Creation: Political Economy Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
Recently, the Shanghai Future Industry Fund with a total scale of 10 billion yuan released its investment strategy. The fund is fully funded by the Shanghai municipal government, positioned as counter-cyclical “patient capital,” with a term of 15 years, extendable by 3 years if necessary. Wei Fanjie, general manager of the Shanghai Future Industry Fund, stated that the fund aims to leverage more social capital to jointly promote incubation investments in China’s frontier fields and genuinely layout for future industries. The official rhetoric of China Reform (Zhongxiu) employs highly abstract language to propose a set of methods using Keynesianism to invest in emerging industries. Simply explaining these vulgar terms reveals Zhongxiu’s intent: to further expand investment in hopes of surviving the economic crisis.
The “counter-cyclical” cycle refers to the cycle of capitalist reproduction, namely the continuous outbreak of economic crises. “Counter-cyclical” means implementing policies and measures to “hedge and mitigate systemic risks within the cycle to some extent.” In other words, it aims to weaken the damage caused by crisis and depression phases during economic downturns. Past economic crises have forced capitalist scholars to admit that crises are inevitable, but they have devised numerous schemes to save the capitalist system. Among these schemes, Keynesianism is most favored by monopolistic capitalists. The core of Keynesian “anti-crisis” plans is to promote state intervention in the economy, such as expanding government spending and implementing inflation; the state provides orders, subsidies, and long-term investments to encourage private investment, etc. It is clear that under the increasingly depressed current economic conditions, Zhongxiu officials have to tactfully acknowledge that we are in a crisis stage; the 10 billion yuan allocated by the Shanghai government is also aimed at expanding Keynesian policies to prolong capitalism’s life—what they call “patience capital” is a new means they propose.
“Patience capital” is a vulgar economic concept proposed by Zhongxiu officials. Its definition is: “A form of capital focused on long-term investment, not primarily seeking short-term gains, but emphasizing long-term returns, usually unaffected by short-term market fluctuations, with a long-term outlook on capital returns and higher risk tolerance.” In the context of Zhongxiu officials, investments in “patience capital” are an important means of developing “new qualitative productive forces.” They say, “New qualitative productive forces feature high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. Achieving technological innovation and breakthroughs is not an overnight matter; it requires long-term, stable funding.” In other words, it needs continuous long-term capital input for research in emerging industries. As is well known, in the bureaucratic monopoly capitalism of Chinese society, only monopolistic enterprises can sustain scientific research, and their purpose is solely to expand profits and further exploit the working masses. Developing such “new qualitative productive forces” cannot save the economy from crisis; it cannot resolve the contradiction between the infinite expansion of capitalist production and the shrinking capacity of workers to pay. The purpose of capitalist production is not to improve workers’ living standards but to generate high profits for capitalists. Therefore, while improving production technology and capacity, capitalists also intensify exploitation of workers and continuously squeeze out and impoverish small and medium producers, leading to their bankruptcy. When key commodities cannot find markets due to insufficient purchasing power among the masses, the realization of total social product is severely disrupted, and a general overproduction crisis erupts. The Zhongxiu government, implementing this set of measures, is doomed to dead end.
The Zhongxiu government raises these vulgar concepts publicly to confuse and deceive the masses. Seeing that the word “capital” has become stigmatized among the broad proletariat and petty bourgeoisie, and unable to openly reveal their goal of supporting capitalists, they exploit the lack of political and economic theory knowledge among the exploited classes, packaging these concepts in various ways. Bourgeois scholars strip “capital” of its class nature, claiming it is merely “greedy and profit-seeking,” and fabricate a concept of “patience capital,” claiming it is not about short-term speculative gains but long-term investment returns, developed for “long-term benefits and social responsibility” in technological enterprises and welfare funds, supposedly beneficial to society. As a result, a “good capital” appears, and investments by monopolistic capitalists become justified. However, the working people cannot believe such reactionary theories; no matter how much they talk about “new qualitative productive forces,” it cannot change the oppressed situation of the proletariat.