Deng Xiao-ping and The Party Vision (General)

by dulan drift ⌂, Saturday, November 28, 2020, 14:57 (1207 days ago) @ dulan drift

So what is the CCP’s ‘vision’? What’s this product that state-owned companies such as John Holland are selling us? (that Dan Andrews is “mega-money” buying on our behalf?)

Essentially it's: A System of Government.

A Totalitarian System.

It’s not communism - or socialism (that’d be more your Scandinavian countries).

China’s silk road to re-assuming its rightful mantle (see Tang Dynasty) as international Middle Kingdom, re-opened when Deng Xiao-ping ditched socialism for the capitalist road (with Totalitarian characteristics).
By way of explaining this switch-er-rooney, Deng quoted the Chinese proverb:

It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white - if it catches mice it’s a good cat.

It was not a hard sell in the end, given Mao’s trail of death and destruction - the public was ripe for a new path. The hard yards were surviving to that point where he could decree it.

He did this by pulling off a 50-year long chess game (you lose if you die). In 1975, three years before Deng assumed control of the party, ACDC reckoned it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll. For sure it is, but check out this dude’s political journey:

Core Long Marcher
Leader of the Revolution
Survivor of Mao’s mad Kingness
Architect of Superpowerdom

In Rock ‘n Roll/Rugby League equivalency, that’s Hall of Fame ‘Immortal’ status. If you're in the Narrative business, which he was, Immortal is what you’re aiming for. With hindsight we can safely say, Deng Xiaoping, take a bow.

But here’s the catch: for all his Opening up to the World, the one thing Deng didn’t let go of was Totalitarianism. On the contrary. He tightened it, refined it, vowed to “consolidate its organization”. He was no Gorbachov.

A recurring theme throughout Deng’s life is picking up the pieces of near, but not quite, total destruction. His resuscitation of Totalitarianism as an enduring, effective system, when it looked, with the fall of the Soviet Empire, to be going the way of the dinosaurs, was his crowning achievement.

Forty years later, this system of government, amplified by the internet and Covid, is having a perfect storm moment.

Totalitarianism is Totally normal. That was the only system we had for national governments until the Greeks let democracy out of the bag (later tried to put it back in).

Democracy is the DNA error in the system that got out of the bag.

China has never had it as a national system of government. Their rulers have seen it, but don't want it. As you wouldn't if you are the the dictator. The 'Chinese characteristics' is the Confucius influence - the concept of benevolent totalitarianism.

I'm not a history expert but so far as i know, no democratic state has ever voted to become a totalitarian state, and no totalitarian state has voted to become a democratic one. Like any thought matrix worth it's salt, there's a built-in self-preservation mechanism.

Actors from both systems (there are only two, right? democracy and totalitarianism?) will tell you they're doing it for the 'common-good'. Presumably one's wrong.

The grey area, of course, is how do you define the 'common good'?


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