A brief history of the development of China National Capital Group

The rise of nationalism in recent years is rooted in the development of national capital. Due to the gradual reform model adopted by China, the economic lifeline is not in the hands of foreign capital, but has formed its own national capital group. The formation of this group has also gone through ups and downs. Let's briefly sort out the history of the formation of China's national capital groups.

From the early days of reform to the end of the 1980s, marketization mainly occurred in the marginal areas of the old planned economic system. Both township and village enterprises and foreign investment take place outside the traditional state-owned economic sector. At this time, local capital was extremely weak and had no national consciousness (though state-owned enterprises had undergone certain market-oriented reforms, they were still dominated by the planned economy model and belonged to a department of the government). Instead, they began to form some comprador capital attached to foreign capital. This is a source of reverse nationalism. Corruption phenomena such as the huge black market and "official collapse" formed under the "dual-track system" cannot be said to have formed a market economy entity. This period was still generally a workers' state.

In 1992, China formally established the dominant position of the market economic system, and then began to usher in the frenzy of marketization. In the previous stage, the main subjects of marketization were farmers, lower-level citizens, and grass-roots bureaucrats (especially in coastal areas), with a distinct color outside the system. The subjects of this stage are mainly middle and high-level bureaucrats and their close relatives and friends, with a strong color of power. In the same year, the tide of the sea was dominated by officials within the system. At that time, about 150,000 officials and intellectuals within the system resigned to start businesses, and every ministry was running a company. At the same time, state-owned enterprises have also begun to carry out further reforms, clearly proposing to establish a modern enterprise system, expand their autonomy, and become independent market players. Chinese society has officially entered the period of primitive accumulation of capitalism, which is also a very typical stage of bureaucratic capitalism.

Huntington pointed out in his book "The Political Order in a Changing Society" that "a certain amount of corruption can be regarded as a lubricant for opening up the road to modernization." [1] Chinese economist Zhang Shuguang also holds the same view. This is more in line with China's capitalist process. Since political power dominates all resources, in order to quickly form market entities with different resource elements, we can only rely on corruption. Otherwise, governments at all levels and officials have no motivation to complete the process of marketization. In this process, bureaucrats at all levels and capital have formed a close alliance, dividing different power capital groups. This is also a period of high incidence of corruption cases. The smuggling case of Xiamen Yuanhua Group is a typical representative. Corruption in state-owned enterprises is also very common. At that time, a popular phenomenon was "one year's performance, two years of flat performance, and three years of loss". The person in charge of state-owned enterprises deliberately hollowed out the enterprise, which became the unspoken rule of everyone's default, and state-owned enterprises became the capital market. A speculative tool. If the corruption during this period was still stealth, then the privatization of state-owned enterprises that began in 1997 was a clear robbery.

The 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China officially proposed to strategically adjust the layout of the state-owned economy, and the mainstream method of state-owned enterprise reform has gradually shifted from delegating power and transferring profits to property rights reform. Later, the specific goal of "Three Years Out of Difficulty" (1999-2002) for state-owned enterprises was put forward, which further intensified the reform of state-owned enterprises. The "Decision on Several Major Issues Concerning the Reform and Development of State-owned Enterprises" adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee clearly put forward reform proposals such as "strategically adjusting the layout of the state-owned economy and reorganizing state-owned enterprises" and "progress and retreat". State-owned enterprise reform strategies of "grasping the big and letting go of the small" and "strategic adjustment". The "great layoffs" we are familiar with occurred during this period. At that time, there were various means of dividing up state-owned enterprises, including the MBO model, the employee stock ownership model (the official restructuring model of Shenzhen state-owned enterprises), the value-added quantitative model, and the bankruptcy and restructuring model, which turned a large number of state-owned enterprises into private ownership. Naturally, the partitioners are state-owned enterprise bureaucrats and government bureaucrats, or those who are closely related to them. At that time, China was a paradise for adventurers. There were a lot of jaw-dropping cases that even many liberals couldn't bear to read. They wrote many critical works, such as the "Report on China Issues" series published by China Today Publishing House. This process continued until the establishment of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission in 2003.

At the same time, the so-called large state-owned enterprises without privatization have also become the private kingdoms of certain bureaucrats, who have almost all powers except no ownership, such as huge high salaries and placement of their relatives in key departments. The monopoly position makes these companies have almost no operational risks, as long as they do not bring down the company, they can do whatever they want. Political and economic commentator Yuan Jian called these state-owned enterprises and private enterprises surrounded by bureaucrats "bureaucratic ownership".

The establishment of the National Development and Reform Commission and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission marked the end of this primitive accumulation period. From the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of the Socialist Market Economic System" of the Third Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee to the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues Concerning the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economic System" of the Third Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee, one of The difference vividly clarifies that the market economic system has been established, and the rest is the process of improvement. China has developed from a disorderly jungle society to the fact that each piece of land has its own lords, and these lords are various power capital groups. Since the division of the economic sphere has been completed, all that remains is the process of the power capital group enjoying the fruits of its own territory.

The economic development model and corruption model that started at this stage have also become relatively fixed, and the official proposal of “no tossing” is a good summary of this period. Various government-related economic projects became major breeding grounds for corruption during this period, and it was during this period that the typical manifestation of China's economic growth model (investment plus exports), which is now widely considered to be, began to take shape. Since 2002, China's exports have exploded. At the same time, the trend of relying on real estate to drive the economy has also begun to emerge. No matter how many problems there are in the middle, a relatively stable market-oriented pattern has finally been formed at this time. From now on, everyone has to abide by certain market rules, even distorted ones. This laid the foundation for today's Chinese capital.

It should be noted that at this time it cannot be said that a national capital group has been formed. In the whole process of marketization, foreign capital, private capital and state-owned capital have formed various bureaucratic capital groups around the bureaucracy. Many bureaucratic capitals closely related to foreign capital not only have no national consciousness, but have a strong sense of comprador. And other bureaucratic capitals are either affected by this consciousness, or are indifferent to any ideology and indulge in material enjoyment. In the field of ideology, liberalism and reverse nationalism still dominate. In the eyes of these capitals, China is just a hunting ground, and its spiritual motherland is developed countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada. Immigration is very prevalent among the wealthy in China. Among them, the more radical liberals demanded the realization of bourgeois representative democracy in China, which was also the mainstream trend of thought in Chinese society at that time.

However, even if reverse nationalism prevails among Chinese bourgeoisie groups, and there are various ambiguous relations with foreign capital in actual economic activities, it cannot be said that Chinese capital groups are comprador capital groups. First of all, because key fields such as energy, military, industry and finance are not open to foreign capital or even private capital, even if bureaucrats in these economic fields collude with foreign capital to enrich their own pockets, they always operate within the scope of the Chinese government’s supervision. Even if they do not have the consciousness of national capital, it is impossible for them to become comprador capital. What's more, after the events of 1989, it has become impossible for liberals to take power. This politically clear red line determines that the Chinese government cannot become the spokesperson for foreign interests, but has its own political independence. No matter how many benefits are given to foreign capital and liberals in the economic field, there will be no concessions in terms of political power. This gives room for the growth of national capital. With the gradual expansion of local capital, it will inevitably form its own national capital consciousness.

As this stage gradually stabilized, everyone began to think about the next step. Undoubtedly, the pattern at this stage is also unsustainable in the long term. Although long-term corruption is beneficial to some bureaucrats and corporate executives, it is harmful to the long-term development of most market players. Practitioners who rely on these market players to survive are more or less dissatisfied; some industries The vicious competition between major internal capitals not only makes it difficult to grow into high-quality national capital, but also allows many foreign capital to take advantage of it; different industries and regions operate independently, lacking a unified plan and a unified domestic market; the bourgeoisie and corruption There is a serious phenomenon of officials fleeing, taking away a lot of capital. Originally, these problems could be solved by the supervision and macro-control of the central government, but because the central government is also faced with the dilemma of decentralization of power, it is also divided into different interest groups to compete with each other, which is known as the Hu-Wen period.” Kowloon flood control" situation. So the problem was handed over to the next central government, and we came to 2012.

To be precise, the change started in 2008. After the outbreak of the world financial crisis, the capitalist world market was severely impacted. As the world's low-end manufacturing processing base, China will only encounter a greater crisis if it continues to develop according to the original model. This has forced the Chinese bourgeoisie to start rethinking its position in the world. In order to successfully survive the crisis, it must carry out industrial upgrading, enhance its status in the world capital system, and form its own national capital group. Due to China's Bonapartist regime and the backwardness of the bourgeoisie itself, the bourgeoisie cannot accomplish this task on its own, and this important task falls to the ruling party.

The centralization of political power in 2012 opened the door to the formal formation of China's national capital groups. Measures such as high-intensity anti-corruption, party building activities, re-division of various administrative agencies, and party-government integration have broken the interest pattern formed by the bureaucrats before, strengthened the central government's control over local bureaucrats, and ensured that their activities are in line with the central government. At the request of the government, efforts are made to form a unified national capital group. Similar measures within SOEs have had the same effect, making these SOEs no longer just serve the private interests of some bureaucrats, but become part of the Chinese capital group and serve Chinese capitalism as a whole. By establishing party organizations and carrying out party building work in some private enterprises, it is ensured that these enterprises also belong to national capital groups. China has moved from a typical bureaucratic capitalist model to a model with strong state monopoly capitalism. From the period when each capital group dominated the mountain, it moved to the period when a unified national capital was formed and the territory was divided up in the world market. One of the most important criteria for determining whether a certain capital is China's national capital is whether it obeys the party's leadership.

The Chinese government not only shaped the national capital group, but also did everything it could to serve this group. Promoting industrial upgrading in coastal areas and carrying out the “One Belt, One Road” strategic plan to export excess capacity will directly help capital improve its competitiveness in domestic and foreign markets. Anti-corruption, advocating the rule of law and other acts have relatively standardized the relationship between government and business, so that bureaucrats cannot arbitrarily destroy market players, local governments have greatly reduced the behavior of random apportionment, arbitrary fees, and payment of cards to enterprises, and the status of capital has been improved. . The bureaucracy is no longer the biggest or even the only beneficiary in the process of marketization, and the practitioners in the market main body get more benefits (of course, only the middle and senior practitioners). Rectifying the financial order and supporting small and micro enterprises have optimized the business atmosphere and provided space for the growth of more small and medium-sized capital. Behaviors such as poverty alleviation and environmental governance have undertaken some social functions that should have been undertaken by capital, and at the same time provided capital with many business opportunities. And these services, it is very difficult for Western capital to enjoy from the Western government (it is not the lack of willingness, but the lack of ability). Therefore, in recent years, Chinese capital has been very competitive in the world market, which is why Chinese capital groups have confidence in their path.

To put it simply, the so-called "Chinese road" is the political implementation of the bourgeois Bonapartist regime[2], and the economic implementation of the state monopoly capitalism with a strong color of economic control (especially after the epidemic, the control of the economy) color becomes stronger). Since the Chinese bourgeoisie has an extremely powerful father Bonaparte, both the formation and development of the Chinese capital group are inseparable from the protection and help of Bonaparte's father. After the 2008 world financial crisis, thanks to Bonaparte's father's effective response, China not only successfully alleviated the crisis, but also formed and strengthened national capital groups, becoming an emerging force in the world capital market, which is in stark contrast to the decline of Western countries. Compared. This makes China Capital Group have a high degree of recognition and confidence in this system. To a large extent, the patriotic behavior of overseas students during the "anti-revision" movement in Hong Kong in 2019 was also a manifestation of this self-confidence and sense of superiority (of course, it was also the arrogance of the nouveau riche).

This model is not actually a Chinese characteristic, and Western countries have also implemented this model for a long time. Especially after World War II, as the revolutionary wave of various countries was extinguished, the remaining reformist workers' parties entered the state apparatus, and state power was unprecedentedly strengthened. Western countries formed a regime similar to Bonapartism, such as under the rule of Charles de Gaulle. of France. Economically, the widespread establishment of state monopoly capitalism enables the state power to deeply intervene in all aspects of the national economy, creating a general prosperity. This is the most typical manifestation of the "Golden Age" model that Lu Di often refers to.

However, this model also contains a crisis. Economically, since it is still a capitalist system and also follows the economic laws of capitalism, both periodic crises of relative excess production or long-term profit rate crises cannot be avoided. Western countries have already experienced this stage. With the end of the post-war prosperity, people generally fell into a state of "stagflation". The rise of neoliberalism is to get rid of this crisis, but neoliberalism solves the crisis of capital by aggravating the suffering of the people. Plenty of social crises. In recent years, although governments at all levels have tried to use various means to ensure economic growth, the economic situation is still worse year by year. Especially under the influence of the epidemic, small and medium-sized capital and service industry capital suffered heavy losses. Contradictions such as the increasing concentration of monopoly capital, the widening of regional disparities, the decline of the real economy, the problem of local debt, and the crisis of population reproduction will become more and more serious. Whether it is through the strengthening of government control or the implementation of neoliberalism to get out of the economic crisis, these costs will eventually be transferred to the proletariat, resulting in an extraordinary increase in the poverty and suffering of the people at the bottom, forming what Lenin called the inevitable revolutionary situation One of the preconditions: the ruled class can no longer survive as usual.

Politically, the Bonapartist regime was highly dependent on the personal qualities of its leaders. Wilhelm Liebknecht said: "If you want to understand Germany, you must grasp the fact that Germany, and Prussia in particular, is an upside-down pyramid. The spires firmly buried in the ground are Prussian soldiers. The pointed iron on the helmet, everything is supported by it.” The same is true in China, but increasingly, it is not the pointed iron on the soldier’s helmet, but the leader’s hair that is supporting China. In fact, Bonapartism is not necessarily an effective tool to protect national capital, and it is even the right-hand man of comprador capital most of the time, such as Russia during the Yeltsin period. The reason why China's Bonapartism can promote the formation and development of national capital groups is the common result of many historical factors. Since the reform and opening up, especially since 1989, the Chinese bureaucracy has completely lost its ideological belief in socialism, and has become ruthless and philistine, using all means to pursue its own interests in the wave of marketization. Yuan Jian wrote in "The Twilight of Miracles": "By summarizing the actions of the Chinese bureaucracy and its collaborators from the 1990s to the present, we can roughly get the following picture: grassroots bureaucratic groups have become gangsters, and middle-level bureaucratic interest groups have become compradorization of high-level bureaucratic groups.” There is no doubt that such bureaucratic groups are completely unable to protect the interests of national capital, but are instead the spokesman of comprador capital. However, since China was directly transformed from a workers' state, the ruling party is still the Chinese Communist Party, which in many respects bears the traces of former Stalinism. In particular, the elders within the CCP inherited the nationalist elements of Maoism and the organizational culture of the Stalinist Party. In the era of bureaucratic ideological collapse, the CCP leadership has forcibly spread its remnants of Stalinist ethical culture to the entire bureaucracy and even the whole society, in order to unite the already disintegrated and degenerate bureaucracy and various social groups. Therefore, during the past ten years, the CCP's emphasis on party organization construction and red culture has reached an unprecedented height after the Mao era. However, this is only a reflection of the Stalinist ideology remaining at the top of the CCP, and it is impossible to cultivate a new generation of qualified people. Leaders (Even a true Stalinist system cannot produce qualified successors. An extremely rigid and authoritarian system will only produce submissive opportunists, leading to the deterioration of rulers from one generation to the next, as is the case in the Soviet Union). China's national capital group was born under such a background. It is still a newborn baby, but the father who protects it has already reached his twilight years. Once these residual Stalinist ideological effects are gone, the ruling bloc can no longer rule as it was, and this forms the second necessary condition for the revolutionary situation. At that time, it is the beginning of the real upheaval in China.

[1] "The Political Order in a Changing Society", written by Samuel Huntington, translated by Wang Guanhua, Liu Wei, etc., Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2009, p. 53

[2] "By Bonapartism we mean a system of government in which the economically dominant classes possess the qualities necessary for the methods of democratic government, but which preserve the All of this class has to tolerate the uncontrolled orders of a military and police machine in the name of "Savior" riding on its head. This situation is created by the period when class contradictions have become more acute; The purpose of Bonapartism is to prevent the outbreak of conflict." - "Bonapartism Again", Trotsky, https://www.marxists.org/chinese/trotsky/mia-chinese-trotsky- 193503.htm

But the current Bonapartism in China is another kind of long-term stable Bonapartism, according to Trotsky: "The Bonapartist system can acquire a relatively stable and long-lasting character only when it ends the revolutionary era. situation; if the balance of forces has been tested in the struggle; if the revolutionary class is dead and the propertied class has not yet shaken off its fears: will tomorrow bring a new shock? There is no such basic condition that the forces of the masses are not fighting beforehand The Bonaparte system cannot work.” - Bonapartism and Fascism