitalist class. They called it “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and its extraordinary achievements are the reason why the Communist Party still rules China.
It could not have happened had China followed the example of Russia and instituted democratic reforms. The modernisation of China was a strictly top-down affair – albeit one in which the top takes action to head-off the threat of changes driven from below. The Party leaders did this by empowering their counterparts in the regions and municipalities: giving them just enough latitude to enrich themselves, but not enough to threaten the system as a whole.
Thus was established the unholy alliance between party apparatchiks, state owned enterprise bosses, free-wheeling entrepreneurs and organised criminal gangs that made the Chinese “miracle” possible. Driven by a combination of political ambition, personal greed, rampant corruption, extra-legal force and Chinese commercial acumen, the transformation of the Chinese economy and Chinese society proceeded at breakneck speed.
But the raw material for all this “progress” was – as it has ever been in human history – the bodies and brains of the great mass of the people. Those who found themselves excluded from the magic circles of power and personal enrichment.
Deng Xiaoping began the process by engineering the break-up of the agricultural communes and their associated systems of health, education and welfare. The millions of peasants displaced by these land and economic reforms were to become part of the greatest migration in human history. From China’s vast interior they made their way to the huge new joint-enterprise factories that were opening up along the Chinese coast. Many came with official permits, but many more came without. Living in a state of legal limbo, these “unofficial” migrants took what work they were offered and did as they were told. Like their Nineteenth Century counterparts, the millions of East-European immigrants who poured into the rapidly industrialising United States, they are essential to maintaining the low-cost labour upon which China’s Faustian economic bargain with the West is based.
You will not find these sons and daughters of modern China in the new air-conditioned office towers of Shanghai and Beijing. They live where the housing is cheapest, the pollution thickest, and health, education and welfare services non-existent. They are not dressed by Armani or Dior, and they do not holiday in Queenstown. Their workplaces do not put health and safety first, nor are they represented by unions. Attempts to better their conditions are more often than not ended by the bosses’ hired thugs. Complaining to the authorities only earns them a visit from the Police. (“Re-education Through Labour” camps are one of the few Maoist-era institutions that survived Deng’s reforms.) Few now remember, and none dare recall, the bright vision of Tiananmen Square. For them, the distinction between “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics” is difficult to discern.
INDIA RESEMBLES CHINA only inasmuch as neoliberals like to claim it as proof of their ideology’s benevolent impact on the peoples of the world. This is entirely delusional. All that India offers us is the same grim evidence of dystopian excess as the grossly unfree and unequal Peoples Republic. The investigative journalist, John Pilger, calls contemporary India: “extreme capitalism’s pact with feudalism”.
Mahatma Ghandi’s heroic attempt to construct a new India out of the British Raj: an India without castes and classes, in which all religions and all ideologies would be tolerated and enjoy equal rights; was foundering even before a member of a right-wing Hindu political movement shot him to death in January 1948. Jawaharlal Nehru’s attempt to make India a secular socialist republic fared no better. In the end, India’s ancient caste system outlived them all.
It is difficult to imagine a cultural template more suited to the imposition of neoliberalism that India’s rigid caste system. The latter has its origins in the political and economic needs of a society characterised by a grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power. As gross inequality backed by state power is a reasonably good description of the sort of world neoliberals are trying to create, it’s not hard to explain why India struck them as a nation it could do business with.
India’s “New Economic Policy” of 1991, like New Zealand’s Rogernomics “reforms” of 1984, was imposed on a nation in the midst of an economic crisis. That the crisis coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union (one of India’s strongest diplomatic, and economic, partners) only reinforced the message from the IMF that, in order to be bailed out of its difficulties, the country would have to embrace the new orthodoxy of open borders and open markets. India also followed the New Zealand model inasmuch as the Prime Minister who rammed through these changes, P V Narasimha Rao, was a member of the Indian National Congress – India’s democratic socialist party.
In the years since, India has become the destination for massive amounts of foreign investment, and its elites have taken advantage of their new open economy to enrich themselves beyond the dreams of even the wealthiest of feudal maharajahs. High tech hubs, like the city of Mumbai, give the impression of a nation rapidly catching up with its Western competitors. But if the inequitably distributed wealth and high-tech industrial development is real, the notion that the Indian masses are being similarly enriched is illusory.
Since 1992, inequality in India has increased. With the removal of the protective barriers erected by the Congress Party in the 1950s and 60s, ordinary Indians have seen their economy taken over by all the usual transnational suspects. Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Microsoft, Monsanto and many, many more have brought with them the same sense of diminished influence and control that all the re-colonised peoples of the world have experienced.
At its base, India remains the numberless mass of deeply impoverished and politically marginalised people it has always been. Like their Chinese brothers and sisters, the vast majority of Indians have little reason to thank their neoliberal “liberators”. Their masters – white, yellow or brown – have always danced with the Devil. It’s an entirely inadequate consolation for neoliberalism’s victims that their souls, if nothing else, remain their own.
Same has happened in NZ over the past 30-40 years under neoliberal economics, wealth gained by the priviledged few through the privatisation of State Assets ?
Same has happened in NZ over the past 30-40 years under neoliberal economics, wealth gained by the priviledged few through the privatisation of State Assets ?
Indeed it has , Jack…
And I’d like to express my appreciation to diligent and informed Political commentators such as Mr Trotter and other Academics , historians , Economics and Political Scientists who have contributed to a more in depth understanding on these issues.
Oftentimes it is that we know the framework but not the finer nuances – particularly as it is in other country’s who have undergone or are undergoing a similar situation.
It strikes me as ironic that neo liberal apologists such as Matthew Hooton seem to lack that essential historical background knowledge to adequately present their cases, – they seem only to deal with situations in a contextual setting of one or two years ago – that , – and a smattering of statistics ignoring empirical evidence and any real consideration of the effects of monetarist policy’s on the greater public.
Which only leads one to suspect that in any indepth analysis of any historical significance of social , economic and political import … that they have much to hide.
And that serves their purposes well as they are only paid by a current govt to write articles and appear on talk shows to punt for their current paymaster.
I will add again a link that a regular poster here – COUNTRYBOY – gave on one of Martyn Bradbury’s posts,… having watched it and seen the correlation with the experiences of Bolivia, Nicaragua , Chile and Venezuela and that of the neo liberalism we had here since 1984… it may just open your eyes to the type of vicious people who orchestrated it.
And they are not pleasant. They are literally responsible for thousands upon thousands of individual’s torture and deaths in those Latin American country’s.
Its one hours viewing, …and I believe quite essential viewing. Put out by Maori TV.
http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy
I watched The war on Democracy on Maori TV this week.
A lot of parallels to NZ. The behaviour of the media in Venezuela was a stand out in this respect.
We have much to fear and much to learn about the essential violence and distain for ordinary people by those perpetrating the neo liberal revolution of the past 40 years.
The courage of the indigenous people of South America and their friends to keep resisting after 500 years of brutal colonization is a lesson for all.
We can never give up our hope for a more just future.
Yesb its classic “Capitalism at mwork, and that’s why it is now crumbling arouind us all, as the then expanding middle class that provided fuel to grow the economy and pay taxes is now shrinking under Key/English sinking lid economic subjugating of overtaxing that middle class is dying along with the whole economy now.
During the egalitarian era we all had money and flourished under more taxes but now the tax take is shrinking and so is that middle class so we are stuffed.
Austerity is what key/English is using to try and balance the books but he is killing the economy and the middle class doing this even though the Natz wont admit they are carrying out austerity in fact they are behind the scenes while not telling us honestly.
This was done in the form of making every government agency cut back on spending and shrinking their budgets, so this is now seeing every sector of our economy affected by shrinking services and assistances.
Health,police, corrections, welfare services, Kiwirail, and a host of other public agencies are suffering including NZ Housing as they sell off their state HOUSING STOCK, SO WE ARE SEEING THE WHOLE QUALITY OF NZ LIFE GOING DOWN THE GURGLER, AS SOON PM KEY WILL BE FORCED TO SELL MOLRE ASSETS AND REDUCE BENEFITS AND PENSIONS ALSO.
GOODBYE NZ PIE.
Unfortunately we the taxpayers have to finance National’s $120 Billion Deficit, the interest needs to be paid hence the further sale of State Assets, ie State Housing.
I thought National promised not to sell any more State Assets?
Was talking to a Chinese man outside Parliament last year, was in awe of my protesting, singing and reciting poetry. Told me there is no way anybody could to what I did in China they would be jailed or killed.
When I asked him about communism he said no, China now run by Cruel Capitalists, things were very bad. He also said there were now lawless cities in China that the government could not control.
That the government controlled all media and only what they wanted to be seen was seen. When I heard about the rebel attack on the big Chinese port (can’t remember name) I knew the rebellion had started. People cannot be controlled like Chinese are trying to do – in all our hearts is freedom from persecution and justice. Every rich society as fallen because the rich can’t help themselves and start persecuting the poor – won’t be any different this century.
Won’t be much longer and the place will ‘explode’ that’s going to make it interesting when we can’t get the things we need and don’t know how to make them ourselves any more.
Kia kaha to us all.
“Won’t be much longer and the place will ‘explode’ that’s going to make it interesting when we can’t get the things we need and don’t know how to make them ourselves any more.”
That won’t be the only worry, my friend.
Then it will be politican opportunists whipping up nationalistic feelings that will take control of China’s government. And while the economy may create turmoil and suffering, they will try to find quick and easy solutions, and perhaps take steps to seize resources and land they need to feed and employ their own and occupy certain neighbouring areas. Siberia is attractive, but so are some spots in South East Asia, and Japan is the arch enemy, which is also now arming itself, getting ready for the first military adventures outside its territory. Al Jazeera just reported that apparently some missiles have been stationed on newly created islands in the South China Sea.
Humanity will never learn, so prepare for the elites to drag us into WW3, it is evolving and heading that way while you read this (in Syria, the Mid East and East Asia, and also in Eastern Ukraine and some other trouble spots).
Informative historical insight, depressing for those of us who hope for better from our species.
The clear exposure of the lie being spread by the Right at present (that capitalism is reducing poverty world-wide) will be lost on those who do not want to see, as well as those who do not bother to read.
Thank you Chris – this rings true with the history that I have read and the analyses I accept about our current society.
Please keep the flame alive – do not give up writing.
Name me one state that has developed successfully economically that didn’t follow a model involving utilising the tools of capitalism.
Yawn. – stuff off troll!
Post hoc ergo propter hoc?
Not quite because there are numerous examples of states that have attempted another path. Venezuela is a good example of a recent one. They are going backwards in terms of development.
What nonsense you talk Gosman – there is abundant small scale capitalism in Venezuela – it is the actions of large foreign corporations that have been curtailed. These, as NZ has learned to its cost, do not benefit society at all.
Since you ask, I would quote the Waikato Maori agriculture industry before Grey’s invasion on trumped-up accusations. Capitalists have always done their utmost to prevent any other system from succeeding. Wellington must have been most concerned to see the economically successful community based on communal structure that was thriving in the Waikato – hence the move to invent a fictitious plan for rebellion, invade the whole area, and install a ‘healthy’ capitalist system based on private ownership. Like that one? The USA has done its best to sabotage any kind of socialist economy since and before World War 2, in case your blinkered mind needs reminding.
There is none, that’s because global capitalism is brutally efficient. Anyone who tries to deviate will be crushed by war and sanctions. If this is your justification for capitalism, then you need to consider your values.
A better question is: “Name me one capitalist state that has not developed successfully?”
The whole of the global south comes to mind. Try stepping outside of your neoliberal ideology Gosman
Well, actually, Gosman, New Zealand developed it’s infra-structure (road, rail, electricity generation, telecommunications, healthcare, postal services, air-travel, education, etc) by State planning and funding.
It was only in the 1980s that capitalist parasitism took over, buying up former state assets because they couldn’t afford (or wouldn’t risk their own capital) to set up competing services.
In fact, I recall one competitor to NZ Post in the late ’80s (early 90s?) demanding “inter-connection” with NZ Post’s delivery system.
NZ Post rightly told the bludgers to fuck off.
And other instances are Soviet Russia, China, and Cuba. We might not approve of their dire human rights records (with Stalin being on a par with Adolf Hitler), but their systems lifted their respective nations from Third World feudalism, to modern nation-states. In Russia and China’s cases, they went from under-developed feudal-states to global super-powers.
If you want to know more, Gosman, rather than asking gormless questions (to which you don’t have any real interest in knowing the answers), do some historical study. World history is not as black and white as you believe it is.
“With the removal of the protective barriers erected by the Congress Party in the 1950s and 60s, ordinary Indians have seen their economy taken over by all the usual transnational suspects. Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Microsoft, Monsanto and many, many more have brought with them the same sense of diminished influence and control that all the re-colonised peoples of the world have experienced.”
India is a strange and rather hypocritical kind of country, of course run by an elite, not just the rich and powerful, also the educated political elite, some of them having good intentions to create a better society.
I heard that they have decided to keep Facebook’s low level easy internet access option out of there, so they still try to protect the country from some undesired foreign influences. Of course there is now western business and corporate influence present all over India, but also is Indian business rather strong.
But tradition is tenacious, and so we still of “untouchables”, arranged marriages and huge dowries handed over.
China has the social class differences that Chris has described, same as India, so all this talk by economists that hundreds of millions have been “lifted out of poverty” is indeed somewhat dishonest or delusional.
The poor and powerless there continue to be sold the “dream” for progress and a better future life, that keeps the machinery going. Once an economic crisis hits them, it will blow up, wait and see it coming.
As for the injustices, honestly, most here in New Zealand, or other developed countries, do not give a shit, as long as they can get the cheap gadgets, clothing, software and what else that comes from there. Consumerism rules, selfishness and individualism rules, and while production of many goods has been shifted off-shore, people are no longer confronted by the slave labour and pollution that comes with producing the desired goodies.
Thanks for reminding us, Chris, but who will take note, and who will bother having sympathy and offer solidarity with the downtrodden slave workers and even worse off in those or other countries?
I hear almost nobody express the latter, it will only be the known ones, who care, most just turn away and move on, focusing on “number 1” and little else.
I was in Shanghai for a few months in 2002 – walked past construction camps every morning. Sometimes there were big rings of ashes outside like someone had had a bonfire. These marked funerals. The grey walled industrial cafes of Pu Shi were bleaker than a dystopian novel and the dead and reeking river wound through a city as broken as Megacity One without Judge Dredd.
Do you know anything about the UN’s MDG’s specifically the ones involving poverty reduction?
Do you?
Seems he doesn’t, that is why he may have asked. And apart from that he will have thrown this in, just to irritate us, yet again. Gosman is goose stepping into a goose man, I fear.
Geez here’s another one by John Pilger… just google :
John Pilger The New Rulers of the World.
And view it on you tube.
FFS… you will need your tissues.
[Apologies to all, deleted comments were offensive and not what The Daily Blog wants to promote. – ScarletMod]
2000% Wild Katipo,
Seems the hollow ringers are back again, after Key’s Flag waving pep talk yesterday eh?
I think Gosman’s a bot – I’ve never seen anything from it that would pass a Turing test – much less the Chinese rooms.
Watched Blade Runner again a few months ago. It’s one of that elite small number of films that one can watch every decade or so without its impact diminishing. Usually such films stand the test of time because the themes at the heart of them remain timeless. In Blade Runner one of these is the conflict between the individual and the body corporate.
+100!
Yep also these neoliberals of India and China are now being educated and gaining citizenship in NZ, and championing the neoliberal message.
Our whole country is dying under this swamping of neoliberal soup, from governments to immigrants. From Melissa Lee, to Paula Restock putting their talons on our country and wanting their capitalist inequality to continue.
Our government and their cronies are helping destroy our social democratic history and reasonably class less society, and telling us we need to join them in this industrial feudal unequal mentality than is traditionally not been part of Kiwi lives.
The land and environment has always been a big part of growing up in NZ and informs our culture. As is a non corrupt system of government. This is under threat.
We don’t want to turn into China or India or South Africa or the USA or the UK – and it is about time Kiwis stood up and said so (including those migrants that left their countries and migrated here)!
They left for a reason and it is about time their was a tightening on immigration to take stock of whether it is sustainable and who the hell is actually coming here and do they have similar values to Kiwis or do they just want to turn NZ into a neoliberal banana republic (already happening) and english language school while buying up land and property they can’t get in their own countries.
I’m not suggesting we say goodbye to migration, I’m just keen to have independent analysis on how many jobs have been created (if any) and what they are paying, how long people stay here etc. A total cost break down and what is happening over time.
At the same time, do a check and see how many corporations here are paying the correct tax on multi million dollar profits!
I’ve said it before but.Thank god for people like Trotter who are so good at putting things in their historical context so that ordinary mortals can understand
Thank you again Chris
Thank god for people like Trotter who are so good at putting things in context
It is not a battle between pure, universal socialism and rampant laissez-faire capitalism. Every economic system has elements of the public and the private. The issue is the target settings the protections and the regulations and the interventions. Any one who believes that some how a “free enterprise system” does not have such things is deluding themselves. Regulations to keep the workers in their place, to keep what you have got and a rigid military/police system is essential. Nor can it be asserted that there is no use for private capital investment in a Left-leaning administration. This is just as vital to innovate, renew and create.
The question is always about the mixture. This is why exampling of any of the ghastly societies of Left or Right can be an object lesson of bad mixtures: potions to avoid where possible, but never as a proof or disproof of a philosophy or political direction. China got it horribly wrong, so did America, so did Russia.
But at base, we only have the same tools to work with. The trick is to learn to use them better.
On the other hand, if, like our current government, you are determined to measure policy success entirely and exclusively on the basis of money (money received v money spent/saved, in a Macawber-like exercise in socio-economic illiteracy), there is very little chance that other, non-fiscal goals, (end to child poverty, push back against global warming, improving social outcomes for disadvantaged groups etc) will ever be realized, no matter what mix you adopt.
India would have been a rich powerhouse if it hadn’t been for:
a) Nehru’s Socialism. His dalliance with the Soviet Union cost the country and its people dearly.
b) The extremely high fertility rate. No economy can keep up with the population growth they’ve seen since independence. in the end it undermines all their efforts.
c) Their cultural predilection to steal from each other.
Andrew, if you study the Cold War, you’ll find that client states “dallied” with the USSR, United States, and China, to suit the self-interests of ruling-classes.
Regarding “fertility rates” – you seem to be fixated on this. Whilst exploding human population on this planet is not a good thing for the environment and our finite resources, picking on Third World/Developing nations is not productive and simply shows your own chauvinism.
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