Contemporary Chinese Political Thought: Debates and Perspectives

10. China's Future

10 China’s Future Suggestions from Petty Bourgeois Socialist Theories and Some Chinese Practices Cui Zhiyuan how, in the final analysis, is one to comprehend today’s China? This is a puzzling intellectual and moral question. on the one hand, when one looks at the coal mine incidents, the corruption, the increases in laid-off workers, and other such phenomena, one could say that social contradictions have become vary salient. if, on the other hand, one makes comparisons with other countries in the world, China’s reforms have gained quite a number of successes. When i go to russia for meetings, it is very hard to find a medium-grade restaurant in some big cities. all one sees are either handcarts selling cookies or other such snacks in the streets or luxury five-star hotels. This would seem to indicate that although inequalities of income and large regional differences have emerged in the course of China ’s reforms, the beneficiaries of China’s reforms are, on the whole, more numerous than in russia. it is very difficult to make a complete judgment of China, and the observations people make from different angles all hold a certain amount of validity. hegel once said that truth is the entirety, whereas our observations are often partial. how should one comb out the threads of many different views that may be one-sided but that do make a certain amount of sense? This requires putting together a new conceptual framework that unifies the overall situation and resorting all the specific and partial observations. according to my personal reading, putting forward the concept of a “socialist market economy” is an exploration into, and a quest for, this new conceptual framework. 186 CUi ZhiyUan The theory and practice of a “socialist market economy” require abundant intellectual resources, as well as critical reference to humankind’s existing theoretical achievements. i maintain that “petty bourgeois socialism ” (or “liberal socialism”) can become part of the intellectual resources of a “socialist market economy.” We all know that marx once conducted a profound critique of the “petty bourgeois socialism” advanced by J. S. mill, henry george, and P. J. Proudhon, in the belief that “petty bourgeois socialism” could not guide the proletarian revolution to success. This is undoubtedly correct. one of the eccentricities of historical dialectics, however , is that after the socialist revolution guided by marxism has attained success, the proletariat cannot forever remain proletarian. marx long ago pointed out that communism is not only designed to do away with the bourgeoisie but will also do away with the proletariat. Strictly speaking, a proletariat or working class, in the sense of one that simply sells labor power, should no longer exist in a socialist society. But clearly a society should not forever allow only a minority of people to get rich. “Comparatively well-off,” or “common prosperity,” may well be read as a “universalization of the petty bourgeoisie.” Petty Bourgeois Socialism a specter is haunting China and the world—the specter of petty bourgeois socialism. Why? Both marxism and socialism have lost their political and intellectual momentum worldwide. disillusionment with neoliberalism is also growing. Petty bourgeois socialism can make some sense out of the current confusion in interpreting the institutional arrangements in today’s China. moreover, since socialism should not perpetuate the proletarian status of the working class, the universal petty bourgeoisie seems to be the promise of the future.1 The central economic program of petty bourgeois socialism is to establish a “socialist market economy,” especially through reforming and transforming the existing institutions of financial markets. The central political program of petty bourgeois socialism is to promote “economic and political democracy.” The leading thinkers in the rich tradition of petty bourgeois socialism are P. J. Proudhon, F. lassalle, J. S. mill, Silvio gesell, Fernand Braudel, James meade, James Joyce, Charles Sabel, Fei Xiaotong, and roberto m. Unger. The notion of the “petty bourgeoisie” used in this essay includes peas- China’s Future 187 ants. This is the main difference between this argument and the notion of “middle classes” used in the current Chinese discourses. But the concept of petty bourgeois socialism can be associated with the current Chinese effort to build “Xiao Kang society.” Proudhon and China’s Landownership System Pierre-Joseph Proudhon has challenged locke’s theory that “private property in land originated in first occupancy” by emphasizing that population growth makes it impossible for everyone to...