China and capitalism: If market capitalism is good for the West, why is capitalism with Chinese characteristics bad?

To summarize and to abstract my response to Hart-Landsberg and Burkett's valuable work I have two interrelated problems. The first problem is how to assess the era of Mao, and this is related to the concerns of some that Hart-Landsberg and Burkett may be taking the problems of Chinese socialism before 1978 too lightly. Anyone who wants to be critical of the present Chinese system has to address two issues. The first is how to respond to the empirical evidence that, on the one hand, political movements in the era of Mao were cruel and brutal and the personal costs were too high, and, on the other hand, there appeared to be too much consumer scarcity at that time and that environment was no less sacrificed than in a capitalist society. The second issue is a theoretical one, namely, that Chinese liberals have been arguing that the era of Mao was not socialist at all but feudalist and dictatorial. It was not even Marxist because Marxism embraces enlightenment and humanism. Indeed, the post-Mao Chinese authorities used what they considered orthodox Marxism to justify their restoration of capitalism: China could not jump over historical stages and China had to go through the stage of capitalism (which is more advanced and civilized than feudalism) before it moved to socialism. © 2005 BCAS, Inc