Friday, January 11, 2008

Mao was right?

The growing yaw of wealth in 'Communist' China and the flocking of peasants from the interior to the coastal and large provincial cities, are the cause of concern in a roaring Chinese economy. Since Deng Xiao Ping's turn to the capitalist road--it's alright to be rich--development is occuring along patterns established when China was cut up by foreign powers during its shame. Mao had the idea which turned into a nightmare when he launched the great proletarian cultural revolution in the 1960's, to keep the peasants on the land and bring industry and the world to the countryside. [Remember it was his investigation into conditions in the countryside which brought him to leadership of the Communist party of China, and his call for the union of the workers and peasants which firmed up his iron fisted rule!]Now it seems the minions of foreign private companies like JNJ and Avon and the like are going back to the countryside in a way that recalls Alice Tisdale's 1930's best seller 'Lamps for the oil of China' or even earlier the purveyors of growing tobacco through the 'generosity' of British American Tobacco earlier in the 20 century. The clean shaven rulers in Beijing are now pushing for a return to the countryside but alas without much vigour. And there lies the rub and the grounds for the party's ultime demise.

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