The Continuing Adventures of the Dialectic :  On Roland Boer’s <i>Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners</i>

Balasopoulos, Antonis

doi:10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.12.3.0321

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World Review of Political Economy

Volume 12, Issue 3

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The Continuing Adventures of the Dialectic : On Roland Boer’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners

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Author(s): Antonis Balasopoulos ¹ ^, ^* ^,

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 01 October 2021

Journal: World Review of Political Economy

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Boer, socialism with Chinese characteristics, Marxism-Leninism, political economy, philosophy

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Abstract

This article begins by dwelling on the forms and causes of Western “historical nihilism” toward the Chinese socialist project. I then analyze issues attendant to Deng’s appeal to “liberating thought,” particularly as regards the importance of the development of the forces of production and the dilemmas this presents for socialists. This segues into a discussion of contradiction analysis, which is theoretically central in Boer’s book. Through the discussion of the difference of such analysis from forms of “either/or” logic dominant in the West, I arrive at the significance of the category of the “concrete universal” (Hegel) for the understanding of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” After unpacking some of the central issues posed by the “reform and opening-up,” I dwell on the question of socialism in China. I emphasize some of the complications inherent in the combination of socialist planning and the market economy, including the issue of the conception of a future or prospective “communist” stage. The discussion concludes by dwelling on issues of law and political structure, with particular emphasis on the innovative importance of “rule of law” in the socialist context, as well as on the importance of contradiction analysis for understanding the dialectic of sovereignty and globalization.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon

Title: World Review of Political Economy

Abbreviated Title: WRPE

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Electronic): 2042-8928

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 01 October 2021

Volume: 12

Issue: 3

Pages: 321-347

Affiliations

[1 ]Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of English Studies, and Dean of the School of Humanities at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus. Email: balaso@ 123456ucy.ac.cy

Author notes

[* ] Correspondence: Antonis Balasopoulos ( balaso@ 123456ucy.ac.cy )

Article

DOI: 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.12.3.0321

SO-VID: 8e127103-9f61-46d7-96e0-e41bff9c9a04

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History

Page count

Pages: 27

References

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A. Balasopoulos 2021. “Divided Sovereignties: Lenin and Dual Power.” In Reading Texts on Sovereignty, edited by S. Achilleos and A. Balasopoulos, 147–154. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
M. Basavupunnaiah 1983. “On Contradictions, Antagonistic and Non-antagonistic.” Social Scientist 11 (9): 3–25.
E. Bloch 1996. Natural Law and Human Dignity. Translated by D. J. Schmidt. Cambridge: MIT Press.
R. Boer 2017. “Stalin’s Biblical Hermeneutics: From 2 Thessalonians 3 to Acts 4.” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 4 (1): 71–89.
R. Boer 2021. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. Singapore: Springer.
R. Boer, and P. Yan. 2021. “‘Not Some Other -ism’—On Some Western Marxist Misrepresentations of Chinese Socialism.” International Critical Thought 11 (2): 171–189.
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J. Bricmont 2006. Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War. Translated by D. Johnstone. New York: Monthly Review Press.
J. Derrida 2005. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Translated by P.-A. Brault and M. Naas. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
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G. M. Young 2012. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] P. Anderson 1976. Considerations of Western Marxism. London: New Left Books.

[2] A. Balasopoulos 2021. “Divided Sovereignties: Lenin and Dual Power.” In Reading Texts on Sovereignty, edited by S. Achilleos and A. Balasopoulos, 147–154. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

[3] M. Basavupunnaiah 1983. “On Contradictions, Antagonistic and Non-antagonistic.” Social Scientist 11 (9): 3–25.

[4] E. Bloch 1996. Natural Law and Human Dignity. Translated by D. J. Schmidt. Cambridge: MIT Press.

[5] R. Boer 2017. “Stalin’s Biblical Hermeneutics: From 2 Thessalonians 3 to Acts 4.” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 4 (1): 71–89.

[6] R. Boer 2021. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. Singapore: Springer.

[7] R. Boer, and P. Yan. 2021. “‘Not Some Other -ism’—On Some Western Marxist Misrepresentations of Chinese Socialism.” International Critical Thought 11 (2): 171–189.

[8] B. Brecht 1965. The Mother. Translated by L. Baxandall. New York: Grove Press.

[9] J. Bricmont 2006. Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War. Translated by D. Johnstone. New York: Monthly Review Press.

[10] J. Derrida 2005. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Translated by P.-A. Brault and M. Naas. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.

[11] C. Douzinas 2007. Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism. New York: Routledge.

[12] N. X. Elegant 2021. “China’s 2020 GDP Means It Will Overtake the U.S. as World’s No. 1 Economy Sooner than Expected.” Fortune, January 18. Accessed July 30, 2021 . https://fortune.com/2021/01/18/chinas-2020-gdp-world-no-1-economy-us/.

[13] J. B. Foster 2000. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press.

[14] J. B. Foster 2020. The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press.

[15] D. E. Greenstein 2014. “Assembling Fordizm: The Production of Automobiles, Americans, and Bolsheviks in Detroit and Early Bolshevik Russia.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 56 (2): 259–289.

[16] G. W. F. Hegel 2010. The Science of Logic. Translated by G. di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[17] P. Hudis 2019. “Marx’s Concept of Socialism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx, edited by M. Vidal, T. Smith, T. Rotta, and P. Prew, 757–772. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[18] F. Jameson 2005. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso.

[19] V. I. Lenin (1920) 1929. “Marginal Notes in Bukharin’s The Economics of the Transition Period .” In Leninskii Sbornik, vol. XI, 383–432. Moscow: Institute of Marxism-Leninism.

[20] V. I. Lenin 1961. “On the Question of Dialectics.” In Lenin Collected Works, vol. 38: Philosophical Notebooks, 355–363. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[21] V. I. Lenin 1964. “The State and Revolution.” In Lenin Collected Works, vol. 25, edited by S. Apresyan and J. Riordan, 385–497. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

[22] D. Losurdo 2003. “History of the Communist Movement: Failure, Betrayal, or Learning Process?” Nature, Society and Thought 16 (1): 33–124.

[23] T. Mao 2004. “On Dialectical Materialism.” In Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912–1949, vol. 6, edited by S. Schram, 573–667. New York: East Gate.

[24] T. Mao (1937) 2007. “On Contradiction.” In On Practice and Contradiction, by T. Mao, 67–102. London and New York: Verso.

[25] T. Mao (1957) 2007. “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People.” In On Practice and Contradiction, by T. Mao, 130–166. London and New York: Verso.

[26] K. Marx 1975. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 3, 229–346. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[27] K. Marx 1989. “Critique of the Gotha Program.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 24, 75–99. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[28] K. Marx 1996. Capital, vol. 1. Vol. 35 of Marx and Engels Collected Works. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[29] N. Matsuda 2021. “China Antitrust Probes Doubled Last Year in Big Tech Crackdown.” Nikkei Asia, March 11. Accessed July 30, 2021 . https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-People-s-Congress/China-antitrust-probes-doubled-last-year-in-Big-Tech-crackdown.

[30] T. Paine (1791) 1998. “Rights of Man.” In Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings, edited by M. Phelp, 83–331. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[31] T. Pinkney 1993. “Raymond Williams and Postmodernism.” In The British Critical Tradition: A Re-evaluation, edited by G. Day, 213–229. Houndmills: Macmillan.

[32] Q. Qu 2017. “China Has New Standards for Marxist Schools of Ideological Understanding.” Global Times, September 28. Accessed July 15, 2021 . https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1068750.shtml.

[33] S. Ratcliff, ed. 2016. Oxford Essential Quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[34] B. G. Rosenthal, ed. 1997. The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

[35] R. Stern 2009. Hegelian Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[36] R. Stites 1991. Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Soviet Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[37] L. Wei, and B. Davis. 2021. “China’s Message to America: We’re an Equal Now.” Wall Street Journal, April 12. Accessed July 30, 2021 . https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-china-policy-biden-xi-11617896117.

[38] G. M. Young 2012. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.