Talk:Socialism with Chinese characteristics

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[edit] Initial Comment

Seriously, the article needs higher quality. With rhetoric questions and personal comments, it sounds more like a speech than something that provides concrete and precise information.

I am talking with a Chinese friend about our perceptions of China's economy, and the last paragraph, if not other parts of it, would lead to outright dismissal of the article by most Chinese readers. If the official viewpoint is absolutely indefensible, we at least need some explanation why: perhaps some abortive official doublespeak, or something to that effect, to indicate that the botched arguments ascribed to the PRC government really originate there. I do not feel competent to find all these things myself, but I wish someone would. Vivacissamamente 30 June 2005 10:58 (UTC)

How should we clean this up? Please provide some justification. — Stevey7788 (talk) 04:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The last paragraph seems sloppy though. — Stevey7788 (talk) 04:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

First of all, the whole article is too opinionative, it criticizes the idea too much, instead of giving it a more unbiased view. Second of all, the quote by Deng, about 5 billion people, has to be wrong...

I don't know.... it seems pretty good to me. Maybe some headings and a bit of expansion would help, but I think the information presented in the article is good.

The entire article is simply too opinionated, not presenting an unbiased look at all. It needs to be rewritten as to stop endorsing opinion. 24.10.139.96 18:45, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Well by all means, Be Bold! It beats flappin' yer gums about what oughta be, especially in view of the fact that you can change the article however you wish at any time (excluding, of course, the very small amount of time Wikipedia spends in database lockdown *cough*). --Ryanaxp 04:54, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)


The article may have a slightly opinionated tone, but overall it provides a clear, encompassing view on Chinese political reform. It deffinitally helped my understanding.


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this an extremely poorly written body of writing.

its shockingly repetetive! the same paragraph must be in there about 4 times. it's very short and one-sided and has very few sources.

much much more needs to be said about what was kept under state control. i recently read an article by a chinese student on the bbc news website supporting the communist party's system by pointing out that in britain people die on nhs waiting lists. apparently this isn't the case in the chinese health service.

i question the neutrality of this article and its shoddy presentation.

px

I also question the neutrality of this artical. It was obveously written by someone who is strongly opinionated about the issue. It is also repetitive, as others have mentioned. And I'd like to see a direct reference to that quote from the Kissenger meeting -- which sounds alot like hearsay to me.

Tristan Chambers -- Sun Sep 11 10:23:53 EDT 2005

I put in the reference to Kissinger. I read it in the media (newspaper, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report .. can't say where I read it) at the time it occured (WAY before the internet). I wish I had a reference but I don't. WAS 4.250 06:25, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

People are complaining about older revisions lacking neutrality, but I don't really see that. In Marxist theory, the PRC today is a bourgeois capitalist state and the old article was simply putting out how hypocritical the PRC's government is being when they call themselves "socialist" and "communist" rather than "capitalist". Thunk 22:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Question

The article states "The most important was that with pricing reform in the late 1980s, most state owned enterprises became highly unprofitable and the government decided to close or sell them off." Can someone please explain to me why the enterprises suddenly become profitable in private hands as opposed to state owned? Does it have something to do with the increase of cheap labour and overcharging of resources to the population? Could someone please expand on this. - unsigned

It is not appropriate to deal with it in the article as the information you are asking for is both well known and applies to all cases of sovereign (ie government) verses nongovernment control of assets and boils down to the concepts of bankruptcy and profit center. A good illustration is the extreme example of government owned soviet shops that had nothing in them to sell, yet did not close. Governments could require local government entities to compete with one another and change management when they couldn't generate funds to pay their salary and rent, but laws governing government employees versus private employees make it easier to sell or rent or contract out government assets/services in many cases. See privatization. WAS 4.250 21:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
This is not what happened in China. Roadrunner 22:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV template

Have added POV template to reflect bias concerns expressed above. Snooo 13:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Please specify "expressed above". Cut and paste if you like. The article has changed a lot and some of the concerns "expressed above" no longer apply. What change to the article would make it unbiased in your opinion? What sources support that change? WAS 4.250 15:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
The article consists of 90% quotes with almost no explanation, and besides a short introduction the only non-quote part consists of two tiny paragraphs of criticisms! In addition, one of these quotes comes directly from a website called "Dissident Voice", which calls itself a "Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice" - not an invalid, source, of course, but als surely not NPOV.
Also, I highly doubt supporters of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" would agree with the formulation that the Chinese "redefine" Marxist terms. Certainly, in official party literature talk of development, not change. To be honest, I really think it is POV, the POV being that the current government of China is not socialist (they NEVER claim to be communist, communism being only the ultimate goal, which also says something about the quoted "death of communism"), so I added the NPOV sign back. Of course, anyone who disagrees is free to remove it again ;). I did this "on my own" simply because the above is a quite old post.
However, apart from this general things that really are only based on feeling, I'm afraid I lack the the specific knowledge to really improve the article. I only removed the blatant falsehood that the offical ideology of the CPC is that the revolution was a development from FEUDAL to socialist society - it is from CAPITALISTIC to socialist society (the Republic of China being the capitalists, although the beginnings are sometimes dated as far back as the Song dynasty!) 89.217.183.48 20:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Profit is the Problem

At least as it is now, I find this a well composed and enlightening article. Obviously the resolution of any concrete issues is far outside the scope of Wikipedia. FWIW though I note the fundamental problem is with the reintroduction of the profit principle which is inevitably in conflict with Marxism as the fundamental principle thereof is that the extraction of profit, i.e. surplus value, is the essence of what capitalism is about and what Marxism is supposed to be against. Thus to the extent that Socialism With Chinese Characteristics restores profit seeking with all that it entails as the fundamental principle underlying production it is as complete a repudiation of Marxism as for example occured in the former Soviet Union, albeit without even the pretense of democracy found in the present day Russian oligarchy. Lycurgus 18:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I always thought that marxism predicted that feudalism evolved into capitalism which evolved into communism (perhaps by way of socialism says lenin) and that attempts to bypass capitalism were merely excuses for dictatorship. WAS 4.250 17:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You are perhaps confusing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the concept of a deformed workers state, as well as some oversimplifications on the nature of Marxist theory. There was a considerable controversy in the first wave of socialism over whether all of the stages of history must be transited before socialism could be reached. In particular whether Russia 90 years ago was in fact a capitalist society or a feudal one and similar arguments applied to China. The only thing that Marxism predicts as such is the inevitable rise to power of the working class, i.e. the inevitability of socialism, leaving aside for the moment whether or not Marxism is a coherent body of theory which could make predictions at all in the manner in which, for example, chemistry or physics do. This issue has pretty much been superceeded by the facts of the revolutions in Russia, China, and elsewhere and the culprit is held to be not the failure to transit all the stages of historical development in order but rather the notion of socialism in one country espoused by Stalin and the Chinese Stalinists. It is this which leads in effect to the aggravation of class struggle under socialism as the nationalistic parties degenerate into ruling elites. You can see how well this fits because it is precisely by having the revolution occur on a global basis that the issue of differential stages of development in different nation-states is overcome. Lycurgus 21:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] this isn't really an article

So far this is basically a collection of official quotes about the subject. An actual article should cover the extensive debate, both within and outside of China, over what exactly "socialism with Chinese characteristics" consists of; whether it's actually socialism in a meaningful sense; what its relationship is with Maoism and Marxism-Leninism; and what its relationship is with capitalism. --Delirium (talk) 06:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

First, how is that a NPOV concern? Second, the article states it is about the term saying "This article is about the term itself and its relationships. For its implementation and effects see Economy of the People's Republic of China and Chinese economic reform." Have you looked at those articles? Seems to me you haven't thought this through. On the other hand, it would be nice if you choose to add sourced data about this term (rather than about the economic changes themselves which are covered elsewhere). The term itself appears to me to be a way of calling a mixed economy socialism, just as American right wingers like to call America's mixed economy "capitalism". But such statements and analysis must be properly sourced so they do not violate WP:NOR. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)