The main difference between the US and Chinese models lies in the source of power. In the US, power comes from capital, whether domestic or international, while in China, power comes from the right to survival and development of 1.4 billion people and the shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members selected from them.
«power comes from the right to survival and development of 1.4 billion people and the shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members selected from them.»
The biggest problem the PRC has is that those "shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members" are those of "petty bourgeois" property speculators as most party officials and government officials want to become rich with their often large real estate portfolios.
Put another way they are thatcherites and being trained in marxism know well which class they belong to. Once the principal method for enrichment of the middle-class and upper-class becomes real estate like the UK the economic future of that country is doomed.
Given the immense soft power the US derives from mass media and culture, it is quite remarkable they do not treat these as critical national infrastructure. It really is one of the areas where they have a major edge on China, and where the latter is very unlikely to catch up in the medium term.
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they dont offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
«These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.»
Even at the local level "political machines" often dominated cities and regions and "You cannot fight City Hall" and "You will never work in this town again" are old american sayings for a reason.
«However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began»
More than a transformation it was a deepening and extension of an existing situation.
Good analysis but it completely ignores that capitalism, whether of the Chinese or American variety, is unsustainable. Global warming continues unabated and the driving element, CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, even increasing in annual additions.
There are three times as many Chinese as there are Americans and the Chinese are racing full on to not just match but exceed US consumption which will only lessen the time until we face more than just melting glaciers and coral reef die-off (50% gone now).
This example of the inability of the limited physical world to sustain unlimited human consumption is completely ignored in the US, the President declaring a hoax what is beyond dispute factually. In China it is at least acknowledged.
There is no deep logic needed to understand what is happening. Humanity is tapping millions of years of stored carbon and releasing it as fossil fuel has been burned without limit for only 150 years, new records of consumption set each year with no end in sight. We know what is happening, we know we are the cause, we know that fossil fuel use must be curtailed yet nobody, Americans in particular is modifying lifestyle in any way.
What will be said by people around in 100 years? They will say that we acted irresponsibly and recklessly and they will be right.
I thought it odd that the author pointed to Chinese growing consumerism as a sign of progress, rather than a warning sign and potential inroads for the destruction of their current system. Watching the chinese middle class speed run over the last 20 years to 1980s style american luxury brand decadence obsession gives me concern and doubt for what had looked like a promising future.
I hope that Dan Wang didn't really say, "Socialist China detains union organizers?" China urges all workers to join a union and 74% of them have done so, partly because the head of the union is Xi's right hand man, which explains why 58% of GDP invariably goes to wages, which explains why 90% of Chinese are richer than the average American.
And statements like, "The greatest trick that the Communist Party ever pulled off is masquerading as leftist,” are just daft. China is incorporating free enterprise just as Marx advised–and the USSR failed to do. It's a necessary phase in the country's progression to communism, which will begin in 2050, when it's a moderately prosperous society, like Finland.
As to 'halted Jack Ma’s record-breaking Ant IPO after he criticized regulators,' no. Jack was sidelined when he unwittingly became Vanguard Capital's tool and proposed a US-style financial system. For his sins, Jack was told to cruise the Mediterranean in his yacht for 6 months.
Finally, you claim that there are also many appalling aspects of the Chinese political system. I've been studying and experiencing it for 60 years and have yet to encounter such an aspect. Can you share one with us?
The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer and are obsessed with it and this means that the PRC will turn thatcherite and privilege speculation as in China-Taiwan, China-HK, UK, USA, etc. Chairman Xi has been trying to deflate the real estate mania but my guess the inertia is too large and he acted too late.
«"The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer "?? Your source?»
«95% of PRC citizens own a property»
I mentioned government and party officials specifically because they can directly influence policy (in favor of property owners), but that almost all chinese families have property as their main source of wealth is almost as important because it creates additional political pressure from below for policies that favor property owners as the expense of workers as in China-HongKong, China-Taiwan, Korea-south, UK, Australia, etc. Property ownership has well known political effects on both elites and ordinary voters:
“There were even prophetic council house sales by local Tories in the drive to create voters with a Conservative political mentality. As a Tory councillor in Leeds defiantly told Labour opponents in 1926, ‘it is a good thing for people to buy their own houses. They turn Tory directly. We shall go on making Tories and you will be wiped out.’ There is much of the Party history of the twentieth century in that remark.”
There will be a lot of the CPC history in the twenty first century in that remark, even if Chairman Xi is trying to avoid that, but I think that is too late. The PRC in the future will have a "thatcherism with chinese characteristics" political system. There is already a well developed policy to privatize pensions for example to reduce government spending and so cut taxes on higher earners.
Note: of course property in cities is far more valuable than in villages and it is in cities that there are party and government administrative centers with many government and party officials and particularly greedy middle-class people...
Courtesy of rampant and unconstrained neoliberalism, everything is for sale and America is fully atomized — there are no citizens, merely consumers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing …
«the idea that the country is a platform for global capitalism.»
Most of this pieces says "capitalism" including the title "How Capitalism Replaced America" but that is quite loose wording: the USA is a platform for *capitalists*, for the owners of capital, who do not care about "capital" in the abstract, but about their the power and wealth of themselves, and sometimes if their families.
This is a much better wording pointing out that the protagonist is not "capital" but "domestic and foreign oligarchs":
«the power of the domestic and foreign oligarchs who treat the United States not as a nation or community in formation, but as a mere platform for their own economic and political ambitions»
Today these oligarchs are not too dissimilar from the nobility of the old regime, with Zuckerberg being the Duke of Meta, Ellison the Prince of Oracle, Gates the King of Microsoft, Huang the Yellow Emperor of AI, Musk the Czar of Tesla, SpaceX, and other domains.
As in the era of nobility large areas were the personal domain of the nobles, who ruled over many different nationalities, and national and civic feeling and cohesion was rather muted except in some places like Venice or Brittany or Vascony, so in our times they are becoming also muted.
It seems systems eventually evolve towards a sort of emotional purity where a single emotion becomes the single backbone holding the entire thing together. In the U.S. case it seems to be: greed.
In the Chinese case, while initially there were a number of overlapping motives driving modernisation, it is likely that the party will strip these and eventually rule entirely by: fear.
And this will eventually extend to foreign relations, beginning of course with the weakest neighbours.
And that's how fear-based systems eventually lose to a coalition of greed-based systems, no matter how degenerate.
It's not that greed is good, it's that the alternatives suck even more.
I agree, mostly, and critique of China is completely valid but it is undeniable that investing in their own people and own infrastructure was fantastic, and we can learn from China's victories while avoiding their mistakes. Their people are very happy with their governance because their governance is beholden to their people. The decentralized system made for "less" corruption and a governing system in which their leader is certainly beholden to public opinion. Despite people claiming "you are not allowed to disagree in China" an unpopular politician will not last long if he is not meeting the needs of the people he represents.
The main difference between the US and Chinese models lies in the source of power. In the US, power comes from capital, whether domestic or international, while in China, power comes from the right to survival and development of 1.4 billion people and the shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members selected from them.
«power comes from the right to survival and development of 1.4 billion people and the shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members selected from them.»
The biggest problem the PRC has is that those "shared interests formed by the 100 million Communist Party members" are those of "petty bourgeois" property speculators as most party officials and government officials want to become rich with their often large real estate portfolios.
Put another way they are thatcherites and being trained in marxism know well which class they belong to. Once the principal method for enrichment of the middle-class and upper-class becomes real estate like the UK the economic future of that country is doomed.
Given the immense soft power the US derives from mass media and culture, it is quite remarkable they do not treat these as critical national infrastructure. It really is one of the areas where they have a major edge on China, and where the latter is very unlikely to catch up in the medium term.
The United States once had genuinely democratic governance structures, however imperfect and limited, fundamentally based around decentralized and publicly accessible mass-member parties. The Democratic Party, as a small "d" democratic institution, and the Republican Party, as a small "r" republican institution, were honest in their naming and functioned within a politically, economically, governmentally, financially, and scientifically decentralized and pluralized system. These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.
However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began due to the dirty deeds of a convergence of several interests and an assortment of powerful special interest groups, and then our parties were transformed into centralized, exclusionary membership organizations. The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party. Neither really represents their original principles of democracy or republicanism, and they dont offer meaningful access or representation to the public. This transformation of the parties has been accompanied by a broader centralization of political, economic, and scientific decision making, which has caused the effective loss of most democratic governance structures.
well said
Beautifully put. Admittedly I am a leftist, but how do we return to a governance that is accountable to its voters.
«These parties, while far from flawless, allowed for real representation, genuinely participatory governance structures even for very serious policy matters with real participation, and a level of public accountability in political, economic, governmental, financial, and scientific decision making.»
That is a very optimistic assessment of the past, consider this: https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/poliusabossesofsenate.jpeg
Even at the local level "political machines" often dominated cities and regions and "You cannot fight City Hall" and "You will never work in this town again" are old american sayings for a reason.
«However, after WW2 a long multi decadal transformation began»
More than a transformation it was a deepening and extension of an existing situation.
"The so called Democratic Party has become a technocracy party, and the so called Republican Party became a conservative party."
Think of Team D as the political manifestation of the class consciousness of the PMC, with various grievance groups as junior partners.
Think of Team R as playing a similar role with respect to Local Gentry, with white evangelicals as their sidekicks.
Good analysis but it completely ignores that capitalism, whether of the Chinese or American variety, is unsustainable. Global warming continues unabated and the driving element, CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, even increasing in annual additions.
There are three times as many Chinese as there are Americans and the Chinese are racing full on to not just match but exceed US consumption which will only lessen the time until we face more than just melting glaciers and coral reef die-off (50% gone now).
This example of the inability of the limited physical world to sustain unlimited human consumption is completely ignored in the US, the President declaring a hoax what is beyond dispute factually. In China it is at least acknowledged.
There is no deep logic needed to understand what is happening. Humanity is tapping millions of years of stored carbon and releasing it as fossil fuel has been burned without limit for only 150 years, new records of consumption set each year with no end in sight. We know what is happening, we know we are the cause, we know that fossil fuel use must be curtailed yet nobody, Americans in particular is modifying lifestyle in any way.
What will be said by people around in 100 years? They will say that we acted irresponsibly and recklessly and they will be right.
I thought it odd that the author pointed to Chinese growing consumerism as a sign of progress, rather than a warning sign and potential inroads for the destruction of their current system. Watching the chinese middle class speed run over the last 20 years to 1980s style american luxury brand decadence obsession gives me concern and doubt for what had looked like a promising future.
Although it is hard to object to the Chinese desire to live as we do. We have not set an example of restraint in any way.
I hope that Dan Wang didn't really say, "Socialist China detains union organizers?" China urges all workers to join a union and 74% of them have done so, partly because the head of the union is Xi's right hand man, which explains why 58% of GDP invariably goes to wages, which explains why 90% of Chinese are richer than the average American.
And statements like, "The greatest trick that the Communist Party ever pulled off is masquerading as leftist,” are just daft. China is incorporating free enterprise just as Marx advised–and the USSR failed to do. It's a necessary phase in the country's progression to communism, which will begin in 2050, when it's a moderately prosperous society, like Finland.
As to 'halted Jack Ma’s record-breaking Ant IPO after he criticized regulators,' no. Jack was sidelined when he unwittingly became Vanguard Capital's tool and proposed a US-style financial system. For his sins, Jack was told to cruise the Mediterranean in his yacht for 6 months.
Finally, you claim that there are also many appalling aspects of the Chinese political system. I've been studying and experiencing it for 60 years and have yet to encounter such an aspect. Can you share one with us?
That's a long time to search. In all that time, have you found any fault with the Chinese Communist Party?
It has certainly made mistakes, but I've found no systemic faults. Have you?
«I've found no systemic faults. Have you?»
The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer and are obsessed with it and this means that the PRC will turn thatcherite and privilege speculation as in China-Taiwan, China-HK, UK, USA, etc. Chairman Xi has been trying to deflate the real estate mania but my guess the inertia is too large and he acted too late.
"The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer "?? Your source?
«"The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer "?? Your source?»
«95% of PRC citizens own a property»
I mentioned government and party officials specifically because they can directly influence policy (in favor of property owners), but that almost all chinese families have property as their main source of wealth is almost as important because it creates additional political pressure from below for policies that favor property owners as the expense of workers as in China-HongKong, China-Taiwan, Korea-south, UK, Australia, etc. Property ownership has well known political effects on both elites and ordinary voters:
http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2014/03/how-thatcher-sold-council-houses-and-created-a-new-generation-of-propertyowners.html
“There were even prophetic council house sales by local Tories in the drive to create voters with a Conservative political mentality. As a Tory councillor in Leeds defiantly told Labour opponents in 1926, ‘it is a good thing for people to buy their own houses. They turn Tory directly. We shall go on making Tories and you will be wiped out.’ There is much of the Party history of the twentieth century in that remark.”
There will be a lot of the CPC history in the twenty first century in that remark, even if Chairman Xi is trying to avoid that, but I think that is too late. The PRC in the future will have a "thatcherism with chinese characteristics" political system. There is already a well developed policy to privatize pensions for example to reduce government spending and so cut taxes on higher earners.
Note: of course property in cities is far more valuable than in villages and it is in cities that there are party and government administrative centers with many government and party officials and particularly greedy middle-class people...
«"The majority of party official and government official rely on real estate to become richer "?? Your source?»
Do you deny that the CPC is very proud that 95% of PRC citizens own a property?
Is the property-less 5% made entirely and only of party and government officials?
What main source of wealth have party and government officials that are not corrupt other than their property?
You don’t even once mention money in politics, or the degree of non-enforcement of antitrust and related laws.
Courtesy of rampant and unconstrained neoliberalism, everything is for sale and America is fully atomized — there are no citizens, merely consumers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing …
«the idea that the country is a platform for global capitalism.»
Most of this pieces says "capitalism" including the title "How Capitalism Replaced America" but that is quite loose wording: the USA is a platform for *capitalists*, for the owners of capital, who do not care about "capital" in the abstract, but about their the power and wealth of themselves, and sometimes if their families.
This is a much better wording pointing out that the protagonist is not "capital" but "domestic and foreign oligarchs":
«the power of the domestic and foreign oligarchs who treat the United States not as a nation or community in formation, but as a mere platform for their own economic and political ambitions»
Today these oligarchs are not too dissimilar from the nobility of the old regime, with Zuckerberg being the Duke of Meta, Ellison the Prince of Oracle, Gates the King of Microsoft, Huang the Yellow Emperor of AI, Musk the Czar of Tesla, SpaceX, and other domains.
As in the era of nobility large areas were the personal domain of the nobles, who ruled over many different nationalities, and national and civic feeling and cohesion was rather muted except in some places like Venice or Brittany or Vascony, so in our times they are becoming also muted.
It seems systems eventually evolve towards a sort of emotional purity where a single emotion becomes the single backbone holding the entire thing together. In the U.S. case it seems to be: greed.
In the Chinese case, while initially there were a number of overlapping motives driving modernisation, it is likely that the party will strip these and eventually rule entirely by: fear.
And this will eventually extend to foreign relations, beginning of course with the weakest neighbours.
And that's how fear-based systems eventually lose to a coalition of greed-based systems, no matter how degenerate.
It's not that greed is good, it's that the alternatives suck even more.
excellent observation. fear is a dangerous force. a lot of chinese politics is shaped by fear of the early 20th century chaos returning
Admittedly having little knowledge of China operates, it sounds as if you're describing a National Socialist state and not a Communist one.
Great read and really
thought-provoking
Greta article. But we already past capitalism.
Fuckin dirty muzzrats
I agree, mostly, and critique of China is completely valid but it is undeniable that investing in their own people and own infrastructure was fantastic, and we can learn from China's victories while avoiding their mistakes. Their people are very happy with their governance because their governance is beholden to their people. The decentralized system made for "less" corruption and a governing system in which their leader is certainly beholden to public opinion. Despite people claiming "you are not allowed to disagree in China" an unpopular politician will not last long if he is not meeting the needs of the people he represents.