Culture and Social Transformations

Culture and Social Transformations

©2014 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 26050 4

Ideas, History, and Modern China

Edited by

Ban Wang, Stanford UniversityWang Hui, Tsinghua University

VoluMe 7

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihmc


Culture and Social Transformations

Theoretical Framework and Chinese Context

Edited by

Cao TianyuZhong Xueping

liao KebinBan Wang

leIDeN • BoSToN2014


This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.

ISSN 1875-9394ISBN 978-90-04-26050-4 (hardback)ISBN 978-90-04-26051-1 (e-book)

© Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, leiden, The Netherlands.Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global oriental, Hotei Publishing,IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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Some of the articles were translated into english from Chinese with financial support from the Confucius Institute at Stanford university.

library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Culture and social transformations : theoretical framework and Chinese context / edited by Cao Tianyu, Zhong Xueping, liao Kebin, Wang Ban. pages cm. — (Ideas, history, and modern China, ISSN 1875-9394 ; volume 7) “This is the second collection of essays based on the third conference of the “Culture and Social Transformations in Reform era China” project. Conceived in 2003, the project has been carried out by the editors of this volume in collaboration with lin Chun of The london School of economics. The third conference was held in 2009 at Zhejiang university, Hangzhou, China.” Introduction. Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-26050-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-26051-1 (e-book) 1. China— Civilization—1976–2002—Congresses. 2. Social change—China—History—20th century— Congresses. 3. China—Social conditions—1976–2000—Congresses. 4. China—Politics and government—1976–2002—Congresses. I. Cao, Tian Yu, 1941– editor of compilation. II. Zhong, Xueping, 1956– editor of compilation. III. liao, Kebin, 1961– editor of compilation. IV. Wang, Ban, 1957– editor of compilation.

DS779.23.C868 2013 951.05’7—dc23 2013028343


CoNTeNTS

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................... viilist of Contributors ....................................................................................... ix

Introduction The Social and Cultural Roots of the Reforms ........ 1 Cao Tianyu and Zhong Xueping*

PART oNe

1 Modernism, Modernity, and Individualism .................................... 21 Nan Fan*

2 Subaltern literature: Theory and Practice (2004–2009) ........... 51 Li Yunlei*

3 The “Crime” of lu Xun, Anti-enlightenment, and Chinese Modernity: A Critique of liu Xiaofeng’s “Christian Theology” .... 71 Lu Xinyu*

4 From Charting the Revolution to Charter 2008: Discourse, liberalism, De-Politicization ............................................................... 95 Daniel F. Vukovich

5 The Transformation of Chinese university Culture: History, Present, and Path .................................................................................... 117 Liao Kebin*

PART TWo

6 Academic Discourse, official Ideology, and Institutional Metamorphoses: Reflections on Contemporary Chinese legal Discourses and Reality .......................................................................... 153 Yu Xingzhong

* Contributions marked with * were translated by Adrien Thieret.


vi contents

7 The Flight to Rights: 1990s China and Beyond ............................ 167 Rebecca E. Karl

8 Human Rights, Revolutionary legacy, and Politics in China ..... 185 Ban Wang

9 Democracy: lyric Poem and Construction Blueprint ............... 215 Han Shaogong*

PART THRee

10 Rereading “Commemorating the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Fall of the Ming” .............................................. 229

Han Yuhai*

11 The Crisis of Socialism and efforts to overcome It ................... 241 Cai Xiang*

12 Post-Socialism Revisited: Reflections on “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Its Past, Present, and Future ............ 263 Arif Dirlik

13 Reinterpreting “Capitalist Restoration” in China: Toward a Historical Critique of “Actually existing Market Socialism” ..... 293 Yiching Wu

14 The Western Slump and Global Reorganization ........................ 315 Robert Wade

15 An Argument for “Participatory Socialism” .................................. 333 Lin Chun*

Index .................................................................................................................. 355


ACKNoWleDGMeNTS

This is the second collection of essays based on the third conference of the “Culture and Social Transformations in Reform-era China” project. Con-ceived in 2003, the project has been carried out by the editors of this vol-ume in collaboration with lin Chun of The london School of economics. The third conference was held in 2009 at Zhejiang university, Hangzhou, China. We would like to thank the li Hensheng Center for Culture and economics Studies of Zhejiang university and Mr. Xu Ziwang for support-ing the conference. Without their financial support, the conference would not have been held. We would also like to thank the conference organiz-ers and all the participants. Thanks also go to the translator and to the Confucius Institute at Stanford university for funding the translations.

We are especially grateful to Dr. Qin Higley at Brill for her faith in the significance of this project, for her strong support during the translation process, and for her impeccable professionalism in working with the edi-tors of this volume.

Cao Tianyu, Zhong Xueping, liao Kebin, and Ban WangApril 2013


lIST oF CoNTRIBuToRS

Arif Dirlik Independent scholar, eugene, oRCai, Xiang Shanghai universityCao, Tianyu Boston universityHan, Shaogong Writer, Hainan ProvinceHan, Yuhai Peking universityRebecca e. Karl New York universityli, Yunlei Chinese Art Research Instituteliao, Kebin Peking universitylin, Chun london School of economicslu, Xinyu Fudan universityNan, Fan Academy of Social Sciences of Fujian ProvinceDaniel F. Vukovich university of Hong KongRobert Wade london School of economicsWang, Ban Stanford universityWu, Yiching university of TorontoYu, Xingzhong Cornell universityZhong, Xueping Tufts university


CHAPTeR TWelVe

PoST-SoCIAlISM ReVISITeD: ReFleCTIoNS oN “SoCIAlISM WITH CHINeSe CHARACTeRISTICS,” ITS PAST, PReSeNT, AND FuTuRe

Arif Dirlik1

on this occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (also the thirtieth anniversary of the “reform and open-ing”), I would like to reflect on some issues I raised in an essay published two decades ago, “Postsocialism? Reflections on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.”2 That essay was written in the midst of uncertainties con-cerning both socialism and the future of the PRC. The present is also a time of uncertainty, this time concerning the future of the capitalist world-system, as well as of the PRC (now an integral part of that system, but with continued insistence on a commitment to a socialist future). In 1989, socialism appeared as a residue of a fading past. China’s integration into a globalizing capitalist economy over the last two decades has demanded the erasure of the last residues of an earlier revolutionary socialism, mak-ing official claims to socialism less convincing than ever before. With “ capitalism in ruins,” as a recent newspaper headline put it, those claims need to be reconsidered—especially for the historical experience that con-tinues to inform them, and for the important part these past legacies may have to play in confronting challenges thrown up by the current crisis. Postsocialism offers a fruitful point of departure for such reconsideration.

I. Postsocialism, China, and Global Capitalism

“Postsocialism” was written in response to simplistic (and ideological) readings of reform and opening in the 1980s: predictions of imminent res-toration of capitalism, on the one hand, and an unquestioning affirmation

1 I am grateful to olivia Bina, Ann Huss, Roxann Prazniak, Timothy Summers, QS Tong, and Aihe Wang for taking the time to read and comment on this essay. They are not responsible in any way for the views expressed here.

2 Arif Dirlik, “Postsocialism? Reflections on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” in Marxism and the Chinese Experience, ed. Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner (Armonk, NY: Me Sharpe, 1989), 362–84.


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of socialism on the other hand. opponents of socialism hailed Deng Xiaoping as a revolutionary leader who was prepared to return China to the capitalist path. Friends of Chinese socialism, ready to follow whatever line the leadership proposed, pretended that despite its repudiation of the revolutionary past, “reform and opening” did not imply any significant retreat from socialism.

In my reading at the time, reform and opening signaled the end of the revolution and reopened the question of socialism with regard both to goals and the strategy of achieving them. The years 1956–1978 (from the eighth Party Congress to the end of the Cultural Revolution) witnessed a failed revolutionary attempt to secure the transition to socialism. In its economic and political policies, “reform and opening” was reminiscent of the policies of New Democracy that had brought the Communist Party to power, and guided the changes of the initial years of the People’s Republic. But those policies acquired a new significance in light of the abandoned hope for a revolutionary transition to socialism, and required reorienta-tion in response to changes in the world situation. In short, they required a rethinking of socialism. The Cultural Revolution had been inspired in part by the rethinking of Soviet-style socialism. This time around, it was the Chinese revolutionary experience with socialism that required rethinking, reopening the whole question of socialism. Any reading of the situation in the 1980s had to take this rethinking as its point of departure.

“Postsocialism” represented a conceptual effort at grasping this situa-tion. It was informed by:

. . . a historical situation where (a) socialism has lost its coherence as a metatheory of politics because of the attenuation of the socialist vision in its historical unfolding; partly because of a perceived need on the part of socialist states to articulate “actually existing socialism” to the demands of a capitalist world order, but also because of the vernacularization of socialism in its absorption into different national contexts; (b) the articula-tion of socialism to capitalism is conditioned by the structure of “actually existing socialism” in any particular context which is the historical premise of all such articulation; and (c) this premise stands guard over the process of articulation to ensure that it does not result in the restoration of capitalism. Postsocialism is of necessity also postcapitalist, not in the classical Marx-ist sense of socialism as a phase in historical development that is anterior to capitalism, but in the sense of a socialism that represents a response to the experience of capitalism and an attempt to overcome the deficiencies of capitalist development. Its own deficiencies and efforts to correct them by resorting to capitalist methods of development are conditioned by this awareness of the deficiencies of capitalism in history. Hence postsocialism seeks to avoid a return to capitalism, no matter how much it may draw


post-socialism revisited 265

upon the latter to improve the performance of “actually existing social-ism.” For this reason, and also to legitimize the structure of “actually exist-ing socialism,” it strives to keep alive a vague vision of future socialism as the common goal of humankind while denying to it any immanent role in the determination of present social policy.3

The “post” in the term postsocialist carried two meanings, referring to the ambiguities in the situation:

Chinese society today is postsocialist because its claims to a socialist future no longer derive their force from socialism as an immanent idea. on the other hand, it is also postsocialist because socialism, as its structural con-text, remains as a possible option to which it can return if circumstances so demand (this is what distinguishes it from a capitalist or even a postcapital-ist society where such options as collectivization, socially, and a socialist culture, ideologically, are foreclosed).4

To stress the capitalist elements of modern China and assume that China must develop into a capitalist society would be erroneous; “it remains to be seen what the incorporation of socialist systems into the capitalist world order will imply for capitalism itself.”5 Rather than signaling the end of socialism, “postsocialism” offered “the possibility in the midst of a crisis in socialism of rethinking socialism in new, more creative ways. . . . Freed of the commitment to . . . an inexorable future, socialism may be conceived in a new way: as a [re]source for imagining future possibili-ties that derive their inspiration not from a congealed utopia, which post-pones to the future problems that await resolution today, but from the impulses to liberation that represent present responses to problems of oppression and inequality.”6

Two decades later, there is seemingly greater clarity over the status of socialism in the PRC. The economy has experienced enormous growth. While the PRC has resisted neoliberal policies emanating from the united States, its contribution to the global economy has done much to legitimize those policies. The consequence of integration into the global economy,

3 Ibid., 231.4 Ibid., 244.5 Ibid., 246.6 Ibid., 247. This reconceptualization of socialism bears a close resemblance to a state-

ment by the Indian Marxist Aijaz Ahmad shortly after the fall of the Soviet union that “socialism is the determinate name for [the] negation of capitalism’s fundamental sys-temic contradictions and cruelties, and the necessity of this negation will remain, regard-less of the fate of the Soviet union as such.” Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (london: Verso, 1992), 316.


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development has made China into a major force and advocate of glo-balization. China has become the strategic center of the “global factory” that produces commodities consumed globally, above all in the centers of capitalism. It has emerged as a major player in the global economy to the point where many look to it to save the global economy from the cri-sis brought about by irresponsible neoliberal policies. Predictions abound as to its recovering the position once held by imperial China during the Ming Dynasty as the focal point of global economic activity.7 economic power has brought with it political inclusion in the councils capital. Those who would manage the capitalist world economy can no longer afford to ignore the counsel of Chinese leaders and, reluctantly or not, make room for their voices in any serious consideration of the world’s problems.

The globalization of the Chinese economy has also produced signifi-cant social changes. Cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing have joined the urban hubs of the global economy. Chinese society has been integrated with societies elsewhere through the motions of its citizens and cultural products, not least through the interactive possibilities offered by the new communications and information technologies. The standard of living of the population as a whole has gone up significantly. economic development has created a new entrepreneurial class that is active not just in China, but globally. A growing urban middle class has joined its counterparts elsewhere as a major consumer of material and cultural commodities. Significant portions of rural society have risen above official thresholds of poverty as they venture out of agrarian business into other forms of economic activity. Any visitor to China is likely to be impressed by the social vitality and restlessness, against which older centers of capi-talism appear as quaint and sleepy—development gone dormant. China is no longer merely a recipient of euro/American cultural and intellectual products, but a consumer of global exotica, as well as a major exporter of cultural artifacts of its own. As it flexes its newfound political and military power, it seeks also to demonstrate its “soft power” in the global projec-tion of native ideologies and culture, including language.

The issue of culture is especially pertinent to the question of socialism. In the midst of economic, cultural, and to some extent social globalization, the last two decades have also witnessed a revival of cultural traditions,

7 I am referring here to such works as Andre Gunder Frank’s ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley, CA: university of California Press, 1998), and Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century (london: Verso, 2007).



most notably Confucianism, that the Chinese Revolution had sought to sweep into the proverbial “dustbin of history” for nearly a century. The vocabulary of Confucianism has infused the language of socialism; Con-fucianism has been officially sanctioned as a marker of Chinese identity, and it is under the cover of Confucianism, not socialism, that Chinese “soft power” is projected globally (through the Confucius Institutes). Social and cultural globalization, ironically, have been accompanied at the popular level by a turn to things “Chinese” that in their very consumption nourish cultural nativism. The pursuit of proficiency in english as a foreign lan-guage, ironically, goes hand in hand with a stubborn insistence on loyalty to a past that the revolution had sought to overcome, if not to erase.

Yet, despite this evidence of the economic, social, cultural, and ideological incorporation of global capitalism, or nativistic revivals at the official and the popular level, fundamental ambiguities remain in the Communist self-image, and images of China’s relationship to the world both within and without the PRC. The Communist Party refuses to let go of its socialist commitments, or of the ideological legacy of the revolution, which now includes Deng Xiaoping’s legacy of reform and opening, as enshrined in the slogan “Marxism-leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory.” This self-image in practice is at least partly responsible for China’s ambivalent relationship with the capitalist world. In spite of the powerful position the PRC holds in the contemporary global economy, it is possible to argue that it is at once inside and outside that economy: inside as a major player within it, outside in its insistence on keeping capitalism at arm’s length (which is reciprocated by continued suspicion of the PRC among major capitalist powers). China holds a similar position with regard to the Global South. The Chinese revolution has all along had a double character as both a socialist revolution and a national liberation struggle of a country suffering from semi-colonial domination, which gave it a sense of kinship with the Third World. This ambiguity persists pres-ently in the status of the PRC as a developing country which neverthe-less has come to hold a powerful position vis-à-vis developed capitalist societies. This double identity accounts for both a sense of kinship with the Global South (the earlier Third World) and suspicions of imperialist exploitation of the South’s resources (see below for further discussion).

Given these ambiguities, there is much to be gained from thinking of China as a postsocialist, rather than simply a socialist, capitalist, or neo-Confucian society. The leadership’s insistence on its socialism may be dis-missed as political expediency, as the Communist Party ultimately derives its legitimacy from the revolution that brought it to power. However, the


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government’s readiness to draw upon the legacies of the socialist revolu-tion endows its claims with legitimacy and distinguishes its response to contemporary challenges from leaders elsewhere. Those legacies, more-over, should be understood not as part of a generic or unchanging social-ism, but as an idea that needs to be reworked in response to concrete historical circumstances, in this case, the century-long revolutionary process in China, which was informed by a socialist vision but has also repeatedly redefined both the vision and the means for its realization.

Socialism as it was previously understood, even in the days of Deng Xiaoping, may be over, but it would be a mistake to assume therefore that its legacies are no longer alive. I am not referring here to the perpetua-tion of a centralized, closely regulated economy; this might distinguish this form of socialism from neoliberal fantasies about unregulated market economies, but is not sufficient to endow it with a vision that transcends the horizon of capitalism. By that measure, moreover, the whole world, including the united States, might be said presently to be on the verge of socialism; in their response to the crisis created by permissive neolib-eralism, governments worldwide are in haste to regulate the operations of capital and establish control, if not ownership, over its institutional apparatus. This designation obviously does not make any sense, contrary to the protestations of unreconstructed neoliberal utopians to whom any interference in the market represents a move toward socialism.

What is more important is the continued urge to find an alternative to capitalism that has remained alive even as the Chinese economy has been integrated to global capitalism. The persistence of this vision may account for some of the contradictions that puzzle, if not annoy, those who would wish socialism away. It also presents Chinese leaders with challenges as they seek to reconcile the demands of the vision with the practical reali-ties of incorporation in global capitalism.

II. Revolutionary Legacies

The legacy of the Chinese revolution can be understood in two senses. one sense, the more straightforward, is that of revolution as a storehouse of values, aspirations, and policies that are available for inspiration and example in the formulation of present policy. In this sense, the revolu-tionary past is part of a larger past that also includes the imperial and the pre-imperial periods, as well as non-Chinese histories. In spite of allega-tions of Chinese close-mindedness, Chinese leaders and thinkers since the



twentieth century have been remarkably open to drawing upon differ-ent historical experiences in dealing with problems of the present. This is as true of the present leadership as it was of early leaders such as Mao Zedong. That different leaders or thinkers drew upon different parts of the past is only an indication of different perceptions of contemporary prob-lems and different aspirations for the future. The demotion of revolution-ary history to simply one more “past” among others implies a retreat from revolution, to be sure, but it suggests neither the denial of revolution nor a conservative escape to a pre-revolutionary Confucian past, as many ideo-logues of Confucianism in and out of China would like to think. Rather, that period is itself now viewed through the lens of revolutionary history. It represents, on the one hand, an affirmation of the pre-revolutionary past against its eurocentric denials by Chinese and non-Chinese alike. on the other hand, it places that past in the service of aspirations that are very much products of the revolution itself.

The second sense of revolutionary legacy is related to the first but is much more complex; it must remain abstract by its very nature. I refer here to a mode of thinking that was the product of the revolutionary process in China, especially the Communist revolution, as a protracted guerilla struggle. A guerilla struggle almost by definition involves experi-mentation with revolution. In actuality, one of the most remarkable things about the Communist Revolution in China from the 1930s to the present is its openness to experimentation with policy—from the flexible social and economic policies of the 1930s to the New Democracy of the “long 1940s,” then from the Great leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to “reform and opening” since the 1980s. Mao Zedong, with his openly admitted policies of trial-and-error, and slogans such as “two steps for-ward, one step backward,” was the “great experimenter,” but he was by no means the only one. Deng Xiaoping was equally committed to trying out policies to see which proved to be workable, and so have been his succes-sors. Indeed, this commitment to experimentation has been visible over the years through the restricted trial of policies in certain locations to test their workability before finally deciding on national policy shifts. It may be plausibly argued that the history of the socialist revolution in China is a history of experimentation with socialism and revolution.

Theoretically speaking, such experimentation was not open-ended but limited by the commonly shared goal of creating a socialist society (inextricably entangled with the goal of a strong China). except during the height of the Cultural Revolution, however, this goal was not allowed to congeal into a rigid utopia. Stated somewhat differently, in contrast to


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the religious utopianism of the Cultural Revolution (which also endowed Mao with supernatural qualities), the Communist Revolution has pri-marily featured a secular utopianism, with a future vision as guide, but with the present playing an equally important part in the formulation of what the vision might ultimately contain—so long as it retained the basic commitment to national goals of development and independence—as fil-tered through socialist aspirations of equality and justice (or the other way around, depending on ideological priorities).

The relationship between present activity and future goals is ultimately homologous to the relationship between theory and practice in Chinese Marxism, which would find its most articulate expression in Mao Zedong’s “sinicization” of Marxism, or making Marxism Chinese: integrating “the universal truths of Marxism with the concrete realities of Chinese society.” Regardless of the fate of particular Maoist policies, Mao Zedong Thought remains a central component of Communist ideology. It represented not just Mao’s thought but the collective experience of the party, and more importantly, the integration of Marxism with the Chinese experience. The continued significance of this impulse explains the longevity of Mao Zedong Thought and presents an important theoretical tool for reading post-Mao ideological transformations.

Mao articulated the philosophical premises of his version of Marxism in the process—and as an integral part—of the sinicization of Marxism. His essays “on practice” and “on contradiction” were delivered as speeches in July and August 1937 respectively, coinciding with his call for a shift in Communist revolutionary strategy in response to Japan’s full-scale inva-sion. At its most fundamental level of vernacularization (translating Marx-ism into a Chinese idiom), the sinicization of Marxism was a product of revolutionary problems (especially the problem of a Marxist revolution in agrarian China, which theory was ill-prepared to contain); some of the key ingredients of a sinicized Marxism had already been enunciated in response to these problems, which were quite independent of the national problem.8 The national problem and its ramifications for Marxism were

8 Indeed, some of the earliest and most important discussions on the need to translate Marxism into the language of the masses were provided not by Mao, or even Maoists, but by Qu Qiubai, an earlier secretary of the party and a literary theorist. For a discussion of his ideas, see Paul Pickowicz, Marxist Literary Thought in China: The Influence of Ch’u Ch’iupai (Berkeley: university of California Press, 1981). A more direct discussion of Qu’s (and the party’s) efforts to accomplish this translation through literary means during the early part of the agrarian revolution is to be found in ellen Judd, “Revolutionary drama and song in the Jiangxi Soviet,” Modern China 9(1) ( January 1983): 127–60. early practice is most readily



also the subject of intensive discussion in Chinese intellectual circles as early as 1936.9 Nevertheless, the project of sinicization was not clearly formulated and realized until 1937–1940; there was a direct line connect-ing the theoretical formulations of Mao’s philosophy in his 1937 essays and the underlying reasoning for a sinicized Marxist strategy that Mao was to enunciate in “on New Democracy” in 1940. eminently practical and tactical in intention, the two essays sought to ground the problems of the Chinese Revolution within Marxist theory, in the process offering Mao’s fullest and most comprehensive statement on the philosophical considerations underlying his reformulation of Marxist theory.

The concept of contradiction is central to Mao Zedong Thought. Its centrality in Mao’s original presentation was a direct product of the refor-mulation of Marxism to account for China’s historical situation, which was defined structurally by the contradictoriness of its various moments, and the articulation of this contradictoriness as a contradiction between theory and practice. While the contradiction between national and social revolutionary needs was obvious, within the actual socialist revolution a deeper problem developed that was not anticipated in theory: an agrar-ian society in which a socialist revolution had to be engineered out of components that theory did not account for; in which the revolutionar-ies themselves were outsiders to the social situation (and, therefore, in contradiction to it). Beyond the level of the national struggle, it was this social situation that made the sinicization of Marxism into a total theo-retical project, and called for the reformulation of theory in terms of the multitude of contradictions that revolution faced at the level of practice. In Mao’s discussion of contradiction, he explains:

The law of contradiction in things, that is the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics. . . . As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and

(and comprehensively) apparent in a 1982 account of a local investigation Mao conducted in 1930. See Mao Zedong, Report from Xunwu, ed. with an introduction by Roger R. Thomp-son (Stanford, CA: Stanford university Press, 1990). This essay has justified some Chinese authors in carrying Mao’s “sinicization” of Marxism past the war years back to 1930. See Shu Riping, “十年来毛泽东哲学思想研究述评” (Shinian lai Mao Zedong zhexue sixiang yanjiu shuping)(A Critique of Research on Mao Zedong’s Philosophical Thought over the last Decade), 《毛泽东哲学思想研究》(Mao Zedong zhexue sixiang yanjiu) (Research in Mao Zedong’s Philosophical Thought), No. 5 (1989): 4–10.

9 These discussions were published under the title of Xian jieduande Zhongguo sixiang yundong (The Chinese Thought Movement of the Present) (Shanghai: Yiban shudian, 1937).


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its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts with the things around it.10

“on contradiction” depicts a world (and a mode of grasping it) in which not things but relationships are the central data. Such relationships are relationships of mutual opposition as well as transformation, difference as well as identity. These relationships do not coexist haphazardly, moreover, but constitute a totality structured by their many interactions, a totality that is nevertheless in a constant state of transformation itself because the relationship between the whole and the parts that constitute it, no less than the relationships between the parts, is functional yet opposi-tional. The idea of “contradiction” encompasses both functionality and opposition (a “unity of opposites”); contradiction, as a constitutive prin-ciple of the world, produces a totality where everything (the parts no less than the whole) contains everything else, and yet nothing is reducible to anything else. As Mao puts it later in the essay:

Since the particular is united with the universal and since the universal-ity as well as the particularity of contradiction is inherent in everything, universality residing in particularity, we should, when studying an object, try to discover both the particular and the universal and their interconnec-tion, to discover both particularity and universality and also their intercon-nections of this object with the many objects outside it.11

As a philosophical essay, “on contradiction” is devoted to an elaboration of the characteristics of contradictions, in which several general ideas are embedded. These may be summarized (using Mao’s own wording) as follows:

1. Contradiction is universal:

The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. one is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement

10 Mao Zedong, “on contradiction,” Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 1 (Beijing: For-eign languages Press, 1965–1967): 311. Nick Knight has demonstrated that this text is an edited version of the pre-liberation text of “on contradiction” (which contained addi-tional passages that were edited out after 1949), but has not otherwise questioned what is given in this translation. See Nick Knight, “Mao Zedong’s on Contradiction and on Prac-tise: Pre-liberation Texts,” China Quarterly 84 (1980): 641–668.

11 Ibid., 329.



of opposites exists from beginning to end. . . . There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist.12

2. Contradiction is also particular:

every form of motion contains within itself its own particular contradic-tion. This particular contradiction constitutes the particular essence which distinguishes one thing from another. . . . only after man knows the particu-lar essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things. When man attains the knowledge of this common essence, he uses it as a guide and proceeds to study various concrete things which have not yet been studied, or studied thoroughly, and to discover the particular essence of each. . . . Qualitatively different contra-dictions can only be resolved by qualitatively different methods . . . contradic-tions [in Chinese society] cannot be treated in the same way since each has its own particularity. . . . We who are engaged in the Chinese revolution should not only understand the particularity of these contradictions in their totality, that is, in their interconnectedness, but should also study the two aspects of each contradiction as the only means of understanding the totality.13

3. Contradictions within progress are defined by a single principal contradiction:

There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and devel-opment of the other contradictions. . . . In any contradiction the develop-ment of the contradictory aspects is uneven. . . . The nature of a thing is determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has gained the dominant position. But this situation is not static; the principal and the non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform them-selves into each other and the nature of things changes accordingly.14

4. Contradiction is composed of struggles:

Identity, unity, coincidence, interpenetration, interpermeation, interdepen-dence (or mutual dependence for existence), interconnection or mutual cooperation—all these different terms mean the same thing and refer to the following two points: first, the existence of each of the two aspects of a contradiction in the process of development of a thing presupposes the existence of the other aspect, and both aspects coexist in a single entity; sec-ond, in given conditions, each of the contradictory aspects transforms itself

12 Ibid., 316.13 Ibid., 323.14 Ibid., 333.


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into its opposite. . . . How then can one speak of identity or unity? The fact is that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each loses the condition for its existence . . . the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and relative, while the struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute.15

5. Antagonism is a potential manifestation of contradiction:

Antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of a struggle of opposites. In human history, antagonism between classes exists as a particular manifesta-tion of the struggle of opposites. . . . Contradiction and struggle are universal and absolute, but the methods of resolving contradictions, that is, the forms of struggle, differ according to the differences in the nature of contradic-tions. Some contradictions are characterized by open antagonism, others are not.16

“on contradiction” is a revolutionary hermeneutics (interpretative strat-egy, in other words) on how to make a revolution. While it reveals that Mao’s a life outlook may include native philosophical elements in addi-tion to Marxism, all these elements are subsumed under, and refracted through, this basic problem.

At one level, it is possible to read the essay as an abstract of the spe-cific problems of revolution in Chinese society in 1937. The statements referenced above are interspersed among observations on contemporary developments in China’s historical situation, which are used in illustra-tion of Mao’s various abstractions.17 A fundamental goal of this essay is to provide a theoretical justification for change in revolutionary policy after

15 Ibid., 342.16 Ibid., 344.17 Textual analyses have revealed (contrary to earlier opinions) that “on contradiction”

and “on practice,” along with “lecture notes on dialectical materialism,” were composed in 1936–37, and together represented “a single intellectual enterprise.” See Knight, “on contradiction,” and Stuart Scram, The Political Thought of Mao Tsetung (New York: Prae-ger Publishers, 1971). Mao’s philosophical effort at the time was part of the struggles for leadership within the Communist Party, as an endeavor to demonstrate his qualification for leadership against theoretically much better-informed opponents. Indeed, Wylie has argued that the “sinicization of Marxism” was a product of organizational struggles against “dogmatists” within the party. See Raymond Wylie, The Emergence of Maoism: Mao Tsetung, Ch’en Pota and the Search for Chinese Theory, 1937–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford university Press, 1980). While this view has much virtue, it needs to be placed within the broader context of the problem of revolution. I focus on the first two essays, because unlike the “lecture notes on dialectical materialism,” which was mainly copied from other sources, they represent original contributions by Mao. While these essays were part of an ongoing philosophical effort that preceded Japan’s invasion of China, moreover, they were still rooted in practical considerations, and the texts we have are explicitly devoted to the legitimation of change in political policy in response to the “new situation.”



the Japanese invasion of China, which shifted the “primary” contradiction from class struggle to national struggle. This explains why the majority of the essay is devoted to discussion of the “particularity” of contradic-tion (which includes discussion of primary/secondary contradictions, as well as the discussion of its primary/secondary aspects). It is within this process of policy legitimation that Mao articulates the priority of practice over theory. As he put it:

The dogmatists . . . do not understand that conditions differ in different kinds of revolution and so do not understand that different methods should be used to resolve different contradictions; on the contrary, they invariably adopt what they imagine to be an unalterable formula and arbitrarily apply it everywhere, which only causes setbacks to the revolution or makes a sorry mess of what was originally well done.18

In spite of the practical nature of Mao’s thinking, however, it would be reductionist to read the essay simply as a discussion of practical questions, and ignore the consequences for theory of Mao’s justification of practice. The French Marxist theorist louis Althusser grasped the significance of this problem when he wrote of “on Contradiction”:

Mao’s essay, inspired by his struggle against dogmatism in the Chinese Party, remains generally descriptive, and in consequence it is in certain respects abstract. Descriptive: his concepts correspond to concrete experiences. In part abstract: the concepts, though new and rich in promise, are represented as specifications of the dialectic in general rather than as necessary implications of the Marxist conception of society and history.19

Althusser tells us that while Mao’s theoretical formulations remain under-theorized, they are nevertheless path-breaking and significant (and are not therefore reducible to descriptive abstractions). The former is evident. While Mao sought in the essay to theorize the particularity of revolutionary practice, he consciously demoted theory: “in the contradic-tion between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect.”20 This demotion of theory was also a move toward a restatement of its role; Mao conceived of theory primarily as an abstraction of concrete revolution-ary practice, and only secondarily as an abstract formulation of “laws” of social movement. Mao did not repudiate theory, or the necessity of understanding it. In fact, on one occasion, responding to an imaginary

18 Mao, “on contradiction,” 322.19 Althusser, op. cit., 94n. Italics in original.20 Mao, “on contradiction,” 335.


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audience who held that those who were “instinctively” dialectical in their activity did not need to read books to understand theory, he reaffirmed the importance of studying theory—without such study, there was no possibility of synthesizing the multi-faceted phenomena that the revolu-tionaries faced.21 “Without revolutionary theory,” he believed with lenin, “there can be no revolutionary movement.”22 Indeed, given his revolution-ary hermeneutics, theory appeared in Mao’s thinking as an essential guide in determining the direction of revolution.

The priority that Mao assigned to practice meant that, unlike Althusser, he was only marginally interested in theorizing his abstract formulations. “on contradiction” was possibly “in part abstract” because Mao’s histori-cism (by which I mean his emphasis on concreteness and particularity) did not allow theorization beyond a certain point. Mao instead produced a hermeneutic. Revolutionary practice was no longer predictable from theory; rather, the latter became a guide to “reading” situations in the activity of making revolution. Mao’s appreciation of theory was itself con-tradictory in the double meaning he assigned to it: guide in the long-term direction of revolution, instrument in immediate analysis. Theory, in other words, was part of the very contradictions that it was intended to unravel and to resolve. This was the key to Mao’s restructuring of theory.

The world of “on contradiction” is one of ceaseless confrontation and conflict, where unity may be understood only in terms of its contradictory moments and where no entity is a constant because it has no existence outside its contradictions or a place of its own other than in its relation-ship to other contradictions. It may be that all Marxism is a conflict-based conceptualization of the world. But however differently Marxists may have structured conflict or organized the structure of society, conflict in most interpretations of Marxism is conceived of in terms of a limited number of social categories (production, relations of production, politics, ideol-ogy, etc.), and there has been an urge to hierarchize these categories in terms of their effectivity in the social structure. Mao’s multitude of con-tradictions resist such hierarchization and, more significantly, any reduc-tion to a limited number of categories. Some contradictions are obviously more significant than others in determining social structure or historical

21 Mao Zedong, “Bianzhengfa weiwulun” (Dialectical materialism), in Mao Zedong ji (Mao Zedong Collection), ed. Takeuchi Minoru, vol. VI (Hong Kong: Bowen Book Co., 1976), pp. 265–305.

22 Mao quotes lenin in both essays. See Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. I, 304, 336.



direction, but Mao refuses to deny a role in social dynamics to what seem to be the most trivial contradictions (and therefore dissolve them into broader categories) or to hierarchize them except on a temporary basis, for in their interactions they are in a constant state of flux regarding their place in the structure. What he says of the primary categories of Marxist theory is revealing:

For instance, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base and the superstruc-ture, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist concept, not the dialectical materialist conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the super-structure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role.23

Causation here is over-determined: social and historical events are prod-ucts of the conjuncture of multiple contradictions. The role of the revolu-tionary subject was essential in shaping this idea of contradiction. In the first place, over-determined conjuncture suggests a revolutionary alterna-tive, because such a situation is of its very nature open-ended and open to interpretation. It is up to the revolutionary to interpret it in accordance with revolutionary goals. This is also where the importance of abstract theory as guide comes in; without the aid of theory, the revolutionary will be at a loss to make choices consistent with long-term goals. Second, while itself a product of contradictions, revolutionary practice is also part of the structure of contradictions, and is most effective in aligning the contradictions in a manner consistent with revolutionary goals. The role of revolutionary struggle in converting an unfavorable situation to a favor-able one was part of Mao’s analysis of contradiction mentioned above; it appears most prominently in his discussions of the military strategy of revolutionary struggle.24

Mao’s epistemological companion essay, “on practice” offers a more direct statement on interpretation as an essential component of revolu-tionary activity (or, if I may overstate the point, on revolutionary activity as

23 Mao, “on contradiction,” 335–6.24 See, for instance, “on Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism,” Selected Works of Mao

Tsetung, vol. I, 152–254.


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interpretative activity). on the surface, “on practice” offers an empiricist epistemology. As Mao presents it, cognition begins with perceptual cogni-tion, which is “the stage of sense perceptions and impressions.”25 As sense perceptions are repeated and accumulate, “a sudden change (leap) takes place in the brain in the process of cognition, and concepts are formed. Concepts are no longer phenomena, the separate aspects and the external relations of things; they grasp the essence, the totality and the internal rela-tions of things.”26 (Mao also describes this as “the stage of rational knowl-edge.”) The knowledge thus acquired is then tested for its validity in actual practice, which leads to further perceptions and conceptual modifications in an ongoing cycle of perception-conception-practice-perception.

If Mao’s epistemology is empiricist, however, it is the empiricism of an activist who constructs knowledge in the process of reconstructing the world with revolutionary goals. Mao begins his discussion of cogni-tion at the stage of perception, but this does not imply that the mind is a blank sheet of paper upon which perceptions rewrite themselves into conceptions—the mind already has a conceptual apparatus for organizing perceptions (implicit in the class character of knowledge) and a theoretical apparatus (dialectical materialism) for articulating them. His epistemol-ogy furthermore elevates certain activities over others in the acquisition of knowledge, namely the struggle for production and the class struggle, and the knowledge acquired has a clear goal: “making revolution.”27 Most important is the place of practice, which Mao consistently used in the sense of praxis: to activity change the world. The goal of “on Practice” is not to argue for a simplistic empiricism (“seeking truth from facts”), but to assert the priority of practice in cognition, as opposed to a theoretical dogmatism oblivious to concrete circumstances of revolution. Quoting Stalin, Mao observes: ‘Theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice; just as practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory.”28

“on Practice” may be viewed as a call for the revolutionary herme-neutic that Mao would elaborate on a month later in “on contradiction.” Composed as parts of a single project, the two discussions illuminate each other in their intertextuality. Mao’s understanding of knowledge as being

25 Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. I, 297. 26 Ibid., 298.27 Ibid., 296, 300.28 Ibid., 305.



inclusive of, but not limited to, interpretation, is expressed in the follow-ing statement:

Fully to reflect a thing in its totality, to reflect its essence, to reflect its inher-ent laws, it is necessary through the exercise of thought to reconstruct the rich data of sense perception discarding the dross and selecting the essen-tial, eliminating the false and retaining the true proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in order to form a system of concepts and theories—it is necessary to make a leap from perceptual to rational knowledge. Such reconstructed knowledge is not more empty or more unreliable [than empiricism]; on the contrary, whatever has been sci-entifically reconstructed in the process of cognition, on the basis of practice, reflects objective reality.29

There is a profound contradiction in Mao’s thinking. As a Marxist materi-alist, Mao believes that there exists an “objective reality” against which to judge the validity of competing forms of knowledge; hence his repeated references to cognition as a “reflection” of the world in the mind. At the same time, the essay “on contradiction” leaves little doubt that Mao views objective reality or the context of thought itself to be a product of contradictions; which renders it into an object of interpretation and “reconstruction.” His foray into the discussion of truth further reveals this contradiction in its simultaneous assertion of the “relativity” of truth, even of revolutionary truth, and the possibility of an “absolute truth,” as evi-denced in his argument below:

Marxists recognize that in the absolute and general process of develop-ment in the universe, the development of each particular process is rela-tive, and that hence, in the endless flow of absolute truth, man’s knowledge of a particular process at any given stage of development is only relative truth. The sum total of innumerable relative truths constitutes absolute truth. Marxism-leninism has in no way exhausted truth but ceaselessly opens up roads to the knowledge of truth in the course of practice.30

The contradiction between absolute and relative truth can be overcome by turning to practice as “the criterion of truth.” Practice as a world-changing activity is bound up in Mao’s thinking with the notion of contradiction: that is, changing the world is a process of resolving contradictions, which leads to new contradictions, which leads to new practices, and so on. This is problematic, however, because, as the discussion of “contradiction” tells

29 Ibid., 303.30 Ibid., 307–8.


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us, practice in and of itself does not provide a direction to history, or any judgment of validity other than “what works, works.” The assumption of an absolute truth, in other words, serves as an ideological closure upon a fluid reality that is hardly objective. Indeed, as the product of human activity, “reality” constructs its understanding of the world in the process of reconstructing the world:

The struggle of the proletariat and the revolutiories to change the world comprises the fulfillment of the following tasks: to change the objective world and, at the same time, their own subjective world to change their cognitive ability and change the relations between the subjective and the objective world.31

This representation of the world as undergoing constant revolutionary interpretation and construction is disruptive to the idea of the ideologi-cal closure, exposing it as a contradiction between theory and practice (and absolute and relative truth) that, in its open-endedness, may only be resolved through revolutionary intervention. Mao’s Marxism could in the end restore a direction to history only through revolutionary will—and suppression of alternative interpretations.

III. The Past in the Present

Though it was a powerful instrument of the revolutionary practice that produced it, the rendering of theory into a hermeneutic in Mao Zedong Thought presented two problems of lasting significance. First, any situation, revolutionary or not, could lend itself to more than one interpretation (a so-called reading of contradictions). If the validity of interpretation can be judged only by its results, there is no a priori way of determining the correctness of any one interpretation. In such a case, the clash of interpretations might easily degenerate into endless conflict or forceful suppression of alternatives. Secondly, for the same reason, there is no telling under this system which choice best points to the long-term goal of socialism, especially since that utopian end has been secularized and historicized. The freedom gained by opening up theory to experimen-tation exacts a price in uncertainties over the meaning of socialism and the way to get there.

31 Ibid., 308.



The prominent role assigned to contradiction in Mao Zedong Thought suggested a world-view (and even a cosmology) that elevated conflict to a pervasive universal. Ironically, the immediate goal of this philosophy, within its historical context, was to justify putting an end to the conflict with the Guomindang, a class struggle, to establish an alliance against Japanese imperialism. This made the interpretation readily acceptable to most, especially the more orthodox adherents of Marxism in the party who did not approve of tampering with theory. Conflict over interpre-tations would assume much greater severity in ensuing years, especially after 1956, when the post-revolutionary leadership was faced with making decisions about the most appropriate way to proceed toward socialism. The choice seemed to be either rapid development of the forces of pro-duction to establish an economic basis for socialism, or deepening the revolution through further transformation of the relations of production, thus overcoming the contradictions that had been created by the devel-opmental policies of the early years of the PRC. This, it was hoped, would also ultimately contribute to the development of the forces of production. The choice was not between development and revolution, as is sometimes suggested, but between different paths to development: the technologi-cal versus the political. Both choices, moreover, were justifiable in terms of theory.

The choice to emphasize the political over the technological would dic-tate policy over the next two decades. Disagreements over this decision were resolved in the end by the elevation of conflict to a metaphysical principle that infused into everyday existence—the utopianization of rev-olution itself—and the assertion of revolutionary will over the demands of collective wisdom and organizational prudence. This time around, the experiment would take a heavy toll on society, in the process discrediting the interpretation that had informed it.

The launch of “reform and opening” after 1978 was justified by the alter-native that had been rejected in 1956: rapid development of the forces of production. The choice to reform was accompanied by the repudia-tion of further social conflict—especially class struggle—as a necessity in progress toward socialism. To put it somewhat crudely, the immediate task appeared to be the completion of the bourgeois revolution that had been aborted by the Cultural Revolution. Within the Chinese context, this meant a return to the New Democracy policies of the early 1950s, with an emphasis on class alliance and the encouragement of private initiative in economic development, which also seemed to require the dismantling of collective institutions established earlier.


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equally radical was “opening,” which meant the repudiation of the autarkic policies pursued during the previous two decades. “opening” in China coincided with important shifts in economic practices worldwide (especially in eastern Asia) from import-substitution to export orienta-tion, which by the 1990s would culminate in neoliberal globalization. effective opening—the need to attract foreign capital—introduced pres-sures toward further erosion of the collective institutions associated with socialism. By the 1990s, when the hesitant opening of the 1980s gave way to full-scale integration into global capitalism, the “globalization” of the Chinese economy was on its way.

Present-day China is the product of these policies, and is largely per-ceived within and without China as a continuation and fulfillment of the policies initiated in 1978. Nevertheless, as a recent study has suggested, we need a more nuanced understanding of the post-1978 period than the cur-rent portrayal of the last three decades as an inevitable progress (or decline, depending on political position) to capitalism and incorporation into the global capitalist economy. In her study, lin Chun suggests a periodization that proceeds from the ambivalent openings of the 1980s (which the con-cept of “postsocialism” sought to capture) to the full-scale opening of the 1990s to the twenty-first century return of concerns about the future of socialism.32 These concerns are a product of the ecological and social prob-lems created by the rapid developmental policies of the previous decade which, if unchecked, threaten not only further development but also the socialist claims from which they have derived at least some of their legiti-macy. To be sure, development has alleviated poverty for large numbers of people, and brought enormous national prestige and power with it. But it has also created immense social and regional inequalities, wrought havoc on the environment, and nourished a popular culture (similar to those found elsewhere under global capitalism) of consumerism, indifference to public issues, and seemingly endless tolerance of inequality and injustice. This has created an enormous gap between the leadership (which contin-ues to claim revolutionary culture as its own) and the general public, espe-cially the urban public. In 1956, in “on the Ten Great Relationships,” Mao Zedong offered an analysis of the contradictions in Chinese society that he thought obstructed any progress toward socialism.33 The developments of

32 lin Chun, The Transformation of Chinese Socialism (Durham, NC: Duke university Press, 2006).

33 The “ten relationships” were between (1) industry and agriculture, and between heavy industry and light industry; (2) industry in the coastal regions and industry in the interior;



the last three decades have once again brought to the forefront many of these contradictions, albeit with somewhat different characteristics than in the 1950s. As the current leadership is quite ready to admit, the reso-lution of these contradictions is a major challenge within modern China. Interestingly, however, the interpretation of these contradictions and sug-gestions for their resolution are still conditioned by the same two alter-natives: they are either considered products of backwardness that will go away with further development or products of the development policies that need social and political transformation for their resolution.

What distinguishes China from other societies with comparable problems—and justifies the perspective afforded by the concept of “postsocialism”—is the continued willingness in Chinese politics and intellectual debate to entertain the necessity of social and political trans-formation in the resolution of these contradictions. There may be no agree-ment on what such transformations may entail, the possibilities under consideration may have proliferated with opening up to the world and to the past, but the consideration is itself significant in revealing the per-sistence of the legacies of the socialist revolution. Socialism has acquired new dimensions through descriptive terminology that seeks to maintain an idealist commitment to transcending the past and the present without being trapped in the language of orthodoxy, for example: “small-welfare society” (小康社会 xiaokang shehui), “harmonious society” (和谐社会hexie shehui), and “ecological civilization” (生态文明 shengtai wenming). Innovations at the conceptual level are accompanied by experimenta-tion with new forms of governance. Moreover, the leadership has by no means given up on its theoretical commitments to Marxism, as indicated by renewed efforts to rejuvenate the philosophy by reinterpreting it in response to a changed world situation, efforts supported by President Hu Jintao himself.

Contemporary experimentation with political theory is no doubt reformist—and incremental, to cite one of its theorists.34 This presupposes a recognition of socialism not as a utopian beacon but as an uncharted frontier, where what lies ahead is far less certain than what needs to

(3) economic construction and defense construction; (4) the state, the units of produc-tion, and the individual producers; (5) the Centre and the regions; (6) the Han nationality and the national minorities; (7) the Communist Party and non-party; (8) revolutionary and counter-revolutionary; (9) right and wrong; and (10) China and other countries.

34 Yu Keping, “Toward an Incremental Democracy and Governance: Chinese Theo-ries and Assessment Criteria,” in Yu Keping, Globalization and Changes in China’s Governance(leiden: e.J. Brill, 2008), Chapter 9.


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be overcome at the present, a secular rather than religious utopianism. Analysis of the contradictions of Chinese society presently is even more complicated than in the past, due to the integration with global capital-ism, and so are the possibilities of reading contradictions and the predica-ment of determining what reading may be most consistent with long-term aspirations. one solution to the predicament is to replace the teleology of a distant utopia with a succession of short-term goals toward a desirable future, while taking care to ensure that the solutions to present contin-gencies do not create obstacles to that future’s ultimate realization.

IV. To the Future—If There is One

I will conclude here with a few observations on the contradictions that need to be overcome. I would like to begin with an explanation of the lat-ter half of the title: “if there is one.” The ecological and resource crisis of the present is so serious that it is reasonable to wonder if humanity has a future. To some, this makes it seem pointless to talk about socialism, or any other “-ism,” as political causes appear trivial in the perspective of the far greater problem of the human relationship to nature. on the contrary, I think that very problem makes it more important than ever to speak to political issues, and to develop the kind of political system that may best contribute to human survival and welfare.

over the last sixty years, Chinese socialism has been driven by the related goals of achieving national wealth and security on the one hand, and distributive justice on the other. In the early 1950s, priority was given to building up a heavy industrial base and promoting collectivization in agriculture—both to increase production and to bring greater equality to rural society. The following twenty years witnessed a shift of emphasis to radical egalitarianism, accompanied by encouragement of self-reliance at all levels of society, including the national level, which meant as little interaction as possible with the outside world. The policies pursued were reminiscent of a war economy driven by an excessive concern for security and a puritanical control of consumption, exemplifying self-sacrifice for the greater collective good. Changes in the world situation—both eco-nomic and political—beginning in the 1980s made possible the policies of “reform and opening,” which aligned the direction of development with the contemporary changes in the capitalist world economy. The concern for national welfare and security was still paramount, but the quest for equality now placed priority on the alleviation of poverty through the rapid development of production. In the process, there was an attenuation



of distributive justice, which pushed the achievement of socialism further and further toward an unspecified future.

This change in direction created its own contradictions, whose politi-cal, social, and cultural dimensions I have already delineated. These are all recognized by the leadership and Chinese intellectuals. one problem that has not received sufficient attention, however, is the idea of “devel-opment” itself. The program suggested by “the scientific outlook on development” (科学发展观 kexue fazhan guan) for instance, has noted the importance of making adjustments in development policies to allevi-ate ecological and social problems and move toward more “sustainable” development, but it does not question the idea of development itself. In other words, the fundamental question that faces China and the world is whether “development” as it has been understood since the nineteenth century, but especially since 1945, is indeed sustainable. This, I think, should be the current point of departure for all discussions, including those on the present and future of socialism.

In outlining “the scientific outlook on development,” President Hu stated that “humans (ren) are the point of departure for and the end of development.” This is in many ways what socialism has always been about in theory, if not in practice: establishing a society in which humans can live in welfare, justice, and dignity. But is this what contemporary development pursues? If not, can we ever hope to even come close to a socialist society through developmental programs that negate these goals? Furthermore, how must we approach these goals, having been made pain-fully aware by natural destruction that there are ecological limits to what we call development?

These limits have been there all along. They have become threaten-ingly visible with the globalization of capital, and the spread globally of its productive and consumptive practices. The destruction of nature did not begin with capitalism, but the same technologies that enabled humans to “conquer” nature and expand the material horizon of human development also unleashed forces of unprecedented power in human destructiveness. These forces have been intensified with the globalization of capital, and its promise of limitless material progress.

I have argued elsewhere that socialism, beginning with Karl Marx, has shared in the developmentalist assumptions of capitalism.35 Marx was quite aware of the destructiveness of capitalism. He nevertheless was

35 Arif Dirlik, After the Revolution: Waking to Global Capitalism (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan university Press, 1993).


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fascinated by the human creativity and productive forces unleashed by capitalism, and saw in them the means to fulfilling human needs that must be the basis for socialism. The rendering of capitalism into the pre-requisite for socialism would subsequently justify the argument that the transition to socialism must await the full development of the forces of production—though it remains unclear what constitutes full develop-ment, and whether a fully developed capitalist society would lend itself to socialist transformation. It is equally unclear at what point in the devel-opment new relations of production would emerge to signal the coming of socialism.

Capitalist societies, on the other hand, have been able to sustain the myth of limitless and universal development, as evidenced by the wealth they have created; the promise of the ability of technological creativity to overcome human problems, including the problems created by its own development; and even the fairer distribution of social wealth they had achieved—at least until recently. The myth has drawn additional plau-sibility from the conscious representation as poverty the condition not only of the hopelessly needy, but also of those who did not have access to the products of capital, and did not need to do so for their survival.36 The expansion of capitalism, in other words, has depended not only on the production of goods to satisfy human needs, but also on the pro-duction of the need to make those goods indispensable to human life. In the process, it has concealed inequalities in access to its products through the promise of their availability to all successful players in its operations. Such inequality both within and between nations has contrib-uted to the invisibility of ecological limits to development, limits which have become far more visible as the globalization of capital opens up pro-duction and consumption to those formerly excluded from it. Contingent factors notwithstanding, including outright instances of theft and plun-der, it remains to be seen how much of the current crisis of the capitalist world economy is due to overproduction brought about by competition among nations to join the capitalist market. Such competition also has added to pressures on the environment and resources.

36 How development policy was based on arguments of poverty is analyzed in Arturo escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Prince-ton, NJ: Princeton university Press, 1994). The question of the need to distinguish different kinds and levels of poverty is analyzed in Albert Tevoedjre, Poverty: Wealth of Mankind (oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979).



If these arguments have any plausibility at all, it follows (in answer to the question I posed above) that developmental policies associated with the globalization of capitalism are not sustainable—even with so-called sustainable development, which seeks to bring an ecological dimension to development without addressing the most fundamental questions it raises about poverty and development itself. Reconsideration of these concepts cannot be undertaken on a nation-by-nation basis, as the problems that call it forth are products of globalization. But some nations, by virtue of the part they have played in globalization, are strategically better placed than others to take the lead.

The PRC is one such nation. Not just because of its contemporary importance in the global economy, but also because of its experience with efforts to formulate an alternative to the capitalist world system. The ide-alism that is the legacy of the revolution is still visible in the leadership’s affirmation of humans as the goal of development. No less important is the leadership’s willingness to rename past efforts to accord with new cir-cumstances. Ideals expressed through concepts such as the “harmonious society” or “ecological civilization” draw upon past visions of socialism, among other legacies, but also promise to shed the intellectual and politi-cal baggage associated with them. Above all, they offer signs of continued willingness to experiment with alternatives to the present, which provides an interesting contrast to the reluctance of even the most progressive lead-ers in europe, North America, and elsewhere to question the fundamental assumptions of capitalist society.

It remains to be seen whether or not the idealism that has character-ized the current leadership’s programmatic statements will be fulfilled in reality or have lasting power beyond the present. For the time being, China’s ambivalent relationship to global capitalism may facilitate a lead-ership role in the search for alternatives to the present situation. While the globalization of the economy has had an impact on all parts of Chi-nese society, large sections of the population have not benefited from it, though they have certainly suffered from its consequences. The cur-rent leadership is deeply aware of this problem, and has already begun to address it. The global economic crisis, ironically, has provided further stimulus for investment in improving the lives of the Chinese people, especially the rural population in the interior. Stemming the dislocation of the rural population, strengthening rural reconstruction, and distrib-uting internally and evenly the benefits of globalization may go a long way toward overcoming some of the inequalities created by globalization, and toward establishing the basis for an economy that gives priority to the


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needs of the population over the demands of a global economy abstracted from daily life.

This by no means implies a return to economic isolation. The “off-grounding” of the economy under globalization has come close to real-izing basic premises of the capitalist economy: to valorize exchange over local need, separate the consumer from the direct producer, and subject both to the demands of financial accumulation. The wealth thus created has benefited a fraction of the world’s population, while leaving the great majority at the mercy of the motions of capital that has grown ever more vulnerable to unscrupulous manipulation having been liberated from everyday production, consumption, and exchange. The task now is to re-ground the economy by turning to a domestic economy which, while not isolated from the world, gives priority to the needs of the people and the creation of a sustainable future.

of course, the challenge is not just economic, but political and eco-logical as well. The re-grounding of the economy will also give a closer hearing to the people and their needs, rather than manipulate them with illusory dreams of endless consumption. This must be a necessary point of departure for any kind of democratic governance. The issue of democ-racy is complex and controversial in China and elsewhere. It is rendered more complex by politicians such as former uS president George W. Bush, who advocated it abroad but did not hesitate to curb it at home. Well- intentioned intellectuals in the PRC and elsewhere have raised serious questions about universalizing democratic practices as they evolve in europe and North America.37 Democratic governance must take different

37 See the discussion by Yu Keping in his collection of essays Minzhu shige hao dongxi 《民主是个好东西》(Democracy is a Good Thing) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chu-banshe, 2006), especially the title essay. See also his preface to his recent book,《让民主造福中国》(Rang minzhu zaofu Zhongguo) (Make Democracy Serve China) (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chuban she, 2009). Whether or not the Chinese people are ready for democracy is raised in a recent discussion by the distinguished writer Han Shaogong in “Democracy: lyrical Poem and Construction Blueprint” [included in this volume—editors]. This question, in relationship to the possibilities of socialism, is also taken up in an inter-view by Barbara Foley with Wang Fengzhen and Xie Shaobo, “Crossroads: China’s Future under Debate,” published in Science and Society, 73.2 (2009): 193–210. For a thoughtful discussion by Indian intellectual Harbans Mukhia, see “liberal Democracy for Asia and the World: Problems and Prospects,” Valedictory Speech to the 20th Anniversary Meet-ing of the International Association of Historians of Asia, Jawaharlal Nehru university, Delhi (November 14–17, 2008). For examples of experimentation with local governance, see,《中国地方政府创新》(Zhongguo difang zhengfu chuangxin) (Innovations and excellence in Chinese local Governance, 2005–2006)(Beijing: China Center for Compara-tive Politics and economics, 2007).



forms, not only in different societies but even in different locations within a single society. on the other hand, democracy also serves an essential function of opening up channels of communication between governors and the governed, and has an important part to play in curtailing cor-ruption and the arbitrary use of power—which is a major consideration, especially under circumstances of bureaucratic capitalism. Democracy may also be a precondition of any radical transformation in development policy; it has the ability to mobilize the population in favor of such trans-formation—not as its passive objects but as active participants whose everyday experiences serve as a resource in the formulation of policy. This input must be acknowledged if development policy is to do more than pay lip service to local needs and experience. Giving priority to everyday life over abstract promises also brings into play ecological considerations as a condition of survival, instead of merely an economic calculation.

Given its strategic role, any shift in the Chinese economy will have significant repercussions globally. We frequently hear that China has a major part to play in countering the current global recession. The usual implication is that China may help return the global economy to its image before the recession: unsustainable capitalism. We may suggest, to the contrary, that China’s part should be in effecting a change of direction in economic practices globally—in re-grounding the global economy. China has benefited from globalization (in its emergence as an economic power) and contributed to globalization, both in its service as a “global factory,” as well as by providing the credits that have made possible the continued illusion of endless consumption, not just in advanced capitalist societies but even in the Global South.

A significant shift in economic practices in China is likely to force a much-needed rethinking of development in these societies. especially important in this regard is the leadership role China could play in Africa and latin America. There has been some ambivalence concerning intensi-fied Chinese activity in the Global South in recent years. We may easily dismiss charges of Chinese colonialism as complaints by representatives of former colonial powers who resent intrusion in their former colonies. But the resentment goes beyond them to include native populations, who justifiably perceive in Chinese activity the colonialism of an emergent world power that is concerned primarily with the extraction of resources without any heed for economic and ecological consequences; the creation of markets for its cheaper and shoddier commodities; and the separation of economic activity from political consequence that enables business with unscrupulous dictators. overcoming these perceptions requires, among


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other things, greater control of corporations, some of which seem to be as oblivious to the social and economic damage they inflict on populations elsewhere as they are to the problems within China itself.

on the other hand, China is also a developing country, which provides a sense of kinship with societies of the Global South. No less important are shared memories of oppression and exploitation by european colonialism, and an earlier identification as Third World societies. These commonali-ties provide a basis for cooperation and the formulation of alternative development strategies that respond to the particular needs of different societies. Sensitivity to difference has been a hallmark of Chinese develop-ment, particularly when compared to the one-size-fits-all philosophy that has guided modernization strategies inspired by capitalism (followed in the past by socialist societies as well).38

The redefinition of development in China and the Global South, how-ever, may have the greatest consequences for the united States and europe, especially the former. Advanced capitalist societies continue directly and indirectly to consume the greater part of the world’s resources, and make the greatest contribution to the degradation of the environment. The export of production to locations in the Global South, including China and India, has resulted in these societies servicing the consumption needs of advanced capitalist societies and gaining in exchange a share of the resource depletion and environmental degradation. The encroaching cap-italist societies have, at the very least, served as models and exporters of unsustainable economic practices.

If the world economy is to become sustainable, one of the most difficult things these societies may have to face is the necessity of lowering the liv-ing standards to which they have been accustomed. Whether in developed or developing societies, or in international fora, attention in discussions of development is focused almost invariably on raising standards of living—of the poor nationally and of poor nations globally. The euro-modern faith in development, which has gone global since World War II, makes it chal-lenging to acknowledge the unfortunate truth: it may be physically and socially impossible to raise the living standards of the world’s populations

38 For a discussion of some of these possibilities, see, edward Friedman, “How eco-nomic Superpower China Could Transform Africa,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, No. 14 (2009): 1–20. For a useful survey of Chinese activities in Africa, with interviews with African leaders, see the series of reports from 2008–2009 by Richard Behar in www .fastcompany.com, an internet publication of the Harvard Business School. As the reports suggest, some of this activity is a direct product of globalization: the search for resources to sustain production in China for consumption in the united States and europe.



to the levels of the middle class (not to mention the wealthy) in advanced capitalist societies. Furthermore, middle classes in advanced societies will have to lower their standards of living as pressures on resources intensify globally. There is already some evidence that this is happening; to admit it in development thinking and policy would be to overcome a major ideo-logical hurdle to the rethinking of development.

Here, too, China could play a leadership role. As a developing country, it may still be possible to distinguish the alleviation of poverty from the mimicking of middle-class life in advanced capitalist societies. To do so, however, it is necessary to question not only the illusions of globalism, but also legacies of past notions of socialism that mortgaged socialist pos-sibilities against capitalist developmentalism. At this particular juncture in human history, it seems that socialism, while it continues to draw its poetry from the future, as Marx put it, must also turn to the past for clues to help make that future possible.


Culture and Social Transformations

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