Part II: The Contradictions of a Chinese “Communist” Manifesto
Part II of a review of The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century. Read Part I here.
Brutal State Capitalism is Just Capitalism
“Actually existing socialism,” Martinez insists, is bound to deviate from the ideal model given variations in local context. Any historical materialist would agree.
The trouble is that he uses this pretext to dismiss the idea that the market-based, corporate-friendly features that pervade Chinese life constitute capitalism, treating such conclusions as tantamount to a conspiracy theory.
But any serious claim that China is socialist in the liberatory sense has to contend with a mountain of evidence that indicates the opposite.
At a rather obvious level, the most powerful avatars of global capital—from Goldman Sachs to Blackrock to MacDonald’s—operate and thrive in China. China is also the world’s biggest market for luxury goods. As the world’s factory, no national economy benefited more from the processes of neoliberal globalization—which are hypercapitalist—than China’s. Indeed, China accounts for a larger share of global trade than any other nation, and as of 2021 was also the world’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment. Small wonder that capitalists claim China as their greatest success story.
Yet, Martinez would have us believe that the prominence and influence of oligarchs, multinational corporations, investment banks, and venture-capital funds in China is just capitalist means to socialist ends. Quartermaster’s tools. It’s all just a long game.