On October 25, 2009, this Blog was moved. (There will be no new posts for the Blog on Open Salon) Learning China may be found at: http://learningchina.wordpress.com/
__________________________
Economy
Under Mao Zedong (1893 - 1976), China suffered for twenty-seven years. During Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, thirty-seven million died—many from starvation. Mao's form of communist socialism did not work.
On June 30, 1984, Deng Xiaoping said, "Given that China is still backward, what road can we take to develop the productive forces and raise the people's standard of living? … Capitalism can only enrich less than 10 per cent of the Chinese population; it can never enrich the remaining more than 90 per cent. But if we adhere to socialism and apply the principle of distribution to each according to his work, there will not be excessive disparities in wealth. Consequently, no polarization will occur as our productive forces become developed over the next 20 to 30 years."
Deng Xiaoping may have been right. Bruce Einhom writing for Business Week, Countries with the Biggest Gaps Between Rich and Poor, October 16, 2009, listed the top countries with the biggest gaps. America was number three on the list. China wasn't on the list—yet.
What does this mean for America? (CBS/AP) The Census Bureau reports that 12.5 percent of Americans, or 37.3 million people, were living in poverty in 2007, up from 36.5 million in 2006.
After 2000, the situation in America deteriorated quickly (with President George W. Bush in the White House)—all of the gains in middle-class economic security since WWII were erased within a few years.
PBS reported in "Middle Class Squeeze" (December 13, 2002), the shape of income distribution in America is changing and many are finding it increasingly difficult to afford housing while keeping up with necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and health care."
What does capitalism, Chinese style, look like? Under Deng Xiaoping's economic policies, China became the world's factory floor.
Prior to 1979, the year China opened its economy to world trade, it was rare to find anything made in China. Since then, exports from China have increased 10,000%, and this year China's economy become the second largest in the world as Japan slipped to third place.
In the last decade, something happened in China that Mao thought he had destroyed. China grew a middle class with between one-hundred to one hundred-fifty-million people.
A middle-class family in China usually owns an apartment, a car, eats out and takes vacations. National Geographic in the May 2008 magazine, said, "they owe their well-being to the government's (Deng Xiaoping's) economic policies…"
Current estimates show China's growth will continue and grow between five and eight percent a year. China's real GDP growth accelerated on a year-over year basis by a full percentage point, rising from 7.9% in the second quarter to 8.9% in the third quarter (reported Oct. 22, 2009)
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
china was corrupted by wealth, as who is not? the cure is open government, open commerce, and rule by the people- actual democracy.
it won't happen in china, it certainly hasn't happened in the usa, and seems unlikely to happen while we are working with human beings.
Soon after winning the Revolution and driving out the so-called Republicans (more like dictators) to Taiwan (they took the gold and Imperial treasures with them leaving China's mainland broke--it wasn't until the 1970s and under pressure from the United States that Taiwan had its first election.), those early years under Mao were was close to being socialist perfection and then Mao went paranoid and started killing off people he suspected were thinking about getting rid of him. When Mao started the Cultural Revolution, the rest of the top leaders said no and Mao got rid of them one way or another and went on with that craziness. What went on during the Cultural Revolution was horrible once the adolescent Red Guard was given power to wreck havoc and spread mayhem and that they did with gusto. Several movies (available in the U.S.) have been made that do a good job showing this era in China's history: Farewell my Concubine (in Chinese with subtitles but still powerful); Xiu, Xiu The Sent-Down Girl by Joan Chen (that one got her in trouble with the Communists), and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (also in Chinese with subtitles).
No, there never has been a true Democracy. Both the Greeks and the Romans had slaves and only free men had any say in how things were done and even that was limited. With the Electoral System America has and growing Corporatism controlling the reigns of the American Government, the voice of the people is getting difficult to hear as more people become slaves to credit card plastic.