Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Dharamsala, India and still upholds a constitution for an independent
Tibet.
CAPITALISM AND/OR SOCIALISM AND/OR COMMUNISM:
MODERN CHINESE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In one of the first major popular topics about modern China to come
out after Deng Xiaoping's decision to institute economic reforms and
open up to the outside world, Time magazine journalist Richard Bern-
stein recorded in his 1982 topic From the Center of the Earth: The Search
for the Truth About China his discussions with Chinese friends and stu-
dents about the relative merits of socialism versus capitalism:
In Chungking [Chongqing]
I talked in an officially arranged meeting
with a couple of one-time capitalist entrepreneurs, men who had owned
factories in the past, possessed chauffeur-driven cars, liveried servants,
had frequently traveled abroad, and who now, after long periods of suf-
fering and persecution, were allowed to give advice to the local
government on industry and commerce and foreign trade. I asked them
if they weren't discouraged by China's poor record of the recent past, if
they, as former capitalists, weren't convinced that the market systemwith
its rewards and incentives, its flexibility and speed, would provide a
better solution for China than a centrally planned system. The answer,
inevitably, was: “In a few years, you will see the superiority of socialism.”
(Bernstein 1982, 70)
...
In the fall of 1980 Bernstein met with a group of university students in
Chengdu and attempted to have a frank discussion with them:
These days, when you want to learn about technology or manage-
ment or even music, where do you look? To the capitalist countries!
When you want to send students overseas, you send them to the United
States, France, West Germany, Japan, not Yugoslavia. Can you name a
socialist country that has done better than an otherwise comparable cap-
italist country—South Korea versus North Korea, East Germany versus
West Germany, Czechoslovakia versus Austria? No, in every case the
capitalist country has done better. Therefore it is fair to ask, what makes
you so confident of the superiority of socialism?
The students crowded around a table in their classroom clearly
excited to have this contact with a foreigner. They were nice kids,
bright, friendly, unaffected. But their answers were clich
´
softhe
mandatory kind: “Under socialism there is no exploitation. Under
socialism you are guaranteed a job for life. In China you are not at the
...
