Proletariat

One day in 2010, a woman from the North to pay more than a million dollars to buy some dogs. And we were stunned: China no longer Mao. I do not know whether there are still people who remember Mao Zedong who ever impassioned talk about the "proletariat", "bum proletariat", and "semi-proletariat", the poor who will liberate China from "a state of semi-feudal and semi-colonial".

It seems, now, what is liberating -- or ensnaring? -- is money and desire, and with it a lot of boundaries breached. Woman of the North, such as the China Daily wrote, on that day sent 30 Mercedes-Benz cars to the airport to pick up animals ordered. She was definitely one of the existing 835,000 millionaires in the People's Republic with a population of around 1.33 billion. She was definitely part of the 0.06 percent of the abundant life and did not feel guilty or embarrassed in the country which on half a century ago was rocked by the "Proletarian Cultural Revolution".

Half a century ago the Maoists militants even ready to kill a pig owned by a neighbor with a grenade. Pig is a sign of bourgeois class. In the early 21st century the rich pay the Tibetan Mastiff breed dog with an expensive price. As a result, we have never understood that the Chinese still consider themselves "communist" but living with such sharp social inequality.

Of course it should be noted, the Gini index, which shows that inequality, in China has begun to decline. Now almost 40.8. The lack of unequal distribution of wealth in China is even approximately equal to circumstances in the most unequal capitalist country, namely the United States, and far worse than the UK, which recorded a Gini coefficient of 36.

Presumably the shadow of Marx never pedaling again at Mausoleum of Mao in Beijing. Marx considered the private properties (Mastiff dog, Mercedes-Benz, lean pork, or a piece of land) as the sources of human alienation from the work process. He once proclaimed that it was precisely the workers -- who do not have nothing, except "chains which bind them" -- who would be the pioneers driving to a future free from isolation. But now Marxism in China has become a museum of prehistoric objects. And we do not know where are they: the proletariat.

Since the beginning, actually "Proletariat" is indeed an odd social class in China. In an article in 1926, "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society", Mao admitted, the proletariat only amounted to two million. Industrial workers were mainly working on the railroad, mining, transportation, marine, textiles, and shipbuilding, "and a very large number of whom were enslaved in a foreign capital enterprise". But, as a true Marxist, Mao believed the working class was the "most progressive", deserve to be "the power to lead the revolutionary movement". Because, unlike the others, industrial workers live and work centered around the same location. More importantly, Mao wrote, "They have lost their means of production, they only have two hands."

But the problem that arises immediately afterwards is, how the working class, not the majority position, can use their perspective - which, according to Marxism is special - to be the standard of society at large? We know, Mao -- after Lenin -- considered it was important (not just workers, but also the role of the farmers) to move the Revolution. Mao would not say the inland was part of what Marx called the "Hamlet Imbecility". But the farmers, also the most dispossessed, always wanted to have land. They however did not want to celebrate the heroism of people who didn't have anything.

The desire is "bourgeois". In the end it can't be muffled. We can't say that human nature is to want the owner and getting greedy, but Marx had an error when he considered the private property by itself was the cause of human alienation, when people prioritized what belonged to them and no longer be a host of things and work.

In Chinese political development, alienation takes place when human crouched in front of the fruit of their own hands. This time not belong to themselves, but rather something which is almost entirely social: a symbolic system, words, slogans, and doctrine. Also the organization, either in the form of daily life control of neighboring units or the more glorious is Communist Party.

In China, the dictatorship of proletariat is different from what is imagined by Marx. When he composed his history theory, Marx took into account that at some stage of the capitalism development, the proletariat class would be abundant. Petty bourgeoisie would be swallowed up by the big bourgeoisie and, like the workers, they ultimately did not have anything else. The poor become the majority.

But, with very small number of industrial workers in the middle of the others, what happens is an anxious dictatorship. It should be defensive and offensive at the same time. It should be reassuring. It should be tight, in the management of the body and crowd's mind. Finally it's broken, too. Party should stay in power, but its proletarian ethos has been removed. Liberation is not coming from those who do not have anything, but of have and desire to have. Together with that, all the odd and insanely can occur, also an other alienation: 30 Mercedes-Benz cars to fetch the dog.

Perhaps we need to ask, what belongs and does not belong to man can be free.
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