China and the West

Derrida, Jacques. Spectres de Marx [ID D24715].
Wei Xiaoping : Derrida perhaps most interests Chinese Marxist scholars through his way of separating the spirit of Marx from the 'specter' of Marx. All those things interpreted by Derrida as 'specters' are mainly practiced in China after 1949. Since China's economic reform began in 1978, those 'specters' considered by Derrida, which include the public ownership, as well as allocation according to contribution, have been replaced by multiple ownership or stock ownership, and allocation according to contribution combined with allocation according to profit which come from capital investment.
It is just the paradox of the 'specters' and the spirit of Marx in the actual situation of China that brings some Chinese Marxist scholars to be interested in Derrida’s deconstructive method.
What Derrida's 'post-Marxism' is accepted by some Chinese Marxist scholars is that they share the idea of giving up orthodox Marxism, or we could also call it dogmatist Marxism while still insist on the critical spirit of Marx. These view also shared by 'after Marxism', but 'after Marxism' doesn't challenge the basic concept of Marx, in this sense it is different from 'post-Marxism'.
By the concept of 'return to Marx' it has another meaning which goes further than 'after Marxism', it stress not only to read Marx through the text of Marx himself in Chinese translation, but to read Marx through its original text in his own language, which become possible with the coming of new MEGA2. The old edition of Marx/Engels Collected Works in China was translated mainly from Russian edition and consulting the German and English Edition. After the MEAG2 has come out, now there are very small group of scholars began to read Marx through his language, which to some extent has already brought out a Marx that different from the traditional one.
Apart from the possible political influence on the translation work, there are some words or some concepts which cannot be expressed exactly with different language, it is for this reason, some points or even key points of Marx could be understood better in his own language. We cannot say that this is a Marx study linguistic transition has happened in China, but it shows that Chinese Marxist scholars begin to read Marx with linguistic technique, we know that this close to the point that Derrida try to do with his linguistic deconstruction.
In his book Specters of Marx, Derrida used two concepts to talk about Marxian or Marx, one is 'ghost' and the other is 'specter', may be it is difficult for us to make a clear distinguish between these two concepts, but we can get some ideas from their origination. Derrida get these concepts mainly from two documents, the word of 'ghost' is come from Marx/Engels Communist Manifesto, by which Marx/Engels use this word refer to a spirit followed by some and be scared by other, the word of 'specter' is come from Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet. With these two words, on the one hand we could get some idea of the spirit of Marx, on the other hand we can get some idea about what Marx's critic point to. It is in this sense, for Derrida the words 'ghost' or 'specter' that he mentions dose not only has a single meaning, rather it has a multiple meaning, just as he said, "the figure of the 'ghost' is not just one figure among others. It is perhaps the hidden figure of all figures".
Although the words 'ghost' or 'specter' that Derrida mentions is confusing and could be a metaphor for different contents, we could according to his generally meaning of good or bad separate them into two characters, one is in positive meaning and the other one is in negative meaning.
Considering the current situation of China, we could say, when the traditional model of socialism has been replaced by a socialist market economy with a Chinese character, as a result the negative 'specters' such as private ownership and social differences have taken the place of the positive 'specters' such as the public ownership and social equality. The critical spirit of Marx does not only concern to deal with negative 'specters' which are now haunting us, but also so to speak to deal with positive 'specters', we have to think why they cannot stay longer and why Derrida treat them as only 'specters'. It is in this sense both Derrida and Chinese Marxists scholars think that Marx should be an open, self-critical, transformation, re-evaluation and self-reinterpretation spirit, and especially for Chinese Marxists Marx theory could develop with practice.
The deconstructive philosophical method that Derrida used to read Marx has two points of view that could interest Chinese Marxist Scholars: One is his criticism of the view of 'the end of history' expressed by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man. The other is Derrida's discussion of a contradiction in the theory of Marx, which, for some reasons, is difficult for some Chinese scholars to discuss by themselves.
Comparing the different interpretations of Marx from Derrida and Soviet Union, we can see that the different interpretations are related to different historical backgrounds and the different historical backgrounds influence observers to accept different aspects of Marx. In virtue of similar historical backgrounds, before 80s last century China was strongly influenced by the interpretation of Soviet Union Marxism.
After the economic reform that began at the end of 1970s, especially after the historical transition which happened in the 1990s, we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, meanwhile what appeared in current Russian, as well as to some extent of China are close to what Marx criticized in his time, and at this moment Derrida's Marx arrived in China.
The change of historical backgrounds makes Derrida's concept of deconstruction more attractive to some Chinese Marxist scholars, but what Derrida understands that Marx's critical spirit could also be critical towards his own 'specters' would probably annoy dogmatist 'Marxists', but it has usefully led to some common sense about 'rethinking Marxism'.
Unlike the project of a 'return to Marx' which mainly means to go away from the Marxist model as it was routinely interpreted in the Soviet Union in order to read Marx through his own texts, 'rethinking Marxism' mainly means to rethink the general theory of Marx by reading the text of Marx from an independent but critical perspective. Both a 'return to Marx' and a 'rethinking of Marx' has brought out the needs to re-read Marx through his own texts.
It is in this sense, Derrida who is usually regarded as a 'post-Modernist', or as a 'post-Marxist', at the same time expresses the need of 'return Marx' in the sense of 'rethinking Marx', which interests some Chinese Marxist scholars.
For China, after the economic reform which began 1978, especially after the introducing of market, on the one hand, those problems discussed and criticized by Marx has appeared as actual situation, which has provided the basement for the practical language of Marx, and the linguistic circumstances of Marx, which has aroused the idea of 'return to Marx'. On the other hand, those characteristics of post-industrialization have appeared to some extent in certain areas of China, such as the southeastern seaside areas. Both of these kinds of situation, not only question some scholars' understanding and even believing for those basic principle of Marx, but also has challenged those basic principle of Marx. These could explain why 'post-Marxism', especially Derrida's 'post-Marxism' also could be spread among China's Marxist scholars while the whole country is still on the way to modernization.
These could be understood better with the two perspectives of what Derrida names 'ghost' or 'specter'. For the positive one, they could be represent those principle of communism or socialism which now is challenged by the actual situation and for the negative one, they could be represent those situation which now in the process of arriving.
As concerns the first case, the typical character of a historical transition is to introduce a market economy into a traditional socialist system which is a centrally planned economy with public ownership. The introduction of a market economy has, by increasing economic motivation, monetary stimulation and market competition, greatly increased the speed of economic development. The result is clear; China’s economic reform has resulted in a relatively quicker economic speed of development. But at the same time the social difference between rich and poor has increased to an unbelievable extent in such a short time. In many cases the owners of private enterprises have gone from nothing or almost nothing to a situation in which they have become millionaires. Meanwhile market has engaged in various trends of privatization, which in turn further increases social differences, accompanied by new unemployment.
Therefore those characteristics of socialism or so-called communism, such as public ownership, income equality and social community, now may be also accepted by some Chinese as 'specters', because they come and go, just like 'specters', it is not easy for them to stay any longer. Derrida regarded them as “specters”, for him, they are 'specters', because they could never be actualized, as soon as they were actualized, they become different thing, so they are always hang on some where, that is what he understand communism : "communism has always been and will remain spectral; it is always still to come.".
As concerns the second case, those “specters” of capitalism which were criticized by Marx, such as private ownership, income differences, and social conflict, for him, they also behaved as “specters” on the sense, they didn’t really disappear under certain circumstances and have come back again under other circumstances.
For example, what 'post-Marxists' criticizes is not the economic relationship of capitalism, while culture, political and spirit sectors, which to some extent reflects the actual situation of post-industry period, represents the situation that the main social differences are not only derived from the economic sectors, and that the big income differences are not only the result of capital investment, but come from competence, which challenged some basic principles of Marx, and this kind of situation existed in some developed seaside areas of China, It is in this sense that Derrida's deconstructionism, as well as other 'post-Marxism' critics not only interests but also accepted by some Chinese Marxist scholars.