THE ECONOMY OF CHAIRMAN MAO'S CHINA

'Economic MazagaInt Chine 1972', by Joan Robinson. AngloChinese Educational Institute, March, 1973. 20p.

'The basic characteristic of the Chinese economy is that 80 per cent and more of the population, organized in communes, is responsible for feeding and housing itself. The surplus provided by the communes feeds the rest of the population and provides raw material (particularly cotton) to In this way, on page 12 of her pamphlet, Joan Robinson sums up the present level of development of the Chinese economy. It is still predominantly agrarian and underdeveloped, capable of producing an adequate supply of basic food and clothing, for the masses, but with only a limited capacity for investment in industrialization.

Joan Robinson is well known as an enthusiast for Mao's China, to which she has been a regular visitor, and partıcularly for the 'cultural revolution' Her account of he organization, or, as she calls it, 'management' of the Chinese economy is uncritical.

Nevertheless she does provide some useful material which is fairly up-to-date, collected as it was during her visit in the spring of last year.

She brings out the main differences between the present form of planning in China and the methods used in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe and which were favoured by the former head of state, the now disgraced, Liu Shao-chi and other 'capitalist-roaders'.

Planning is still highlycentralized in some respectsprices are laid down for each enterprise which has to work out its targets in. association with the higher bodies. But the Soviet planning system favours producers and there is much dependence on individual incentives, cash bonuses and plan fulfilment in physical terms without much regard for market requirements.

These have been done away with in China, according to Mrs Robinson:

'The Chinese system depends on a high level of morality (or political consciousness) in every sphere from top to bottom.

Hence the constant campaigns and exhortations backed up by group pressure: "The individual is not free to please himself, he is kept up to the mark by his neighbours?

Both in industry, and even more in the communes, some of the methods imposed during the 'cultural revolution' have been abandoned as 'ultra-left'.

There an interesting account of how the communes are organized and the way in which a surplus is drawn off from them to enable the rest of the economy to function.

Because Mrs Robinson is an enthusiastic Maoist fellowtraveller the reader should approach some of her judgements with caution. Nothing is said about the power struggles in the Chinese leadership, the continued adherence to Stalinist methods or the Maoist version of 'socialism in one country.

It is all a little too good to be true when she writes, at the close: 'Chinese patriotism and socialist ideology are pulling together, and every individual can see in his own little corner what that can achieve.

'In this atmosphere, even the dreariest work ceases to be a bore.' When Mrs Robinson visits China she is received by officials as 'a friendly foreign personage' and goes on a conducted tour.

She does not speak Chinese and is now an elderly lady full of enthusiasm for a way of life so different from her own before her retirement-teaching 'bourgeois' economics at Cambridge University.

CLOSE DOWN UNIVERSITIES licity to the annual conference of the National Union of Students has seriously bothered Mr K. M. Young, a reader of the 'Birmingham He wrote to the paper saying that 'we, the public, now demand that, for the time being, the social and political departments of all British universities be closed down.

'When we have ceased turning out from our institutions of higher learning people who have demonstrated beyond all doubt that all they have Chairman Mao.

Above: Chinese construction workers learned is a passionate desire to destroy all facets of the existing society, and sanity has been restored to student reopenne denartments with very limited intakes of students and new staff chosen to teach a curriculum comprısing oniy the benetcial and academic aspects of sociology and politics respectively ' And if students still revolted, we could burn books on politics and sociology and lock up • the agitators until their minds had been retrained. . • CASUALTY The Labour Party has suffered another casualty - Manchester councillor John Goldstone. He is not standing as a Labour candidate because he 'believes there is a certain business morality no matter what political colour a person is' The morality Goldstone refers to is the Manchester Labour council's correct decision to halt the sale of council houses.

The Tories brought in the sale of council houses as part of their strategy to destroy public sector housing. Together with the effects of the Housing Finance Act they hope to reduce the stock of council property. Council homes that are sold pass forever into the private sector and ultımately into the hands of the housing sharks.

Goldstone, who represents one of the most solid working-class areas of the city, voted with • the Tories over council house sales. He also voted with the Tories over the Housing Finance Act (with many other Labour councillors).

Because of his position, he feels unable to stand as a Labour candidate in the next election.