Launch Remarks on China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform

BOOK REVIEW

Launch Remarks on China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform Cheng, E. (2019). China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform. New York: International Publishers*

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER** Sociology, University of Oregon, USA

THIS REVIEW IS ABOUT CHENG ENFU’S BOOK, should truly implement a policy of “letting one hund-

entitled China’s Economic Dialectic, and its significan- red flowers bloom...one hundred schools of thought

ce for Western readers. The way I look at the book is contend, and it should allow the vigorous development

that it consists of two parts. The first part is actually of different schools of thought within Marxism.” This

the introduction, which is his general statement on his approach very much, recognizes the different vernacu-

philosophy of Marxism. The introduction itself, will lars of socialist thought in different parts of the world.

startle all Western readers in the sense that it is often Now, that is the introduction to the book. The book

conceived that Marxism in China is dogmatic, that it itself is about the economic dialectic that China has

has simply become a cover for transformations that are brought about. And so, in that sense, it is a practical

going on in China, but it is not in itself a creative or application of principles of Marxism in relation to the

innovative outlook on the world today. economic domain. What the book is really about is the

If you read the introduction by Cheng Enfu, you economics of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

will find that the outlook he presents is entirely diffe- It is not written primarily for a Western readership. It

rent than that. He emphasizes an open Marxism and was written principally for a Chinese audience, but with

diversity in Marxist thought. He argues that socialism enormous clarity. The book is oriented towards strategy

* This review is made for the book launches session of the Fifteenth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) on 18

December 2021. It has been sent to BRIQ by the WAPE Secretariat.

** John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written widely on political economy and has established a reputation as a major environmental sociologist. He is the author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (2000), The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014New Edition (2014). The source article does not provide a separate full bibliographic entry for this citation.), among many others. Email: jfoster@uoregon.edu

76 How to cite: Foster, J.B. (2022). Launch remarks on China’s economic dialectic: The original aspiration of

reform. [Review of the book China’s economic dialectic: The original aspiration of reform, by Cheng, E.]. Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly, 3(2), 76-77.

BOOK REVIEW

and policy, providing key insights and understandings Western analysis has completely failed to explain it. One

of how the economics of socialism with Chinese chara- of the reasons is that they have declared that socialism

cteristics works. was vanquished. It no longer exists, that capitalism is

With the revolution, China immediately began to the only viable economy and capitalist system and ne-

control its own destiny. It is often believed in the West oliberalism, the extreme version of capitalism, are the

that the first 30 years of the Chinese revolution under only possibility. Yet China defies all of this. China has

Mao were a failure in terms of economic development. grown economically. And in every other way it has bro-

This is not true as Cheng Enfu emphasizes in his book. ken the records of previous development. China has not

China expanded massively between 1978 and 2015, only emerged as an industrial power, but also moved on

while Western economies were stagnating. China incre- to major areas of technology. And this keeps on expan-

ased its economy by thirty-fold in that period. In 1978, ding.

the per capita income in China was less than that of Su- Cheng Enfu’s book is extraordinarily useful in expla-

b-Saharan Africa. Now, China’s per capita income is at ining how the Chinese economy works. China still has

the median level in the world and continuing to go up five year plans, because China is led by the Party which

and it has reduced absolute poverty within its borders. is able to organize and regulate the economy. Despite

At the same time, China has emerged as the leading in- the expansion of the market, it is able to guide the eco-

dustrial power in the world in terms of simply industrial nomy in ways that are quite unique, Sui generis, as we

output. would say, a new model of development. And this is lar-

gely because of the continuing strategic role of the state sector, that it is able to control the market sector to a

Marxism in poli­tical economy considerable extent and create a kind of balance in the

has still been central to the Party equilibrium that does not exist in the West.

as well as to the management All of this has actually been guided historically by

of the state and corporations. Marxian political economy. Despite all of, the changes

It has guided China, which can in China and the bringing in of new ideas and methods

be seen in every aspect of its from the West, the use of the market, Marxism in poli-

development. tical economy has still been central to the Party as well

as to the management of the state and corporations. It

This turnaround, that is extraordinary. Nothing like has guided China, which can be seen in every aspect of

this, as ever happened in the history of the world. The its development. And this is made clear in Cheng Enfu’s

previous industrial revolutions in other countries, all book.

the other countries that developed have been comple- China’s creativity is extraordinary. And I think you

tely superseded by the Chinese industrial revolution. will see this in Cheng Enfu’s book. There is actually a

Now, the from the standpoint of the advanced capita- renaissance of Marxist thought going on in China at this

list countries, the core of the capitalist world, the United time. And I think Cheng Enfu is part of that. At some

States, Europe, and Japan, what we call the “triad”, this enormous period of creativity, there are other traditions

is a very dangerous development. It was believed that besides the one represented in this book, but it is difficult

China would develop with the opening of the Chinese not to see that these are world-historical developments

economy, but that it would be a second-tier economy, and world-historical forms of critical thought that diale-

that it would be controlled by the West and its instituti- ctics and materialism and our understanding of history

ons. This has not happened. of economics and politics, are being given new form in

So, this is something that needs to be explained. And the Chinese revolution, which still continues.