http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n02/perry-anderson/sinomania

“Are you suggesting one elite is not preferable to another? “

I am suggesting that because it is run by an elite it is not run by the workers.

It is simple reasoning, an elite looks after an elite, not the workers., etc etc

Let me give you an example.

Suppose, hypothetically, there was a company and it called itself “The Workers Company” and it produces widgets, but it was run by a small, self-selecting elite, largely for their benefit, without any worker having any significant say in it is running.

What would socialists think of that example?

Well, Simon, in such a case, any conscious socialist would probably argue that without workers having a significant say or influence in that enterprise and you can’t really call it a “Workers Company”.

That is irrespective of how benevolent it was to its employees, or irrespective of how the elite who run the company think pleasant thoughts about the workers.

The same applies to China.

The key elements are:

1) who has the power?

2) who has the control?

3) who really benefits?

You could apply that approach to any capitalist company, any capitalist state and it would help to cut thru the BS and false consciousness which exists.

Equally, if you apply them to China, you find the workers have very little power, the elite has the power.

Thus, to call it a “worker’s state” is to deprive the very words of their own meaning.

PS: Do you think Romania under Ceausescu was a Worker’s state?

See Simon perform for disciplined Party Cadres at the Marxism 1977 (CPBML) conference.

Reg Bird is in the backing band, and pissed – as usual.

Now we know why China banned Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=XYzo1NebtDk

Well, I’m surprised to learn you’re doctrinaire liberal, Simon.

No, political power doesn’t ‘lay outside of the relations between ‘workers’ and ‘capitalists,’ it’s precisely structured by and conditional upon these relations.

Again:

“Do you seriously disagree with the idea of the working class can seize political power? ”

Er, no. But they certainly can’t do so through the actions of a substitutionist vanguard seizing power on their behalf, as demonstrated by the situaton in China.

Just a slightly difference form, still it is an elite.

Are you suggesting one elite is not preferable to another? The Britain was run by an elite, so how was it any different to Nazi Germany etc… madness. The Chinese bureacracy exercises power on certain terms, other elites opperate on different terms, terms defined by the class politics at their base.

No I do not recognise such a distinction. Mode of Production usually has a technical meaning: it refers to both productive forces (technologies) and the relations of production – law, property relations and power relations.

The relations of production are the relations between workers and capitalists. Political power lies outside of this. The working class mass capture political power in order to build socialism. Do you seriously disagree with the idea of the working class can seize political power? Or do you believe that once this happens all the relations of production will magically transform instantly and the capitalists will expropriate themselves?

I originally wrote:

“by a small elite from the CCP.”

I did not write that everyone in the CCP is **in**the elite.

There is a not too subtle difference between the two, as any conscious socialist should know, and it is rather perplexing as to why someone would confuse the two.

Again, you can’t have a woman’s group without women. Nor can you have a worker state which is not run by workers.

Finally, please, have a sense of history, Reg Birch and variously CPers have been arguing this nonsense since before you were born, and you know what?

They managed to convince no one, no one.

Workers in Britain could see through this shallow reasoning 40 years ago, and it is much more stark now that rampant capitalism is ploughing through China.

So to argue that China is a workers state, is to insult your intelligence and everyone else’s, because clearly it is not.

China is no more workers state than Romania under Ceausescu was.

Your view of China is that of hysterical propaganda.

You should at least try to be more objective in your thinking, though having made that observation I think you probably come closer to its true designation than many other socialists.