Years of Poems and Spirits

Book: China’s Political Economy by Riskin

There is evidence Mao intended to preserve national economy right after 1949. The scope of change is limited and degree modest. Still aligning urban property owners to isolate rural landlords. Extensive talk of national economy (in the sense of modernization) p39

During the 50s, the main tension was between the desire of control and development. p50

The success of the early years of the republic: central and physical control (arresting speculators)
(What does that do to re-enforcing behaviors?)

Influence from the Soviet: central planning, etc. Soviet factory director: inherited from scientific management.

p59 Heavy industry projects and administrative control (state discipline)–isn’t it addictive?

p60 the proximity and distance from the Soviets.

p63: Wage reform of 1956. Before that, wage span could be 5-7 times of the lower end. Piece rate system was widely adopted.

Agricultural policy: tax, compulsory purchase, stagnated growth during the 1st 5-year plan, Mao’s solution: total collectivitization in 1955. p70

The author characterises the Great Leap Forward as a decentralizing effort (as Mao’s reaction to central planning in the early 50s) . The central planning, idenified with Liu ShaoQi, was restored after the collapse of GLF. p82

Mao: Ultimately concerned about industrialization.
Mass line, walking on two legs: 2 tiered economy administration. p83
Uses slogans and took on a quality of messianic irrationality. Anti-elitest. p84
Mao’s crusade against specialization and advocacy of self-reliance, for fear of bureaucracy p206

In 1957, 740,000 collectives with 164 household on average. p91

The aftermath of GLF: from 1961 to 66, actual industrial production grew at 15% CAGR. p134

Three options: central planning, strengthening market/market socialism/Yugo-model, Mao’s commune style economy.

Sun YeFang: economic statistics.

Liu ShaoQi: Socialist Trust, specialization, professionalize, including sales and marketing.

GLF: prolonged after Lu Shan; a reversal of course.

Deng XiaoPing after Lin Biao; Mao’s counter acts in campaigns by Zhang and Yao

Writing in the US Marxist journal Monthly Review, Hinton accused the new Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping of having shifted “from the socialist road to the capitalist road”. (Guardian obituary)

1971年，卡玛随父亲5次见到周恩来。一次，周恩来对韩丁说，到农村考察，不但要看成绩，还要看阴暗面，中国农村还有很多落后陋习。”这年头谁敢考察阴暗面呀，回头再说你别有用心。”卡玛忍不住说。”卡玛，你太敏感了。” 周恩来笑道。
(from a fascinating interview of his Hinton’s daughter by Phoenix TV here)

Just read two pieces of news at news.com about Internet usage.

1. Netizens abuse GM’s home-made ads campaign: the article.
Summary:
GM launched a contest last month to promote the Chevy Tahoe SUV. The contest challenges viewers to create their own digital commercial about the SUV at Chevyapprentice.com.
Over the weekend, hundreds of people used the Internet to circulate thousands of videos that charged GM with contributing to global warming, protested the war in Iraq or just demeaned the Tahoe’s quality. Some videos also contained profanity or sexually explicit messages.
(The downside of on-line WYSIWYG campaign/lending of GM brand name inadvertently, etc./Why radio talk shows always have screeners)

2. Singapore’s control on politicing on the Net: the article.
Summary:
The tiny island-republic’s laws require political parties and individuals to register if they want to post political content on the Net.
… political activists have complained that the rules are too broadly defined, preventing an open debate. (Senior Ministor of State) Sadasivan said a change of the law was ruled out.
(According to Migdal’s theory: state and society fighting for border in newly openned public space/territory.
Like Japan, Singapore is another prosperous modern state that is not normatively (or even nominally) liberal. How come? Just like Utah–cannot survive autarky but thrives within a larger economy?)

Book: Nations and Nationalism

Ernest Gellner: a philosopher and social anthropologist. Jewish immigrant from Prague to England. Achieved fame by challenging Ludwig Wittgenstein’s linguistic stuff (Ordinary language philosophy).

There are couple of parallel themes in the book:
1. Nationalism as a byproduct and precondition of industrialization.
2. Nationalism most visibly manifested in colonized 3rd world countries.
3. Nationalism is not an ideology nor is it built on cultural heritage.

“Nationalism is not the awakening of an old, latent, dormant force, though that is how it does indeed present itself. It is in reality the consequence of a new form of social organization, based on deeply internalized, education0dependent high cultures, each prodtected by its own sate. It uses some of the pre-existent cultures, generally transforming them in the process …”

Comments:
1. On nationalism and culture. He separates culture as high (literary) culture and folk culture. The former is what links industrialization and nationalism. The latter is what nationalism uses for disguise and legitimacy. Bend on proving culture is not a real foundation of nationalism. However, sometimes contradicting with himself throughout the book: “admittedly” culture was used to form nation, culture distance was used to counter economic exploitation, etc.
2. On nationalism and industrialization. He breaks world history down to three stages and constantly barks against Marx. But the whole nationalism and industrialization study can be said to prove the super-structure theory. So is the way to view history according to productive methods.
3. Full of sparks of good ideas, insightful commentaries. However, very superficial case studies or strictly comparative data: as if they are irrelevant to philosophers?

Notes:

Theme 2: The nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy, which requires that ethnic boundaries should not cut across political ones.

nationalist sentiment and movement p1
colonialism and nationalism p1
nationalism and state and power p4
nation as one’s shadow p6
Having a nation is not an inherent attribute of humanity but it has now come to appear as such. p6
(Is ETA a form of nationalism? Kurds? The same movement without a state?)

literacy as cultural and cognitive storage and centralization p8
Theme 1: cultural differentiation vs. homogeneity during agrarian society p10
(Are there instances during agrarian society where territorial unity overrides class/caste?
e.g. Vietnam vs. China, S. American Kryolas)

Theme 1: (during agraian times) Culture expand horiztonally across classes but not boundries, no imperialism. p12 (interesting)

(describing agr. societies, like China) a central dominant authority co-exists with semi-autonomous local units p13
Greek: pan-Hellenism is not political? Not the same as facism slogan (p14 what the heck is that?)
Four deminsions of agrarian rulers p14

Theme 1: literacy as the necessary pre-condition of nationalism p17
nationalism as the product of industrialization, social transformation p17

Mamluk: putting the obligations to his calling above the claims of kinship p18
(I guess what he’s trying to say is industrialization expanded people’s community, produced educated professionals, etc. But doesn’t kinship is what ethnic nationalism is all about?)

Like B Anderson, he talks about the vernacularization of language:
No more coded words, meanings, access to all, etc.
The hemogenization of industrialization (not sub-world, culture, language, etc.) p21
The breakdown of taboos/premises (packaged-deal=isolated social groups, Hume and Kant=the anonymous and equal collectivities of men in a mass society) p22

Inquiry must not be bound by the natural affinities and liaisons of things, built into this or that vision …

Industrial society .. favored mode of social oontrol is universal Danegeld, buying off social aggression with material enhancement; its greatest weakness is its inability to survive any temporary reduction of the socal bribery fund. p22

Theme 1: modern generic training vs. agr. one-on-one specialized training (apprenticeship?)
egalitarianism and mobility (Modern society is not mobile because it is egalitarian; it is egalitarian because it is mobile) p25
modern states is akin to a modern army: generic training vs. specialized training. p28
social structure changes => no more direct intimate transmission of special skills. p29
centralized education as a precursor of nationalism p34

Theme 1:
The roots of nationalism in the structual requirements of industrial society are very deep indeed. p35
(Enough universality, where is the exclusiveness that is in nationalism?)

Theme 1:
Nationalism=homogeneity p39
Education in modern society and state p34: At the base o fhte modern social order stands not the executioner but the professor.
Monopoly of violence is replaced by monopoly of education
Nationalism shallow in human psychy (what is it?) but deep in industrial society’s *structural* requirement! p35

Theme 1: p40-42
Industrializaton and religion (Reformation), division of labor, colonialism and imperialism
The … English gained and lost their Empire in a state of absence of mind. p42
It is the objective need (industrialization) for homegeneity which is reflectd in nationalism. p46

Theme 3: p45 implies every language could be used for bases of an strand of nationalism.
Critics of nationalism who denounce the political movement but tacitly accept the existence of nationas, do not go far enough.

Theme 2: Nationalism … when it may be severely secular, can be profoundly distoring and deceptive (like religion as implied a sentence earlier p56-57) Nationalism as the “local high culture”

Theme 3 and 1: p62, But the cultural/linuistic distance and capacity to differentiate themselves from others, can be and often is eventually a positive advantage for entire collectivities.

Theme 2: p94: Typology of Nationalisms chart.

p110: Agrarian socity … is Malthusian … Industrial society is baed and dependent on cognitive and economic growth which in the end both outstrips and discourages further dramatic population growth.

Theme 1, comment 2: The natioanlist state is not the protector only of a culture, but also of a new and often … fargile economy. p112

Theme 3: Industrial culture - one or many? Fears the overriding dominance of high culture (over folk ones) p 114 and on but choose not to “believe it” p118

Theme 1: Nationalism as a phenomenon, not as a doctrine presented by nationalists, is inherent in a certain set of social conditions; and those conditions, it so happens, are the conditions of our time. p125

Power of the media: nationalism is not transmitted through media, but is generated in it. p127
Media as the weaver of emporer’s new cloth:
The most important and persistent message is generated by the medium itself, by the role which such media have acquired in modern life. That core message is that the language and style of the transimissions is important, that only he who can understand them, is included in a moral and economic community. p127

Theme 2: nationalist sentiment is deeply offended by violations of … congruence of state and nation but .. it is most acutely offended by ethnic divergence b/w rulers and ruled. p134