The concept of a millionaire Communist might not sit well with Mao’s Little Red Book, but it appears to be just fine with the modern Chinese Communist Party. The Forbes China 400 Rich list revealed this week that ‘over 90% of the 1,000 richest people tracked by the Hurun Report are either officials or members of the Chinese Communist Party.” The list reinforces the view that the CCP has become more of a cartel or, in some cases, a criminal enterprise than a true political party. Communist officials are routinely accused of breathtaking corruption and use of state power to force peasants from their land in development schemes.
In 2001, President Jiang Zemin announced that entrepreneurs would be welcomed as members of the party. This opened the door for members to cash in on state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) — becoming a new Mandarin class.
There are now 85 million card-carrying CCP members with a waiting list of another 80 to 100 million to join.
On my visits to China, I often ask citizens how they feel about the huge mansions and walled properties of party members. When you land in Beijing, you fly over massive tracts of new mansions for the new Mandarins — located where the air is considered better in the heavily polluted city. The response is always a shrug and a comment that no one is really a communist anymore in China. Yet, you have a ruling class that uses state power to imprison environmentalists and reformers as CCP members profit on state-run enterprises.
They may want to heed the warning of Mao that “The ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class forced them into numerous uprisings against its rule…. It was the class struggles of the peasants, the peasant uprisings and peasant wars that constituted the real motive force of historical development in Chinese feudal society.”
Source: Forbes
Zach:
I do not think wealth redistribution in any form is good.
Wall St’s loses were paid for by money taken from individuals in the form of taxes or in the form of lost purchasing power due to inflation caused by printing money.
Call it whatever you want but it is wealth redistribution which is a component of all socialist economies.
Frankly, that “Fish Called Wanda” reference has made my week. Thank you.
While China makes millionaires, North Korth is stuck selling t-shirts in the US.
http://www.cafepress.com/kfashop
Roco,
You seem to be operating under the assumption I was in favor of TARP (a Bush program by the way before you go on one of your anti-progressive/anti-Obama rants (as if he was actually a progressive rather than just another political liar)). I think those Wall St. hucksters and bankers should have been left to go out of business. Many of them, like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankenfein, should be in prison because, duh, they are criminals.
However, if you want to call what happened there “socialism”? You are simply wrong. That was corporatism at its finest. The whole “Too Big to Fail” mantra is pure corporatism. As anyone with an actual education about political science and economics (unlike you) knows, corporatism is simply another name for fascism – where corporate and statist interests merge. Interests that include excluding corporation activity from being subject to the rule of law (including regulation) if it interferes with the profit motive. So for all your attempts to demonize economic and political models you clearly don’t understand, you’ve failed to do anything but display your own greed, political brainwashing, and general ignorance.
Keep up the good work.
Thinking back to my political and verbal battles with Mao’ists in the late 60’s, this story tickles me, with undertones of disgust. “Ism’s” and leaders of “Ism’s” are always full of shit. For them it’s all about the ego and the will to power. The “Ism” is merely their con and their justification to fool their followers. We see it today in those who follow the teachings of a hack author with pretensions as a political philosopher.
Anon,
By the way a splendid comment!
Roco…you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Bailing out corporations is not socialism, it is corporatism. Socialism is when the means of production are owned by the workers or the state. Giving corporations money does not change the ownership. One of these days maybe you will know enough about economics to know the difference.
By the way, welfare is a part of capitalism, not socialism. But you think any wealth redistribution to the poor is bad, and redistribution to the rich is just fucking fine, I’m sure.
Gene:
and again I say corporatism isnt capitalism. When you bail out corporations who fail that is not capitalism. I think they call it socialism.
One of these days maybe you will know enough about economics to know the difference.
as anon said in another post your Genesianism isnt worth much.
“Mao’s Little Mandarins” would be a great name for a band.
Frankly: Ten points for “A Fish Called Wanda” reference.
frankly:
Go read the communist manifesto it is right there in black and white.
What Gene said … I can’t improve on his words.
I left out this link in my comment above.
On Morning Joe, today, Mika asked Dr. Brzezinski about the USA’s poverty-to-wealth ratio.
He said that like our foreign policy, our domestic policy is sheer lunacy.
So when are we going to get America back … I don’t want our government to be like China’s even though I love the Chinese people.
Well, it really was a nice post too.
I would now like everyone to imagine a well written, well argued post, that pisses you off, and that you have to grudgingly concede is on topic, relevant, well-argued, and worse, most likely true.
Yeah, I just wrote that.
Stupid Opera.
Did I get banned or spam filtered or Operandiated??
I had a very nice little post, and then the blog went beep beep beep.
So, Roco, you have never read Marx either. It must be wonderful to know all things without making the slightest effort at learning. Or did you read it & just not understand it? Because that comment is a total misrepresentation of what he wrote.
You could argue the practicality of what he wrote, you could discuss the failures to implement his ideas in the Soviet Union and China but it would be nice if you didn’t constantly misrepresent the works of people you believe you disagree with.
To paraphrase Wanda:
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I’ve known sheep that could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
Roco: Apes don’t read Marx.
Wanda: Yes they do, Roco. They just don’t understand it.
No. Elitism is caused by laissez-faire capitalism in this country. This is reflected every day by bought and paid for politicians cheer-leading against taxing the rich quite openly and unabashedly in support of favoritism for “the elite”. To suggest that came about by socialism is living in denial of the whole campaign finance/lobbyist schema that ensures the only people our representatives listen to are the wealthy individuals and corporate contributors who – surprise – have only their personal and professional avarice pushing policy instead of the general welfare of the populace. Also, you shouldn’t use terms you don’t understand or make up the meanings for to suit your own agenda, Roco. Communism is not representative all of the spectrum of economic models embraced by socialism any more than laissez-faire capitalism is representative of all of the spectrum of economic models embraced by capitalism. Both Communism and laissez-faire capitalism are extremist models and both have failed in the real world. It’s just taking laissez-faire capitalism longer to die.
Of course the Communist Party does this, Marx talked about it in the Communist Manifesto. The workers need an elite to lead them.
Socialism will always breed the elites who think they have power over people. We have it in this country and it isnt caused by capitalism but by socialism.
TARP it was a socialistic remedy.
The list reinforces the view that the CCP has become more of a cartel or, in some cases, a criminal enterprise than a true political party.
Just change the names….and it could be Koch….Bush….Cheney….etc….