Stop the silence

[Niamer]

We have heard much talk about "the will of the people" recently. If you are not one of the people supporting the Tory hard Brexit or "Brexit at any cost", you may be interested in "Stop the silence", which gives a voice to the rest of us - those who voted Leave thinking of a Norway-style model, those who thought they were saving the NHS, those who voted Remain. Please like on FB and re-tweet.
www.stopthesilence.co.uk

Posted on another thread, but some of the cards include ensuring that govt contractors believe in brexit.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/01/firms-bidding-for-government-contracts-asked-if-they-back-brexit
Thought crimes?
2 minutes of hate?
Ministry if truth?

Quiz question:
Which western country defended its media from a dictator?
(Answer does not include BBC banned from WH press conferences)
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/formal-arrest-of-die-welt-journalist-deniz-yucel-in-turkey-condemned-german

many respects the notion of market economics is more firmly anchored in Chinese culture these days than it is in the West. Have you ever been there or done business there?

This is an area along with loosening grip op property rights that has affordedmany people significant improvents in freedom and it is right to say that, but many other areas of life are still hugely state controlled, this was developed during the more radical times of communism in China. This is why the state has the ability now to crack down on dissent in such a devastating way.

I am by no means slagging China off by recognising it's communist past or present,.

Their embracing of trade has been very very impressive.

I would also be defensive if I was Chinese or spent much time in China. I have no plans to visit there at the moment.

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you?

China is not a democracy, but then neither are many other states, whether they espouse market economics or otherwise (eg Saudi Arabia). However, the notion of private property ownership is now rather well developed in China, which kind of puts paid to any argument regarding communism.

State-owned enterprises may make up only less than 4% of all companies in China, but they produce 25 to 30 percent of the total industrial output.
They control economy by having Party officials/family members own several key industries.
I am not going to say any more because debating china is a dodgy subject. It is not really a trap I wish to fall in to.

I was not slagging China. I was merely pointing out that far left politics is as dodgy as far right.

I was merely pointing out that far left politics is as dodgy as far right.

I don't think anyone was disputing that. At the moment though, Governments seem to be lurching to the right rather than the left.

I am in scotland....

Need I say more?

^^

I am not slagging China I would also be defensive if I was Chinese or spent much time in China

You are really missing the point completely. In none of my posts have I been defensive or in the least bit concerned about whether you were slagging China off or not. I think people should slag China off, the failure to provide any brakes or control on market forces or on the reemergence of certain aspects of traditional Chinese culture (commodification of human beings, secret societies, the pre eminence of market forces etc.) not to mention the endurance of an organic system and structure of government have had and still have a devastating effect on many people's lives. You chose to read defensive into my posts rather than actually try to understand what I was saying because you would rather revert to easy stereotypes and your own preconceptions. The reality is quite far removed and more complex than that. You cannot view China from a western perspective, it has a culture, non religious ideology and frameworks for government and law that go back 2000 years. Before I studied it I too assumed that 1949 saw a revolution in China that overtook all that had gone before and that it became a Communist state in all the ways that we in the West percieve that. However living there trying to look at what I was witnessing from a western perspective just does not work, it does not enable you to make any sense of things.

If you think Xi has totalitarian power and a firm grip on the country you are completely wrong, neither did Mao. No ruler of China ever has, that was the point I made about the famine. The famine was only in part the result of Communist nationalist ideology, it was devastating because Mao ruled from the top down through fear and terror but he had no knowledge of or control over local officials. Neither does Xi, he hasn't even the the resources Mao had, manpower or economic, to control what happens locally. All he can do is to make high profile raids / campaigns on corruption and dissent. He has stepped them up from his predecessors but even in the time of his predecessors there were hundreds of incidents of local unrest as a result of the conduct of local officials. To live in modern China is to be at the mercy of the corruption of local officials, the power of the secret societies (Triads etc. ), an organic system of law that works on the basis of negotiations of power, and uncertainty as to whether a crackdown will change the way those forces play out. You negotiate your way through it all through networks of influence (guanxi) playing all those forces off. Those who are successful do very well indeed, those who are not are infinitely worse off in the market economy, even their lives are commodified (the HIV scandal, people trafficking) and ultimately expendable.

I am passionate about building awareness of the true nature of China in the UK because if we are not to decline, especially post Brexit we need to build understanding. A couple of suggestions. This is Martin Jacques TED talk ( he is a Marxist historian but note he doesn't even mention Marx - even he gets it) www.ted.com/talks/martin_jacques_understanding_the_rise_of_china

And this is an analysis of what actually happened at Tiannanmen from the perspective of Chinese culture rather than the western Press who just happened to be in town for Gorbachevs visit books.google.co.uk/books?id=3atTAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=marie+claire+bergere+tiananmen&source=bl&ots=68uVJKkGzO&sig=cqemEw0X7E75Qc7mxuxdo-JRGBA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqy9fgibXSAhVlCMAKHQTXD5cQ6AEILTAD#v=onepage&q=marie%20claire%20bergere%20tiananmen&f=false

ron - your insights into China are invaluable to me and I am sure many others. I was wondering, if Mao, Xi, or other leaders don't have the control that we assume, how then did they enforce the one child policy?

State-owned enterprises may make up only less than 4% of all companies in China, but they produce 25 to 30 percent of the total industrial output

25% is not a large figure when you bear in mind that the state is heavily involved in sectors such as power (which until relatively recently were also state controlled in some major supposedly capitalist western economies).

It's common in market economies for the state to hold shares of big companies, even today - eg UK govt stake in Lloyds and RBS, French govt stake in car companies, european govt investment in Airbus. China has more state involvement than in modern European economies which have seen privatisation since the 1960s but this doesn't make it a controlled, communist economy - unless you think that pre-Thatcher Britain was a communist country .

I'd add, re your comment about party officials, that China has a relatively small number of government officials compared to most western countries - about half the number, per capita, compared to the US and a third compared to France.

My experience of China - which comes from working with Chinese colleagues and doing business there (not from living there, so it's necessarily a superficial impression compared to Ron) is that the business culture, in the cities at least, is fiercely entrepreneurial and much more responsive to market forces than anywhere I have lived in Europe.

Thanks for your posts mistigri and Ron. It is always interesting to hear a range of opinions

Peregrina Local Officials like to be seen to be doing the right thing even as they opportunistically line their own pockets / persue their own agendas, and generally the one child policy was an easy win because it didn't interfere with that. However the one Child policy was not quite as pervasive as people think, most rural areas were exempt because it was recognised that large families and especially sons were important to rural families and communities, and pragmatically in areas so far from the seats of power it would have been unenforceable in the face of local culture anyway . The main focus of implementation was in the urban areas were it was easier to implement and control especially as the main focus of local control was the workplace unit. Nethertheless if you did want another child there were ways and means for those who could afford it / had influence, either corrupt or through paying the official fines.

I have also read some feminist analysis, though it was a while ago, so I am hazy on the arguments as far as the one child policy is concerned . However generally there is a long tradition in China of women's bodies being used by men for political ideology. It was for thousands of years one of the most pervasive patriarchys on earth. Foot binding is an example, it was supposed to be a manifestation of the Confucian virtue of discipline, though it didn't creep in until the some (male) scholars decreed it so in the 16th century. In the early days of modern China women's emancipation from those strict controls (foot binding and arranged marriage) were again done to women by men. The Communists were no different. Some women on all sides of the political spectrum actually took the opportunity of the Second World War and the absence of male power structures in Shanghai to actually express a culture of their own (Eileen Chang is a famous literary figure, especially amongst the diaspora to emerge from that) but Mao soon put a stop to that and the liberation of women by Mao was something that was generally done to women, not something that arose from their own movements (there were some notable exceptions who emerged from the Long March and did manage to assert some genuine women's rights). However a woman in Mao's China whilst required to be equal in work quotas etc, to marry by choice and to give up their children to collective nurseries they were still vulnerable to all the excesses of patriarchy, especially in terms of rape. In the sixties when the Communists were trying to demonstrate how women were liberated and the beneficiaries of the regime, they gave urban women washing machines. The effectiveness of the implementation of the one child policy can be seen as another manifestation of the patriarchy in Communist China, not to mention of the requirement for discipline as a display of Confucian womanly virtue.....

Thanks ron. There is so much I and most of us don't know about China.

You are right to campare that to the pre-thatcher era. Perhaps the word communism is a little stong

Labour and the unions pressurised industries until they were on their knees. None of which was of benefit to workers in the end. Thatcher was a tough bitch, but in my view there were many positives too.

Yes peregrina I agree. Rons posts are fascinating.

thanks ron too great stuff many thanks! Xinjiang, province is a case in point for China being too big to enforce one child policy in Muslim and 'independent' area, home of the Uigar people,who were nomads living in the yurts. Area about to be decimated by very definitely not communist copper mining. It's the old Silk Road route. Kashgar to London, and also an area in which you can visit the remains of fine civilisations destroyed by greed and corruption

Mistigri is right, entrepreneurial values are deeply rooted in Chinese culture. Even religious beliefs incorporate them, you accumulate credit in the celestial bank. The root of the importance of gambling in Chinese culture is demonstrating that you have luck which increases the value of that credit.

Mao put the lid on the pressure cooker of market forces that had made China the largest market economy on earth in the 18th century (only bought down by internal rebellion and being based on silver, the silver mines of South America)

So it was not just that Deng managed the economy in a different direction, he also took the lid off. SMEs provide 80% of urban employment, 50% of tax revenue and 60% of GDP.

So yes the people you encounter in everyday business are far better equipped with entrepreneurial skills than in the U.K. It is particularly evident in my area Marketing. Here in the U.K. Sales and any activity that is at the direct customer interface is looked down upon. It is Advertising that is regarded as glamorous and having status but it is actually just the very showy end of a promotional strategy in which direct selling might well be the most effective tool. The promotional strategy is only one element of overall Marketing Strategy so really for all the glamour and status advertisers are just a minor marketing tool. Of course advertisers have tried and to some extent succeeded in reverse engineering control over businesses overall strategy but that is mainly because they regard themselves as cleverest 😂 However this cultural snobbery leads to an unbalanced approach to business strategy which is a big problem for U.K. Business, which is simply not focused enough on the customer.

No such snobbery in China where Sales and understanding the customer need is not so much given status as being a given. Their marketing strategies are relatively unsophisticated which is why western Marketing Consultancy has boomed but already there are signs that a distinctive more sophisticated approach to marketing adapted to Chinese culture and values is emerging and so the western consultancies need to start developing more local approaches or find out their child has grown up and moved on, and is nosing out the western players in their markets.

And China has the incredible advantage of being in the transcendency technologically. 25 years ago it was bicycles and jam jars, now they're in such a fantastic position to catch the global capitalist wave and do their bit against global warming which exists there, but not in Washington, apparently.

It is what we discussed on the other thread about post war Europe, whilst the U.K. wasted it's Marshall Aid on imperial dick swinging Germany got on with implementing a plan and the infrastructure to build an industrial economy. On my recent visit I saw from the air some awe inspiring infrastructure, a 60 km bridge, new towns of 40 storey blocks connected to the industrial conurbations by high speed links, dams etc. And that is just what you can see,. What are we doing? Brexit more imperial dick swinging

Yes there are evils on both sides. Whether it is big business capitalism or government socialism and communism (which in my view is exactly the same thing as both create a superior class) It is very sad woman and I agree.

My only point was that on the whole socialism is a fine goal, but it allows for interference by the government in so many aspects of life that it can police education, individual thought and dissent. Obviously when it is a dictatorhip that will happen anyway, but in the case of a democracy that is quite a concern. It is all to often a vehicle for people, who are seeking ultimate control.

I am fascinated by the posts on China, they are very interesting it is really great to hear the views of someone who has lived there. I know less about the specifics of Chinese politics than I do about lots of other places.

Brexit more imperial dick swinging
yep.

In that case remaining... is???

Everyone that voted leave did so with their dick? I brought a pen.

What a load of bollocks hahaha!

More likely that people did not like laws being made and choices being taken outside of out country by people who are not elected by the population.

There is nothing wrong with it, and I suspect many did it with the principles of democracy in mind.

Oh well off to swing my dick now.

I know we're way off topic here but very interesting to read Ron's posts. My experience is slightly different, in that I work in a very technical manufacturing business where technical sales is highly valued - in fact if anything we sometimes have issues with Chinese employees being too marketing oriented ;) But my closest Chinese colleague is certainly a hugely entrepreneurial chap who has amazing personal relationships with his contacts and works hard to maintain them. Biggest cultural barrier is getting across the idea that we want our employees to question and be sceptical about everything, even if it comes from your boss.

Yer you are mixing up left/right wing politics with illiberalism and dictatorship, both of which occur as often in far right as in far left political systems. In fact left and right become meaningless at these extremes: European far right political parties are both metaphorically and factually in debt to the "socialist" Russians, while the Chinese no-holds-barred approach to the market economy and entrepreneurism seems to me to have a lot in common with libertarian political regimes, like frontier America and industrial revolution Britain.