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M: So tell me about Max Weber; who was he, and how did you first learn about him, and what impressed you about him?
L: He’s a German sociologist; that’s why it’s pronounced Vay-ber, rather than Wee-ber, or Weh-ber, or something like that. He was born in around 1856, or something, and he died in 1920. He was probably the greatest German sociologist ever.
M: And that’s based on what, based on what metric, is his greatness.
L: Well, he’s most famous for a book called The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Capitalism; which argued that the rise of capitalism occurred because of belief systems in Protestantism, specifically, Calvinist Protestantism. And not simply because of economic factors. So he was often considered this kind of bourgeois counterpart to Marx. Because Marx argued—Marx was the first, and one of the most brilliant theorists of capitalism, and he came out with his works just before Weber’s rise, in the late nineteenth century. I think he died quite early in the twentieth century, or maybe late nineteenth century. And Marx’s theory was that materialism was the dominant force in history. In other words, that economic factors were the prime cause for the rise of capitalism, and for the rise of the working class and so forth. The working class was the pioneer in a revolution; the working class would arise in a revolution to overthrow capitalism. Because of the way that capitalism evolved, it systematically deprived the working class of the amount of sustenance that they needed to stay alive. It simply immiserized the working class. Eventually they saw that they had a consciousness; a consciousness of their oppression, and they became aware of their oppression and joined together to overthrow the bourgeoisise. Webers’s contribution to that was to say, well, material factors were certainly a factor, but the ideal factors—that means, ideas, even religious factors—were also a factor in the rise of capitalism. So, he did that with the Protestant Ethic, but then he went beyond that, sort of a worldwide tour of various religious ideas, and how they related to economics. He studied religious ideas: Hinduism in India; Buddhism in China and Japan; even ancient Isrealites, the Hebrews, he studied them, too.
M: So, that answer surprises me, because I always thought that he was—I didn’t realize that, I didn’t even know he was a sociologist. Were you still sort of studying sociology mostly at that time. How did he come to influence you as a grad student. Or as an undergrad—when did you come into contact with his writings?
L: Well, he was a sociologist. But he was … But sociology was defined more broadly in those days so that sociology was considered social science. So he also wrote about political things. So he’s included in the political science literature. He also had ideas about methodology; about how you do social science, and about authority and power and things like that that are very relevant to political science.
M: I think it was that methodology part that I was; that’s where I kind of imagined your connecting with him, but I guess I could be wrong—What was your impression of him? What do you think that got you enamored of him, or how did he make an impression on you?
L: Well he came up with these ideas that the ideal in social science should be objectivity, and the value freedom. In other words, freedom from your own values, and trying to simply mirror the values of the people you were studying, instead of trying to adapt these ideas to your own values. So that was very important. And he also came up with the idea of an ideal type. An ideal type is still controversial; it’s a methodological idea that, you just, you have a picture of a phenomenon, like capitalism, or socialism. And you just draw an ideal type, that’s not exactly the way any capitalist system is, or any socialist system is, but it’s a general sort of model of what it is. It’s a very controversial idea, because it’s not clear whether it’s a normative model, or it’s an empirical model.
M: Technical glitch, edited out, interviewer asks for an elaboration on Weber’s methodological insights.
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L: Yeah, ideal types, was one of them. You build a model of a general system, like bureaucracy. And that that could be helpful in trying to study a specific bureaucracy in say, Iran, or Russia or some place else. Another very very key idea, or concept, that he had, was the conceptualization of power. He said that power, in political systems, equals power plus legitimacy, and that makes authority. Power is simply the ability to say, you do this, and somebody will do it. And legitimacy means, you have a reason for, that they do it! They have a reason to do it. Both you, and the person you’re ordering around, share a certain idea, that they believe in—and that’s the reason that they’ll do it. So it’s legitimate. So you have to have legitimacy plus power, and that equals authority.
M: Okay. Yeah that—That seems like … That makes sense. So that was … The ideal types, the formulation for power, and … Was there something about objectivity? Because you, I always felt like, one of your most cherished values is just that like, you’re gonna tell, you’re an objective storyteller.
L: Yeah, he wanted to be scientific, so he wanted to be—he thought social science should be objective, and value free. Which is ironic, because he also investigated values, for example, the values of the Protestant Ethic. So he said you can investigate values, but you had to be objective in investigating them. You just have to write what they are, rather than projecting your own values into the subject matter.
M: So, he was … somebody who was probably assigned reading in a few of your classes, a few of your political science classes. And you just got the sense, as you’re reading him, that this guy—Did you end up reading his work as a primary text? Or I would imagine—or excerpts at first, like your teacher would assign some excerpts …
L: I did read them, as part of the—primary text, yeah.
M: The other thing I just noticed, as you were answering, that he had this relationship with Marx. Not relationship, as in people who knew each other; but relationship, in terms of like, him and Marx are from about the same time period, and they have different things to say about similar subject matter. It seems like Marx—well, go ahead.
L: He thought that Marx and Nietzsche were the most important thinkers of his generation.
M: Well, and it seems like—And that seems to bear out today; there’s still a lot of people to whom Marx and Nietzsche are very important. But, yeah … It soundss like he made more of an impression on you; Weber, more so than Marx and Nietzsche? What do you think of Marx and Nietzsche?
L: Well, Marx of course, is the first real theorist of capitalism, and the rise of the West. Which spread … the West became dominant throughout the world in the late 19th, early twentieth century. Because they innovate—they started capitalism, which increased the productivity of human beings immensely, and made Western Europe the dominant power in the world. So he, he was the first to explore the underlying dynamics of capitalism, Marx was. And he did it not only in England, and the European continent; he studied in France and Germany of course, he was a German so he studied there first, and then he went to France, and then to England, but he also studied the dynamics of capitalism in India. So he was a very, very great pioneer in social science.
M: He was so much more of a; he was much more of a critic of capitalism, right? Certainly that’s how I think of him today.
L: Yeah he was. But he tried to analyze its dynamics as well as—He tried to analyze from both a normative and from an empirical perspective.
M: Okay. Whereas Weber was more from an empirical perspective and less from a normative perspective?
L: Well, he also tried to analyze from both empirical and normative perspective. But he tried to take the normative dynamics of capitalism more into account, than Marx did. Marx thought that the normative dimension was simply manufactured by the bourgeoisie for their own interests. And Weber would attribute greater, probably greater sincerity to the people who were thinking about these ideas, rather than just, simply using ‘em to advance their own interests.
M: Oh, so in that sense, Marx’s view was kind of this rebellious view, against the establish—it’s very anti-establishment in a way that’s … Maybe that’s why it echoes so much in the culture today. So … do you have a sense of a certain point, like, … Would you call Weber a big influence on you? What was his impact on you personally?
L: Oh, yeah, very much.
M: Why do you think so? What was your big takeaway going into your career?
L: He had a keen mind, and he was able to order his ideas into very clear concepts, like the concept of bureaucracy, which was one of these ideal types that he built to analyze bureaucracies in different places. Or the concept of authority or legitimacy, and so forth. He was very clear, and got at really the fundamentals of how society works, I think. Modern society.
M: Okay, so … I guess maybe we can come back to Weber. Let’s move over to, so then you, ‘cause you’re studying political science, and then your area becomes China. So how did the communists end up taking power in China? How did that happen?
L: Well it took about half a century. They, the first successful revolution in China was not until 1911. They overthrew the Czarist dynasty, which had been in existence for over 4,000 years. Not continuously, but they had various dynasties, one dynasty after another, one ruling house after another. And they had various long periods in which there was great chaos in China, in which no single ruling house was in charge, and they were fighting each other. Finally, that whole era of ruling kingdoms, ruling empires, came to an end in 1911 with the revolution, called the Xinhai Revolution, started in Wuhan. And overthrew the dynasty, and after a period of almost 50 years of turmoil in China, the Chinese Communist Party managed to defeat their enemies; drive them to Taiwan, and install their revolutionary regime in Beijing in 1949. So it took almost 50 years.
M: Yeah, it’s interesting. I hadn’t realized that the warring kingdoms were so much, like—I guess in Russia, I have more of a sense of the communists replacing this one empire. But I guess in China, it’s more like—
L: Well, they replaced one empire, too, but it was not the only empire that had existed. What I’m trying to say is that, there were different dynasties, which is this string of emperors. The Qing dynasty came into power in the 18th century; the Qing, that was the last dynasty, and that was overthrown in 1911. There were earlier dynasties. Before the Qing was the Ming, and so forth. So it goes way back 4,000 years. This feudal, or this, monarchical system.
M: Which, I suppose, is a capitalist system.
L: Well, they call it a feudal system. Because, they didn’t really have capitalism until the twentieth century. I mean they started in the late nineteenth century; but they didn’t really have a full-fledged capitalist system until the twentieth century, early twentieth century.
M: So China’s never really done much capitalism; like, because Marx, Marx was writing for Europe, where capitalism was more the norm. But it never really—China didn’t have that Industrial Revolution yet, or they didn’t—
L: They didn’t have an indigenous capitalist system, that’s right. Until the Westerners imposed it—came in, and with imperialism, sort of defeated the imperial rulers. The Opium War and so forth. They demonstrated to them that they had to develop capitalism or they’d be run over, they’d be rolled over by the West.
M: So perhaps that was like a … a whadyacallit, a infant capitalism that was brewing, maybe, with the death of the Qing dynasty, but it hadn’t gotten far.
L: Well we wouldn’t call it capitalism, ‘cause capitalism is a specific type of economic system in which you have: owners of the means of production, you have a proletariat, a working class, and you have machinery, you have capital. And they didn’t have all of that. They had more or less an agricultural system. With crafts, of course, and things like that, as well. But they didn’t really have all this machinery, and they didn’t have this whole apparatus of capitalism, until the West came and sort of demonstrated its superiority through the force of arms, defeating them in the Opium War and other colonial wars. So they decided that they had to adapt.
M: But they didn’t get very far.
L: Took ‘em a long time to be able to adapt, but they started immediately in the twentieth century, I think.
M: They were in the process of adapting when the communists took over.
L: In the process of being run over, too.
M: Was Adam Smith—he was a British guy, right? Did he write before the Industrial Revolution? He must not have, because—
L: During it. During the English Industrial Revolution. He was probably the pioneer of the analysis of capitalism. I don’t think—I don’t know if he ever used the term ‘capitalism,’ but he certainly analyzed it. And his idea of, that you can have trade among the different people, and that both sides can win; and that the whole thing can work without an authority supervising it strictly. In other words, you have trade and, mutual exchange that can benefit both sides. So they called it the invisible hand; the whole thing can work without people telling you what to do; without … Now, he sort of—everybody agrees that’s not the way things actually are. You still have authority, you have power. People having political power over other people. But the idea was that the economic market can be an autonomous thing; it can run by itself with this invisible hand. Everybody benefits.
M: Got it, yeah. Yeah … So … Okay so …
L: He was in the eighteenth century.
M: So then, my next question was: Do the, did the Chinese—What do you think the Marxist critique of China would be? Did the Chinese really do Marxism? Or not so—did they fail to do all the things that Marx would—Would Marx have liked the Chinese regime? Is that what he envisioned?
L: Well that’s a very good question; and it’s very controversial, of course. Because the Chinese insist very adamantly that they are socialist, that they are a Marxist society. And that they are probably the leading Marxist society today; I mean, since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is no longer Marxist. Putin doesn’t claim to be Marxist. So the Chinese insist that they are the leading, probably the leading socialist society today, and they are very very Marxist. But outside observers would question that. Because there’s a great deal of inequality in China. That’s one of the factors. And the political system is not—they call it a dictatorship of the proletariat, or a dictatorship of the working class. But, whether the working class actually runs affairs in China is very questionable. It’s actually the Communist Party; the Communist Party that considers itself the vanguard; we’re the leaders of the proletariat, so we run things for the proletariat in the name of the proletariat, the working class, that is. So … those are two key questions that you’d want to ask; who actually runs things, and who actually benefits, and so forth. Second is, why isn’t there greater equality between—since it’s a working class society, and everybody should be equal, why isn’t there greater equality?
M: Yeah. That also reminds me of what you were saying about—Weber came up with these ideas of power, and Marx has these ideas about power also. Do you have like—Do you think—How are these two ideas of power differ? What do you think the Weberian—
L: Well, Marx joined the Communist Party, and he was a leader in the Communist Party. And so he thought that the Communist Party should play, definitely, a leadership role. But he also believed that capitalism was inherently unequal, and that it would eventually be overcome, and overturned, by a proletarian revolution. A revolution of the working class that would distribute things more equally, and turn the power over from the bourgeoisise, the ownership class, over to the working class. You could argue that that happened in the revolution; it was turned over to the working class, but then the Communist Party took charge of the working class. And told the working class what was in their best interest.
M: And what do you think Weber say about that? Like, what’s his dynamic of power?
L: Well, he’d say that the working class took over, and set up a bureaucracy to run things. Bureaucracy under the Communist Party; and that it was basically a dictatorship under the Communist Party.
M: So, in a way, it sounds like Marx is kind of a lonely voice—
L: No, no, he had a party behind him.
M: Well, that’s for sure, yeah.
L: The strongest party at the time was not the Bolsheviks. The strongest party at the time was the German Social Democratic Party, which was a Marxist party in the nineteenth century.
M: Yeah. Yeah. … So I guess, yeah. It’s hard to get a sense of these characters in history, and what their viewpoints are. But maybe—I guess what I’m thinking … When I said, maybe Marx was a lonely voice, it was like: His outline of a utopia … is almost, like—Amongst other scientific peers, like Weber, maybe, his idea of a utopia … a scientific peer would be skeptical. Well, it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening. In these communist societies, it doesn’t seem like the power is going to the people, the way you said it would.
L: Well, during Marx’s life, a Communist Party had never taken over in any country. So it was an open-ended experiment, still.
M: Right. Right. Okay, let me segue … over to, again, pushing down the road into the history. I’m not sure if this is—I know a little bit about this, but I haven’t read it in a while, could you tell us; Who was Liu Shaoqi, and how did he attract your interest?
L: Well, he was a Chinese Communist. And one of the earliest small group of Chinese Communists who … led in the revolution, the Chinese Communist revolution. And he was born, I think around the late nineteenth century; he studied in Russia for a while, and then he came back to China, and led in the revolution all through the twentieth century. And finally became Vice Chair of the Chinese Communist Party in … 1949. I’m not sure, I’ll have to check that. But when they won the revolution, he became Vice Chair of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Tse-tung. And eventually became chairman of the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1950s. And he believed in a slightly different type of Chinese Communist Revolution than Mao. He believed more like Marx, a materialist, rather than an idealist. And Mao was more of an idealist. In Mao’s idea, the idea of Communism should take prevalence; should be dominant in how Communism is shaped. But Liu Shaoqi was more of a materialist, and he believed that the material factors of production, and relations of production and so forth should be very important in deciding how the revolution should proceed after they’d taken power, after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. So that led up to this great split that cluminated in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976 in China.
M: I was gonna ask, how bad was the Cultural Revolution?
L: Well, it was a mixed thing. It wasn’t entirely bad. It was … Mao called on the youth of China, to overthrow the party. And the party didn’t dare defend themselves, because he was the head of the party as well. So he was gonna purge the party by mobilizing the youth against the Party. Which is a very bold and reckless experiment, and it caused great chaos in China for about ten years. It was very confusing, because he was encouraging the youth to attack the party members. He said that there were bourgeoisie within the party; and he wanted to purge them, to kick them out. So he called on the youth to attack the party.
M: So, the way I’m tempted to look at that, is to just dismiss Mao as this corrupt individual who is getting people, getting his underlings, his competition knocked out by turning people against each other and causing all this chaos, but allowing himself to stay on top. Is that actually a conventional view, or is that a sort of simplistic view?
L: Well if you talk to Chinese Communists, or the Chinese historians, they would say that his great contribution was to lead the revolution itself. Because he was a great tactician, a great strategist. He was lucky, because they had the Japanese come and invade China; that probably prevented the Nationalists from crushing the Chinese Communists, which they could have done in the 1930s, if the Japanese hadn’t been there, invading and distracting the Nationalist party from its crusade against the communists.
M: So, he was, so like, he was kind of playing a George Washington kind of role. He was a general, and then he became president.
L: He drove the Nationalists out of China into Taiwan.
M: Yeah, that seems, that seems—But, are there still a lot of defenders for his conduct during the Great Leap Forward, and all that?
L: Well, people thought that the Great Leap Forward was a failure. Or caused too much deaths, too many deaths, people starving to death. It was economically misconceived. He ran the Great Leap Forward based on his ideas, without having a clear idea of how the economics should work, and so it resulted in great starvation and great economic setback for China. And then after that, he decided that the reason for the failure of the Great Leap Forward was not because it was ill-conceived, but because the ideas of the revolution had not yet permeated the people. And so they were confused, and so he had to have a cultural revolution. Not a material revolution, but a cultural revolution, to change people’s ideas. So that was the idea of the Cultural Revolution; to change people’s thinking. And that that would be the answer to the progress, the further progress—But, the Cultural Revolution, by general sort of admission today, even in China, did not succeed in changing people’s ideas. It changed them maybe for that ten years, when it was going on. But then after it was over, it didn’t really improve the economy. So people were not better off. So people didn’t really have an incentive to embrace this, these advanced ideas that he was trying to propagate. And so, after Mao died, you had the rise of Deng Xiaoping. And his ideas were to return more to the material aspect of things, like Liu Shaoqi did. So he and Liu Shaoqi were very much a pair; I mean that they had similar ideas, about you have to have the economy working. You had to have a high growth rate and things like that. You had to have everything working, to be able to realize these great ideas that Mao had put down.
M: And they were cohorts, too. They worked together, right? Like, they were friends or colleagues: Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi.
L: And they both believed in this different approach to the revolution, right.
M: But Deng Xiaoping kind of survived better; he had a better outcome.
L: He stayed alive, right. And Liu Shaoqi died.
M: And died, somewhat in disgrace?
L: Oh yes, in disgrace, yeah.
M: And that was kind of—was it that tragic outcome that kind of attracted you? It was like, somebody should tell this guy’s story?
L: He was the leading victim of the Cultural Revolution.
M: So in a way, your first two books are about the Cultural Revolution. Because, the second one is the Continuous Revolution, but the first one is about Liu Shaoqi, but a book about Liu Shaoqi is about the Cultural Revolution.
L: It’s called Liu Shao Qi and the Cultural Revolution.
M: Oh. it is! I forgot that was the case. I thought I was making a new insight, but apparently that was not—it was already in the title, okay. … So, this is kind of asking the same question in a different way, but: Do you think that Mao Tse-tung was evil? Was he, was he — throughout his life? Or maybe just during the Cultural Revolution, do you think his actions were evil? I’m also curious, you said he clearly was a more successful, kind of a heroic figure, during the communists taking over China, and leading, you know, expelling their enemies to Taiwan; it doesn’t seem like there’s any reason to consider him evil in that case. But yet, maybe he was. Maybe he’s that kind of pwoerful person that takes center stage, or whatever; and then he’s just clearing out—So one possibility is, here was this guy who climbs to power, and that starts really going after all these, anybody close to him. Another possibility is that, he’s a good guy, but then power corrupts. And he starts becoming, acting in these evil, or so-called evil ways, as the leader of the country. And the third possibility is, that’s not a good way to view it. Maybe he’s a good-intentioned guy who j, ust, it didn’t work out what he was trying to do.
L: Well, you have these giant figures like Hitler, Mao, or Stalin. They don’t try to do evil, but they have definite ideas about how the world should be changed. So they want to lead in change, and they’re quite ruthless; quite often, they’re quite ruthless in doing anything necessary, without, unconditionally, to achieve this change. I mean, Hitler was determined to start a war, to restore Germany’s territories and power and so forth, and he was willing to kill a lot of people to do that. And Mao was willing to lead the country into quite difficult economic situation, because he was determined to create a socialist society. And so he; they were not intentionally evil, but they were very determined to push their ideas through, regardless of human resistance, and at great cost.
M: So you see it as more, a failure, more than a … more than a … I guess it’s a tragedy, too, the people dying. But that’s more like—every period in history has all those types of death.
L: Yeah, but, he certainly caused a lot of him. Twenty, thirty million people probably starved to death in the Great Leap Forward.
M: And that’s before the Cultural Revolution.
L: That’s before, in the late 1950s, early 1960s.
M: And that’s just trying to make this communism thing work. He was just pushing, he was just pushing this communist regime in the Great Leap Forward. Like he hadn’t started—
L: Right. He was trying to achieve communism in a great leap; in a great leap forward. He was going to achieve communism; leap over socialism … see they distinguished between socialism and communism. Socialism is from each according to his ability to each according to his contribution. And communism is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. So more advanced, and more egalitarian type of system. And he was going to achieve this in one great leap. That was motivated partly by his ideals; and partly by his desire to get ahead of the Soviet Union, with which he was having a lot of ideological disputes at that time about the best way to do this. So he came up with this idea of a Cultural Revolution. Transform people’s thinking. But it confused people and it set them against each other and so forth. And it created quite a chaotic system that didn’t really work economically.
M: Do you think it’s wrong-headed to call politicians evil? Do you believe in evil?
L: They can certainly cause a lot of damage; they can certainly kill a lot of people. You can say that they didn’t—But, I don’t think it’s … I think it can be confusing to talk about evil. Because, they think that they’re doing right, they have a bunch of followers, that they think—that they follow them, and to do that …. So you want to know why they do what they do. To just call them evil … I mean, for example, Mao. Mao’s reasons for launching the Cultural Revolution were by no means pure. It was not simply to realize this ideal. It was also to get rid of his enemies.
M: Yup. That’s where my thought of evil comes in, I think. But, so those are mixed motives; so in a way, it’s unscientific … Evil’s not a very scientific term; or it’s not very helpful in a scientific approach.
L: Well, you can say it in a broad sense. Yeah, I certainly agree that his general impact was quite destructive, quite destructive.
M: Okay, this is a odd—sorry, did you want to say something else there? Okay .. this next question is … about how China is just … it seems like, my question is, did China always feel exotic to you? In a way that Europe doesn’t?
L: Yeah, for centuries they were cut off from Europe. And there was very little interchange. You had Marco Polo come, and you had the … the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols, which were sort of a Chinese, I mean a cynic race, I think, the Mongols, come and invade parts of Europe. But you had very little interaction between these great civilizations; the Chinese civilization over there, and the Western European civilization.
M; Right, so … So, little interaction, they’re isolated from us. Do you think they’re—And their language is very different, right? It’s a difficult language to learn?
L: Oh yeah. It’s based on ideographs, figures, rather than an alphabet; there’s no alphabet.
M: Do you think that will make them always different from us? Like we’re, we’re having this moment of globalism. But because they’re exotic historically, and their language is different, do you think it’s unlikely we’ll ever be, you know—
L: Well they’re globalizing; it means that they’re integrating into the world economy, and the world social system, and so forth. And a lot of Chinese are eager to do that, despite the fact that Xi Jin Ping has a lot of misgivings about modern capitalism. And he doesn’t want China to be capitalist. He’s fighting that, he’s fighting that. So they have these two contradictory urges. One is to be modern, modern, which means basically being capitalistic. And the other is to uphold a socialist system. That their different type of system from the West. And to compete with it, and to overcome it.
M: So, and I guess—Do you think that your work, learning Chinese as you did, and having conversations about their political system, does it help—Is that part of helping bring the cultures together, like help Chinese people understand Americans, or you help Americans understand Chinse people a little bit?
L: Well, not many of my books have been translated into Chinese; I think only one book has been translated into Chinese. So I haven’t had an impact on the—
M: Which one?
L: The Liu Shaoqi book. It wasn’t completely translated either; there were certain parts that were left out because they were considered dangerous, I guess. But, so it doesn’t have much impact on China, I don’t think. But I think … maybe in America, a very very tiny impact on how we think about China.
M: Well, I mean, I’m sure just by interacting with a lot of—I imagine that you would have the most impact on China, when you show up there, and talk to them. You know, then they see, oh there’s an America. It does some good will; it’s like a goodwill ambassador, a little bit.
L: Well, that would be nice.
M: And what was it like speaking Chinese to Chinese people? Did that change your perspective on the challenges that that country faces?
L: Well, they were very good audiences. They didn’t always agree with me, but they always listened very keenly when I lectured over there.
M: What about, you like watching movies. Do Chinese movies, do you have an overall impression of Chinese movies? And
L: Well they had their great flowering, I think, in the 1900s; 1970s and 80s after the Cultural Revolution. There was a cultural thaw after the Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976. So in the 1980s and 1990s, I would say, and the early 2000s, there was a great flowering of interest in Chinese culture; and there was great creativity, and a movie industry was born, and had some really excellent movies on China.
M: Did they teach you anything about the Chinese people? Would you say, from your movies, that changed your view of the Chinese?
L: Well, it gives you insight. Like when you watch a movie about anything, it’s a distortion because it’s artistic refashioning of events that may have occurred, or similar to events that may have occurred. But yeah, it can sort of give you a sense of the spirit of the people at that time. And the problems that they faced, and so forth.
M: Yeah. I guess, I’m—I don’t know a lot of these Chinese movies. I know that … I’m imagining—I know that the Hong Kong—Jackie Chan comes from this Hong Kong action scene, right? Like there’s a—
L: Well, Hong Kong movies are a different track. ‘Cause they’ve always been in the colonial, or the Western sphere, so they have a different type of tradition. Their movies are—They have a huge movie industry in Hong Kong. But they put more emphasis on entertainment and less on education. The Chinese communists have always tried to try to guide the movie industry, so that it guides people in the direction, so that they embrace socialism and so forth. And so it’s been a somewhat different track.
M: Yeah. It’s interesting also, the … I guess the conservative wing of the United States government has always sort of represented people who are kind of anti-communist, would you say? I don’t know; it’s weird having these … you have, you studying China, you have a certain view on Communism. But meanwhile, here on America, there’s people going back and forth, pushing and pulling, on the value of socialism, and whether it works, and stuff like that, right?
L: Well, in the 1990s, after the Tiananmen incident in 1989, and before that, in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a period of detente, what they called detente, or loosening. The idea was that we would support China against the Soviet Union. So that motivated us to give a lot of support, both technical support, and economic support to China, to fight against the Soviet Union, which we considered our main enemy at that time. So that was when, up until about, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, that held the relationship together. Then after 1991, suddenly, China started adopting the market. That provided a lot of opportunity for a lot of American capitalists to move into China, and to make a lot of money into China. And they put pressure on the American politicians; and so they encouraged this combination of American capitalism, seeing an opportunity, and politicians wanting to create a good relationship with China, sort of created a period of thaw, or detente, between China and the United States, that lasted till about, oh I would say till about 2010.
M: Oh, at which point .. relations kind of started
L: Started falling apart, yeah.
M: Was there a twentieth century dream to democratize China, and do we still have hopes like that?
L: Oh yeah, definitely there’s that dream, and that’s the way people sort of rationalize their friendship, or their doing business in China. That, if they do business in China, it’ll lead China to be more capitalistic, and if they become more capitalistic, eventually they become more democratic as well. So that was the sort of, the sort of animating idea behind this opening with China, this thaw with China.
M: What is, what is the status of women’s rights in China? Or feminism in China?
L: Well on the one hand, you could say that in terms of employment, you have an even higher percentage of women in China that are employed full-time than they are in the United States. So, in terms of equal rights, they have equal right of employment. They’re not paid as much, I think still, they’re not paid as much as men. But they do get employed, and they have a full labor market for women and so forth. But in terms of political rise, and a lot of economic—a lot of women have achieved a great deal economically, they’ve become rich. Not a lot of women, but some women have (been) outstandingly successful in becoming rich in the private market sector. But in politics they don’t have any high seats in the leadership.
M: Why do you think that is?
L: I don’t know. They … But the Chinese Communist Party is largely led by men; and this is especially true under Xi Jin Ping.
M: Yeah … You know, it’s not like … In America, I guess Christianity is sort of a cultural influence, but it’s not so much in China.
L: Oh no. Christianity is definitely not supported by the communist party .It’s a rival idea system.
M: So religion is still, pretty much on mute over there. They don’t, no religions are really develop—I know they had the Falun Gong thing for a little bit.
L: They think religion is the opium of the masses, as Marx put it. Superstition!
M: Yeah. Huh.
L: They’re materialists.
M: That’s one area where Marx would approve of their, the way they’ve developed as a society.
L: Yeah. He probably wouldn’t approve of their personality cult. You know, putting one leader on a pedestal, as a sort of person who could do no wrong. In almost a religious way. He probably would have some difficulty with that. But he certainly would agree that religion has no valid place in how a society should be run. It’s purely fantasy.
M: Did your perspective on politics change after you got married and have a family? Were you ever able to … did it cause you to be able to bond with colleagues about family? Or people that you were writing about, did you end up writing about them in terms of their families?
L: Certainly you bond with your friends and so forth when they have families. It’s social, and it’s entertainment. But my ideas about politics didn’t really change. No.
M: What are your big observations about American politics? Is America in decline? Are you worried about the environment?
L: Well, everybody’s worried about the environment. And everybody’s concerned that the environment’s going to create increasing difficulties for us in the weather systems and so forth. We have to worry about the environment. The trick is to try to improve the environment, and to stop pollution and things like this, at the same time you keep the economy running. So that’s the trick. Not let the environmental concerns completely drown out your economic … the economic necessity to keep the economy running at a healthy pace, so that people can make a living.
M: And what about the … how things are going in America more generally. Any thoughts? How you think things are going.
L: Well we’re in a period of great confusion, but then the Americans have always been in a period of great confusion.
M: Yeah, that’s been—from the perspective of visiting other countries, when you talk to people over there, they always sort of see America as—
L: America’s a unique country. It’s a settler country, ‘cause only the Indian, the indigenous Americans, or what we call the Indians—they’re the only people who lived here originally. And they play a very negligible role in the contemporary American political and social and economic system. So it’s all these settlers who come in from all over the world and fight with each other over various things.
M: Hmm. Yup. So it’s going—It seems like, there’s always some fighting and some chaos, but it’s managed, maybe —without the violence of a Cultural REvolution.
L: Well, we have violent episodes. I mean, we certainly didn’t treat the Indians very well. And we made war on the Mexicans, and the Spaniards—the Spanish-American war, and so forth. So,
M: We had a Civil War
L: Well, the Civil War, we made war on each other.
M: Right. So we have our violence as well. So, I’m stealing this from this other podcast I watch, but he always asks people, if you have any books; he often asks his guests to choose three books that they might recommend; like any books that influenced you: like, could be novels, or it could be books by colleagues; books when you read growing up that were formative for you, as you were, you know … in your career.
L: Yeah, but they’re not really relevant to my career.
M: Yeah, perfect. The less relevant to your career the better, probably.
L: I really liked Stendahl’s The Red and the Black.
M: What’s that about.
L: It’s about a young man, Julien Sorel, and how he has to decide between a career in the church, and a career in the … a social career. And .. I also very much liked Kafka’s short stories; that had a huge impact on me. Just in terms of imaginative literature.
M: Not just The Metamorphosis, but all the other ones, too?
L: Right, right. And the third one, I guess—I don’t know! I can’t think of a third one off-hand.
M: Well, three’s a random number. There’s no reason it should be three. What did you think about Covid?
L: Well it was a deadly pandemic. It was the biggest pandemic we’ve had since the early twentieth century. The flu pandemic at that time killed millions of people; and then this was the second biggest pandemic that we’ve had; it killed millions of people. So, very devastating.
M: And, any impact? Do you see it having had an impact on—has your world changed since Covid, or has our culture changed because of it?
L: Well, everyone’s become more conscious of the dangers of catching something; the communicability of disease. And many countries, people still wear a mask because of that danger; the risk of the spread of disease. And we still haven’t conquered Covid; I mean it’s still going around; there are still people catching Covid today. There are new starins all the time; so we really haven’t overcome it. And we have to prepare for the next pandemic as well. Which everybody agrees will probably happen. So it’s been a huge fill-up or encouragement to the pharmaceutical industry, and biological research. So, at least it’s done that; it’s really helped incentivize the people to strengthen the biological research forward.
M: Umm, the last thing this podcast, I call it Screenaholics. Have you given any thought to the issue of screen addiction? What do you think about screen addiction?
L: It’s a bad thing.
M: Have you noticed it?
L: Yeah, we read everything on the screen. Print media’s going out of fashion. People send things on the screen, and they don’t bother to print it out. You’re supposed to print it out yourself, and so forth. And so you spend all your time in front of the screen; it’s probably not too good for your eyes, either.
M: Well, the other—Also, stealing from another podcast, but he often likes to ask at the end, What is the meaning of life?
L: Well, in our society, you have to create your own meaning. In China, you don’t. They set down your meaning for you. If they can, you can rebel against it. But it’s difficult. But they put a clear path before you, and say you should follow this path. And other societies, traditional societies, they also do that; they have a sort of tradition-based path for a young person, that you should follow. But our society leaves it completely open, so you have to create your own meaning. Unless you belong to a church or something that will create it for you.
M: Well, I think that’s actually … I think that’s pretty interesting—cool how that circles back … That’s intersting, how—You were talking about how they’ll choose your career for you, right? Like, they’ll do a civil service exam for you, and they’ll say, this is your job.
L: I didn’t take a civil service exam …
M: No, in China. In China. They would, that’s what happens. For Chinese people, they’ll … ‘cause you said in China, they decide your meaning for you. Do you mean they’ll decide your career—
L: No, I mean in the sense that they should strengthen the state and strengthen China. So it’s nationalism and socialism that creates the meaning; and you should live within that context: nationalism and socialism. Nationalism strengthening China, and socialism building the social system.
M: I guess that really answers a lot of the questions I have about education. In America, we have a lot of; you know, we have this separation of church and state, and they don’t have that in China, but they just don’t have church. So it’s just state, state, state, without question.
L: They have party. They have the Chinese Communist Party.
M: And so that’s part of education; teaching people to be loyal to the party. But here, we don’t have that.
L: Right, we have what they call a pluralist system. Different authority structures that compete for your alliegance.
M: And the idea, I guess, that’s a very capitalist idea—that competition leads to improvement.
L: Yeah, yeah.
M: What do you think about that? I guess capitalism has its track record as an economic system. But it can be a system of ideas, also?
L: Definitely. Right, Jon Stuart Mill wrote about that, about the ideas, and the market of ideas. The market of ideas; his idea was that the best idea would emerge from this competition of ideas in the free market of ideas. But I’m not sure that’s always true, because the guy with the loudest voice may not necessarily have the best ideas. That was Jon Stuart Mill’s idea.
M: Well, maybe that’s one last thing I could ask. What do you think Weber’s relevance is today, or what do you think he would say if he were here today. What do you think his impressions would be on our social situation, or the way sociology is going, the way it’s being studied, those kind of things.
L: Well, he had a—generally speaking, he had a rather pessimistic view of capitalism. He thought it was an iron cage, ‘cause he thought bureaucracies were the dominant sort of organizational form. And bureaucracies are a very hierarchical organization. So he saw bureaucracies dominating in the government, and in private-sector corporations, and so forth. I don’t know what he’d say today, because … you still have that. You have bureaucracies playing a very important role in the government; a huge bureaucracy in the United States at Washington, D.C. But also, you have huge corporations like Google, and General Motors, and all these huge corporations. So, he generally was a liberal, and so he didn’t really like that. He would probably be concerned about that.
M: Yeah, that’s even … it’s interesting to think of … I have a hard time not thinking about all politics as this political spectrum from left to right; and everything is on a spectrum from left to right. And then when we’re talking about China and theU.S., I think of—well, China’s on the left … or Communism’s the left, and capitalism’s the right, or something like that. But I know it’s not that simple, right? Certain issues … somebody falls left in one place and right in another, so … It’s a fascinating conversation, especially hearing about Marx, and Weber, and their contributions to it.
L: Well, some people thought of it more as a circle. So communism, for example, which is on the left; and fascism, which is on the far right, were actually pretty close together in some ways. They had very, very totalitarian structures, trying to tell everybody exactly what they should do, and so forth. It’s not completely true, because there are differences between the two, but there is some sense that they’re both totalitarian systems.
M: That was a question I wrote down, but I didn’t end up asking it, was, but it was whether you thought communism and totalitarianism were bound to be linked, you know?
L: I think communism under Xi Jin Ping has certainly become much more totalitarian, yeah. They tell people exactly what sort of clothes are appropriate to wear; what sort of language to use. That’s very very fine-tuned control over everybody; that’s what they are aiming for. And they have a huge pervasive surveillance system, electronic surveillance system, to make sure that they do, do that. They can’t completely control everything, but they would like to think … That would be what they would like to have.
M: And I guess that’s sort of—it’s interesting, when you add a different term to it, like fascism, … that brings a different picture to whether it’s a spectrum that’s a line or a circle. Yeah, that’s .. definitely intersting stuff. Well, dad thanks a lot for sitting down with me; it’s a great pleasure to hear you talk about this stuff. And I wish … I know there’s a lot more that we could talk about, but I’m pretty sure mom wants us to go upstairs for dinner here soon. But I think you’ve done a lot of great work; like I said, helping Americans and Chinese people understand each other, and a lot of important reflections on politics; so thanks for all the work you did, in your field.
L: My pleasure.