Beyond Liberalism and Communism: Socialist Theory and the Chinese Case presents a new conceptual framework of socialism and applies it to the study of socialist development in China, shedding new light on modern China and signposting novel directions in socialist thought.
Based on a Marxian-Polanyian approach, the book develops a new conceptual framework of socialism by taking the liberal and the communist challenges seriously. In doing so, Brie develops a liberal and a communist formula of socialism based upon two owners of socialist property (the individuals and the society), different forms of possession (public, common, associative, and individual) meditating the interests of the two opposite owners, and democracy as an expression of the will of the many and of all together in common. This formula is then applied to socialist development in China, analysing its booming centrally directed economy and the political ways to safeguard democracy as the rule of, for, and by the people under the Chinese Communist Party.
With an analysis of the means by which China has pursued a unique form of socialist development, Beyond Liberalism and Communism: Socialist Theory and the Chinese Case will appeal to scholars of modern China, political theory, political sociology, and socialist thought.
Introduction: Why Have So Many Cathedrals of Socialism Collapsed? Part One: Socialist Theory 1. Socialism in Conflict with Communism and Liberalism 2. If You Aren’t Willing to Talk about the Strengths of Capitalism, You’d Better Keep Quiet about Socialism 3. Marx’s Confidence, Neurath’s Utopia, and Mises’ Verdict on the Impossibility of Socialism as a Rational Economic Order 4. Karl Polanyi’s Search for Freedom in a Complex Society 5. Socialism: Using Solidarity to Address the Contradiction between the Free Development of Each and the Free Development of All Part Two: China’s Socialism 6. Beyond the Frog’s-Eye Perspective 7. Deng Xiaoping’s Sleeplessness and the Chinese Dream 8. Socialism or State Capitalism? 9. The CCP as Communist Emperor: China’s Refoundation and Socialist Transformation 10. China’s Transformation as Hegemonization of Society through the Communist Party 11. The Effect of the Two General Formulas of Socialism in China 12. Is Liberal Democracy the Only Democracy? 13. Socialism as a Planned Economy 14. The Chinese Nation and Policy in Xinjiang 15. The Strengths and Weaknesses of China’s Social System 16. China’s (Re-)Emergence as One of the Centres of the World
Michael Brie is a former senior research fellow at the Institute for Critical Social Analysis at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Germany. Now retired, his research explores the theory and history of socialism, the socio-ecological transformation of modern societies, and contemporary strategic questions facing the Left. He is the co-author of Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary Marxist at the Limits of Marxism (2021), author of Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and Metaphysics of Domination (2019), and co-editor of Karl Polanyi’s Vision of a Socialist Transformation (2018).
