Thread by @KaiserKuo

Xi Jinping's essay on "common prosperity" in Qiushi has been published. DeepL translates it pretty decently if you don't feel like slogging through the Chinese. qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2021-…

Early into the essay (from a speech delivered in August), he warns about the dangers of income inequality, political polarization, the tearing of the social fabric, the collapse of the middle class, and the rise of populism in "some countries." Insists China won't go that way.

Says "obvious and substantial progress" will have been made by 2035 toward the equalization of basic public services, and basic realization of "common prosperity" for all the people by mid-century (read: 2049).

He speaks directly to two concepts popularized in recent months: "involution" and "lying flat," both part of the urban middle class youth's critique of the rat-race — the hypercompetitive culture of overwork. Doesn't specifically denounce these: says they'll be "avoided."

Xi seems to be taking a side in the "Cake Debate" (between those who championed growing the cake (or pie) and those who called for its more equitable distribution. He sides with the latter — though seems to want to grow his cake and split it too.

Common Prosperity won't come overnight, Xi says, but will be "long-term, arduous, and complex." Calls for patience and realism, and experimentation (e.g. Zhejiang Common Prosperity Demonstration Area).

Big focus on expanding the middle class, with the aim of creating an "olive-shaped" distribution, with a large middle class and smaller upper and lower classes. Cites hukou reform and solving the problem of education for children of migrant workers.

Long litany of policies intended to address the welfare of the lower class, including social assistance to urban poor, subsidized housing. Repeats now-familiar line about houses being for living in, not for speculation.

Equally long litany of policies aimed at the rich and their "unreasonable wealth," including actively promoting a property tax (finally!), consumption tax, more antitrust enforcement, crackdowns on insider trading, financial fraud, tax evasion.

Lots of social conservatism, too — not overt, but definitely subtextual. "We should strengthen the leadership of socialist core values, strengthen patriotism, collectivism and socialist education."

Rural considerations lower down. "We should comprehensively promote rural revitalization, accelerate agricultural industrialization, revitalize rural assets, increase farmers' property income, and make more rural residents work hard to become rich." Rural infrastructure, too.

Cautions that it can't all happen in parallel, that it has to be sequential. "Not everyone will become rich at the same time, and not all regions reach a level of prosperity at the same time."

So nothing earth-shatteringly new or unexpected. But clearly this thing my colleagues and I have been calling the "Red New Deal" is conceived as interconnected if not holistic. We can stop speculating about that. It's not just ad hoc, dictated only by the political calendar.

They're too modest to post this here but @EvanFeigenbaum and @damienics and others have all written about the significance of the redefinition of the Primary Contradiction in the 19th Party Congress.

This is from @EvanFeigenbaum's piece from 2017: macropolo.org/big-bet-heart-…