> But to grasp China’s economic achievement, and its ramifications, it is imperative to ask: Why has a market economy directed by a Communist state become the world’s second-largest?
Was China ever really a communist state? They've said so, of course, and talked the talk. But maybe it's more accurate to say the China remains a Confucian state. With an overlay that looks a lot more like fascism / national socialism than communism.
The Chinese model is unique, and why shouldn’t it be? They are the first country in history of their size to industrialize and become a world power.
Let’s stop making cute generalizations that only serve to make ourselves feel better and think of what we actually don’t like about their system of government so we can fix it in our own. “The Chinese are Nazis!!” doesn’t help anyone.
Are you implying that a very large country becoming a world power is somehow an impressive achievement?
0) http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_19_04_06_znamenski.pd....
What's communist and isn't needs to be defined by what happens in reality, instead of being defined by comparing it to the kindest interpretation of a utopian ideology. One might also tiresomely argue that Nazi Germany wasn't really fascist, given how radically it departed from Mussolini fantasies of a fascist state, or even Hitlers own fantasies of a thousand year Reich. But we don't, because at this stage it's tiresome. Communism is no different.
Say what you will about fascists, but at least I've never heard them say "Yeah but Nazi Germany wasn't real National Socialism".
I believe that just about all national governments are in fact kleptocracies. The powerful veil themselves in whatever ideology that's required. There are some idealists, of course. Especially at lower levels. But systems reward those who shed their ideals, and play the game.
Is there any evidence of this? I hear it a lot, but it seems like nothing more then left-wing McCarthyism. What's the far-right version of a pinko?
There are few if any states that actually consider themselves to be communist. China considers itself a socialist state that is the middle of a long process of transitioning to communism. The ruling party is named the Communist party because of what its stated end-goal for governance is, not because of their current methods of governance.