Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1449798894708305922.html

My 2C is Xi's diagnosis is basically correct. This paragraph in particular:

>We must plan, and navigate between needs and possibilities. We must base the protection and improvement of the livelihood of the people on economic development and financial sustainability rather than unrealistic pursuits and expectations, and promises that cannot be fulfilled. The government cannot take care of everything. Its focus should be on strengthening the construction of people’s livelihood guarantees that are fundamental and universal. Even if we reach a higher level of development and acquire stronger financial resources in the future, we should not set aims that are excessively high, and/or provide excessive guarantees. We must resolutely prevent [ourselves] from falling into the trap of nurturing lazy people through “welfarism.”

PRC won't reach west's living standards any time soon. Trying to build culture for generating "strong men" in anticipation for increasingly "hard times" because "good times" will never be that good for majority of people. This was always reality, PRC has too many people to uplift, and difficult external conditions. Simply not enough resources in world to propel 1.4B to western living standards, not even considering geopolitics of securing that much resources. This is PRC planning to crush gilded age, proposing a New Deal and attempting to nurthure greatest generation.

In the excerpt, social relations are not described as being only relations of productions, it's merely that relations of production are the ones being talked about. But it is clear to anyone that the relations of production are some of the most important and indeed most of our social relations are relations of production. But certainly, it's the non-material relations which are the focus here, not the actual product.

As far as the species-being of humans being only different from animals insofar as we can self-actualize through labor, this is a bit of a reduction. Self-actualization through labour, where labour is any productive act, done for any imagined purpose - it's more than the productive act, it's the creativity and freedom with which that act is taken that to Marx distinguish human from animal. Clearly this difference assumes to human a unique creative, free, conscious aspect, so while to Marx this is made evident through these creative acts, these acts differentiate us because they embody our creativity, consciousness, and freedom, not merely because of their product. In that Marx is no different from the humanists before him, he simply focuses on the expression of human nature on the set of all social relations that make it evident. The reason why he does this is because he believes that human nature expresses itself differently depending on the circumstance, and so that appealing on a Platonic ideal of human nature that is absolutely perfect and unchanging is incorrect, therefore he refers to species-being as the current embodiment of human nature.

To go back to your earlier point, yes, it is a way of understanding the human without any Platonic, religious, or mystical ready-made truth. But it is at the same time humanistic and moral. There is no denial of the freedom, the feelings, the subjectivity and the relationships of people, instead they are actually central, and they are instead understood through the material world where they express themselves. What is denied is the existence of a perfect, idealized, untouchable component to these things that is completely separate and inscrutable from the material world.

So if the objection to the theory of alienation is that it sees all social relations as ultimately based on "stuff", that is not the case, which is why Marx makes a distinction between social relations writ large and social relations.

Like any politician, they talk out of both sides of their mouth: promising the "best of both worlds" to try to make both sides happy. Dare I say it? "Synergy"...ugh, I need marketing shower now.

I get a sense rsj_hn is America due to how they vaguely point to "old morality", liberalism has its root in the Age of Enlightenment, which ironically enough was a reaction to the very stale and constricting status quo of an aristocratic elite whose rules was excused and exceptionalism compared to the common man/woman (i.e. it's okay for aristocrats to have a massive amount of wealth/decadence but not for anyone else).

Christianity was very "disruptive" in the west, since the original intention more or less from the roman's perspective was to have an institution closely affiliated with the elite/those in power to "control" the population, i.e. the catholic church.

Since before Europe was very much into their reformed-tribal polytheism (Asatru, Hellenism, etc.).

The ironic twist to blaming liberalism is that Christians themselves reacted negatively to this forced imposition, i.e. the protestant reformation, which was a reaction from the kings/queens that the pope should have no saying in how a king/queen should rule or start a war.

Hell your idea itself seems more compatible with the old tribal religions (pre-reformed tribal Greece had some very strict religious laws & for example believed that ancestors were tied to the land they settled on and thus you were not allowed to sell your land).

Lastly, liberalism itself has a foundation but it isn't "bundled" with decadence or with anything beyond its ethics and ideals, just like any other ideology.

Since otherwise please explain your logic over why then there is:

- Social liberalism

- Conservative liberalism

- Neoliberalism

- Classical liberalism

- National liberalism

- Country-specific liberalism (think Japan's Liberal Democratic Party or Constitution Democratic Party)

China's fight against "decadence" has more to with certain "ideals" Xi Jinping believes in (if you read his letter you'll notice he's quite nostalgic/hard believer in worker-oriented socialism instead of a more western interpretation of socialism) & pushing back against anything that isn't "home-grown", which is something Xi Jinping also is a very big supporter of (CCP does these patriotic displays of showing how patriotic/good it is to only buy national products only).