Re: China (was: The Iraq Policy of the U.S. Ruling Class )
On Apr 11, 2007, at 2:50 PM, Jim Straub wrote:
Would it be invitation to oversimplification if I asked if people
on this list who hold a particular assessment or opinion of China,
to put theirs forth in brief if possible? The only large
developing nation to make a quantum leap into successful mass
industrialization, under the auspices of a nominally communist
government, but I don’t really know what the scope of opinion is on
what their government is doing from the left. Degraded workers
state? Worst of both worlds, stanlinst neoliberalism? Hope- inspiring developmentalist rising power?
All of the above. Successful development at an often high social
cost, and at very high environmental cost. A paradox of evaluating
China’s development from the left is that while polarization has
increased enormously, average incomes have also increased, though not
as much as those of the gazillionaires. Also, big diff between urban
and rural; rural China has done rather badly over the last 20 years,
while a lot of the urban working class has done better.
Doug