The Rise of the Social: For a Communist Moral Economy

Abstract

The most creative thinking emerged from China regarding the invigoration of Chinese socialism rejects conventional modernization and globalization in their prevailing forms. The new vision is “local,” local national, local social, and local communal, in the sense of locally desirable and feasible, as a negation of the standard modern markers of relentless industrialization, urbanization, commodification, and homogenization. In line with a normative Chinese model outlined in Chapter 5, this project toward satisfying needs, common pursuits, and free development of individuals and communities must be measured according to its own goals. It could be a long and difficult yet confident process in which the direct producers assume their rightful place in crafting an unparalleled political economy as an advanced social formation born out of China’s indigenous, revolutionary, and socialist traditions. Such a formation is to be based on thorough socialization as opposed not only to isolated petty production but also to private control over the market, thus paving the way for a future global postindustrial and postcapitalist reorientation. The ongoing struggles in China to undo privatization of land and strategic industries are intrinsic to the reinvention of local and national moral economies, a project that breaks the monopolistic yet false equation of capitalism and the modern.