The Fate of the Commune: Decollectivization in China

[@mrsniffles5417]

I believe that the reform and opening up era is best understood in a global context. With the unfortunate Sino-Soviet split (culpability for which can be found on both sides) and Mao's repproachment with the USA, China was increasingly alienated from the rest of the Socialist bloc. In the 1980s the European socialist States were disintegrating and China was faced with a new global market where the Capitalist bloc was accendent. The CPC had two main routes open, become a socialist fortress with limited access to the global economy or adopt a controlled marketisation to use the global market to develop. The reform era took the second and it has so far worked as intended to develop China, but there were clearly excesses and contradictions in this. The top-down decollectivisation was a symptom of the drive to marketise the economy, even in sectors where it wasn't necisarry. This contradiction swinging towards markets was particually strong around the turn of the century but there are signs that it is begining to swing back with 'Common Prosperity' being the new government aim after the poverty aliviation campaign and companies are being increasingly reigned in.

[@REDTEK161]

Thanks for making content that goes a bit deeper than just beginner-level theory. We desperately need more of this level of content because the popular discussion within the western left still reflects that basic understanding (or lack of) on these topics. Same arguments made over and over.

[@roydimmy6081]

The western left isn't really leftist for a start, too much bourgeoisie and hope to be bourgeois.

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

Marxist theory itself, has a lack of understanding within it.

[@olehyavtushenko1461]

In eastern Europ situation isn't much better

[@PermadeathHD]

@@roydimmy6081 yea I mean I do not say this to disparage myself or anything but its the frank truth that most people that have the opportunity of being communist is mostly, at the moment, younger petit bourgeoise people. Which isn't bad per se but without the actual collective proleteriat support its useless isnt it?

[@samuelrosander1048]

People should take note of what Deng Xiaoping did: he created a crisis of confidence in the system through various methods. For anyone who doesn't recognize the significance of that, think about how capitalists do the same thing all over the world by defunding social welfare and other programs, hamstringing state-run programs through various means (like regulating them to make it impossible for them to function effectively, or adding the requirement that they fund the retirement of *future* employees), and then turn around and point to what they did as "proof" that the state is incompetent, must deregulate, and must maximize privatization. It's an effective strategy that's not easy to counter without the masses being educated on the history of such things, what to look out for, how to curtail politicians, etc...in other words, the society has to have class awareness and historical awareness, which capitalists fight VERY hard to prevent.

[@My-nl6sg]

just like underfunding social housing and then call them slums, classic move

[@Heundeullim]

I hate Deng so much it’s unbelievable.

[@chrisgaming9567]

@@Heundeullim same

[@whythelongface64]

Keep calm and fight against revisionism! Socialism may have been set back, but we can reach the commune way of life once again. Workers of the world unite!

[@waitingformyman9317]

Deng improved a LOT and Xi's administration is correcting the errors of that time. Don't be so quick to lay all blame on one person.

[@G.Bfit.93]

Increases in disposable income are not beneficial when tied to loss of social services, loss of class power, alienation, decrease in real income due to inflation of good and services and additional of financial burden. The privatisation MADE PEOPLE POOR.

[@1917girl]

inflation is very low though, so real wage growth has been massive as of recently

[@ThePeanutButterCup13]

@@screwsinabell Socialism isn't alleviating poverty or improving "'material conditions"', it's socializing production which unleashes the productive forces, in order to facilitate the abundance of free and unalienated labor.

[@ThePeanutButterCup13]

@@screwsinabell Are you sure you don't know what point I'm trying to make? If you really don't know, then I'll just say it: what you described in your comment is not socialism.

[@ThePeanutButterCup13]

@@screwsinabell If you'll allow me to ask then, what was the purpose of your reply to the original comment? Maybe I'm just an blithering idiot, but this - "With that said, I think China has been trying to incorporate lessons learned from examples provided by the USSR and other efforts to pursue socialism that were overthrown and reintegrated into the global imperialist system, and decided the slow and calculating approach would be the best way to ensure the greatest chances for long-term success. So far, their approach seems to result more in success than failure." - is you clearly making a statement on China's economic system. So do you think China is socialist or not? There can only be one answer.

[@crniskadu9881]

@@screwsinabell Firstly, NEP was implemented because USSR of early 1920s was predominantly a backwards, petty-bourgeois, small scale commodity producing peasant country which China of 1980s since agriculture was already largely collectivised. Secondly, USSR during that time was a dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasants, hence although USSR introduced markets and commodity production in the country-side it only did so for the purpose of modernising agriculture to the point where it could be collectivised later on and organs of state power such as military, the soviets, trade unions and smychkas which were firmly in the hands of working population. China when the rightist bloc came to power stopped being a dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry by couping of the government, decollectivisation of agriculture, destruction of the people's communes, reintroduction of loads of private property rights, ending of cultural revolution, mass incarceration of the red guards, rehabilitating a lot of old capitalist roaders. And for what purpose exactly? In order to force the peasantry to become landless so that they could move to cities in order to be exploited by western capital so that china could get that sweet precious technology. Not to mention that thirdly, Lenin and Stalin repeatedly made it clear that NEP was a temporary solution and that USSR was not socialist during that period, but that they were building socialism in the countryside, hence why NEP was abolished in 1928. That's less than a decade of capitalism in countryside. When is China going to abolish capitalism in countryside? Their government programmes dont even talk about the slightest notion of that idea. Furthermore unlike Lenin, Stalin and Mao - who have all argued that markets are incompatible with socialism - Deng redefined socialism so that it is now compatible with markets. Why would he do such a thing? In order to trick the working people of his country. Not to mention how he claimed that China's bourgeoisie is are no longer bourgeoisie but builders of socialism which goes against ever single marxist theoretician. Is china going to become socialist in near future? By all means no because a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie doesnt produce socialism, it reproduces capitalism. Does the CPC claim that they are building socialism? They claim that they are already in the "first stage of socialism" - which is just capitalism, and they further claim that by 2050 they'll become a "modern socialist country" - does any of this mean that they'll nationalise their entire economy? Or that their bourgeoisie will magically abolish itself? Not even that, they claim that they'll just become more productive and modernised in terms of culture. Is it proletarian culture at the very least? Not even that, they are importing freaking western culture and turning their country into a neoliberal hellhole.

[@dengxiaopinggaming5500]

Wow, it's so refreshing to see some nuanced discussion over China and it's economic history. Amazing video

[@pierreproudhon9008]

太快了，太快了

[@CareFreeWherever]

pulling surplus labour out of the country side and into the urban industrial sector is really important for the reduction in socially necessary labour time applied to the production of primary resources to pull them away from the laws of value and remove them from the commodity circuit

[@bencatechi4293]

Is it?? Rather than building towards the abolition of distinction between town and country?

[@pedrohenriquedadaltdequeir4859]

@@bencatechi4293 I don't see those goals as incompatible. To extract surplus labour from agriculture and use it in STEM fields is indeed important to reduce socially necessary labour time. To abolish the distinction between town and country in a socialist economy is a matter of clever logistics and urban engineering, which is greatly facilitated nowadays by computer networks (since plenty of work can be done without moving to a city-center). I'm not all very educated on the fields I've cited, so I hope I'm not bullshiting.

[@bencatechi4293]

​@@pedrohenriquedadaltdequeir4859 Socially necessary labor time has several components though. Forces of production are not apolitical, so we have to ask, reducing SNLT for what? SNLT at its core, is about reducing the amount of time anyone has to spend on reproducing their labor power, and maximizing the time that is available for labor power which is liberated and free to choose its direction. Technology is only socialist technology if it has the ability to assist people in this process. Socialism is not fundamentally a technical issue. Perhaps it was at the time of Marx. But we are far, far beyond that stage, and the social barriers to socialism, aka the relatively weak position of the proletariat in the class struggle, will dominate until communism is reached. By focusing on "technology," over actual socialist construction, people act as if the commune system had no technology. They are implying that technology and actual socialist construction are incompatible, which is of course ludicrous. They are even implying that it was some kind of genius of the revisionists which allowed technology to blossom, when really much of that basis already existed because of socialism. And the foreign tech that was brought in enslaved the people, integrated China into the world imperialist system, and saved the world capitalist system from its largest crisis in history. Socialism is not "fair" state capitalism with "futurist" tech and green highways. It is a dictatorship of the proletariat unrestricted by the rule of law, and it is precisely this fact that makes socialism capable of producing wellbeing and social arrangements that have yet to be conceived, instead of just putting window dressings on capitalism.

[@pedrohenriquedadaltdequeir4859]

@@bencatechi4293 I think that socialist construction is, still today as it was on Marx's time, inseparable from technology. That foreign tech had negative consequences in China is because it's tech produced by capitalism and for capitalist reproduction. Technological development under socialism would have the direct objective of increasing social wellbeing, and technology indeed has this potential if it's freed from commodification. Furthermore, the social arrangements that participate in the governance of a socialist society and economy can be greatly facilitated by modern computation methods. With modern computation we're able to create systems that facilitate a level of participatory democracy that has never been seen before and GREATLY facilitate economic planification, both of those things where unpractical even in the 1980's, so socialist revolutions thus far couldn't have deployed such technology to further socialist goals and had to resort to more authoritarian methods. Nowadays we have those. I'm from a computer science background, that's why I'm a bit enthusiastic about it. I honestly believe that computational technology will play a big role on the revolutions and the socialist construction to come. We can, right now, create the systems for democratic governance and economic planification for the socialist society to come, and have the tools in hand to organise ourselves when the time comes. And we can begin the revolution from within be belly of the dragon, because we're able to build the technology to do so. I hope I'm not too overly optimistic 🙃 your comments where very insightful 🙂

[@bencatechi4293]

​@@pedrohenriquedadaltdequeir4859 If you look at production in China during the socialist period, and especially during the middle to late phase of the cultural revolution, there was not actually "authoritarian methods" used in the production process. The more top down planning system you're referring to did exist, and as you said it was made necessary by the lack of information technology at the time. But this doesn't mean a commandist centralized bureaucracy of production. It meant centralizing the experience of the masses, synthesizing it, and sending it back out. Within production units, both rural and urban, there was an unprecedented level of freedom in how exactly to achieve ones specific part of the overall social production needs. The advance of computer technology should have made this process even more securely in the hands of the working masses and the proletariat specifically. China had just begun to develop these technologies indigenously and, given time, socialist productive forces would have balooned. But the reintroduction of some dead capitalist relations, and the bolstering of ones that had existed under socialism, led to a defeat of the people. I'm not saying that foreign technology corrupted the people of China. I'm saying that the specific way it entered the country reenslaved the Chinese masses. Productive forces entered the country only on the condition that they be beholden to private ownership, both foreign and local, and imperialist penetration, starting in the modern version of foreign concessions, "Special Economic Zones." The foreign tech put Chinese technology ahead by maybe about five to ten years if we're being extremely generous (just a guess, but I think this is a good ballpark.) This was not worth it. Being "ahead" in tech and not being able to actually use it for socialist production relations is a travesty, especially considering there is no "amount" of technology that makes socialism happen, or more likely. There is only a material base that needs to exist for socialist revolution to be possible, and this was reached in most countries by the middle of the last century. In those that haven't yet, the semi feudal semi colonial countries, New Democracy is the path of revolution, followed by an uninterrupted socialist revolution. Technological growth can even enhance the position of the enemy and thus it is better to carry out socialist revolution as soon and as thoroughly as possible, to seize control of these technologies for the cause of the popular masses to better solidify the country as a base area for international proletarian revolution.

[@pierreproudhon9008]

When it comes to anything Deng-related I just have to bring this up. According to Deng's own standards the reform has failed: If the reform recreated rich-poor wealth gap, it has failed; if the reform heightened urban-rural disparity, it has failed; if the reform brought back a new bourgeois class, it has failed. And I'm not making this up when I say stuff like this, it came straight out of his book.

[@leaangelina1921]

Which book?

[@pierreproudhon9008]

@@leaangelina1921 Deng selected work volume 3, page 139

[@bencatechi4293]

That's because he was a useless grifter talking out of his ass. They revisionist clique was anti people, and their claims otherwise have been shown to be hollow.

[@violetagardenia]

Mobo gao has the thesis -which I suscribe to- that the “boom” surplus produced in the countryside after the reform has less to do with the household model than the seed development during the mao period taking full form

[@NathanWHill]

Two things that I would have liked to have seen better addressed. 1. Grain production soared after the household responsibility system was introduced. What is your explanation for this? 2. China never got rid of state owned enterprises and never let markets set all prices, so the pressure of neoliberalism I think you overstated. Great new book 'How China avoided shock therapy' on this period.

[@bencatechi4293]

Source for the grain production thing?

[@NathanWHill]

@@bencatechi4293 I was getting this from Isabella Weber's 'How China escaped Shock Therapy'. As the title suggests she is not very sympathetic to neoclassicals and is very sympathetic to Marxism, so I don't suspect any impartiality on this point.

[@bencatechi4293]

@@NathanWHill This is a pretty reactionary publication, but regardless, I can't find any data backing up the claim you're making. And the actual data seem to suggest that this is actually a fabrication.

[@NathanWHill]

@@bencatechi4293 You are right that she refers to the research done at the time by the Rural Development Group (e.g. page 162) rather than reproducing their data. It was this side who were against radical price liberalization. I'm a bit surprised you see her as reactionary. UMass has one of the only Ec departments that includes Marxists and she clearly thinks Milton Freedman is a baddy. But I guess one man's revolutionary has always been another man's reactionary. (She and most people I think agree that collectivization had increased yields.) is there a source on China's economy in the 1980s that you like?

[@luosuo9929]

Very good analysis! Always keep in mind the context when judging something. A system can be a total failure in a certain country under a certain historical background, but may be a brilliant idea in another place or time, and vice versa.

[@alexandernoussis1943]

I wish this video explained what collectivism/the starting point of the chinese agriculture system was

[@davidegaruti2582]

This Was genuine criticism of the chinese system , we need more oh this honestly

[@amihart9269]

I wish this video covered, at least briefly, China's move towards agricultural co-operatives that started under Hu Jintao. About half of all rural families are part of one, and it's sometimes posited as a way to help bring the isolated farmers together to scale up, as you suggested the prior system would be able to do in this video. I've not seen much of an analysis on how useful or effective these things are.

[@Theodorus5]

So was Hu more socialist minded than Xi is now?

[@amihart9269]

@@Theodorus5 Well Xi has continued Hu's policy on farming co-ops so I wouldn't say that.

[@My-nl6sg]

​@@Theodorus5 Xi has starkly ramped up state control and non-market policies, but socialism is not when the government does stuff, so these aren't the best metrics to compare whether one is more socialistic than the other. I tend to believe that as the post-Mao CPC had abandoned proletarian dictatorship, state involvement is no longer a true metric of socialism as they have just gone revisionist. That said tho, state involvement had generally been able to skew interests in the direction of regular people compared to outright market capitalist policies so it should be seen as a good thing.

[@Theodorus5]

@@My-nl6sg thanks for that. There is so much conflicting information on the matter of chinese socialism. I hope if they have gone revisionist then that it is a strategic decision only and temporary..

[@Theodorus5]

@@My-nl6sg See also Deng's four cardinal principles..they give me hope

[@mauricio9564]

You should do more videos on Socialist policies past,present and for the possible future.Although I enjoy videos better explaining capitalism,videos on what we can make from it are more hopeful and what we need at these times.

[@Octoberfurst]

Excellent commentary as usual. :-)

[@atashikokoni]

Thanks for another great video

[@natanamado6756]

These essays are fantastic! Keep it up!!

[@dukeofmonmouth1956]

2:05 China never choose capitalist development. As she never privatized the commanding heights of her economy. And they are the only state in the planet serious on establishing communism. But through a productivist path not the welfare-subsidies-khrushchev path. She did not abandon economic planning since most of China’s logistics and supply chains are managed by the largest state owned logistics companies.

[@judgemcnugget7110]

I can't see into the future, but from what i've read thus far, it seems to be the case that China builds a kind of "socialism" that unlike marxist socialism, lacks class struggle and instead seeks a partnership between the capitalist class and the working class. Unlike neoliberal capitalism, the chinese system of state capitalism has thus far made sure that real wages continue to grow with overall economic growth. The CPC argues that it has control over the capitalist class in china. While this might be the case, the question remains how it is ensured that capitalist influences (especially since capitalists are allowed to join the CPC) don't corrupt party members/take over the party. Just relying on party members to swear that they're communists and that they're working towards abandoning class society, is dangerously naive. This isn't to say by the way, that one can't learn from and shouldn't study how the chinese (as well as vietnamese) market reforms work/could work within a socialist framework. As of now, i think markets can be a valuable tool to develop productive forces, which is extremely important especially for less developed countries. However, there are nuances to this as well. The questions must be asked: How pervasive are markets? How much of the surplus value generated by companies is reinvested? How is the part of the surplus value which isn't reinvested distributed amongst the workers and directors of the companies? How is the decision-making process organized within these companies - do all people within one company collectively decide everything, with everyone having an equal vote? These aren't the only questions, but they are some which i think are very important. The economies of the USSR, Yugoslavia and modern China (from Deng on) are very different from one another. They all have advantages and disadvantages compared to each other. One should study *in detail* how they worked and under which conditions they existed. The geopolitical and economic problems faced by the USSR were very different from those faced by China and these two differ greatly from those that Cuba (which seems to move to intend to incorporate more markets in the near future by the way) is currently facing. Socialism in one country (by that i mean being largely self-sufficient) is far easier for a country/union spanning as far as the USSR did, as it is for China and especially small countries like Cuba and the DPRK. When the PRC was founded in 1949 and started to properly industrialize and built modern infrastructure, the same had been done in the US and other western countries for roughly 100 years already. Then, with the (admittedly dumb) sino soviet split and later the dissolution of the USSR and the whole eastern bloc, the PRC saw itself very isolated. Knowing how geopolitics work and drawing on the experience of the attacks the young USSR saw itself faced with, the PRC was indeed under pressure to modernize as quickly as possible. Because even without foreign military hostility, economic dependence on foreign superpowers is something to avoid. The more one can manufacture oneself, the less dependent one is and the easier it is to sell commodities for foreign currencies and in return buy some things or raw materials one needs but hasn't access to, or hasn't access to yet. This is to say that the pressure to boost the economy to modernize the country was understandable in all of the socialist bloc, but especially china. I do understand the motive behind the market reforms in Vietnam and China and they did indeed greatly improve living standards for their people, but this doesn't mean that the means they achieved this with didn't come at a price. Deng Xiaoping famously said, that poverty isn't socialism, which is true - but neither is prosperity. Socialism is socialism.

[@thanos8638]

Just one point - Deng Xiaoping wasn't from the rightist faction but centrist faction. It was Jiang Zemin who implemented so many capitalist policies in China and included billionaires within CPC.

[@auferstandenausruinen]

The far right in the CPC spectrum should be represented by Zhao Ziyang who was a Gorbachev-like liberal and was ousted in the CC after 1989. Jiang and all the following leadership collectives carried on Deng's center-right legacy of continued market reforms and revitalization of capitalism while against loosening the leadership role of the CPC too much.

[@dscher2721]

brilliant video!

[@tomlu6820]

Deng supported collectivisation after industrialisation of agriculture. The strengthening of property rights in agriculture, also has allow partial re-collectivization and leasing to occur. This is because only by recognising the interests of the small holding peasants was adequate compensation able to be determined when leased, or de-contraction, re-collectivisation on the village level. I would also want to point out that not all places adopted the HRS, these places are actually on the whole a lot more wealthy due to investment into light industry.

[@julianbullmagic]

Cooperatives are still a huge part of China's private sector, even in agriculture and more than three quarters of Chinese people are public employees. I think it is quite reasonable to say that Deng's reforms achieved a very strong net overall benefit for Chinese people without compromising the country's overall Socialist goals. By the vast majority of statistical indicators, China is a very humanistic country, much more so than Capitalist ones. The standards of health, education, cost of living, wage growth etc are all very good.

[@AnotherConscript]

China is definitely interesting and it's actions today can be seen as an outcome of being a feudal society with much less industry than even the Russian empire being given a gods kiss by Maoism. This dude has a good take on the Reform period and overall incredible video!! Long live the revolution!!

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

Do you actually believe the Marxist theory that profit made by underpaying labor?

[@AnotherConscript]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773 Yes, profit is value extracted from the workers who, in most of the world and in my current job, are paid in set wages. There is no way around it and even capitalist understand this concept, although they'll attempt too justify it via Risk or whatever

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@AnotherConscript No, it isn't: Marx did not understand the effect that an employer's additional inputs (usually land, materials, tools, training, knowledge, electricity, gas, water, uniforms etc) has on augmenting an employee's output.

[@AnotherConscript]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773 He wrote about that too, you know what his response too that very valid criticism is? That not only a capitalist can do that, that the state and the people withing a community can provide the exact same thing if not better. That Cuba for example, compared too the United States private Healthcare System the Cuban government has provided better and infinitely cheaper care as a third world country. They were so good in fact that the US had too steal there Lung Cancer Vaccine back in 2016 as they couldn't replicate it

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@AnotherConscript But this doesn't cover the point I'm making. Does the input from an employer, increase the productivity of an employee?

[@Anita.Cox.]

I may sound stupid but if one farm makes 10 tons of rice or grain or whatever and another farm also makes 10 tons of rice why collectivize them why not keep them separate to not have to deal with logistical problems. Sorry if this sounds stupid i couldnt find an answer and everytime i looked up "china collective farming" its either people saying its awful or people saying it was the best thing every.

[@phithinker02]

Thank you for this really informative video. I've been wondering about the potential of agrarian communism of being a basis for a socialist society in largely agrarian states in the 20th century. It seems like the decisions to adopt market reforms (in China's case) or implement a command economy (in that of the USSR) came with tremendous costs and was not inevitable.

[@MrTaxiRob]

It always seemed like there was room for a mixed system in practical use, like maybe collectivization for staple crops and livestock, with specialty items from smaller individual producers. That way the domestic market could enjoy high quality non-staple items, and maybe have some for export as well. It could all still be centrally planned and regulated to prevent cartels of niche producers from gaining power over collectivized labor. Does that make sense? I guess it matters more or less on how the Party views China's place in global markets and how that view shapes their priorities.

[@MrTaxiRob]

@Carter Hillz Khrushchev got sidelined by neo-Stalinist hardliners, what's your point? If he'd been allowed to continue reforms maybe the USSR would have survived and not been in China's shadow economically like they are today.

[@ivecaughtfire7431]

@Carter Hillz Kruschchev's economic policy had little effect for the most part on the actual collapse of the Union. it was primarily the 5th coloumn within the Soviet leadership that was able to take advantage of the free-er press under Kruschchev and that is what led to the collapse far more than any trivial discrepancy between the mixed or planned models. Using right wing nationalist outrage and independant propagandists collectively with the splits in the party at the time, allowed for little resistance in the illegal dissolution.

[@imatreebelieveme6094]

I think we have to stop falling into the trap of non-dialectical thinking and view the economic situation as developing. Perhaps this NEP-style economy can serve to pave the way to a powerful and sovereign socialist economy in the future. After all, there was no counterrevolution yet and if Lenin taught us one thing, it's that one needs to smash a state for one class to build one for another. For now the CPC holds power in a workers' state and I"m pretty hopeful.

[@erosharcos8398]

Your style of explanation, and topics covered have been a huge inspiration for me to develop a deeper understanding of Marxist thought! Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos!

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

The Marxist theory- that profits are derived from underpaying employees- isn't true, and was refuted even in Marx's own lifetime.

[@erosharcos8398]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773 source?

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@erosharcos8398 Well, let's say that labor was replaced with machinery doing the same thing. Would profits reduce as a result?

[@erosharcos8398]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773 no, but that’s not the elimination of labor that’s making labor more efficient. There exists no machine which does not require labor input to run or maintain.

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@erosharcos8398 Yes: but let's say that a very small business (one owner-worker, and one regular employee) had the employee replaced by a robot, which was maintained by the owner. Could profits be made now?

[@thomasjamison2050]

It strikes me as just a bit curious that the greatest fans of collectivized farming are intellectuals and other sorts who don't actually do much farming. Commonly overlooked in this sort of commentary is the relatively large extent to which people like the Amish, as well as smaller farm producers in the Midwest, share a great deal in cooperative efforts. The way Amish come together to raise a barn, or the way harvesting machines in the midwest travel South to North for the harvests come to mind. Then too, in the past, there was a significant cooperative effort in the US among farmers to provide electricity to all the farms. Beyond that though, these efforts can't really hold profitable sway against large agricultural firms. It would seem to me to indicate that there exists a certain space and time for collectivization in the development of more modern farming, but that it ultimately must fall to truly large scale farming, though the argument remains that such large scale farming generally relies on exploiting labor for it's profits. It seems to me that the best answer would be government regulation of labor rules, but in the so-called democracies, this is easily destroyed by corruption of the government using the profits of very large scale farming.

[@pedrohenriquedadaltdequeir4859]

As you've pointed out, small scale farms are usually collective efforts. Possibly family farms with a few employees or just outright cooperatives. The reason that these firms can't compete with large agricultural firms is simply because large agricultural firms have larger pools of capital and are able to crush small farms in competition. You don't have to cooperate with large numbers of people to hoard capital to oneself, you can just buy people and business off and delegate demands (if you already have some capital to start off, that is). Large scale cooperation requires large scale cooperative organisation, which is more difficult to implement than simple top-down corporative organisation. Large and rich corporative organisations buy off small cooperative ones, or they outcompete them because they can manage to get their prices cheaper (by means of worker exploitation, ecologically deggratating and health harming methods). That's why we don't have as much collective farms. It's not because they're inherently unsuited to large-scale farming, but bcs they're inherently more expensive and require more difficult to set up organisational method. The advantage of large scale cooperative farming, of course, is healthier food for everyone, healthier ecological practices and healthier working conditions, all of which are given up in a capitalist market because of competition and the private accumulation of capital. Government regulations help but usually don't resolve the issues because the issues are inherent to the capitalist mode of production, by which I mean that the capitalist needs, because of competition, to extract as much as he cans for the cheapest cost from both the workers and from the land, if he doesn't he is outcompeted and bought by a more efficient producer, which results in that worker exploitation, unhealthy food and ecological degradation.

[@5th_decile]

Wait, but if you admit that the modern large-scale farm uses wage labourers... what would such a company be after the workers seize the means of production? Tada, let's call it a farmers collective. I.e. the modern large-scale farm, the most productive among its peers, is better comparable to a prosperous farmer's collective than say a mechanized family farm.

[@thomasjamison2050]

@@5th_decile For proper edification on the topic. listen to Professor Richard Wolff. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_D._Wolff Pay particular attention to his discussion of workers owned companies in Spain,, and while you are at it, look up the man who turned the American Auto Industry into the rust belt, E Edwards Deming regarding the profitability of giving workers control of the work process of a company.

[@waitingformyman9317]

The Amish also force themselves to not use the latest technology for agricultural production. As socialists we want to advance productive forces in the most beneficial way for all. Capitalism produces innovations that fail to utilized altruistically or efficiently.

[@auferstandenausruinen]

I would call it Angry Current CPC Fan VS Average Socialism Enjoyer moment. Communes were not without problems, however, dissolving them altogether simply by decree is just irresponsible and horrendous. The resulting disastrous aftermath paved the road for the emergence of low wage sweatshops and the misery of the migrant workers.

[@wilhelmruoff1273]

@Twiistz upholding ML-MZT is one of the four cardinal principles, as well as being an official ideology listed in the second paragraph of the CPC constitution.

[@bencatechi4293]

@@wilhelmruoff1273 That is meaningless. Even a cursory analysis shows this is not based in reality.

[@waitingformyman9317]

"Not socialist enough" say the white people who have never accomplished revolution. At least the CPC is trying. What have you done?

[@lucasbonhommevazquez]

Really informative!

[@NicoSocialista]

It is necessary to make compromises within the capitalist system in order to survive. This is not called revisionism, since this occurs within the margins of a revolutionary process that is still under way. In China, they are fully aware of the negative and positive consequences of these reforms. These changes may or may not have been necessary and the rhetoric to justify it may or may not have been correct, but the communist party remains in power. In the West, most communist parties have abandoned revolutionary activities and even pride themselves on being more "democratic" as a way to hide their failure. To deny the revolutionary character of Marxism is to deny its nature. Marx and Engels, as scientific socialists, did not express the specific steps that a project toward communism must take. Obviously, when you are experimenting and trying to prevent the imperialists from destroying your country, you are going to have failures and successes or both results at the same time, but you have already achieved the first step, which is to hold power. Probably, it is not a total dictatorship of the proletariat yet because a class democracy has not been fully achieved, but it is still in tune with the revolutionary spirit of Marxism and there are undoubtedly socialist elements in these models (Vietnam, China, etc.). It would be necessary to make a video criticizing that kind of extreme revisionism that dates from before the Russian revolution (especially in Austria) and that generally only Marxist-Leninists criticize. These people defend, without evidence or even support in Marx's texts, that with an infinite expansion of "democracy" (liberal republicanism) you will reach socialism at some point. And what is worse, now they criticize "real socialism" for being "totalitarian" (a racist concept created by the supremacist Hannah Arendt and that lacks historical or scientific rigor). In my opinion, this is the most damaging type of revisionism of our time.

[@eryaozhang8899]

I think in 2023 Chinese government mention rebuild Commune in government official document

[@texajp1946]

great video, thanks, salute comrade

[@nathanfielure4305]

Why does communes have to be small?

[@Comrade_Zaz]

Make video on Cultural revolution

[@shahngofsyg7818]

Keep it 🆙 man

[@TheJayman213]

thanks

[@andrewzhou4228]

Firstly, the mixture of state ownership of public land and communal ownership of the land for agricultural production have not changed. What changed was that granting the right to operation to individual families, guaranteed by legal documents, and so families could take on a contract from the government, or the community, to operate the part of the land they were responsible for. The Chinese agricultural commune came into being as an agriculture cooperative. Initially farmers voluntarily joined the cooperative because it benefitted them. After some years of development, Mao had envisioned further transition of socialism to communism. One of the experiments was introducing some communism to the cooperative, to each according to their needs, and rewards equally everyone in the commune. This was quite disastrous, and so the central government under Mao backtracked the decision and reverted to cooperatives, with each according to their labour. The understanding is that the scarcity of social wealth meant that people could not comprehend communism, and needed economic incentives under socialism and be rewarded with an equivalent exchange for their labour output. Another experiment was to expand the scale of the communes, and combine existing communes into larger ones, which is also part of introducing some communism. Some party cadres have took this as an opportunity to expand their political power and fame, creating ridiculous figures of agricultural outputs. This forced the central government to also backtrack this decision. So the commune experiment did not quite fail, nor did it succeed, like with other attempts at transition of socialism to communism, it was simply decided that China was in the primary stages of socialist development, and that the core focus was economic development to accumulate social wealth. So after some years of experimentation, it was decided that China would just revert to what that had initially, agriculture cooperatives along side state farms. China made daring decisions to experiment with how their socialist institutions would stand under foreign capital influx, with special economic zones, and made use of the world market and foreign capital to speed up their own development, while having state monopoly over naturally monopolizing sectors like energy and resources. Idiots would call that capitalist restoration. For one, oil and gas, as well as many other resources China had demand for, were all located overseas, under capitalist control, China cannot conquer the world so it must trade in a capitalist framework. It must find its position within the global supply chain. It is true, that working under the sweatshops of foreign capital, most the labour intensive sectors, is horrible. Chinese people had a saying about that time period, that 100 million shirts were exchanged for an airplane, talking about the unequal exchange of labour hours, but the foreign currency reserves, mostly US dollars, did help propel the economy forward. And we are not talking economic development that seeks to benefit capitalists abroad and at home, there's plenty of those all across the developing world. We are talking about the people sharing in the economic development. The Chinese government could not provide enough jobs. It did try to provide jobs through massive construction operations at home and the current BRI infrastructure project. Part of the reason why Mao made the city youth go up the mountains and into rural villages, was that China's cities faced an economic crisis under socialism. There was no jobs for the youth and that unemployment could create political turmoil. Another very controversial decision was to allow for greater percentage of private capital in the economy. No, it was not privatization of state industries and being sold off to Western capital for cheap in an economic crisis, state industries had some reforms but remained public property. It is part of the Chinese dream to not have to work in the labour intensive sectors of the world economy, and be more liberal with their lives like their western counterparts. The Chinese government's biggest mobilizing factor is the guarantee of further economic development until they can reach first world levels of prosperity.

[@abdirahmanidris290]

Private property should be allowed. Communes are horrible.

[@chrisgaming9567]

@@abdirahmanidris290 Why do you think private property should be allowed?

[@gkalaitza2183]

Tho far from maoist era communal ownership opperating in non market enviroment, the gravitation away from will be judged by history eventualy for sure, if im not mistaken a very large part (big majority) of the agricultural organization and production in rural China still functions in various cooperative forms (1 million+ and being 90% of global agricultural coops) with a trend in the last decade years towards promoting (state subsiding and de-bureocratizing the formation of) that approach, also because it yielded great results in poverty reduction. Far more cooperative and communal ownership (in a more socdem sense admitingly) in rural china now than there was in the early 00s or late 90s. Thats a relative comparison to keep in mind beyond the admittingly dissapointing comparison on the level of communal ownership pre reform and oppening up and after

[@PC42190]

Exactly. I think Xi Jinping is one of the greatest leaders of China

[@barokmeca]

Wait but Maoism didn't exist until the 80s?

[@adama8389]

Maoism is basically synonymous for Mao Zedong Thought, which is Marxism-Leninism applied to the conditions of the PRC under Mao. You're probably thinking of MLM (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism) which was indeed synthesized in the 80s, after Mao's death.

[@barokmeca]

@@adama8389 that hasn't been the case for decades.

[@AG-el6vt]

Is this Hakim narrating?

[@PowersOfDarkness]

Its not Hakim

[@AG-el6vt]

@@PowersOfDarkness I don't know, they just sounded like him to me :D

[@G.Bfit.93]

Revisionism is concession to bourgeois ideology masquerading as proletarian ideology. "Economic efficiency" is not socialist. "Economic efficiency merely means profit maximization and is double-speak of bourgeois political-economy. That is against the interests of the working classes. Dengism is concession to bourgeois ideology. It is revisionism. It is Anti-Communism. Reverting the mode of production and relations of production to a previous inferior level doesn't advance the productive forces, but it does reintroduce profit as the regulator of production (generalized commodity production) and private property which reintroduces the misery that accompanies it. Privatization wasn't favored by the masses. It was introduced by the revisionist party bureaucracy acting in compliance with imperialism, against the will of the masses. And when they voiced concerns the were repressed. The "issues of the commune system" is reducible primarily to issues of underdevelopment, something socialist organization addresses far better than capitalist organization. Theft of the people's property and power was unjustified.

[@bencatechi4293]

@@douglaselsworthhenry It literally does, its the ideology espoused by Deng Xiaoping. It's also a preschooler level of discourse to declare that a process does not exist because you dislike the term someone used to refer to it. Denims is used in many contexts by many people globally. Sticking your head in the sand doesn't negate that fact oh arbiter of semantics.

[@oscarleung9488]

Hello author, I think the flaw in your video is clearly in the author's perception of the prc. The new group tends to present a distorted or hidden view of the previous decades of Prc's history. To sing the praises of mao on the surface, but in fact to belittle the achievements of mao. If you read the history of the Great Leap Forward, for example, you will find that mao had already taken a back seat by this time. The actual leaders at this time were the rightists. Including the early days of the 66 CR, the actual decision-making power was on the right. This is crucial. Most of the information you have come across so far has been revealed by those in power. In both rural and urban areas, Mao's portraits still hang high in many homes. Also, your view of post-capitalism is essentially capitalist. The reason why Mao is called one of the six teachers (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Gonzalo) is not because of his contribution during the New Democratic Revolution (1919-1956), but because of his contribution in the fight against internal and external revisionism. This is based on the Marxist view that things do not develop smoothly, but with twists and turns. Capitalism can be restored from socialism after feudalism, and Ussr is an example of this.

[@waitingformyman9317]

Lol Gonzalo what a joke

[@animeis4eva]

Wow incredible

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

M, can you please research & advocate for full intellectual property (IP) abolition? This is the most important activist aim for working class people! A just economy (& most leftist projects) has very little chance without first abolishing IP. IP is the most severe & oppressive tool of the rich & powerful. Please see the work of Stephan Kinsella, Michele Boldrin, & David K. Levine. These are the best experts on intellectual property in the world. Everyone who cares about seriously improving things for humanity needs to know what IP abolition is about.

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

IP laws make no sense from either left or right politics. The ‘property’ in intellectual property is a false term used for propaganda purposes. Intellectual property is not property in any sense. It’s monopoly. IP actually stifles innovation & creativity. IP also is the main component of cultural control, propaganda, and advertising. And IP seriously screws up our economy & stacks it for the rich & powerful more than any other tool (especially IP with digital tech and the internet). IP abolition is the most important aim to liberate artists, programmers, inventors, etc. and make them all better off financially

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

All 4 types of IP must be fully abolished ASAP: patents, copyright, trademarks & trade secrets

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

The 2008 economics book ‘Against Intellectual Monopoly’ and the 2001 essay ‘Against Intellectual Property’ are both as important as Marx’s ‘Capital’! Each has nearly flawless argumentation. All leftists need to read both (free online). If you can’t read them now, then write down both titles so you can tell others so they can read them

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

And Uniquenameosaurus has two excellent and entertaining videos from April 2021 about IP abolition.

[@user-wl2xl5hm7k]

NOTICE: To the extent I have any copyright in the comments in this thread, I relinquish those rights to the public domain according to the CC0 license-Signed, /s/ PN. ->Before we abolish IP, everyone use the CC0 license for all types of works (including software) when you’re not in need of money or there if there are no buyers for your copyright-monopoly. Also, as the author you can always ask for donations with crowdfunding even if you no longer have the copyright-monopoly.

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

Kewl. Hope this channel starts to move toward political economy and economics rather than revolutionary theory.

[@zoperxplex]

In addition to a remarkable economic resurgence since Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms is the equally impressive and underappreciated agricultural growth to the point where China is today one of the largest producer of food stuffs.

[@bencatechi4293]

"Economic resurgence." You mean continued economic growth which is not significantly larger in quantitative terms than what had already been happening, but "helped along" by the largest flow of FDI ever, based on exploitation of the workers, and dismantling of basic already achieved socialist programs, and working towards no social goal in particular. Someone who thinks like this is anti socialism.

[@Heundeullim]

@@bencatechi4293But the great masterplan of Deng!!!!!! Just you wait, China is actually building Socialism through selling high-tech weapon against Maoist rebels and increasingly relaxied neoliberal economic policies!!!!!!!

[@ateu_vermelho]

\o/

[@Anti-CornLawLeague]

Why wasn’t Sun Yat-sen’s Social Georgist philosophy of funding a welfare state via a Land Value Tax implemented in the PRC? Only in Taiwan was it partially.

[@cafeacupiper]

Is this a trotskyite channel?

[@ChristoffelTensors]

I think deng is given too much credit for his ability to “eliminate” Maoism. This is an anti-collectivist argument supporting collectivism. The automation of agriculture also freed farmhands for industrial labor. Is it wrong to let them go work?

[@lostintime519]

Another pseudo-Marxist channel.

[@PC42190]

What? I mean, I tend to support chinese reforms, but here The Marxist Project lay down some good arguments. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that the convenience of the open up is moot, we are marxists after all, not a religion cult

[@volvolakaemma9209]

@@PC42190 Unless you are dogmatic you ain't doing socialism. Just saying. Really follow the text and never reason or understand historical phenomenon. That's what marx would have wanted.

[@REDTEK161]

How's that?

[@lostintime519]

​@@PC42190 this is just anarchists hijacking marxism and interpreting everything through this stupid "left and right" optics. Really makes you wonder why people tend to see us as "idealists" and "utopianists". I don't understand how you can expect any innovation from those who pluck rice from dawn till dusk and then bicker with each other on who should be cleaning after everyone. It is precisely this oversimplified representation of Communism that is keeping people from thinking critically and alternatively. Who can blame them? Anarchists, wanted to return to some pre-industrial Arcadia.

[@volvolakaemma9209]

@@lostintime519 Explain to me what is left and right. I don't know what that means and why that is wrong to analyze using left and right optics. What is a better framework to analyze event historically. Easier to do that than use random words like anarchists and all because you don't define anything and nobody understands anything. Your critique sounds like you want to say you have a superior ideology without saying anything about what it is so it becomes less useful than saying nothing.

[@abdirahmanidris290]

How can anyone look at this with anything but horror? Communism allowed Mao and his state to demolish people's houses and force them to live in communes just so they could provide max output. No personal property allowed. When the famine came, those who didn't produce their ascribed work qouta, were left to starve. Appreciate and be grateful for the luxury of private ownership in the west and all the goods we can buy and all the jobs we can choose to have.

[@albertp3721]

What luxury and what jobs are you talking about?

[@abdirahmanidris290]

@@albertp3721 the luxury is the wealth of goods available in the west. Packed supermarkets, top range stores like Nike and Apple, everything we need. Communist countries don't have that a lot of the time.

[@albertp3721]

@@abdirahmanidris290 and what do they have to get to produce all of those luxury items, who is gonna labor for those things?

[@abdirahmanidris290]

@@albertp3721 The owner pays for the building the workers work in, he pays for all the equipment, he pays the workers money to work, he is vicariously liable for the employees if they commit a crime while at work, he is responsible for safety precautions, the owner has to make sure all the licencing and tax code is done correctly, he has to worry about profit margins and competition, he needs to advertise so people work for his company, he is the one at risk of debt if the business fails. What does the worker do? Just work. Thats why owners reap the reward. . Because their work is subtle and risky.

[@takumu781]

@@abdirahmanidris290 mao was based. We need a new mao to usher in a new cultural revolution.

[@Hobojoe529]

lol imagine being an unironic apologist for the greatest famine in history

[@bencatechi4293]

This video is clearly defending the social system which ended famine in China, you must be confused.

[@bencatechi4293]

@@Hobojoe529 It’s objectively what happened. The last famine to ever occur in China took place during the Great Leap Forward, and was quickly curtailed. The GLF itself happened to deal with an extremely fragile feudal system of food production, which had been starving millions and millions of people for millennia. Afterwards, food production stabilized, life expectancy TRIPLED, and people were far better off. You just don’t understand basic history.