ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the reforms, those that affect the rural economy, to uncover their concrete impact on relations of production in the countryside. It argues that the economic reforms have made the development of autonomous self-managing producers’ collectives neither impossible nor inevitable. The English translation comes from Edward Friedman’s study of the political overtones of Chinese evaluations of Einstein in China Quarterly. The exigencies of modern production and consumption seem to demand ever more sophisticated, specialized, and centralized knowledge and skills. The state deliberately cut back on capital investment projects and increased farm gate prices and urban wages to allow for greater personal consumption. With higher levels of consumption, more rapid turnover increased enterprise profits and thereby state revenues. Marx’s preoccupation with overcoming objective dependence on commodity relations and value categories produces another fatal contradiction in his hypothetical construction of a communist society.
