Famous Marxist economist Cheng Enfu has recently talked about the Chinese socialist core value system, China’s mode of socialist market economy, China’s socialist democratic system and the harmonious world idea promoted by Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Chinese Department of Stockholm University in Sweden.
Professor Cheng is also director of Marxist Academy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the World Economic and Political Association.
Professor Cheng said that the socialist core value system guided by Marxism has powerful and sustainable vitality and scientific explaining ability. It is a Marxist system with reference of western school of thoughts and taking Chinese national thoughts as its root. It is also a process of innovation while treating the world situation as a reflection and national situation as foundation.
He calls for critical use of western and national schools of thoughts. But Marxism is not against other fine thoughts because it has absorbed the thoughts from France and Britain since it came into being, stressed professor Cheng.
About China’s market economy, Professor Cheng said the socialist market economy is still taking public ownership as the main economic model. The economic foundation of the communist party’s rule is the public ownership. Only under the public ownership can man realize distribution according to one’s work, realize fairness and justice and even avoid economic crisis. Even if last year there had been financial crisis, China didn’t have it, but China was affected by the crisis which was reflected in foreign trade.
About China’s democratic system, professor Cheng said the main character of the Chinese democracy is that it is based on the organic combination of the leadership of the Communist Party of China, people becoming the master of the country and the rule of law. It has four layers of systems, namely, the people’s deputy system, the multi-party cooperation and the political consultation systems under leadership of the Communist Party of China, regional autonomous system among ethnic minority groups and self-rule system at the grassroot level which refers to village democracy. All these systems need constant improvement and development as they constitute socialist political systems. “These are the four framework or four layers of systems which represent democratic system with Chinese characteristics,” said professor Cheng.
He pointed out that China needs to improve its people’s deputy system which means more non-official delegates should be elected and more debate-type discussion should be encouraged. Specific systems need specific improving measures.
The harmonious world idea is a way to deal with international relations surpassing ideology and social systems, said professor Cheng. ’Various countries should cooperate on the basis of mutual benefit while military spending should be limited to self-defense. There should be friendly cooperation instead of hegemonism. ’ said professor Cheng.
He also pointed out that the so-called ‘China threat’ raised by the US and India actually does not exist.
He said the nature of socialism and the goal of communism is to realize common wealth, wipe out exploitation and the big gap between the rich and the poor. This will be a long evolution process and system innovation experience.
About the class issue, professor Cheng said that from the perspective of respecting facts, China has gradually formed its national bourgeois class or employers’ class. China has five million private employers. There is a demand to well deal with relations between employers and employees.
A scholar asked him about his comment on whether China has become a capitalist country, Professor Cheng said that the western media has demonized China. That has led to misunderstanding of western people about China. China’s 30 years reform has made great achievements but there are also problems. There is deep misunderstanding about China among western people. Whether China is a socialist country, there is no dispute in terms of political and cultural systems. But there is dispute in economic standard---whether public ownership accounts for a large proportion compared with private sector, different statistics represents different understanding. Marxists in China think that China should strengthen public ownership. The main part of the economy should not be privatized.
About the role of trade union, professor Cheng said in China it is the government who represents the people to maintain and protect the workers’ interest according to law.
About the gap between the rich and the poor, professor Cheng thinks that if the proportion of private economy is larger than public owned economy, it will definitely lead to the big gap between the rich and the poor. Therefore if one wants to avoid such problem, it is better to enlarge the public ownership from the beginning and implement the distribution system according to one’s work load.
About environment issue, professor Cheng said that there is a consensus on the central government level in correctly dealing with relations between economic development, resources, environment and population. But there is still problem in enforcing the laws and regulations. It needs the close cooperation between environment, finance, judicial and other relevant sectors to prevent pollution.
Professor Cheng also said that the Nobel Prize Committee in social science award is not fair, namely, there is political tendency in peace and literature awards. Even in economics, it is also unfair to give a lot of awards to neo-liberal economists. ‘It is they who created a financial crisis.’
He held that neo-liberalists made the government remove the supervision to financial organizations so that they could seek maximized profit. This led to the big gap between the rich and the poor. The wealth is held in a small number of people, production capacity increased while most people’s purchasing power decreased. This caused financial crisis which led to economic recession.
Professor Cheng was invited by the Chinese department of Stockholm University.
By Xuefei Chen, People’s Daily Online, Stockholm
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