Page 18 - Geopolítica del Mundo Actual. Una Visión Multidisciplinar

GEOPOLÍTICA DEL MUNDO ACTUAL. UNA VISIÓN MULTIDISCIPLINAR:
Cultura de Paz, Conflictos, Educación y Derechos Humanos
A theory of Chinese development theory must reflect this built-in tension, with turning points between growth and distribution, between increasing average and decreasing dispersion of distributions of wealth and income (Galtung, 1980d).
Western development theory and practice has oscillated between the two extremes of neo- liberal “growth without distribution”, invoking a trickling-down, and the old-marxist “distribution without growth”, invoking an elusive “liberation of productive forces” effect. In-between we have growth first, then distribution (but time for the latter seems never to be ripe); distribution first, then growth (with take- off problems); and efforts to do both at the same time.
Chinese development theory is none of the above.
Enters daoism as philosophy covering human and non-human nature. There is an inner dialectic. There will be turning points. Go for growth only, for distribution only; give animals work only, rest only. Reality will punish your one-sidedness; society will wither away, so will the animals. Rather, respect the turning points, which means keeping the ears close enough to the ground to identify the rumblings signaling that time has come for turning from one to the other.
There may be more than one dialectic at the same time, and more than one holon to attend to dialectically and holistically. Thus, the buddhist idea of neither-too-much-nor-too-little, with too little implying dukkha, and too much standing in the way of sukha, carries a clear distribution message for economic, i.e. scarce, goods.
Confucianism was compatible with the Chinese feudalism and the shi’h-nung-kung-shang-- intellectuals/rulers-farmers-artisans/workers- merchants-top-bottom hierarchy-as opposed to the daoist-buddhist countertrend--and with Chinese capitalist growth, rich vs poor and top vs bottom.ii Hierarchy is as nature-given as harmony mitigation.
The theory hypothesized successive daoism- inspired dialectic turning points between buddhist inspired distribution and confucian inspired growth phases, applied to the holon referred to as “China”:
Figure 5. The Chinese model: Distribution vs growth turning points.
growth:
^ 2007 o > 2016?
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| 1989 o >o 1998
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| 1967 o >o 1976-80
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| 1949 o >o 1958
| o = turning point distribution
A rough sketch of the policies pursued:
1949: deep land reform, cooperatives, up to Peoples’ Communes; 1958: the Great Leap Forward, iron furnaces, industrialization; 1967: the Cultural Revolution of power distribution; 1976- 80: the great confusion after Mao Zedong’s death; 1980: Deng Xiaoping’s policy of free markets for agricultural goods; 1989: brakes on economic growth after the Tian Anmen demonstrations 1998: green light for market economy under Party- State control 2007: full attention to distribution, Hu Jintao at the 17th Congress;2016: hypothesis: more attention to growth or to a new dialectic.
A Chinese farmer askediii about capitalism vs socialism:
“Capitalism is superb, so dynamic, something happening all the time, but it is terrible, some have too much and become corrupt, many have too little and become criminal, prostitutes. Socialism is superb, everybody has neither too much nor too little, but it is terrible, so static, so boring, nothing happens!”
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