Marxism and the problem of creating an environmentally sustainable civilization in China

This paper is the transcript of an invited talk given to the Center for China Studies in Beijing in July 2007, modified in light of the subsequent discussion and subsequent reflections on this discussion. The context is important. President Hu Jintao is concerned to overcome the destabilizing inequities, corruption and environmental degradation generated by China's explosive economic growth. To achieve this, action has been taken to spread the benefits of economic growth throughout China, especially to the rural population, to implement the rule of law, and to create more democracy within the framework of a one-party state. This change in direction has been defended as putting into practice all aspects of Deng Xiaoping's program of creating a socialist democracy, begun when he engineered the opening up of China to the global market, but suspended in 1989.1 At the same time, the public sphere has been opened up to new ideas. I was invited to talk on either the problem of creating an ecologically sustainable civilization as such, or to offer a Marxist approach to this problem. I chose the latter...[Preface]