Roland Boer's Blog, page 44

New t-shirts: Xi Jinping

From a stall in Xi’an

Chinese Marxist ethics

Lunli, they call it in these parts, or Gongchanzhuyi daode – ethics or communist moral principles. These are by no means abstract terms, debated by philosophers with little connection to real life. I encounter it day to day in a very concrete fashion.

Here Chinese tradition meets Marxism in a way that continually amazes and bewilders me. To begin with, the dushuren or xuezhe, the intellectual (literally ‘book reading person’) and scholar has a venerable place in Chinese society. The intellect...

Decoding Marx-obsessed teens

[image error]

If Adam and Eve were Chinese

[image error]

Socialism in Power (research project)

This project – involving Chinese and international researchers – seeks to provide the philosophical and historical framework for understanding the realities of socialism in power. Taking China, Cuba and the former Soviet Union as the principal case studies, it focuses on the crucial questions of the nature of the socialist state, democracy, civil society, and the role of the communist party. It also elaborates on the more abstract theoretical issues of contradiction, justice and human rights...

Socialist market economy

A ‘market’ is an economic mechanism, distinct from the state and primarily geared for profit and is thereby essentially capitalist. This is an extremely common assumption, but fortunately it is wrong.

We have been too conditioned by Adam Smith’s effort to define human nature as the desire to ‘truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another’. This slogan has – for some strange reason – come to be seen as a self-evident truth, neglecting how it was part of the immense struggles to redefine hu...

Common Sense? Marxism and Chinese Culture

‘Understanding the world in terms of Mao’s contradiction method is part of our culture’, she said. ‘We have learnt this since “middle” school.’

For me, this was enough of a stunning discovery.

Then I asked, ‘But have you read Mao’s “On Contradiction”’?

They admitted they had not read it.

‘Let’s read it then’, I said.

So we set about studying Mao’s text from 1937. It was originally presented as part of the lectures on ‘Dialectical Materialism’, delivered in Yan’an in 1937. Later, he drew the m...

Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power

I am happy to say that Springer Beijing will publish my book on Stalin later this year. I didn’t realise this until today, but Springer has the largest presence in China of any international press by a long way, publishing works by Chinese authors or Chinese-based authors.

The book is called Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power.

Here is a modified version of the preface:

This book has taken me longer than most. The subject matter has much to do with it, given the prec...

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: An Explainer

There is significant misunderstanding of the term ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics [zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi]’.

Many foreigners – Marxists included – think it is a code for capitalism. Others think it means the complex intersections between Marxism and Chinese culture, while others think it is an empty term that can be filled with whatever content you want.

The Chinese understanding is different but actually very clear.

The specific term comes from Deng Xiaoping in 1982:

In carrying o...

Is the People’s Republic of China a Force for Good?

I must admit I wasn’t going to read this story from Australia, but it is doing the rounds on the state-run media (ABC) and Fairfax media. The ABC calls it, “Australia’s sovereignty under threat from influence of China’s Communist Party,” while Fairfax calls it “China’s Operation Australia.” The story carefully tries to present an image of an authoritarian communist party reaching out its evil tentacles to threaten the just causes of “democracy activists.” It also gives significant weight to w...