BOOK REVIEW
Launch Remarks on
China’s Economic
Dialectic: The Original
Aspiration of Reform
Cheng, E. (2019).
China’s Economic Dialectic:
The Original Aspiration of Reform.
New York: International Publishers*
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER**
Sociology, University of Oregon, USA
THIS REVIEW IS ABOUT CHENG ENFU’S BOOK,
entitled China’s Economic Dialectic, and its significance for Western readers. The way I look at the book is
that it consists of two parts. The first part is actually
the introduction, which is his general statement on his
philosophy of Marxism. The introduction itself, will
startle all Western readers in the sense that it is often
conceived that Marxism in China is dogmatic, that it
has simply become a cover for transformations that are
going on in China, but it is not in itself a creative or
innovative outlook on the world today.
If you read the introduction by Cheng Enfu, you
will find that the outlook he presents is entirely different than that. He emphasizes an open Marxism and
diversity in Marxist thought. He argues that socialism
*
should truly implement a policy of “letting one hundred flowers bloom...one hundred schools of thought
contend, and it should allow the vigorous development
of different schools of thought within Marxism.” This
approach very much, recognizes the different vernaculars of socialist thought in different parts of the world.
Now, that is the introduction to the book. The book
itself is about the economic dialectic that China has
brought about. And so, in that sense, it is a practical
application of principles of Marxism in relation to the
economic domain. What the book is really about is the
economics of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
It is not written primarily for a Western readership. It
was written principally for a Chinese audience, but with
enormous clarity. The book is oriented towards strategy
This review is made for the book launches session of the Fifteenth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) on 18
December 2021. It has been sent to BRIQ by the WAPE Secretariat.
** John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written widely on political
economy and has established a reputation as a major environmental sociologist. He is the author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and
Nature (2000), The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014), among many others.
Email: jfoster@uoregon.edu
76
How to cite: Foster, J.B. (2022). Launch remarks on China’s economic dialectic: The original aspiration of
reform. [Review of the book China’s economic dialectic: The original aspiration of reform, by Cheng, E.].
Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly, 3(2), 76-77.
BOOK REVIEW
and policy, providing key insights and understandings
of how the economics of socialism with Chinese characteristics works.
With the revolution, China immediately began to
control its own destiny. It is often believed in the West
that the first 30 years of the Chinese revolution under
Mao were a failure in terms of economic development.
This is not true as Cheng Enfu emphasizes in his book.
China expanded massively between 1978 and 2015,
while Western economies were stagnating. China increased its economy by thirty-fold in that period. In 1978,
the per capita income in China was less than that of Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, China’s per capita income is at
the median level in the world and continuing to go up
and it has reduced absolute poverty within its borders.
At the same time, China has emerged as the leading industrial power in the world in terms of simply industrial
output.
Marxism in political economy
has still been central to the Party
as well as to the management
of the state and corporations.
It has guided China, which can
be seen in every aspect of its
development.
This turnaround, that is extraordinary. Nothing like
this, as ever happened in the history of the world. The
previous industrial revolutions in other countries, all
the other countries that developed have been completely superseded by the Chinese industrial revolution.
Now, the from the standpoint of the advanced capitalist countries, the core of the capitalist world, the United
States, Europe, and Japan, what we call the “triad”, this
is a very dangerous development. It was believed that
China would develop with the opening of the Chinese
economy, but that it would be a second-tier economy,
that it would be controlled by the West and its institutions. This has not happened.
So, this is something that needs to be explained. And
Western analysis has completely failed to explain it. One
of the reasons is that they have declared that socialism
was vanquished. It no longer exists, that capitalism is
the only viable economy and capitalist system and neoliberalism, the extreme version of capitalism, are the
only possibility. Yet China defies all of this. China has
grown economically. And in every other way it has broken the records of previous development. China has not
only emerged as an industrial power, but also moved on
to major areas of technology. And this keeps on expanding.
Cheng Enfu’s book is extraordinarily useful in explaining how the Chinese economy works. China still has
five year plans, because China is led by the Party which
is able to organize and regulate the economy. Despite
the expansion of the market, it is able to guide the economy in ways that are quite unique, Sui generis, as we
would say, a new model of development. And this is largely because of the continuing strategic role of the state
sector, that it is able to control the market sector to a
considerable extent and create a kind of balance in the
equilibrium that does not exist in the West.
All of this has actually been guided historically by
Marxian political economy. Despite all of, the changes
in China and the bringing in of new ideas and methods
from the West, the use of the market, Marxism in political economy has still been central to the Party as well
as to the management of the state and corporations. It
has guided China, which can be seen in every aspect of
its development. And this is made clear in Cheng Enfu’s
book.
China’s creativity is extraordinary. And I think you
will see this in Cheng Enfu’s book. There is actually a
renaissance of Marxist thought going on in China at this
time. And I think Cheng Enfu is part of that. At some
enormous period of creativity, there are other traditions
besides the one represented in this book, but it is difficult
not to see that these are world-historical developments
and world-historical forms of critical thought that dialectics and materialism and our understanding of history
of economics and politics, are being given new form in
the Chinese revolution, which still continues.
77
Launch Remarks on China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform - JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER - BRIQ
BRIQ, 2022
THIS REVIEW IS ABOUT CHENG ENFU’S BOOK, entitled China’s Economic Dialectic, and its significance for Western readers. The way I look at the book is that it consists of two parts. The first part is actually the introduction, which is his general statement on his philosophy of Marxism. The introduction itself, will startle all Western readers in the sense that it is often conceived that Marxism in China is dogmatic, that it has simply become a cover for transformations that are going on in China, but it is not in itself a creative or innovative outlook on the world today. ...Read more
