学术讲座｜孟捷：国家理论与中国市场经济
编者按：
近日，复旦大学经济学院孟捷教授受巴西里约热内卢联邦大学经济所的邀请，发表了题为《国家理论与中国市场经济》的视频演讲。此次演讲的评论人系巴西里约热内卢联邦大学经济所发展经济学卡洛斯·梅德罗斯教授（Carlos Medeiros）和伊莎贝拉·诺盖娜助理教授（Isabela Nogueira），伊莎贝拉亦是本次讲座的主持人。孟捷教授在此次讲座中就国家理论的学术史定位、国家的内生性作用和外生性作用等问题展开了讨论。感谢孟捷教授授权CPEER发布讲座视频及其文字稿。
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Isabela Nogueira:
So I start by thanking Professor Jie Meng from Fudan University for being here with us. Professor Jie Meng is from the Faculty of Economics Institute of Marxian Study, Fudan University, Shanghai. His research areas include Basic Theory of Marxian Economics, Institutional Analysis of Chinese Market Economy with a Special Eye on State Theory and the History of Economic Thought. He has published the following works in recent years in Chinese Historical Materialism and Marxian economics in 2016, Theories of Value and Accumulation in 2018 and The Logic of Economic Development in Contemporary China last year. Professor Meng is also the editor-in-chief of the Chinese Journal of Political Economy. Besides Professor Jie Meng, we also have Carlos Medeiros with us today. Carlos Medeiros is Professor of Development Economics in the Institute of Economics at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Medeiros is for sure the most important political economist working with China in Brazil for the last over 20 years. And we are here with myself Isabella Nogueira also from the Institute of economics. Both me and Professor Carlos Medeiros are here for comments and questions. So, I'm not gonna take any time any more. Here so interesting very much to listen to you, Professor Jie Meng. So thank you very much once again and please the floor is yours.
Jie Meng:
Okay thank you Isabella and thank you Professor Carlos. So, may I ask your permission to share the slides?
Isabela Nogueira:
Just a moment. Now can you see it?
Jie Meng:
Okay, thanks Isabella.
My topic is about Chinese market economy. Chinese market economy is one version of modern market economy. State plays an important role in these types of market economy. Recently I write something on the role of State and Chinese market economy. In China, we call it market economy with Chinese characteristics. My background is Marxist economics.
In recent years, I try to differentiate three types of modern market economy, I call it, as you can see the market economy version 1.0, version 2.0 and version 3.0. Version 1.0 of market economy refers to traditional liberalism – traditional liberal market economy. Since Keynes, we have version 2.0 of modern market economy. Now we have version 3.0 and we define Chinese market economy as version 3.0. The first criterion imply the relation between the political and the economic, market and the State as well as the so-called base and structure in traditional historical materialism. What is the relation or how to understand the relation between the political and the economic? The traditional historical materialism tries to define the economic and the political as distinctive in the sphere of institution. On the one hand is the economic institution and on the other hand is the political institution. In my eyes, this kind of differentiation in historical materialism shares something quite similar with the liberal theory and which is quite difficult to be applied to understand Chinese market economy. Because in China, the political role plays the function of relations of production. So, the political power/ the political relation can be a part of economic structure. This is the reason that we say political is embedded into the economy. This is the basic feature of Chinese market economy. According to this, I differentiate three version of market economy. The version 3.0, the so-called Chinese market economy is the development of version 2.0 - the Keynesian version of the market economy. But Chinese market economy also move beyond version 2.0 of market economy. There is a qualitative distinction between version 1.0 and version 2.0 as well as version 3.0. There is no fundamental difference between version 2.0 and version 3.0. So we can combine these two together and we can just emphasize the difference between version 1.0 and version 3.0.
The horizontal axis refers to economic paradigms. The left is the paradigm of liberal economics and to the right it is the economics of version 3.0 of socialist political economy of China. Now let's define the vertical axis. It means historical and institutional analysis. And to the downward it is the version 1.0 of institutional analysis and to the up it is the version 3.0 of institutional analysis. According to these two axes we can define 3 different quadrants - three different area. This is a short introduction of our idea that in China we can have three types of different theory. All of them try to explain Chinese economy of a Chinese model since Chinese reform. We have liberal approach. And we have New Structural Economics which is a combination of Neoclassical Theory and Chinese distinctive features of Institutions. Now we also try to build up Socialist Political Economics with Chinese Characteristics, which we define it as version 3.0 of modern market economy. Later I will try to explain more of the features of this theory. We move to this slide.
We try to sum up different theories of State. And we also have three quadrants on this picture. Let's first look at the fourth quadrant. It is characterized with two features. We can see, in this area, all those theories, for example Neo-institutionalism, New Political Economy or the Australian School, etc. have an idea of Neutral State, which means the State just plays the role of reducing transaction cost which is basically similar with the idea of Adam Smith. All those economists also recognize that market economy can be coordinated basically through the fundamentalist theory of neoclassical economics, market economy can be coordinated by itself. The Neo-institutionalism come up with a more sophisticated version. They recognize that in real economic world, there is a so-called transaction cost - the positive transaction cost which means there exists some specific institutions which play some negative role which hampers the market mechanism to fulfill its potential. So, the State should play the role to reduce transaction cost and then to help the real economy to convert to the so-called the frame of reference. It means that the market mechanism described by the model of the complete competition. We also have Marx in the third quadrant. Although, Marxist economists are in the opposition to liberal economists. It is interesting to argue that Marx and the liberal economists share the same view. That is to say Marx, especially in Das Kapital, we can see Marx tacitly assume that there is a Neutral State. In Das Kapital we can see Marx only explain the so-called laws of motion of capitalist mode of production. We can see the evolution of the capitalist mode of production. But there is no State almost. So, this is a picture quite different from nowadays. Now we can see the market economy evolved with the transformation of the State which is recognized firstly by John Maynard Keynes. So, in the picture drawn by Marx, the State in fact is missing to a very large extent. And Marxist theory does not recognize that market economy can be coordinated. So traditional Marxist economists - especially in the Second International - were looking forward to a breakdown of capital accumulation. So, there's no possibility for market economy to be coordinated either from within itself or through the role of the State as emphasized by Keynes. This also explains why Marxist economics cannot simply be directly applied to explain Chinese market economy. Although we have just said the Socialist Market Economy with Chinese Characteristics which can be based on Marxist Economics, we also emphasize that there is a huge difference between traditional Marxist economics and the Chinese Political Economy nowadays. And in this picture, we can explain the difference between these two. So, in the first quadrant, we have the State's theory of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics. We can see that on the one hand we admit the market economy can be coordinated with the help State. On other hand we have the idea of embedding State which is on the contrary to the liberal idea of the Neutral State. And the embeddedness is a concept which introduced by Karl Polanyi as we all know. But we can make some further definition of the embeddedness. So, what is embeddedness here? What does it mean? we define the embeddedness it in this way. when the political relations / political power plays the role of relations of production which means the political power is embedded. So, we explain the embeddedness in this way. Methodologically, if we try to introduce or build a theory of the State which is relevant to Chinese socialist market economy, Actually we have to make a reformulation of the historical materialism. This is the precondition of our attempt.
Now let's look at it briefly. I had composed a book on historical materialism (Jie Meng, 2016). I draw quite a lot from two figures, one is Robert Brenner and his book in 1970s. He did some comparative historical analysis of the modern Europe since 16th century. And he compared England/France and the Eastern Europe which appears to be different historical parts of evolution in these three different areas. And another figure is Zhang Wen-tian who was the former top leader of CCP. He is the participant of the famous Long March. And in 1960s he tried to reformulate historical materialism. Roughly ten years earlier than Brenner’s book. And there is something in common between Zhang and Brenner. Both emphasized that the political can be the driving forces in the change of relations of production. And Zhang made a distinction between two types of functions of relations of production. Maybe I have no enough time to explain in detail of Zhang’s idea. There are two types of functions of relations of production. One function of relations of production is to represent forces of production. Another function of relations of production served to the appropriation of the surplus. And these two functions are differentiated which means those two functions can be separated and even contradicted with each other. For example, in order to create more surplus value and you need to build up some specific relations of production. But at the same time these types of relations of production can hamper the development of forces of production. This is what Brenner emphasized. For example in the case of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of sixteenth century, we can see the resurgence of the slave system in Eastern Europe and which actually hampered the development of forces of production. It means that the change in relations of production comes from two different sources. One is the development of forces of production, the other one is the political one - the balance of class struggle - as emphasized by Robert Brenner vividly. This is the first criterion we differentiate three or basically two different versions of modern market economy. It is about how to understand the relation between the economic and the political methodologically.
The second criterion we used to differentiate those three different versions of market economy is how many agents we can admit in a market economy. In China we have three- dimensional market economy. And since Keynes we have two- dimensional market economy. As for the traditional liberal theory, they only allow one- dimensional market economy. By dimension here we mean the number of the agents. In China we have three different types of economic agents: the private firms, the local government and the central State. Since Keynes we have two- dimensional market economy because Keynes admitted that the central State have to undertake the function of investment in order to solve the problem of the shortage of effective demand. Since then we can see State or the political power has become a part of economic structure. The traditional image of the State is qualitatively transformed by Keynes. And this is the path of evolution of the Western market economy since 1930s, especially since the end of the Second World War. In the version 1.0 of the traditional liberal economic theory, there are only one kind of agent in market economy - the private firms. What I have just said is to make the location of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics in the history of economic thought clear. We try to make it clear where these theories were located. We define it as the version 3.0 according to two criteria. The first criterion refers to the relation between the political and the economy. The second criterion refers to how many economic agents exist in the market economy.
Now let's move to the second problem. What is the object of the State theory of the Socialist Political Economy with Chinese Characteristics? We try to differentiate two types of roles of the State. The first one we call it the endogenous role of State. The second one we call it the exogenous role of State. Let's focus on the first now. How to define the so-called endogenous role in the State? Briefly we define it as overcoming market failure. The concept of market failure is borrowed from neoclassical economics. But in definition it is different from the understanding of neoclassical economics. We use market failure to refer to all the contradictions in Das Kapital, all the contradictions in capital accumulation. The contradiction between the production of surplus value and the realization of surplus value. We just borrowed the name of market failure. It refers to all contradictions in capital accumulation. The State has to play a role of overcoming the so-called market failure. But to explain the endogenous role of the State, we have to come up with a theory-Marxist theory of market failure. Fortunately, we already have it. Marx has a thorough analysis of the market failure. And Keynesian theory just tried to repeat what Marx had already said, although in a different way. I mean Keynes use different terminology. But what they emphasized is the same. The so-called shortage of effective demand is what Marx said, the contradiction between the production of surplus value and its realization. But there is an important thing. If we treat all the contradiction as found by Max as a market failure theory. We have to admit that there are some good things of market economy. It means we need a theory to explain the efficiency of market economy just like the neoclassical economics had done. Just like microeconomics had done. We need a theory of the frame of reference theory. For a long time, at least in China, Marxist economics don't admit that there is a frame of reference theory in Marx. In their eyes Marxist economics only discloses the contradiction of capital accumulation and Marxist economics has no responsibility to explain the efficiency of market mechanism. This is a typical traditional stance of Marxist economics. I think not only in China but also across the world. So now we are facing the task of building a theory of the frame of reference which for some Marxists seems an unacceptable thing sometimes. However, China had built up a socialist market economy. Although it is socialist one, it is still a market economy. We have to produce such a theory to explain why market mechanism can help China to realize a rapid economic growth. You cannot just use neoclassical economics to explain Chinese economic growth. The traditional Marxist economics can only explain the contradictions, the dark part of Chinese market economy. While all the positive story are given to the neoclassical economics. This is unacceptable. And Marxist economics has to innovate itself in China.
Now the problem is where we can find a theory of the frame of reference. If we refuse to accept the frame of reference theory from neoclassical theory, can we have a different theory of the frame of reference? Fortunately, we can have a theory of frame of reference from Marx, from his theory of production of relative surplus value. It may be very strange. According to my experience, my students feel quite strange when we say we can transform the theory of production of relative surplus value into a theory of the frame of reference. Some students feel quite strange. What I mean is that we can splitting the theory of production of relative surplus value into two parts. One belongs to the theory of market failure and the other one belongs to the so-called theory of the frame of reference. We need to explain the efficiency of the market economy. Our aim is to explain that why forces of production can be developed in a market economy. Where there can be technical innovation? We can have incessant technical innovation in a market economy. We can find the theory of the frame of reference in Capital Volume 1. We should emphasize that in the Communist Manifesto which was co-authored by both Marx and Engels. And I would like to tell a story about the friendship of Marx and Engels. We know that Marx and Engels meet each other in the middle of 1840s. In 1845, they had the second meeting and it was in this summer of 1845. After this meeting Marx followed Engels to Manchester in Britain. It was in Manchester Marx witnessed what is the forces of production created by modern market economy. This is a very important in the making of Marxism. Marx wrote the so-called Paris manuscript in 1844 (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844). When he wrote this manuscript, he met the modern proletariat in Paris. There was no modern proletariat in Germany, because at that time Germany is a very backward country. It was in Paris that Marx met the modern working class. And it was in Manchester Marx witnessed what the forces of production of modern market economy. When they came back, Marx and Engels began to co-author several books. The first was the German ideology. In 1848 they coauthored the Communist Manifesto and in this book we all remember there is a quite famous saying, a quite famous sentence. They said roughly that it is less than 100 years before the bourgeoisie got their power, but in this relatively short period of time the forces of production they created were much larger than that created by all the history. This expression can be regarded as an assumption which have two meanings. Firstly, Marx and Engels recognize that the bourgeoisie society have the potential to produce forces of production which is much larger than all the other preceding societies. Secondly, although Marx and Engels recognized this potential, they failed to explain the reason at that time. It means what kind of mechanism modern market economy have the potential to create such large forces of production is still a task to be done or to be fulfilled. When Marx moved to London after 1848, he began to write Das Kapital. Ten years later in 1857-1858, Marx finished his first manuscript of Das Kapital. This is the famous Grundrisse. And it is Grundrisse, Marx had almost finished his theory of the production of relative surplus value. This theory is the largest part of the Grundrisse. And Marx tried to explain the assumption put forward in Communist Manifesto which means Marx tried to explain through which kind of mechanism modern market economy could create forces of production to such an extent. This is the reason why we can treat the theory of the relative surplus value as the so-called frame of reference theory. By definition, the frame of reference theory should explain why market economy can have the potential to develop forces of production? Why market economy can have such dynamic efficiency? We all know the story in Das Kapital volume one. From the very beginning, Marx wrote that it is the desire of every individual capitalists, every individual entrepreneur to pursue the so-called extra profit, extra surplus value. But to produce extra surplus value, they have to invest in innovation. If all capitalists do it in the same way, due to the pressure of competition, the rate of surplus value across the society will increase. At the same time, the real wage of workers can also increase. So, in Grundrisse, when Marx recognized the possibility of real wage to increase, Marx said this is just the…I'm not sure the exact word in Grundrisse, roughly Marx said in this way: so this is the great aspect of civilization of capital. Marx gave a very positive appreciation of capitalist market economy. According to this story, we can even say that the theory of relative surplus value is similar to the liberal story of invisible hand. The story of the invisible hand emphasized that if every agent starts from their own interests, finally they promote the common goal of the society. If we investigate Marx’s story, we can find the story begins from the pursuit of every individual entrepreneur for extra surplus value. But what is the result? The result is the general rise of the rate of surplus value which is enjoyed by all the capitalist class on the one hand, and an increase of real wage of workers on the other hand. Therefore, from the very start, it is the pursuit for extra surplus value, the pursuit of his own interest. What is the result? The result is the improvement, the better off of almost all classes. Both the bourgeoisie class and the working class. The bourgeoisie class enjoy a rise of the rate of surplus value and the working class enjoy the rise of real wages. So, we argue that the theory of the production of relative surplus value has a quite similar logic with the liberal invisible hand theory. But, of course, when we argue these, we have to say that Marx did not stop here. Marx did not stop here and due to the dialectics of the contradictions in capital accumulation. Technical innovation further gave rise to some contradictory tendencies. For example, the rise of the organic composition, the increase of unemployment, the tendency of the profit rate to fall and finally the crisis tendency. Therefore we argue that the theory of the production of relative surplus value consists of two parts. One part can be regarded as theory of the frame of reference. The other part actually is a theory of market failure.
I'm sorry I spent too much time on explaining all these things. Let me sum up. If we want to build an endogenous theory of the State, we have to admit that this theory consists of three parts. Firstly, we have to come up with a theory of the frame of reference which have to explain the dynamic efficiency of market economy. Secondly, we can have a theory of market failure which explain why the real market economy cannot realize the potential as Marx has argued in his abstract model. We say it is an abstract model because in reality the production of relative surplus value has to face some obstacles. As I have summed up that there are three types of obstacles, or we can say there are three different conditions of the production of relative surplus value. There can be the economic conditions of the production of relative surplus value. There can be institutional conditions of the production of relative surplus value. There also can be the scientific technical conditions of the production of relative surplus value. Marx in fact only gave us one explanation. He only explained the economic conditions of the production of relative surplus value. He argued that sooner or later the production of relative surplus value will have its limit. The limit of capital accumulation is capital itself. As Marx argued in Capital volume 3. There will be a tendency of profit rate to fall. This can be regarded as the economic conditions. But there are still scientific - technical conditions and institutional conditions which Marx failed to analyze. For example, while Marx said due to pressure of competition, every individual entrepreneur has to invest in innovation. When he said this, he assumed these scientific and technical knowledge applicable to innovation is always available. This is a tacit assumption in Marx. Now we all know this is not always necessary. There is no necessary reason that we can argue there is always enough scientific - technical knowledge which can be applicable to the economy.
Isabela Nogueira:
Prof. Jie Meng, I'm afraid of we are running out of time.
Jie Meng:
OK. So, let's finish. Thirdly, it is the theory of exogenous role of State. When we have the theory of market failure, we can make it clear what is the role of the State. What the State can do? The endogenous role cannot fully explain the role of the State. The State will go beyond the endogenous role. So, we can have the exogenous role of the State. It means the State have to undertake the task of maintaining the reproduction of existing social relations of production and class relations in definition. For example, in China socialist ideology the public ownership and the missionary nature of CCP in particular, will decisively influence the role of the State, which goes beyond the category of pure market failure. And it is also the case in capitalist market economy. For example, Keynes is a very good example. In his book The Persuasion Keynes said that in class struggle he was always right. He would always stand on the side of the educated bourgeoisie class. He said something like that. This means that he very consciously realized that the State has to play a role of maintaining the existing class relations. But the problem is that he also realized in order to realize the exogenous role of the State, the State has to play a new type of role which is defined by us here. It is the endogenous role of the State. It means in Keynes the State have to undertake the function of investment. We can say there is a relation, or the two types of role of the State, they are precondition to each other, and they can be transformed with each other.
Okay now let's sum up all this speech. Let's sum up in this way. In this picture we can see the system of a State theory. We can see from the top. If we want to build the State theory in modern market economy. First, we have to reformulate historical materialism which means we have to explain in a new way what is the relation between the political and the economic. We should abandon the idea that these two are distinctive institutional area. We can abandon this kind of idea. Secondly, we have already said that we differentiate two types of role of State: the endogenous one and the exogenous one. And as for the endogenous one, we have already said it consists of three different parts: from the theory of the frame of reference, market failure and finally we can have the theory of the role of State. And on the other hand, it is the exogenous theory of the State. So, a complete theory of the State is to couple those two. Okay, so that’s all, Thank you!
Isabela Nogueira:
All right let me stop the sharing here. Thank you very much Professor Jie Meng for your broad presentation on Chinese system both in terms of State theory and the functioning of the Chinese mode of production. So, I give some time to Professor Carlos Medeiros to make his comments.
问答环节实录
Carlos Medeiros:
Thank you very much. I really appreciate your presentation and I think that's a theme that what the system predominates in China is really very important. I think probably one of the most important discussion and debates exactly to understand what system that prevails in modern China. And I think your explanation is really very interesting. You made a lot of suggestible points. But I'd say… my point is very brief. I have some more detailed questions about theoretical aspects that you've made. But I'd like to understand what in your opinion should be the main difference from modern China or the China that evolved after the 1980s,1990s. What's the main difference from this system of regulation of capital accumulation in China? From the experience what we can say the State led growth that predominates in Asia, in Singapore, in South Korea during the 1970s/1980s in all this country that the State has a big capacity to command or to induce economic growth. But at the same time the private enterprise accumulates a lot of products and made a kind of difference from the other experience of European modernization after the Second World War. What is the particular thing that is distinguished China’ experience from other regulated transformation as State led growth after the Second War particularly in Asia. And this is the first one question. You say that exogenous function is to preserve the class relations that predominates in society. But in China today, there is an important change in the evolution of social classes as far as the emergency of the private enterprise, Chinese bourgeoisie. So how to preserve the class relation of a society when the social class are so moving as we see in China? I appreciate very much your comments on it. Thank you very much.
Jie Meng：
Okay, thanks Carlos. I have apologized for my English. I haven't speak it for quite a long time. You have a very good remark. Firstly, what is the difference between, for example, Chinese model and Asians development of State? Two States theory? In my eyes, for example, developmental theory we can put it into my opinion, the version 2.0 of market economy. What is the difference in detail from the developmental State theory and China? Basically, two things. Both China and the developmental State theory emphasize the role of the State, but the difference is that in China we have the competition of local governments and which is missing in either Japan or Korea. This is the first difference. The second one is that in China we have the missionary CCP. Recently I wrote an article in Chinese. I argued that CCP is not only a traditional Political Party, not a representative Party. We can regard it, to some extent, as a specific economic institution. CCP is a missionary party. So just before 1949, you know, Chairman Mao came to Beijing and he wrote an article. He said how to evaluate the role of political party in China? It's to see whether he can help to push forward the development of forces of production in China. This idea is very important because it disclosed the nature of CCP - his history commission. He has to play as the agent to foster the development of forces of production. Although later on Chairman Mao deviated his thoughts in Culture Revolution. Since reform, CCP come back to his traditional historical mission. as Chinese top leader Deng had said that reform is the second revolution and revolution is not only class struggle. To develop forces of production is a type of revolution as well. This is what Deng had ever said. And now Xi is just like them, he said that indeed reform is another type of revolution. And he also compliments that we cannot say we have done the reform. we can only see we are doing the reform this is what Xi says. In this sense there will be no end for history. It is another version of the incessant revolution in Marx. I argued it this is typical types of an ideology in contemporary world which is in sharp contrast to the ideology of the end of history. The American enjoy the ideology of the end of history. Typically, it's the ideology of an empire. Because these types of ideologies serve the benefits of empire. The history has an end. There were no rivals to the United States since the history is over. This is quite interesting.
You mean that the class reformation will influence the nature of the State. I think Isabela is more familiar than me. I mean with this topic. In my eye, someone in China argues that why China is still socialist society? It is not a capitalist one. This is a very difficult question. In China, someone argues in this way: why we are still in socialism not capitalism? The difficulty lies in the fact that since the reform we can see a very huge transformation of class relation. we can see the rehabilitation of the wage labor relations in China right. And the rise of the Chinese bourgeoisie class. No problem. However, this is only one side of the story, we have to pay attention to another side. That is the State power up till now has not been captured by any bourgeoisie class in China. And bourgeoisie class in China are not strong enough. And they cannot even unite as a class for themselves. They are divided. So in this sense that the State has not been captured by bourgeoisie class, the State can still enjoy its autonomy. And CCP also play a very important or a distinctive role from the State. In China we have a party State in fact. The Party, State and the society or the economy we have a …how to say… these are other types of three- dimensional story. Of course, China is facing the challenge on how to…Because someone argues that we can this is not the only case in China, but also the case across the modern world. We can see the de-politicization of party. For example, we can see the right and the left in the West. The clear line drawn between the traditional right and the left becomes much more and more unclear. There is a de-politicization in the Western politics. And also in China because when the Party got the power of the State. When the Party got the power of the apparatus of the State, there is a danger for the Party to become the depoliticized. This is a reason that Chairman Mao launched Cultural Revolution because he tries to reap politicalized State. He tried to dismantle the bureaucracy. This was the story in Culture Revolution. In China, CCP is facing two dangers. The first is to be captured by bourgeoisie class. The second is to be captured by the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is not unnecessarily socialist. The socialist ideology has to be…just as Lenin has ever said that the party has to give the ideology to the working class. It is also the case in China. The Party has to build the ideology to the bureaucracy. This is two types of dangers in China. The most important the thing is the party in China. The party is the only political power which can unite all the countries, which is still enjoy legitimacy and which can still fulfill his missionary function to develop forces of production in China. So, what is the future deserves our further research, deserves Isabela to research.
Isabela Nogueira:
Thank you! This is a very interesting debate Professor Jie Meng. And as Professor Carlos said we are very interested even more in this socialism with Chinese characteristics. The debate is very important as the crisis of the reform of capitalism goes forth, and as the polarization between China and the US that's heading towards extreme high level of tensions. So just to finish and this is debate around the exogenous function of the State to use your definition is very interested to me. My question would deal with ideology which in terms of the debate of the State theory was a strong debate among Marxian debates in 1960s and 1970s. So in ideological terms, how does the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party different from basic social relations that define modern capitalism. I mean capitalists subjective values or forms of domination such as alienation of labor in production or competition as a driving force of productive forces and mass consumption for instance that we see now in China as a major individual goal. How does the ideology of the socialism with Chinese characteristic distinguish itself from basic social relations that define Capitalism?
Jie Meng：You give a very incisive ,very profound question. Recently, I am always thinking about this. As for the role of ideology, for example, we can resort to Antonio Gramsci. I think Gramsci had already realized that, ideologies can play the role of, maybe you can put in this way. Through ideology, some specific relations of production can be considered and can be supported. Because ideology is the principle of either conceiving and organizing relations of production. In China, we still have State-owned Enterprises and in recent years as SoEs enjoy a rising of profitability, which is quite different from the end of 1990s. At that time, the Chinese State-owned Enterprises, there's a very sharp decline in efficiency, in its profitability. Now the situation is quite different. So I think, in China, CCP still has the capacity to transform its ideology into the economic reality, to maintain ideology as the principle of either conceiving or organizing the existing relations of production. It still has this capacity. This is a very good question. Generally speaking, we can say in forces of production, there is the elements of ideas which is scientific and technical knowledge. And also in relations of production, there is also elements of ideas. Ideologies play a decisive role in China. If the liberal ideology dominates or prevails, then we will we have to face the radical privatization. But if the socialist ideologies still prevail, then we can say it is socialist political economy. The public enterprise and the private one can cooperate with each other. This is a very good topic and we will talk it in the future.
Isabela Nogueira:
Wonderful! Prof. Jie Meng and Prof. Carlos, I thank you both for firming with us in this Webinar series. I,t was a pleasure. I hope seeing you soon again, Professor Jie Meng as soon as the pandemics allow us. Carlos, do you want to say something? Wonderful! Once again thank you all and hope to see you again soon.
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