当代中国官方马克思主义的现状

 　　当代中国官方马克思主义的现状
　　作者：David Kotz 译者：yuweiyuwei
　　来源：http://www.monthlyreview.org/0907kotz.php
　　关键字：马克思主义 新古典经济学 改革开放 物权法
　　David Kotz ，马克思主义经济学家，加州伯克利大学经济学博士，马萨诸塞州立大学经济学教授。他最近和Fred Weir合着了《从戈尔巴乔夫到普京的俄国之路：苏联之亡和新俄罗斯》（Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin: The Demise of the Soviet System and the New Russia ，Routledge, 2007）一书。犹他大学经济学助理教授李民琪帮助翻译了中国物权法条款。
　　在2006年11月13-14号，我参加了北京“所有权与产权理论与实践国际研讨会”。 这并不是一个研究性会议，它与当时中国所发生的对物权法草案的激烈争论有关。尽管研讨会的报告没有直接涉及到物权法，但大家都知道这是研讨会争论的潜台词。
　　研讨会与会者提出的命题提供了一个直接观察到在中国社会变化方向上意识形态斗争的窗口。他们以马克思主义语言和马克思主义命题的方式来陈述观点，其中还夹杂着从主流西方新古典经济学理论中提取出的观点，在中国，新古典经济学现在被用来为中国转型到私人财产和市场经济的完成做理论支持。下面我将复制研讨会发言与文章的报告与观点。但是，首先给出一些背景信息将帮助读者在他们的历史背景中理解这些观点。
　　物权法草案的支持者论证道：中国更进一步的经济发展要求，必须保证商业企业的私人所有权和其他私有财产的安全。为了达到这个目的，详细解释的新法律是需要的，更重要的是，确保私人财产所有权。
　　批评者则反对物权法草案， 他们指责说，物权法代表向放弃社会主义制度的方向又迈进了一步。他们论证道：确保私人产权并将其提高到与公有产权具有相同水平的程度，这将毁蚀社会主义制度中国有企业的关键作用。批评者指责到，使情况变得更糟糕的是，新法甚至潜在保护了通过内部交易的腐败方式最终控制了私有化的前国有企业的那些腐败分子的所有权要求。2 这回鼓励更进一步的欺诈性国有企业私有化。他们更深入地论证到，这将会使得私人企业中发生的劳动剥削合法化。
　　那些政治性争论在中国一般是很难被观察到的。在中国社会，这种争论在各种不同的场合正发生着，包括研究机构和各种共产党与国家机构中。上述的研讨会变提供一种从外部直接观察的路径，甚至还可以参与这种争论。
　　该研讨会主要的赞助者是不太知名的中共中央的一个机关（bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party），叫中央编译局。研讨会的合作赞助者是德国罗莎卢森堡基金会（the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of Germany）， 该机构附属于民主社会党。民社党源自于前东德共产党。
　　研讨会由一些外国参加者，不过大部分都来自中国。中国的参加者包括来自各个中国大学的教授，来自社会科学研究院的研究者，以及一些党政干部。这些党政干部中有一个来自国务院发展研究中心，该机构提供政策建议给总理，还有一个来自中央党校。国外参加者在知识与政治上是完全多样化的，他们中的大部分都是罗莎卢森堡基金选来的。总的说来，我是一个新自由主义批评者，特别是私有化的批评者，我在中国正因此而为人所知。 我被邀请陈述美国的所有权和产权进行一个马克思主义的分析，这个论题可能和中国的产权与私有化争论有关。
　　长期以来，在主流媒体上读到的那些陈词滥调——中国的政治争论一向不是被幕后操纵的就是一种迂回隐晦的“伊索式语言”。在这个研讨会上，马克思主是一种讨论的官方语言，至少对于中国的参与者来说是这样。尽管中国的经济和社会制度自1978年所谓的市场改革与开放以来发生了巨大的变化，但一种官方马克思主义仍然保持着正式身份的意识形态和经济议题讨论的语言。因此，研讨会中的大部分中国发言者，无论他们是主张哪一方的观，他们都是用马克思主义语言来表达观点，还经常使用传统的马克思主义命题来支持他们的主张。然而，西方新古典经济思想在中国大学领先的经济系科中已占据了支配性地位。在很多情况下，发言者的评论中隐含着新古典思想，无论是否采用马克思主义语言来表达这些思想。
　　最后一个相关的背景信息涉及到今日中国的阶级结构以及其与中共的关系。原本，共产党员资格对工人、农民和知识分子开放。1990年代早期开始的私人企业的迅猛发展创造出一个本土资本家阶级，尽管他们富有并越来越有影响力，但至少从正式的权限来看，他们仍被禁止加入执政党中共。几年前，在一个激烈的政治斗争之后，中共党章被修改为对“企业家”开放党员资格。除了私人产权以外，政治斗争的回响也能在研讨会的一些发言中听到。
　　读者现在能够鉴别一下研讨会上各种不同参加者引人注目的观点与主张了。在一些情况下，我提供一个直接引用，但大部分的观点我都会意译之。下面每一个陈述都是至少一个中国发言者所做，一些则是被好几个发言者稍加改变地重复。在一些情况下，我在括弧中加入一些解释性或阐释性评注。我以支持目前中国社会改革方向的与会者的陈述开始，大部分发言者都支持改革方向。最后我以要么反对中国向资本主义行进,要么至少反对扭曲马克思主义来迎合这个行进的极少数人的观点结束。
　　来自研讨会的报告和论题
　　1)当国有企业转变为拥有许多股东的股份公司时，这代表了马恩所描述的所有权社会化，因为所有权由单个所有者拥有变成大量所有者拥有。[尤其值得一提的是，这是来自中央党校的某个人说的]。
　　2)假如国有企业转变为股份公司，并且赠送给雇员一些股份，那么，这就完成了马克思个人所有制的目标。
　　3)在处理国有企业时，我们必须与国际标准接轨并且建立一个现代产权制度。[就像1980年代的苏联和东欧，所引用的术语是对资本主义标准和资本主义产权的一种委婉用语。]
　　4)只要企业是私人所有的，社会主义市场经济中的企业就会有效率。[被好几个人所说的这个观点直接来自于西方的新古典经济理论。]
　　5)国有企业剥削工人，并且是国家资本主义制，国有企业通常有非常高的剥削率。[这个观点是说，国有企业私有化不会引入剥削或资本主义关系，因为这两者本身就存在与国企中。]
　　6)企业所有权性质并不依赖于一个国家是否是资本主义的或是社会主义的。企业总应为私有所有并以利润为目的。国家是否为社会主义主要看政府对剩余价值的税收，以及通过养老金和其他社会性规划方式使用这些财政收入以对人民有益。[除了为私有化便户外，这暗示了，当中国经济变得更像美国和西欧时，中国不抛弃社会主义，因为根据这个定义，所有的工业化资本主义国家事实上都是社会主义。]
　　7)美国的公司拥有数百万的股东，这比中国的企业形式更具有社会化形式。
　　8)“[二战后]资本主义不仅放弃了对工人的残酷对抗，还开始和劳动力结合在一起……现代资本主义……逐渐创造了一种新型的更像社会主义的资本主义。
　　9)在新民主主义时期，中共一句经典马克思主义的路线，走了一条正确的道路。[例如， 1949解放后的这一时期，党说，已完成了资产阶级民主主义革命，并还未企图建立社会主义]。后期的政策改变 [此时，党把目标转移到建设社会主义上来]是一个错误，反而新民主主义政策应该继续。 [这和1989-1991年的莫斯科广泛的争论有种诡谲的相似，当时有人主张，苏联共产党应该停留在1921-1927年的新经济政策时期，那也被称为混合经济，在混合经济中，私人企业具有重要作用，市场力量则主要发挥调节作用。]
　　10)除了活劳动与死劳动之外[后者是马克思主义术语，表示被用来生产生产方式的劳动]， 还有第三种类型的劳动，叫做风险劳动。马克思主义理论应该考虑第三种劳动类型，那种劳动被通过创业冒风险的人所消耗。[这观点明显是说，“企业家”，例如资本家，是工人的一种类型，因而，他们被允许加入中共是正确的。]
　　当我听到这些论题，并且当我在提问或讨论阶段提出有关问题时，我有一种强烈的时空错乱（déjà vu）感。许多论题类似于我1991年——苏联的最后一年在莫斯科听到过的苏联研究机构和党政官员的发言。
　　现在让我们看看反对私有财产和私有化浪潮的与会者言论：
　　1)马恩的德文原着对共产主义的彻底研究表明，他们把共产主义看成是包括了私有财产的废除。那些主张这种观点是对马恩着作的误译的人是错误的。我们不应该扭曲马克思主义来为目前的政策作辩护。[中国的一些“马克思主义者”已经开始主张，马恩绝没有真地写过共产主义要废除私人财产。]
　　2)私有化运动不是一个正确的解决国有企业问题的方法。正确的使用方法应该是资本属于工人并为他们创造利益。
　　3)“非正式私有化” [这表是一个国企领导非法地把国有资产变成他自己的私人公司]创造出资本主义企业但却不应被允许。
　　4)尽管国企利?罂赡鼙冉系停腔窭芰Σ⒉皇嵌砸桓龉毕子谏缁岷途酶＠钠笠到衅兰鄣暮帽曜肌?
　　5）许多支持罗纳德 科斯[右翼英格兰产权理论家，其因反对有意义的政府对私人企业的规制而出名]的中国经济学家是错误地。科斯的中国追随者声称，马克思没有产权理论，而科斯提供了中国所需要的产权理论。相反的是，产权是生产关系的法律表现，马克思详细地分析了生产关系。与科斯的观点相比，私人财产对于效率来说并不是必须的。公共产权应该是首要地位的。[这个老左派学院经济学家详细引用了著名的美国中左经济学家斯蒂格利茨对科斯理论责难的说法。中国左派经济学家所依赖的对象竟然是一个反资本主义的——多少有些异端的——美国经济学家斯蒂格利茨对科斯的批判，这又让我想起1991年在莫斯科，少数左翼苏联经济学家引用诸如加尔布雷思这样人的话挣扎着来批判自由市场。]
　　注释：
　　1.  “中华人民共和国物权法” 于2007年3月16号被全国人民代表大会通过。
　　2. 在内部腐败性私有化之后，新私有化的企业经常被卖给第三方，第三方至少没有卷入官方的初始私有化的过程。反对者指责说，只要最终所有者能够声称其具有良性企图（benign intent）获得财产，物权法草案第106款就会洗白最终所有者并会确保其个人所有权。
　　附:英文原文
　　The State of Official Marxism in China Today
　　David Kotz
　　David Kotz teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is coauthor, with Fred Weir, of Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin: The Demise of the Soviet System and the New Russia (Routledge, 2007). Minqi Li provided assistance in interpreting provisions of the new property law in China.
　　During November 13–14, 2006, I participated in an “International Conference on Ownership & Property Rights: Theory & Practice,” in Beijing. This was not just an academic conference, it was related to a sharp debate taking place in China at that time over a proposed new law on property rights.1 Although none of the presentations at the conference made any direct reference to the proposed new law, everyone knew that it was the subtext of the conference debate.
　　The positions put forth by the participants in this conference provide an interesting window into the ideological struggle over the direction of social change in China. They illustrate the ways in which Marxist language and Marxist propositions, intermixed with ideas drawn from mainstream Western neoclassical economic theory, are used today in China to support the completion of China’s shift to private property and a market economy. Below I will reproduce some of the statements and positions voiced (and written) at this conference. But first some background information will help to place the statements in their historical context.
　　The supporters of the proposed property rights law were arguing that further economic progress in China required that private ownership of business enterprises and other assets must be made more secure. To achieve this end, a new law was needed specifying, and more importantly guaranteeing, the rights of owners of private property.
　　Critics resisted the proposed new law, charging that it represented a step toward abandoning the socialist system. They argued that guaranteeing private property rights, and elevating them to the same level as public property rights, would undermine the key role of state owned enterprises (SOEs) in a socialist system. To make matters worse, critics charged, the new law could potentially even safeguard the ownership claims of those who ended up in control of former SOEs that had been privatized through a corrupt insider deal.2 This would encourage further fraudulent privatizations of SOEs. Further, they argued, it would legitimize the exploitation of labor which occurs in private enterprises.
　　Such political debates are normally difficult to observe in China. This debate had been taking place in various locations in Chinese society, including academic institutions and various Communist Party and state institutions. The above conference provided a way for an outsider directly to observe, and even participate in, this debate.
　　The main sponsor of the conference was a little-known bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau. The conference was cosponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation of Germany, which is attached to the Party of Democratic Socialism. The latter is descended from the Communist Party of the former German Democratic Republic.
　　While there were a few foreign participants, most were from China. The Chinese participants included professors from various Chinese universities, researchers from the Academy of Social Sciences, and some party and state officials. Among the latter there was one from the Development Research Center of the State Council, which provides policy advice to the prime minister, and one from the Central Party School. The foreign participants were quite diverse intellectually and politically, with most of them selected by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. I am known in China as a critic of neoliberalism in general, and privatization in particular, and I was invited to present a Marxist analysis of ownership and property rights in the United States that might be relevant to the property rights and privatization debate in China.
　　It has long been commonplace to read in the mainstream media that political debates in China are typically conducted, not just behind the scenes, but in a kind of Aesopian language. In this conference Marxism was the official language of discussion, at least for the Chinese participants. Despite the enormous transformation of China’s economic and social system since the beginning of what is called the “market reform and opening” in 1978, a kind of “official Marxism” remains the formal state ideology and the language for discussion of economic issues. Thus, most of the Chinese speakers at this conference, whichever side of the debate they were on, couched their views in Marxist language and often used traditional Marxist propositions to buttress their claims. However, Western neoclassical economic thought has become dominant in the leading economics departments at universities in China, and in many cases it was neoclassical ideas that underlay the comments of the speakers, whatever the language used to express them.
　　A final relevant piece of background information concerns the class structure of China today and its relation to the CCP. Originally membership in the CCP was open to workers, peasants, and intellectuals. The rapid development of private business starting in the early 1990s created a class of indigenous capitalists who, while wealthy and increasingly influential, were at least officially barred from membership in the ruling CCP. Then a few years ago, after a sharp political struggle, the CCP membership rules were changed to open membership to “entrepreneurs.” Reverberations of that political battle, as well as the one over property rights, could be heard in some of the conference presentations.
　　Readers can now appreciate the remarkable statements and positions put forward by various participants in this conference. In a few cases I provide a direct quotation, but most of the statements below paraphrase the main theses or points made by various Chinese speakers at the conference. Each statement below was made by at least one Chinese speaker, and some were repeated, with variations, by several speakers. In some cases I have added interpretive or clarifying comments in brackets. I begin with statements by participants who favor the current direction of social change in China—which represented the vast majority of speakers—and end with pronouncements by the few who either oppose China’s march to capitalism or are at least resisting the distortion of Marxism to justify that march.
　　Statements and Themes from the Conference
　　When an SOE is turned into a joint stock corporation with many shareholders, it represents socialization of ownership as Marx and Engels described it, since ownership goes from a single owner to a large number of owners [among others, this was stated by someone from the Central Party School].
　　If SOEs are turned into joint stock corporations and the employees are given some shares of the stock, then this would achieve “Marx’s objective of private ownership of property.”
　　In dealing with the SOEs, we must follow “international norms” and establish a “modern property rights system.” [As in the Soviet union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, the terms in quotes were euphemisms for capitalist norms and capitalist property rights.]
　　Enterprises can be efficient in our socialist market economy only if they are privately owned. [This statement, voiced by several people, comes directly from Western “neoclassical” economic theory.]
　　SOEs exploit their workers and are state capitalist institutions, and SOEs often have a very high rate of exploitation. [The point was that privatizing SOEs will not introduce exploitation or capitalist relations since both are already present in SOEs.]
　　The nature of ownership of the enterprises has no bearing on whether a country is capitalist or socialist. Enterprises should always be privately owned and operated for profit. What makes a country socialist is that the government taxes the surplus value and uses the proceeds to benefit the people through pensions and other social programs. [Along with justifying privatization, this implies that, as China’s economy becomes much like those of the United States and Western Europe, China is not abandoning socialism since, by this definition, all of the industrialized capitalist countries are actually socialist.]
　　The United States has companies with millions of shareholders, which is a far more socialized form of ownership than anything that exists in China.
　　“[After the Second World War] Capitalism not only gave up its fierce antagonism to labor, but even began combining with labor....Modern capitalism...is gradually creating a new type of capitalism that is more like socialism.”
　　The CCP followed the correct approach, in line with classical Marxism, during the period of New Democracy [i.e., the period directly following the 1949 liberation, when the party said it was completing the bourgeois democratic revolution but not yet trying to build socialism]. The change in policy after that period [when the party shifted its aim to building socialism] was an error, and instead the New Democracy policy should have been continued. [This was spookily similar to the widespread argument in Moscow in 1989–91 that the Soviet Communist Party should have stayed with the New Economic Policy of 1921–27, which called for a mixed economy with a significant role for private business and with market forces playing the main coordinating role.]
　　Besides current labor and past labor [the latter the Marxist term for the labor required to produce the means of production], there is a third type of labor, namely “risk labor.” Marxist theory should take account of this third type of labor, which is expended by those who take risks through entrepreneurship. [The obvious point was that “entrepreneurs,” i.e., capitalists, are a type of worker, and hence it is correct that they are allowed to join the Communist Party.]
　　As I listened to these themes—and as I raised questions about them in the question/discussion periods—I had a strong feeling of déjà vu. Many of them were the same themes I had heard (and had argued against) in Moscow in 1991, the last year of the Soviet Union, coming from Soviet academics and party and state officials.
　　Now for some comments by Chinese conference participants that swam against the private property and privatization tide:
　　A thorough study of the original German versions of Marx and Engels’s writings on communism shows that they clearly viewed communism as involving the abolition of private property. Those who have argued that this idea arose from a mistranslation of Marx and Engels’s works are mistaken. We should not distort Marxism to justify current policies. [Some “Marxists” in China have been arguing that Marx and Engels never actually wrote that communism would involve abolition of private property.]
　　Privatization is not the right solution to the problems of the SOEs. The right to use capital should belong to the workers and serve their interests.
　　“Informal privatization” [in which an SOE’s director illegally turns it into his private company] creates capitalist enterprises and should not be permitted.
　　While some SOEs may have low profit rates, profitability is not a good measure of an enterprise’s contribution to social and economic welfare.
　　The many Chinese economists who support the theories of Ronald Coase [a rightwing British property-rights theorist who is known for opposing any significant state regulation of private business] are mistaken. The Chinese followers of Coase claim that Marx had no theory of property rights and that Coase supplies the property rights theory that China needs. On the contrary, property rights are the legal manifestation of production relations, a relationship which Marx analyzes at some length. Contrary to Coase’s view, private property is not necessary for efficiency. Public ownership should be primary. [This older leftist academic economist cited at some length statements by the well-known U.S. left-of-center economist Joseph Stiglitz condemning the work of Coase. The reliance by a leftist Chinese economist on the pro-capitalist—yet somewhat heretical—U.S. economist Stiglitz to make a criticism of Coase reminded me of 1991 in Moscow, when the few leftist Soviet economists struggled to criticize free market theory by citing people such as John Kenneth Galbraith.]
　　Notes
　　1.   The new “Property Rights Law of the People’s Republic of China” was passed by the National People’s Congress on March 16, 2007.
　　2.   After such corrupt insider privatizations, the newly privatized enterprise is often then sold to a third party, who at least officially was not involved in the original privatization process. Opponents charged that one of the provisions of the proposed new law (article 106) would hold the final owner blameless and secure that person’s right of ownership, as long as the final owner could claim that she or he obtained the property with “benign intent.”