A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.

CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”

According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.

  • Flying SquidM
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    2 hours ago

    No you did not. You did not point to where Marx said it or what he said despite me asking you to multiple times. That is just a lie. You are clearly here in bad faith and this discussion is over. And I better not see this kind of trolling from you to other users.

    • Cowbee [he/him]
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      46 minutes ago

      In my opinion, I did provide it. I could link The German Ideology and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and if you read them you would perhaps understand Dialectical and Historical Materialism better, but we are having a discussion on Lemmy. The capacity for sharing information and the expecations for a single thread of replies are very low.

      Marx was incredibly intelligent, but he couldn’t predict the future, thus, like I have linked in Critique of the Gotha Programme, the closest we can get is his insistence that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous. Asking for a quote for him saying “communism is when you eliminate private property, struggle a ton, then bring it back in a controlled manner and gradually increase public ownership” won’t happen, because the initial failure isn’t necessary.

      Imagine trying to build a modern cell phone with bronze-age technology. You can’t, just like you can’t materialize Communism through fiat without developing the Means of Production. Marxism isn’t Utopian, ie it isn’t about picking a good society and forcing it into existence, regardless of the level of development of the Means of Production. Marxism is Scientific, ie it focuses on historical developments, the Mode of Production is tied to the technological level of the Means of Production. Feudalism disappeared after the Industrial Revolution, largely, and not earlier. Having achieved a backwards, idealist, impoverished “communism” like under Mao and the Gang of Four goes against Marx’s theory of historical development of class society, and China paid the price for ignoring that.

      Theory must meet practice, and practice must inform theory. The PRC tried to establish Communism without developing the Means of Production adequately, readjusted, and has now rapidly developed. Holding an ultra-Maoist line like the Gang of Four that insisted it is better for the Proletariat to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism is Revisionism. Maoist Theory did not meet practice, therefore the correct choice was to take a gradualist approach while maintaining CPC control so that when the Means of Production are more developed, they can be more Socialized in turn as Socialism emerges from Capitalism.

      You are clearly here in bad faith and this discussion is over. And I better not see this kind of trolling from you to other users.

      This is insulting, especially considering you haven’t attempted to respond to the rest of my comment, where I try to actually engage with modern analysis of a country Marx never lived to see and actively analyze. If clearly high-effort replies are considered “trolling” and “bad-faith” by your standards, then how can you consider your “gotchas” any better?

      • Flying SquidM
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        02 hours ago

        That’s an extremely long article. Can you point out where he says that communism is developed through eliminating capital, bringing it back again, then eliminating it again?

          • @PugJesus
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            22 hours ago

            All the Marx quotes there are discussing a very classic Marxist view of capitalism leading to socialism, not the ML view of feudalism leading to socialism if you believe really hard, much less the claim that modern China, in going from feudal-to-socialist-to-capitalist is somehow riding the right path.

          • Flying SquidM
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            12 hours ago

            I see that. I asked for Marx. You said Engels. Then you provided an image with a bunch of stuff that not only is not what I asked for, but also includes quotes from fucking Stalin.

            If you want me to take your arguments in any way seriously, maybe don’t include the thoughts of someone who committed genocide.