The policy of Politics in Command by Mao Zedong - Essay Example

Burying Mao This paper will answer the question on whether Mao’s policy of “Politics in Command” set the agenda for the Chinese economy in the last half of the 20th century. Particularly, this paper will present how it became a failure and was, in fact, not a dominant factor at all in period’s economic and political movements. Background After the revolution, when the Chinese communist regime was catapulted to power, observers note how the state endeavored to take control over an increasingly industrialized and modernized society. Several policies were put in place in order make the economic system work alongside the new political framework. In the first half of the twentieth century state policy eliminated private industry and commerce resulting to a high degree of centralized and unified planned economy. But despite this the party-state showed symptoms of incapacity in terms of confronting modernization and economic growth. Aiko Ikeo (1997) cited an example: In the early stages of the creation of New China, the method of ‘three persons’ food eaten by five’ was carried out, in an effort to assist the unemployed. During the First Five-year Plan, unemployment was basically eliminated, but because of the lower level of productive forces, in order to guarantee universal employment and individual entitlement to rations, only low-wage policies could work… The parity pattern of low wages, high employment and low consumption cause universal overstaffing, inefficiency and low benefits. (p. 166) By 1960 Mao Zedong launched the self-reliance model anchored on the guiding thought of “politics in command”. This theory stressed the replacement of personal desire for material and economic interests with noble political sentiments and selfless devoted spirit. This guiding thought replaced the equalitarian thought of equal wealth distribution policy in the 1950s. (Ikeo, p. 166) The basic theme of this campaign was the proper relationship between politics and business, with the basic goal of ensuring that politics is placed at the fore. More importantly, this introduced a decentralization drive which sought to give the party more control over the economy. This was achieved by having the provincial party committees supervise economic enterprises and perform a coordinating role. (Bailey 2001, p. 170) In an effort to achieve greater party control, the influence of central planning ministries was reduced. The ‘politics in command’ policy was implemented, in effect abolishing the previous equalitarian thoughts of equal distribution of wealth for a time, and failed in its attempt at uplifting China’s economy. Pitfalls The state and eventual weakness of Mao’s ‘politics in command’ was first reflected in Peter Nan-Shong Lee’s observation which stated that: Within the structure of the command economy, the industrial ministries at the central level and the industrial bureaus at the local level find it difficult to keep abreast of operations of the various enterprises because of weakness in feedback system. Thus, considerable material concessions must be made in order to induce compliance from the low level units. (p. 153) Such structure adversely affected profit-retention system, the tax-for-profit system as well as the contractual-responsibility system which began in 1984. The problem appeared to stem from the grassroots rather the policy itself or to put it in another way the reconciliation of the idea – the concept - from reality. For instance, a number of press accounts rightly reported and charged that many cadres – those managing industries in the local level – gave little attention to political or ideological considerations when they made decisions or carried out policy. Harry Harding, in his book about the Chinese bureaucracy, explored this aspect as he cited views such as: “production is a hard task but politics is a soft one,” “good production is good politics,” or “production and politics are of equal importance” which conveniently shed light to questions and doubts as to what “command in politics” or its idea of placing politics to the fore actually meant. (p. 224) This was indeed unfortunate considering the fact that the party-state took pains of instilling party-state ideologies to its cadres. The Central-South Party Bureau, for instance, ordered that leading cadres at and above the country level spend one full month a year in study, and government cadres, two to four days each month, which among other attempts at systematizing the study of Mao’s work, came under fire later on from the Red Guards. (Canton Liaison 1967, p. 8) Contribution Perhaps the contribution of Mao’s “politics in command” principle in the second half of the twentieth century stems from the idea that the current – the successful coexistence of the Chinese economic and political systems - sprung from its limitations and failures. Here, I find support in Lee’s perspective as he reiterated that “the metamorphosis from totalitarianism to corporatism has resulted from the goal displacement by the party-state of its quest for full rationality and total control in the economic arena by the protection and maintenance of its revenue sources and its struggle for survival.” (p. 154) In a way, the “politics of command” theory saw the establishment and the strengthening of the legal framework to which the future economic transition will be based from. For instance, in the pre-reform period, because of “politics in command”, party policy was regarded as the soul of law and law as an instrument to realize party policy. According to John Wong (1998), the establishment of an effective legal system became a major catalyst in China’s political and economic development. (p. 64) But besides the abovementioned factors, the “politics in command policy” never set the agenda for China’s economy in the last half of the twentieth century. It was upon Mao’s death and Deng Xiaoping’s assumption to power when policies that will influence future economic and political fronts would emerge. Deng’s Revolution It was the implications of Deng Xiapoing’s reforms that set China’s economic agenda in the second half of the twentieth century. These reforms are consisted of cracking down on corruption and “bureaucratism” within the party, clearly separating party from government and limiting the former’s control over economic issues, emphasizing the recruitment of younger and more educated personnel into the party (and easing out old veterans), and reinvigorating previously dormant institutions like the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in an attempt to co-opt a wider people support. (Bailey, p. 212) One should be reminded that it was never palatable for the Maoist principles, including his “politics in command” theory, to introduce market-oriented reforms, the open-door policy of encouraging inward foreign investment and closer economic links with the capitalist world. The loosening of state controls over culture, society and the economy, which permeated in the last part of the twentieth century China, was never in the molds of Mao and his command politics. Conclusion China’s Communist Party is the political factor in the whole equation. During China’s political development, there is a weakening of the central leadership, which forced the leadership to increasingly rely on the coercive powers of such agencies as the armed forces and the Bureau of Public Security, in addition to strengthening the bureaucratic apparatus under the party’s guidance. (Brodsgaard & Strand, p. 82) As the power of the party and the military are intertwined, it is a powerful force in shaping policy including that of the economic. This is probably the main argument behind Mao’s “politics in command” potency. However, this only applied to the period wherein the principle was enforced because after Mao’s death it experienced its own natural demise. The command economy along with other of Mao’s policies failed because it overstrained the Chinese economy, and this led to tensions within the party-state as communist leaders grumble and Mao struck back with his militaristic and totalitarian policies. It was Amos Yoder who wrote that Mao forced development by giving incentives to peasants in order to produce and, when it did not work, government commands that is why he lost to the promarket pragmatists led by Deng. (p. 232) That is why Chinese economic agenda in the second half of the twentieth century would be dominated by an ambitious transition from a closed economy to that characterized by open market that scholars came to brand the aftermath of Mao’s administration as the post-Maoist order. The economic reforms launched after 1978 and the ideological dismantling of Maoism including his “politics in command” principle led to a consumer boom afterwards. For instance, Bailey wrote that during the 1960s China produced only 3,000 colour sets annually and yet by the end of 1980s over 90 percent of urban households had at least one television set. (p. 212) There was a gradual economic transformation associated with the period after Mao’s death. He has little to do with it as the new approach promoted liberal change, which encouraged the new economic institutions that responded with exceptional strengths to the incentives provided by Deng’s reforms. Within two decades, these new policies were to revolutionize China’s economic performance, enabling the country to achieve a total production output four times more than previous performance, and the consumption standards of Chinese people rising rapidly. Ewan Anderson, Liam Anderson and Ivars Gutmanis (1999) underscored this fact by stressing that even today the biggest problems – one of the most difficult to resolve – that serve as barriers to China’s economic growth has been about dealing with state-owned enterprises. To quote: In the absence of even the most basic social safety nets, the abandonment of state support for these highly inefficient industrial entities would have catastrophic social repercussions. SOEs provide not just employment, but also housing, education, cheap utilities and basic welfare services, to nearly 20 percent of China’s total workforce, and up to 70% of the urban workforce. (p. 113) With this fact on hand, we still see that traces of Maoist command and closed economy continues to haunt and restrain the economic growth that the country has achieved to this day. The Chinese government admitted that the cost of full privatization is still too high to bear. For instance, faced with the unemployment of 200 million workers, the Chinese government put on holds the continuing privatization of small state-owned enterprises and ordered state-controlled banks to continue making ‘policy loans’ to loss-generating enterprises. (Anderson, Anderson & Gutmanis, p. 112-113) All in all, to say that Mao’s “politics in command” shaped or, much less, set the Chinese economic agenda during the second part of the twentieth century is absurd. While I cite that its limitations and failures sparked the Chinese transformation into an open market system, it did not positively influence policies and reforms that would permeate in the period. Moreover, I credit Deng’s and his successors’ work as the most instrumental factor that guided the Chinese economic roadmap even until today. References Anderson, E., Anderson, L., and Gutmanis, I. (1999). Economic Power in a Changing International System. UK: Routledge. Bailey, P. (2001). China in the Twentieth Century. Blackwell Publishing. Brodsgaard, K. and Strand, D. (1998). Reconstructing Twentieth-Century China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. "Canton Liaison Center of the Wuhan Revolutionary Rebel Headquarters of the Red Guards for the Thought of Mao Tse-tung". (1967). Current Background 824(27.iv.67) 8 Harding, H. (1981). Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949-1976. Stanford University Press. Ikeo, A. (1997). Economic Development in Twentieth Century East Asia: The International Context. Routledge. Lee, P. (1991). The Chinese industrial state in historical perspective: from totalitarianism to corporation. In Brantly Womacks Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press. Wong, John. (1998). China After the Ninth National Peoples Congress: Meeting Cross-Century Challenges. World Scientific. Yoder, A. (1993). Communism in Transition. Taylor and Francis. Read More