Topic on Comradeship:TDM

It has come to the attention of some editors that you are now defending the position that China is a "social-imperialist" country, among other erroneous views, basing yourself on a Hoxhaist line.

Given that this position is against the line of ProleWiki, we wanted to hear from you how this affects your relationship with us, and if you are ready to face criticism against your views and defend your position.

If you are not able to stand in the face of criticism, this will potentially oblige us to remove you from the editorship. So this is your opportunity to defend your views.

You (TDM) appeared to cite this article on your twitter page as a critique of Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up: https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Chinas-GDP-Would-Grow-Faster-Under-Mao-Era-Policies-Study-20170714-0034.html

My question to you is, did you actually read the study cited by the article? Because, even in the opening abstract of the article, it says this:

Here is a business insider link discussing the same study, with table's comparing GDP growth between whether Mao's economic policies returned in 2012 - 2050, compared to the continued process/procedure of Deng's Reform and Opening Up: https://www.businessinsider.com/study-suggests-china-growth-if-mao-era-policies-were-brought-back-2015-8

It clearly states that if China returned to Mao's economic policies, this would be the result: 2012 - 2024 GDP growth: 5.0% 2024 - 2036 GDP growth: 4.6% 2036 - 2050 GDP growth: 3.9%

Inversely, if China persists on the same "Dengist path", this would be the result: 2012 - 2024 GDP growth: 7.8% 2024 - 2036 GDP growth: 5.3% 2036 - 2050 GDP growth: 3.6%

2012 - 2024, Dengist growth is 2.8% faster than Maoist growth. 2024 to 2036, Dengist growth is 0.7% faster than Maoist growth. 2036 to 2050, Maoist growth is 0.3% faster than Dengist growth.

Now onto the actual study,THE ECONOMY OF PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA FROM 1953 by Anton Cheremukhin, Mikhail Golosov, Sergei Guriev and Aleh Tsyvinski

In the opening abstract it openly states Deng Xiaoping's reforms increased GDP growth by 4.2% compared to previously and 23.9% less people working in agriculture,

"Third, we use the pre-reform period as a key benchmark to measure the success of the post-1978 reforms. We show that reforms yielded a significant growth and structural transformation differential. GDP growth is 4.2 percentage points higher and the share of the labor force in agriculture is 23.9 percentage points lower compared with the continuation of the pre-1978 policies."

If you are unsatisified with the business insider quotes, I can give you the pages of the article, if you use google chrome's page counting system for loading the PDF, the source is 60 - 63 (at the top of the PDF in the grey bar above the actual contnent). If you use the PDF's written page (The numbers on the webpages of the PDF itself), it is 58 - 61.

Here is the quote:

Our post-1978 trend projection implies a stable share of investment in GDP at 40 percent. The movement of labor from agriculture to other sectors will continue, with the share of labor force in agriculture declining from 37 percent in 2010 to 28 percent in 2050. The share of value added by the agricultural sector will reach 2 percent in 2050 from 6 percent currently. The level of GDP per capita will approach that of the US by 2040 when China is likely to become a developed country. However, if the economy behaves similarly to what it did under the post-GFL trends, it would grow slower, and the movement of labor out of agriculture would stop.

Note, "if the economy behaves similarly to what it did under post GFL, it would GROW SLOWER, and the MOVEMENT OF LABOUR OUT OF AGRICULTURE WOULD STOP." The article itself even says that China's growth would grow faster using post 1978 reform policies in comparison if China continued using post GLF Maoist economic policies.

Here is my source, it is linked in the Telesur article. Here is the NBER link with the abstract unpaywalled: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21397

If you cannot download it, here is the Anna's Archive link where you can download the study and read for yourself: https://annas-archive.org/md5/4dee2e8285dfc8d7ac69fd434b6c90c8

If you wish to cherry pick the argument that Maoist economic policies would allow China to grow 0.3% faster compared to Dengist economic policies from 2036 - 2050. It still says China would become on par with American level's of economic development by 2040. And that industrialization/shift away from agriculture would actually stagnate and stop entirely.

Also，the reason why “2036 - 2050" growth would be slightly faster (by 0.3%) is because they have more room to grow from in the first place, growth is faster because china hasn't industrialized / developed as much.To use the analogy of climbing a tree with less and less fruit the higher you go, they still have middling and low level fruits to pluck And don't need to climb to the highest parts of the tree to pluck the fruits, which are scarcer and scarcer the higher you go.

And, anywho, China's economic policy is actually adapting/shifting away from it's previous economic policy which predominated from the 1990s all the way to 2022. The movement away from funding the "State as a landlord" style of development and moving away from the Real Estate sector to provide an alternative means of local governments aquiring funds. As well as funding/pushing more bank credit to industry over property development.

Also, the same people you cite, which is Anton Cheremukhin, Mikhail Golosov, Sergei Guriev and Aleh Tsyvinski who wrote this study WAS STALIN NECESSARY FOR RUSSIA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT?, this is what the article had to say about Stalin and I quote,

Source: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19425/w19425.pdf

"We started this paper with a question: “Was Stalin necessary for Russia’s economic development?” In short, our answer is a definitive “no.” A Tsarist economy, even in our conservative version assuming that it would not experience any decline in frictions, would have achieved a rather similar structure of the economy and levels of production as Stalin’s economy by 1940. The short-run (1928-1940) costs of Stalin’s policies are very significant for an economy in a peaceful period. Our comparison with Japan leads to astonishingly larger welfare costs of Stalin’s policies."

So, why are you, a Hoxhaist citing an article by people that claim Stalin's economic policies were not necessary for Russia's economic development and a Tsarist Russia would have remained a similar structure and level of production? These people claim Deng's reforms increased GDP by 4.2% more relative to Mao era GDP growth. While claiming Tsarist Russia would have reached a similar level of economic growth without Stalin's economic policies, and in fact Stalin's policies damaged the Russian economy?

I was expecting to catch slack for this sooner or later from here. If it's best to take away my editorship, then so be it, I won't complain. I don't know how to respond to your questions about the article, I apologize.