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The Transformation of Chinese Socialism
In this significant contribution to both political theory and China studies, Lin Chun provides a critical assessment of the scope and limits of socialist experiments in China, analyzing their development since the victory of the Chinese communist revolution in 1949 and reflecting on the country’s likely paths into the future. Lin suggests that China’s twentieth-century trajectory be grasped in terms of the collective search by its people for a modern alternative to colonial modernity, bureaucratic socialism, and capitalist subordination. Evaluating contending interpretations of the formation and transformation of Chinese socialism in the contemporary conditions of global capitalism, Lin argues that the post-Mao reform model must be remade.
384 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 23, 2009
Hopeful. Excellent introduction to the problems of the Chinese Revolution from its beginning to the present. More people need to read his excellent analysis. His work is a good effort of showing the legitimacy that the Chinese government has at present as well as showing what needs to be changed. Much better than the more popular Wang Hui's work.
September 8, 2013
This is an excellent read. Sometimes a bit academic, sometimes strays off course, but in the end an important contribution for anyone who is trying to figure out and understand the direction of china today. It reaffirmed my hope for a Chinese future. Unlike many on the left I have never written off a china and proclaimed it to be simply another capitalist state and I have never lost faith the ability of the Chinese people to complete their journey into a new world. I have never just written off the CCP as hopelessly compromised. As an autonomous Marxist I have little use in general for any vanguard parties and am less then enamored with any State. That said, I think the interaction between the working people of China and the CCP and the State is taking that nation on a path which few now foresee. It will be a difficult journey and there are no guarantees, but the reality is few others even have a plan at all. In the end, it will be the working people of China who will emancipate themselves with a type of communism never before witnessed...that is my hope.
I would Capp particular attention to pages 275-279 for a brief exposition about the journey ahead.
I would Capp particular attention to pages 275-279 for a brief exposition about the journey ahead.
August 6, 2021
In China, "socialism, made and then unmade, could still be remade."
This is the promise that Lin Chun reflects on for nearly 300 pages, drawing on everyone from Rousseau, to Marx, to Weber, to Miliband, to Amartya Sen. Her contention that China's pursuit of an "alternative modernity," built on a foundation of nationalism, development, and socialism, in which the regime's stability can't last if any one of these pillars cracks too much, is plausible enough. If you look at Xi Jinping's recent tech industry crackdowns and poverty alleviation measures, for example, against the backdrop of the prolonged labor and social unrest that has persisted in the country since this book was written, you can see the regime acknowledging the price it needs to pay to preserve some semblance of "socialist" management after the opening of the Party to capitalists under Jiang Zemin followed by China's accession to the WTO.
Acknowledging that continued need on the part of the regime to manage the impacts of capitalist global market imperatives inside China, Lin's intervention is actually to imagine -- if not outline in detail -- a different course, premised on a democratic socialist vision, with the state mandated to shape a market oriented towards meeting human needs instead of capitalist profits -- something she calls "Xiaokang Socialism."
The problem with this is threefold, and is probably rooted in the fact that this book is fundamentally an intellectual exercise by a political scientist, not a serious work of political economy or theory.
One, the author's illustration of how "Xiaokang Socialism" would actually work, while acknowledging that "market socialism" has never actually been successfully put into practice, is disappointingly vague and hastily constructed, sketched over the course of 3 or 4 pages at the very end of the book. All I could tell is that it has something to do with a reformed, democratic government, universal basic income, and extensive, voluntary hyperlocal mutual aid networks.
Two, she never actually details the process by which her vision would be put into practice -- something that rightfully occupies a gigantic portion of contemporary debate among socialists and Marxists. She repeatedly cautions against the revolutionary path, instead supposing that the CCP could open itself to democratic reform in response to popular pressure via some other mechanisms that remain unclear (street protest? internal opposition? organized labor?). The problem, obviously, is that the last time Chinese people got together in a massive movement to demand democratic reforms in the political and economic spheres (1989), the Party gunned them down in the streets by the thousands. Nevertheless, Lin's detailing of the rich history and legacy of "people's democracy" in the revolutionary and Maoist eras, in defiance of Western stereotypes and distortions, is compelling and admirable. In particular, her nuanced treatments of the Chinese Revolution, the Cultural Revolution (correctly described as the greatest mass mobilization in human history, for better or worse) and the democracy movements in the 80s were really refreshing to read.
Finally, notably absent in this book is any exploration of the agency, struggles, or character of the Chinese rural and urban working classes, ostensibly the vehicle by which something like Lin's "Xiaokang Socialism" would be won against the opposition of China's considerably entrenched bourgeoisie. Again, I know the book is an intellectual exercise, but without at least a short exploration of the potentials of working class self-activity to organize for Lin's vision, the bigger picture remains pretty blurry. Is there even a popular desire for the political and social change that this book envisions? Is a segment of Party leadership demanding it, in response to popular pressure? Are protests articulating it? If not, why even entertain the possibility?
I would have given it three stars for its refreshingly serious treatment of China's history and potentials for transforming both capitalism and socialism, something that we communists definitely need more of. But the writing style is extremely dense, bordering on impenetrable at times, and the organization of the argument similarly unfriendly to the reader.
This is the promise that Lin Chun reflects on for nearly 300 pages, drawing on everyone from Rousseau, to Marx, to Weber, to Miliband, to Amartya Sen. Her contention that China's pursuit of an "alternative modernity," built on a foundation of nationalism, development, and socialism, in which the regime's stability can't last if any one of these pillars cracks too much, is plausible enough. If you look at Xi Jinping's recent tech industry crackdowns and poverty alleviation measures, for example, against the backdrop of the prolonged labor and social unrest that has persisted in the country since this book was written, you can see the regime acknowledging the price it needs to pay to preserve some semblance of "socialist" management after the opening of the Party to capitalists under Jiang Zemin followed by China's accession to the WTO.
Acknowledging that continued need on the part of the regime to manage the impacts of capitalist global market imperatives inside China, Lin's intervention is actually to imagine -- if not outline in detail -- a different course, premised on a democratic socialist vision, with the state mandated to shape a market oriented towards meeting human needs instead of capitalist profits -- something she calls "Xiaokang Socialism."
The problem with this is threefold, and is probably rooted in the fact that this book is fundamentally an intellectual exercise by a political scientist, not a serious work of political economy or theory.
One, the author's illustration of how "Xiaokang Socialism" would actually work, while acknowledging that "market socialism" has never actually been successfully put into practice, is disappointingly vague and hastily constructed, sketched over the course of 3 or 4 pages at the very end of the book. All I could tell is that it has something to do with a reformed, democratic government, universal basic income, and extensive, voluntary hyperlocal mutual aid networks.
Two, she never actually details the process by which her vision would be put into practice -- something that rightfully occupies a gigantic portion of contemporary debate among socialists and Marxists. She repeatedly cautions against the revolutionary path, instead supposing that the CCP could open itself to democratic reform in response to popular pressure via some other mechanisms that remain unclear (street protest? internal opposition? organized labor?). The problem, obviously, is that the last time Chinese people got together in a massive movement to demand democratic reforms in the political and economic spheres (1989), the Party gunned them down in the streets by the thousands. Nevertheless, Lin's detailing of the rich history and legacy of "people's democracy" in the revolutionary and Maoist eras, in defiance of Western stereotypes and distortions, is compelling and admirable. In particular, her nuanced treatments of the Chinese Revolution, the Cultural Revolution (correctly described as the greatest mass mobilization in human history, for better or worse) and the democracy movements in the 80s were really refreshing to read.
Finally, notably absent in this book is any exploration of the agency, struggles, or character of the Chinese rural and urban working classes, ostensibly the vehicle by which something like Lin's "Xiaokang Socialism" would be won against the opposition of China's considerably entrenched bourgeoisie. Again, I know the book is an intellectual exercise, but without at least a short exploration of the potentials of working class self-activity to organize for Lin's vision, the bigger picture remains pretty blurry. Is there even a popular desire for the political and social change that this book envisions? Is a segment of Party leadership demanding it, in response to popular pressure? Are protests articulating it? If not, why even entertain the possibility?
I would have given it three stars for its refreshingly serious treatment of China's history and potentials for transforming both capitalism and socialism, something that we communists definitely need more of. But the writing style is extremely dense, bordering on impenetrable at times, and the organization of the argument similarly unfriendly to the reader.
November 23, 2020
Easily my top 5 if not top 3 books I have read on China.
to-keep-reference
March 23, 2016Los límites incoherencias y retrocesos de la democracia popular china tienen causas múltiples, bien analizadas por Lin Chun.
La crisis Pág.116
La crisis Pág.116
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews