I worked at two socialist enterprises in the US. The first was university teaching for 6 years. Then another 23 years at AT&T which was a regulated monopoly.
There was a court mandated breakup in 1984 and the current AT&T is a marketing company.
I joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1978. At the time it was the largest company in the world with 1 million employees. The R&D in Bell Labs resulted in innovations such as the transistor and Unix. The manufacturing unit, Western Electric stood for manufacturing excellence for 153 years. Even the name Western Electric was given up.
One of Mr. Lu's interesting comments: "Institutional arrangements such as the welfare state, state-owned enterprises, industrial policy, development-oriented finance, and centralized labor-management negotiation can contradict the logic of profit at the micro level, and can contradict the logic of overall profit in the short term, but cannot go against the prescriptive nature of capitalism - the logic of total profit in the long run."
Yes, one of several dense statements that require some prior knowledge. There’s another essay he had published by Guancha about four years ago I thought of also translating and posting, but there’s too much happening now.
It's a dense statement for sure. I had to read it several times to understand the gist of it. But it's meaning is fairly straightforward, as I understand it anyway. And it's an interesting comment coming from a Chinese economist. He's saying that economically, socialism without the logic of capitalism can succeed on a very minor level. It can also succeed on a grander scale, but only briefly. But for large-scale socialism to succeed in the long term, it must respect the capitalist notion of steady profit over time.
Xi’s notion that China must continually undergo modernization or continual reinvestment to maintain socialism with Chinese characteristics is another way of looking at that macroeconomically. Stasis is not part of the plan. The continual march of five-year plans and those with even longer-range outlooks can help deal with that issue. The power of Capital must continue to be harnessed by the state so it remains in service to the people.
Russia’s situation is different, but the ultimate goal is the same as China’s: The State must control Capital so it works in the interest of all Russians, not just a small wealthy class. Some gangster oligarchs did gain control of some natural resource corporations but were mostly kept out of finance. The biggest Russian banks are all state/people owned and work in tandem with Russian state- and privately-owned business to advance Russian development with the government doing the vast majority of marco planning.
I have not tried to penetrate India’s political-economic maze. Trying to understand the three major economies and stay abreast of their doings is quite enough. Silly me has expressed the desire to get some key Xi Jinping Thought volumes thinking I’d have time to read them. What I find key with him is his melding of Confucianism and Taoism with modern Chinese/Marxist thought which can easily be seen in China’s five major Global Initiatives and his prescription for joint Chinese-African development.
"A cooperatively/socially owned enterprise still needs to generate a profit to pay its owners and invest in modernization of its plant. The key is to prevent excesses and monopsonistic situations, and when the latter occurs to nationalize that market segment so economic rents can be captured by government."
Would agree, though for government enterprises proper management needs to be employed rather than public servants, they need be treated as a business rather than an extension of the bureaucracy.
Yes, that’s how Russia and China do things, although there’s some cross pollination at times with experts becoming members of government. I’ve yet to see that go in the other direction.
If Marx had $1 for everyone who's made a living off of Marx then he'd have been richer than Elon Musk but not as rich as the Rothschild Syndicate . . . and yet he/family lived the majority of his/their adult life/lives in poverty dependent on handouts.
Still, in death, love or loathe him, his legacy/legend qualify him as one of the true immortals.
There was a period in his life as the chair of a Committee he could reach 800,000 members. I'm thinking hell, monetise that, undo the suffering, fleeing countries for fear of imprisonment on grounds of agitating, ruffling the feathers of those who ruled the roost.
The only other writer I can think of who lived his early and even later life in fear of poverty despite his commercial success was Charles Dickens who as a youngster was traumatised as he watched his father being hauled off to Debtors Prison owing a few pounds.
I'm still deliberating as to the moral/relevance of this tidbit but I know it's there. I suppose it has something to do with the iron-fist of the establishment who'll go to any lengths to prevent a fairer and more just world for ALL.
It’s the pursuit of Harmony, a shared future for all mankind. Trump’s BBB makes filthy rich people even more filthy rich while taking more crumbs from the poor. That’s the moral difference.
Yes, I'm still baffled by the lengths that American/European elites will go to ( even sacrificing their citizens welfare ) in the pursuit of destroying Russia.
I worked at two socialist enterprises in the US. The first was university teaching for 6 years. Then another 23 years at AT&T which was a regulated monopoly.
There was a court mandated breakup in 1984 and the current AT&T is a marketing company.
I joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1978. At the time it was the largest company in the world with 1 million employees. The R&D in Bell Labs resulted in innovations such as the transistor and Unix. The manufacturing unit, Western Electric stood for manufacturing excellence for 153 years. Even the name Western Electric was given up.
One of Mr. Lu's interesting comments: "Institutional arrangements such as the welfare state, state-owned enterprises, industrial policy, development-oriented finance, and centralized labor-management negotiation can contradict the logic of profit at the micro level, and can contradict the logic of overall profit in the short term, but cannot go against the prescriptive nature of capitalism - the logic of total profit in the long run."
Yes, one of several dense statements that require some prior knowledge. There’s another essay he had published by Guancha about four years ago I thought of also translating and posting, but there’s too much happening now.
It's a dense statement for sure. I had to read it several times to understand the gist of it. But it's meaning is fairly straightforward, as I understand it anyway. And it's an interesting comment coming from a Chinese economist. He's saying that economically, socialism without the logic of capitalism can succeed on a very minor level. It can also succeed on a grander scale, but only briefly. But for large-scale socialism to succeed in the long term, it must respect the capitalist notion of steady profit over time.
Xi’s notion that China must continually undergo modernization or continual reinvestment to maintain socialism with Chinese characteristics is another way of looking at that macroeconomically. Stasis is not part of the plan. The continual march of five-year plans and those with even longer-range outlooks can help deal with that issue. The power of Capital must continue to be harnessed by the state so it remains in service to the people.
Russia’s situation is different, but the ultimate goal is the same as China’s: The State must control Capital so it works in the interest of all Russians, not just a small wealthy class. Some gangster oligarchs did gain control of some natural resource corporations but were mostly kept out of finance. The biggest Russian banks are all state/people owned and work in tandem with Russian state- and privately-owned business to advance Russian development with the government doing the vast majority of marco planning.
I have not tried to penetrate India’s political-economic maze. Trying to understand the three major economies and stay abreast of their doings is quite enough. Silly me has expressed the desire to get some key Xi Jinping Thought volumes thinking I’d have time to read them. What I find key with him is his melding of Confucianism and Taoism with modern Chinese/Marxist thought which can easily be seen in China’s five major Global Initiatives and his prescription for joint Chinese-African development.
"A cooperatively/socially owned enterprise still needs to generate a profit to pay its owners and invest in modernization of its plant. The key is to prevent excesses and monopsonistic situations, and when the latter occurs to nationalize that market segment so economic rents can be captured by government."
Would agree, though for government enterprises proper management needs to be employed rather than public servants, they need be treated as a business rather than an extension of the bureaucracy.
Yes, that’s how Russia and China do things, although there’s some cross pollination at times with experts becoming members of government. I’ve yet to see that go in the other direction.
Fascinating read, and prescient, I suspect.
I read one of his earlier papers, from 2021. He’s on the ball. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to publish much.
If Marx had $1 for everyone who's made a living off of Marx then he'd have been richer than Elon Musk but not as rich as the Rothschild Syndicate . . . and yet he/family lived the majority of his/their adult life/lives in poverty dependent on handouts.
Still, in death, love or loathe him, his legacy/legend qualify him as one of the true immortals.
There was a period in his life as the chair of a Committee he could reach 800,000 members. I'm thinking hell, monetise that, undo the suffering, fleeing countries for fear of imprisonment on grounds of agitating, ruffling the feathers of those who ruled the roost.
The only other writer I can think of who lived his early and even later life in fear of poverty despite his commercial success was Charles Dickens who as a youngster was traumatised as he watched his father being hauled off to Debtors Prison owing a few pounds.
I'm still deliberating as to the moral/relevance of this tidbit but I know it's there. I suppose it has something to do with the iron-fist of the establishment who'll go to any lengths to prevent a fairer and more just world for ALL.
It’s the pursuit of Harmony, a shared future for all mankind. Trump’s BBB makes filthy rich people even more filthy rich while taking more crumbs from the poor. That’s the moral difference.
Yes, I'm still baffled by the lengths that American/European elites will go to ( even sacrificing their citizens welfare ) in the pursuit of destroying Russia.
Thanks for this, Karl. It makes so much sense to me.
Thank you!