Critique of Michael Roberts: on China’s Socialist Transition | China is now at the center of the world. The biggest economy in terms of industrial output, the largest manufacturer, and its population as measured by purchasing power parity, or PPP, (how much of the real wage does a McDonald’s burger cost) is already at a higher living standard than the USA. By every economic metric it is the only major power that has grown economically by more than 5% a year in the 21st century. How do we explain this? For most Marxists there are two basic positions – China is either capitalist or socialist. Some however, argue that it is undergoing some intermediary ‘transitional’ position between them. The transition option is used by those who want to reject the reality that China is an imperialist world power, and keep alive the dream that it has some progressive, pro-socialist characteristics. In this case China’s growth must be explained not by its restoration of capitalism which is globally in decline but by its ‘transition’ to socialism. |
Foremost among those who argue China is undergoing a ‘transition’ is Michael Roberts the British based Marxist well known for his defence of Marxist economics and the law of value, most notably against Michael Heinrich, (see In Defence of the Labour Theory of Value). He has also defended Marx’s key law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the LTRPF, against David Harvey, who rejects it as the necessary cause of crises of overproduction, and ultimately setting the historical limits of the capitalist mode of production. Roberts’ defence places him directly in the tradition of Marx for whom value is the product of social labour, and the LTRPF the expression of the ultimate contradiction - the class struggle between the proletariat to retain the labour value it produces, and of the capitalist ruling class to extract surplus labour value. .... (to finish reading go to Critique of Michael Roberts: on China’s Socialist Transition | | | | | | | | | | | Critique of Michael Roberts: on China’s Socialist Transition Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Lü Y anchun ( 吕延春 ), ... | | | | | | | Class Struggle 148 Autumn 2024 Class Struggle 148 Autumn 2024 by dbedggood on Scribd | | | "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common." IWW founding congress opening statement -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34105): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34105 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110171715/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
