In recent months, I have seen several friends forwarding Comrade Xiaoping’s speech on his friend’s circle of friends and commemorating him spontaneously. I also saw that many netizens miss the chief designer on the Internet. But from their speeches, they obviously mean that they are worried that China will stop reform and opening up, return to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and be closed to the country, etc. Recently, public opinion has hyped supply and marketing cooperative , community canteens and other things, which has even exaggerated this concern to a new level.
What we need to note is that if you really support reform and opening up and really believe in the chief designer, then please respect his original intention. What is reform and opening up? Is it a free market economy? Is it a privatization? None of them. There is a saying that Chinese people are familiar with, and we can summarize what we need to do in reform and opening up:
Let some people and some regions get rich first, and wealth first drive later wealth, and ultimately achieve common prosperity.
This is repeatedly mentioned by Comrade Xiaoping on different occasions, articles, and in different forms. Common prosperity is not a new saying that only exists now, but an old saying that Comrade Xiaoping has been talking about. However, it has not been possible to make a group of people rich first in the early stage of reform and opening up, so we will not be able to achieve common prosperity for the time being. Comrade Xiaoping said that socialism must eliminate poverty, and poverty is not socialism. Reform and opening up is to abandon the idea of being poor under egalitarianism, that is, the "poor socialism" of the Gang of Four. drives wealth first and then wealth, and eventually makes everyone rich, instead of being poor, or under polarization, the rich are rich in fields and the poor are in no place to stand. wants to prove the superiority of socialism, which ultimately comes from its productivity developing better than capitalism , and on the basis of developing productivity, it continuously improves the material and cultural life of the people.
We should admit that after more than 40 years of reform and opening up, a group of people have indeed become rich first, and it can even be said that they have become too rich. Hurun Research Institute released the 2022 Global Rich List, which shows that there are 3,381 billion-dollar entrepreneurs worldwide this year, of which 1,133 people in China and 716 people in the United States. China is not as rich as the United States, but there are already more top rich people than the United States. And China's Gini Index almost competed with the UK's Premier League and the United States more than ten years ago.
So under such circumstances, shouldn’t it be natural for reform and opening up to enter the stage of achieving common prosperity? Therefore, only by supporting common prosperity and public ownership as the main body is to truly support reform and opening up. Opposing common prosperity and opposing public ownership as the main body must be opposing reform and opening up. They are either a group of people with ulterior motives or a group of people who have been fooled and lame. Because Comrade Xiaoping had long said when explaining the reform:
One public ownership is the main body and the other is common prosperity. This is the fundamental principle of socialism that we must adhere to. We must firmly implement and realize these socialist principles. In the long run, it is ultimately a transition to communism. Now some people are worried about whether China will become capitalist. This worry cannot be said to be unreasonable. We cannot use empty talk but use facts to relieve their worries and answer those who want us to become capitalist.
If in the forty or fifty years after the reform and opening up, if public ownership is not firmly maintained as the main body, and common prosperity is not proved with facts, but to make this group of people too rich, then reform and opening up will actually be completely failed. "We are rich first to drive wealth later" has become empty talk and will inevitably become the biggest scam in China's history for thousands of years. Comrade Xiaoping has long expressed his concerns:
If our policies lead to polarization, we will fail; if something new bourgeois is produced, then we will really go to the wrong path.
If we carefully observe the various problems in today's Chinese society and the chaos in today's capitalist world, we should know that if we do not pursue common prosperity now, we will really embark on the evil path. Because in today's Chinese society, the issue of fair distribution has become the most important problem in China.
Friends who have known the history of the Republic should know that when China was first founded, there was a brief period of new democraticism. This period was neither traditional capitalism nor traditional socialism, but a hybrid economic model. The main difference between it and traditional capitalism is: to develop the state-owned economy as a leadership force; to limit the development of capitalism that is not conducive to the national economy and people's livelihood; to help farmers develop mutual assistance and cooperation to avoid farmers' bankruptcy and polarization. Its difference from traditional socialism: one is to protect private property rights, and the other is to use market transactions. Although the planning of strengthening the economy is emphasized, plans have not been considered to completely replace the market.
From this we can see that the concepts of the new democratic period are similar to many of the concepts of reform and opening up. As originally envisioned, this period will take 10 to 20 years, or even longer. Because according to Marxist theory, socialism must be based on the high development of productivity in , that is, it is necessary to fully develop capitalism and realize industrialization of . But in fact, this period lasted only a few years. China changed to the Soviet model because it received Soviet aid, eliminated the private ownership and market economy . Without industrialization at all, it announced that it had completed the socialist transformation. Moreover, China's economic model at that time was not so much a planned economy as a command economy, which was just a slap in the head. That is, there is no long-term and reasonable stable plan, nor is there any serious implementation of existing plans.
It turns out that any extreme route won't work. Therefore, reform and opening up returned to a similar route to the New Democratic period, and defined this stage as the primary stage of socialism .
does not work at the extreme, not only for the Soviet Union, but also for China, but also for the United States. The United States, which advocates the free economic model the most, once dominated the country after the collapse of and the Soviet Union in , but it fell into unprecedented chaos in just 30 years, which many people probably did not expect. The United States should be the most polarized country among developed countries. The strong prey on the weak and the survival of the fittest Social Darwinism Trends of thought pervade every corner of society, and neither social welfare nor average life expectancy is like a developed country.
On the one hand, the United States is an undisputed paradise for the rich and academic holy place for the whole world. The rich live in a special community and enjoy private security; children receive aristocratic education from an early age and can go to prestigious universities with letters of recommendation; they can pay bail to hire the best lawyer if they commit crimes; they can even directly modify the law to legalize crimes that rich people are prone to commit such as bribery manipulation of political situations, etc., directly legalize the crimes that rich people are prone to commit in the name of political donations and lobbying. On the other hand, the poor community in the United States is extremely dirty and messy. Drug use, crime, shooting, zero-yuan purchase, and homeless people are everywhere. The poor eat junk food and enjoy happy education, and cultivate the most anti-intellectual and violent group of fools in the world and are sent to a crowded prison. It is precisely because of the serious two-level differentiation in the United States that the Chinese people's impression of the United States is also polarized, either a paradise of democracy and freedom, or a hell full of discrimination and violence.
Moreover, whether it is heaven or hell, this is only supported by the global situation with more than 300 million people sucking blood. What if one day, this model of exploiting the world with privileged countries, characterized by the United States' priority, is pierced like a bubble? And China has 1.4 billion people, so where can we have such conditions?
If you are a rich man who has made enough money in China, or a highly educated talent who has enough knowledge to easily get into the middle class in the United States, then I think it is understandable that you yearn for such a winner-takes-all society, or want to achieve your own revenge. If you are just an ordinary 996 working person, you do not support socialist system and are afraid of public ownership and common prosperity, what exactly are you trying to do?
Of course, the petty bourgeois group that is now full of Chinese Internet is contradictory.Although they are exploited by capital, they can be high on the ground when facing the bottom and think that they have the opportunity to become a real capitalist, or are already a spiritual capitalist.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics should be said to combine the strengths of the two systems of socialism and capitalism in the traditional sense. On the one hand, it enjoys the benefits of concentrating efforts on national macro-control to accomplish major tasks, and on the other hand, it enjoys the benefits of free development and competition in the market economy. But on the other hand, this system will also bring about the evils of both. So on the one hand, everyone is subject to the evil of bureaucracy, and on the other hand, they are subject to the evil of capital. Therefore, China has achieved an unprecedented speed of development and has accumulated a lot of social problems. Ten years ago, China not only competed with the Gini Index to win the UK and the United States, but sometimes it felt more capitalist than capitalist country . On the other hand, corruption has reached the point where some people shouted "anti-corruption and destruction of the party, and not repeatedly destruction of the country." However, for a long time, social problems were covered up by a rapidly developing economy and a loose international environment.
Therefore, China's common prosperity must be first built on the basis of anti-corruption and improving administration. It is necessary to crack down on bureaucracy that combines bureaucracy and capitalism. It is necessary to monopolize the soil for the growth of capitalism, firmly limit collusion between officials and businessmen and anti-monopoly. From 2009 to 2018, the company I worked for has been doing government projects. As far as my personal feelings are concerned, after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the official atmosphere in China has indeed changed a lot. Of course, China's thousands of years of relationship culture is deeply rooted, and people who fight corruption but not themselves are everywhere, so this task still has a long way to go. From the perspective of human nature, corruption can only deter and cannot be eradicated. And this is not only the responsibility of the government, but also the responsibility of every citizen.
At the same time, China has a long way to go for common prosperity. If it took more than 40 years to make some people rich first, then the process of common prosperity may still take forty or fifty years. Therefore, reform and opening up will be a century-old process. Therefore, those who fear common prosperity do not need to regard it as a disaster or a beast, and those who cheer for common prosperity do not think that it can cure the disease. In fact, since China's reform and opening up is a multi-ownership economy with public ownership as the main body, the things that some people fear have never been away from them, and have even been by their side. Just like the hot speculation of supply and marketing cooperatives in recent days, the supply and marketing cooperatives have always existed in rural areas, and their annual sales are as high as 6 trillion yuan, far exceeding giants such as Alibaba and JD.com.
Let me give you another example that everyone knows. China's education system has always been the absolute subject of public ownership and operates in a planned economic model. In the compulsory education stage, household registration is the "food coupon". Children of appropriate age spend money once with tickets. School planning, teacher arrangements, and textbook courses are completely under the control of the government. Even when we reach the higher education stage, the state will organize the college entrance examination and admissions in a unified manner. University funds come from the finances and limit the charging standards. Therefore, the education system has always been called by some as a stubborn bastion of the planned economy, shouting every day to conquer it. Later, the country also launched the reform of the education system and carried out market education experiments. So various private primary and secondary schools sold dog meat with the help of sheep, and various sky-high private kindergartens appeared. Private universities need dozens or hundreds of years of cultivation because higher education requires not only poor quality, but also more expensive tuition. Later, this unhealthy trend was stopped in time.
Why didn’t there be too many people object to this matter in all kinds of strange names? The reason is very simple, because Sino-US relations were still acceptable at that time, and they did not use this incident to launch a public opinion war. If it were now, it would be a bloody storm again. If you are not a rich man who can spend hundreds of thousands of yuan to attend private aristocratic schools a year, what do you object to him? Anyone who is a little rational should know that we not only do not object, but also eagerly hope that the early childhood education stage will not require lottery and be completely free.My community started building a public kindergarten around 2015. In 2019, my child took the lottery. The tuition fee for one semester is more than 3,000 yuan, and the living expenses are just more than 300 yuan. The school facilities are good and the teachers are serious and responsible.
actually understand by referring to the American education system. Basic education in the United States does not attach importance to public education, and children of migrant workers can only enjoy happy education. The tuition fees of prestigious universities have increased to around 60,000 US dollars per year. According to the current exchange rate, , it is almost 430,000 yuan. This is why Biden had to fight for votes by exempting some student loans. Because according to this calculation, the tuition fee for undergraduate studies is as high as about 1.7 million yuan, plus loans and interest, a student without a family background will bear millions of debts as soon as he enters society, so that studying in a prestigious school sometimes becomes a non-cost thing. However, under the special national conditions of the United States, they always use a little profit to fool voters, rather than fundamentally solving the problem. Just like when I was a child, I chose village cadres in my hometown in rural areas. Even if everyone had direct contact with candidates, it was basically the same as who gave everyone money to choose who.
We must understand that educational equity is the foundation of social equity. In fact, China not only stopped the unfair trend of privatization of public education, but also stopped the unfair trend of privatization of public hospitals. A few years ago, people's hospitals in many places secretly became private hospitals , and it was not until the Putian system was increasingly exposed. Let’s look at the United States again. The total medical expenses in American society have accounted for 17% of GDP, which is an astronomical investment, but what about the actual effect? The average life expectancy is lower than that in China. Who has made money into? I speak for myself.
Don’t we Chinese envy all kinds of news about free education and free medical care abroad? If you don’t object to public education and public hospitals, then what are the supply and marketing cooperatives and community canteens you are afraid of? Besides, they still charge fees, so they must compete with private supermarkets and catering. China's basic areas such as military industry, aerospace, energy, food, communications, and transportation have been firmly in the hands of the country since the reform and opening up. Has it hindered reform and opening up? If the market economy is so versatile, how can become a developed country after in World War II? Almost without exception, the younger brother of the United States? We must understand that in areas where the needs are clear and need to be strictly guaranteed to be fair, public ownership must be the best system. Only in areas where diverse needs need to meet and enrich social life is suitable for the market economy.
If you are of a certain age, have you ever remembered that more than ten or twenty years ago, everyone went out and urinated. Many public toilets were contracted to private individuals and charged fees. Moreover, these toilets are not only charged, but also smell particularly bad, because they often drive in crowded places such as stations and don’t have to care about the quality of service at all. Will these bosses go to other places to build toilets for you? Later, the paid public toilets were basically banned. Will it affect your peeing? Therefore, we must not think it is good when we see market economy and privatization. Because the market economy must be that only money can be consumed, and the more money you have, the more you can consume. Do you agree that if you have money, you can go to school or everyone can go to school? Do you agree that only if you have money or if you have illness? Do you agree that you can go to the toilet if you have money or that you can go to the toilet if you are urged to urinate? When you understand all this, you will naturally understand that it is impossible for any country to have an absolute market economy, but their respective degrees are different. From this you should also understand who should support and who should oppose.
Reference materials:
"Hard-Terror-Five Choices of the Path of Socialism in China"
"Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Volume 3)"
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