The capitalist road
Jiang Zemin's report to the 15th National Congress of the CCP offered a general breakthrough in theoretical terms for China to go capitalist politically and economically. Zhang Kai Deng Xiaoping Theory is now officially paralleled to Marx-Lenin-Maoism, and written into the Party Constitution, as the guideline for party policies.
The crux of Deng Theory is "to develop the market economy under socialist conditions, so that the market will play a fundamental role in the allocation of resources under the state's macro regulation." The economic system is "to have the public ownership system as the main pillar and diverse ownership systems to develop simultaneously." However, in China's present system, the so-called public ownership system includes not only the state economies and the collective economies, but also mixed economies in which there are some elements of the state or collective economies, even if the latter two only constitute a minority. As for the collective economies, privately owned collectives, such as shareholding cooperative systems, are also included. The misnomer is intended to exaggerate the strength of the public ownership systems in name.
The 1988 Constitution stipulated that "privately owned economies are a supplement to the socialist publicly owned economies." The revision this time is to designate non-publicly owned economies such as those owned by individuals or foreign capital as "important constituent sections of China's socialist market economy." The previous formulation of the state "channeling, monitoring and managing privately owned economies" is now revised to read "to continue to encourage and channel it so that it will develop healthily."
Jiang Zemin asserts that the implementation of the shareholding system will become the most important policy for the reform of state owned enterprises. While the reform is hastened in mainland China, Hong Kong will play an important role in capital formation. For small state owned enterprises, they will be amalgamated with larger ones, or will be sold or leased out. "Inevitably, there will be temporary layoffs and interim difficulties for the workers."
In appealing for innovative measures to be taken to activate the economy, pretexts abound for privatization or cooptation of enterprises. There is also no stipulation as to the maximum proportion of private shareholding for different types of enterprises. With 10 International Viewpoint #297
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The Beijing municipal authorities lately announced that for small state owned enterprises that have suffered from losses for three consecutive years, and their products lack market competitiveness, then the enterprises' empoyees are entitled to purchase the shares, with 30% discount for those paying in one lump sum. Different ways are employed to sell enterprises running on deficits. If the employees do not want to go unemployed, they are forced to buy the shares. If the enterprises continue to do badly, they may end up without a job and without their savings. Unemployment Increasing
Official figures on unemployment have always been untruthful and variant. The usual picture that is drawn is that the unemployment rate does not exceed 3%. Recently, the State Statistical Bureau gave a figure of 8 million temporary layoffs for the first nine months this year, and unemployment rate was between 3% and 4%. An official magazine Lookout (Liao Wang) reported an urban unemployment rate of 7.5%. On August 8th, Ming Pao, the Hong Kong publication, reported that some scholars and officials attending the 15th National Congress pointed out that urban unemployment rate had reached 8%. On 19 July Ming Pao quoted the Chinese official media as reporting that by the end of 1997, unemployed urban workers would amount to 60 million, which did not include workers "temporarily laid off" by enterprises.
Worker grievances and resistance are increasing. The Chinese Labour
Bureau admitted that labour dispute cases had drastically risen, amounting to hundreds of thousands of cases in 1995 and 1996. Of this, over 50% were cases related to state owned enterprises, and 20% related to foreign investment enterprises. Most cases were related to labour contracts, economic compensation and social security. When workers could not obtain their demands, many turned to the streets or
Social security is a crucial issue with privately owned enterprises. A survey conducted by the Beijing General Labour Union Service Centre found that the overwhelming majority of workers "temporarily laid off" by state owned enterprises in Beijing requested to go to other state owned enterprises that provided social security, even if the wages were low. Less than 1% of workers interviewed were willing to go to privately owned enterprises
Because of a general resentment against privatization, the CCP has found it necessary to retain in the Constitution the jargons of "persisting in socialism", "persisting in Marxism-Leninism", and maintaining the primary role played by the state owned economies and the public ownership systems. Party Control
In the face of more resistance from the workers and the general populace, the 15th National Congress called for further solidarity of Party members in "defending the Party's authority, maintaining unanimity with the Party Centre ideologically and politically, and assuring that the Party's line and the Centre's policies can be smoothly implemented and executed." The 58 million Party members were called upon to carry out "democratic centralism", of course without reference as to how internal party democracy or freedoms of dissent or formation of factions could be exercised. In the name of "solidarity", the authority of the Party Centre was to be obeyed. Power is now concentrated in the hands of Jiang Zemin, who is all in one - State President, Party General Secretary, and Chairman of the Military Committees. The sign is not one of greater solidarity, but of greater tensions and struggles for power within the top echelons of the Party leadership.
With social contradictions accelerating, political repression is seen as more necessary than before. This implies further clampdown of dissent within the Party and in society at large. * Source: October Review Vol.24 Issue 5/6. 1997 Contact: PO.Box 10144, Hong Kong e-mail <or@earthling.net>
Passive people?
Dominique Mezzi explains "who's who" in the French unemployed movement, and the background to the recent occupations of social security offices Today's unemployed movement is partly the result of patient work by Act Together against Unemployment (AC!). This unique campaign was created in 1993 by the trade union left, unemployed groups and women's groups.'
AC! organised the May 1994 unemployment demonstration in Paris: the first major appearance of the jobless as actors in politics. The movement spread to most towns and cities. Then, as now, most AC! committees are dominated by the unemployed, and very active in their immediate demands (free public transport, subsidies, no cutting-off of gas and electricity). But some AC! committees also have trade union activists, and also agitate to popularise the reduction of the working week.
At the national level, AC! has always tried to maintain the presence of "foundermember" trade union and associative groups, combined with local committees open to everyone. This mixed identity has enabled AC! to bring together the usually isolated unemployed and the organised labour movement.
In December 1995, some unemployed groups joined the demonstrations of striking public sector workers. And AC! was able to begin united front work with other groups: • APEIS, an anti-unemployment group set up by Communist Party (PCF) supporters in Paris working class suburbs. • DAL (The Right to Housing) - known for its direct action in re-housing homeless families by mass squatting.
Together, we formed the Collectif des 'sans' ("Collective of the -less" - homeless, job-less, paper-less immigrants, roofless and all the other rights-less. From this moment on, our trade union support grew steadily. A few months later, the Financial Services section of the Communist-led CGT joined us. Communists begin to join in
The second major component behind this movement is the network of CGTsponsored unemployed committees. These structures were dormant for many years, but were re-activated by the union, at the same time as AC! began to grow.
These committees are usually very local, and usually very dependent on the CGT itself. Perhaps for this reason they failed to mark the national political scene like AC!. In Marseilles, however, the CGT unemployed movement did have massive
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50% SALE local support, and in 1995 won the first victory for the unemployed movement, by forcing the payment of tens of thousands of Christmas bonuses from the unemployment insurance discretionary fund.
In December 1997, however, the occupations of social security (ASSEDIC) offices in Marseilles sparked a national reaction. The occupation was in protest against the cuts in discretionary payments by the new president of the social security administration - Nicole Notat, leader of the CFDT trade union confederation.
A "Marseilles effect" boosted participation in the national week of action which the "Collective of the -less" had organised on related demands. We soon added demands for a universal increase of minimum welfare payments by 1,500 FF (US$260), to bring them up to the poverty level.2 and the extension of these minimum revenues to those under 25.
The final barrier to unity fell in June 1997 when the CGT unemployed committees elected a new leadership, determined to support unitary action in word and deed. (The CP tradition has often led these groups to do otherwise] By December 1997 this unitary action was successfully established. The organisational support was ready when a relatively small number of activists occupied a few dozen public buildings. Over 70% of the population reacted sympathetically to their demands!
The unity of the unemployed movement is in stark contrast to the sectarianism of trade union leaders. France's trade unions marched alongside each other in the public sector strike of December 1995, but refused to organise joint initiatives. There were no common meetings.