<p>Now that China’s turning into a capitalist society, is seeing many of its citizens become wealthy by any standards while others are becoming relatively well off, and others are still existing at a subsistence level, and private enterprise along with its financial rewards take hold, can it be considered a communist country any more?</p>
<p>Has communism in China died?</p>
<p>China has one of the most vigorous capitalist economies in the world. It’s been Communist in name only for some time now. It’s still a totalitarian government but no longer a communist one.</p>
<p>if communism is dead, democracy isn’t alive…</p>
<p>and you can say that SOME citizens are doing well, most are by no means much better off</p>
<p>No. The Communist Party is alive, well, and presiding over the fastest growing economy in the world.</p>
<p>^^Sure, the ruling party in China still calls itself “Communist,” but its actual economic policies are rip-roaring capitalism.</p>
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<p>No one ever said that China is a democracy. Capitalism does not necessarily result in democracy, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Hey, something I actually know a bit about…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>China is not communist in anything but name. Kind of like how the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not a democracy or a republic, but rather a unitarian dictatorship.</p></li>
<li><p>Most Chinese are better off today than they were under Mao. This is almost impossible to debate.</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>Yea, like we voted for rent control.</p>
<p>I believe Communism is very much alive in China, only with a different mask.</p>
<p>what’s your definition of “communism”? a dictatorship that calls itself “communist” doesn’t automatically means communism.</p>
<p>As I understand it, no communist countries practice a pure form of “communism,” (i.e., in which all property is commonly owned and people receive equal benefits). Rather, they practice “state capitalism,” in which the means of production are owned by the state, and are controlled by political leaders. In China, as I understand it, there is starting to be more private ownership of the means of production. Will this eventually mean that more political power will move away from the government leaders into the private economy? Maybe.</p>
<p>how many businesses in China are partly, or wholey owned by the government?</p>
<p>if owned by the government, are we talking socialism? or fascism? or totalitarism? </p>
<p>what hybrid government is this?</p>
<p>with people having little say, run by the military, no free speech, and they own much of our debt?</p>
<p>and who REALLY thinks the leaders will let go of ANY power by letting corporations have a say? if they “et go” it most likely will be just frosting…in reality, the government will control it all still, or your risk jail time if you odn’t do exactly what they want</p>
<p>They still have a centralized, authoritarian government that has complete control of the country.</p>
<p>Hunt has it right.</p>
<p>As far as economy, the Communist Party runs the country and decides where to invest. They have invested in “privatizing” a fair number of going concerns. However, they are far from Adam Smith’s invisible hand. The state no longer controls every asset and every flow of goods and cash - at the micro level. At the macro level, do not underestimate the degree of involvement.</p>
<p>As far as politics, it’s absolutely one party. The degree to which it is or is not authoritarian or totalitarian, well, I can’t really say. I don’t have anything to do with politics. What I can say is that a large number of 20-35 year old Chinese living in the cities do not feel in any way restricted. They are not craving democracy. </p>
<p>IMO, some of the smartest people on the planet are now running the China Communist Party. And for us unknowing except for articles in the New York Times to think we know what is going on over there, hmm, not perhaps the correct assessment.</p>
<p>Agree. I believe that much of what is publicized is still controlled; however, there are cases where somebody ‘undercover’ will report something that is detrimental to the image the country is currently trying to portray, thus leading to a massive cover-up or in some cases, lame excuses or outright lies. Enough said. I really don’t want to get into political issues here.</p>
<p>Alumother,</p>
<p>These same “smartest people” are also incapable of dealing with non-performing loans, proper oversight of industries, and an extreme wealth disparity. </p>
<p>I’m not particularly impressed with the CCP, mostly because I’ve read many many many texts showing just how corrupt and oftentimes inept they are. They are just more often capable than inept.</p>
<p>And we deal with non-performing loans well here? And an extreme wealth disparity?</p>
<p>We are better at some industry oversight. Largely because due to our much higher GDP we care more about corporate abuses against the environment.</p>
<p>We have better industry oversight because we have private watchdog groups. China suffers from extremely severe [agency</a> loss](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegation]agency”>Delegation - Wikipedia) thanks to a regime that won’t allow private groups to form. Our oversight is better than China’s simply because our regime is freer and conflicts of interest are moderated.</p>
<p>If you think US wealth disparity is bad, though, you should see China’s.</p>
<p>The US media sometime makes people think China is like the less extreme of North Korea. Granted, the country still has a lot to improve, particularly from the standpoint of American perspective–lack of well established laws and regulations, industry oversight, the pollution, the corruption…etc (actually one of the very reason the corruption is bad there is because the central goverment doesn’t have a tight control over many rural towns and non-major cities–the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing). The thing is most ordinary people there, like Alumother said, don’t feel in any way restricted. They can talk crap about anyone, including political leaders on the web (though the government try to censor websites but mostly in vain); many of them are obssessed with making money, probably more so than Americans. Macau casinos have more revenue than Las Vegas’ counterparts and the investment market is more speculative than the US. To say it’s “communism” is understating the changes they’ve been undergoing.</p>
<p>more info: <a href=“http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1571/MR1571.ch29.pdf[/url]”>http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1571/MR1571.ch29.pdf</a></p>
<p>Sam Lee,</p>
<p>One of the scariest things to consider is that the CCP and the PLA may have communication issues. This is especially troubling in a nuclear power.</p>