Commanding heights of the economy
{{short description|Strategically important sectors of the economy}}
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{{Marxism–Leninism sidebar|expanded=concepts}}
In Marxian economics, the commanding heights of the economy are certain strategically important economic sectors. Some examples of industries considered to be part of the commanding heights include public utilities, natural resources, and sectors relating to both foreign trade and domestic trade.
History
This phrase emerged from a branch of modern political philosophy concerned with organising society. According to Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, a Bolshevik economist, control over the commanding heights of the economy would ensure primitive socialist accumulation.{{sfn|Bonner|2013|p=86}} The phrase can be traced back to Vladimir Lenin's defense of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which saw market-oriented reforms while the state retained control of the commanding heights. Lenin used the military metaphor to justify NEP, proposing that free markets could be permitted so as long as the government retained control of certain commanding heights like heavy industry and transport.{{cite book|title=The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China|year=2014|chapter=The commanding heights: The state and higher education in China|first=Rong|last=Wang|page=78|quote='The commanding heights' was first used by Lenin as a defence of his New Economic Policy, which included permitting profitmaking enterprises in some areas of the ...}}
Specific national contexts
= China =
China retains state control over the commanding heights of the economy in key industries like infrastructure, telecommunications, and finance despite significant marketization of the economy since reform and opening up.{{Cite book |last=Heilmann |first=Sebastian |url= |title=Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy-Making Facilitated China's Rise |date=2018 |publisher=The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press |isbn=978-962-996-827-4 |author-link=Sebastian Heilmann}}{{Rp|page=20}} Specific mechanisms implementing its control of the commanding heights in these areas include public property rights, pervasive administrative involvement, and Communist Party supervision of senior managers.{{Rp|page=20}}
Through Jiang Zemin's emphasis on grasping the large, letting go of the small, the China's central government focused on developing a core group of large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in strategically important fields deemed as part of the commanding heights of the economy,{{Cite book |last=Leutert |first=Wendy |title=China's State-Owned Enterprises: Leadership, Reform, and Internationalization |date=2024 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-48654-5 |edition= |series=Business and Public Policy Series |location=Cambridge}}{{Rp|page=53}} while relinquishing control over smaller and unprofitable SOEs.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=David Daokui |author-link=David Daokui Li |title=China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict |date=2024 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393292398 |location=New York, NY |pages=116}}
For an example from socialism with Chinese characteristics, while the Chinese economic reform has generally shifted funding sources for higher education from the government to individual students, the Chinese Communist Party also organized projects like Project 985 and Project 211 to retain government funding and therefore influence over certain elite institutions.{{cite book |last=Wang |first=Rong |title=The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China |year=2014 |page=78 |chapter=The commanding heights: The state and higher education in China}}
= India =
The second of the Five-Year Plans of India, overseen by Jawaharlal Nehru, was an attempt to industrialize India through state control of the commanding heights.{{cite book |last=Tharoor |first=Shashi |title=Nehru: The Invention of India |publisher=Arcade Publishing |year=2011 |page=188}}
New commanding heights
The phrase "commanding heights" often occurs in modern political commentary outside of Marxist connotations.{{Cite book|last=Joseph Stanislaw|first=Daniel Yergin|title=The Commanding Heights|publisher=Free Press|year=1998}}
= Healthcare and education =
In service economies, where the relative importance of industry has decreased, Arnold Kling posited in 2011 that healthcare and education are the new commanding heights. The two sectors are central to employment and consumption, and in the United States are driven primarily by government intervention.{{Cite web|date= 2011-07-05|title= The New Commanding Heights|url= https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/new-commanding-heights|access-date= 2020-08-15|website= Cato Institute|language= en | last1 = Kling | first1 = Arnold | author-link1 = Arnold Kling | quote = The commanding heights of our economy today are not heavy manufacturing, energy, and transportation. They are, rather, education and health care. }} In the ten years preceding 2011, employment in education and healthcare in the United States increased by 16%, despite employment in other sectors decreasing.{{Cite web|date= 2015-08-24|title= Liberating The Economy's New Commanding Heights|url= https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/liberating-economys-new-commanding-heights-3213.html|access-date= 2020-08-15|website= Manhattan Institute|language= en}}
= Internet =
Other commentators have identified digital platforms and the internet as the new commanding heights of the economy.{{Cite news|last= Denyer|first= Simon|date= 2016-07-10|title= The Internet was supposed to foster democracy. China has different ideas|newspaper= The Washington Post|url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-internet-was-supposed-to-foster-democracy-china-has-different-ideas/2016/07/10/42954bbc-1dd9-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html|access-date= 2020-08-15|issn= 0190-8286}}{{Cite web|last= Rajadhyaksha|first= Niranjan|date= 2017-08-29|title= Digital platforms—the new commanding heights?|url= https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/aRpqYCRu2QdGzog8L2cMOM/Digital-platformthe-new-commanding-heights.html|access-date= 2020-08-15|website= Livemint | quote = ... the Indian government has been building a new generation of digital public goods—or platforms that in a way occupy the commanding heights of the digital economy.}}
See also
References
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Bibliography
- {{cite book|author=Bonner, Stephen Eric|title=Socialism Unbound: Principles, Practices, and Prospects|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0231527354|ref=CITEREFBonner2013}}
- {{cite book|author=Wesson, Robert G.|title=Lenin's Legacy: The Story of the CPSU|location=Stanford, Calif|publisher=Hoover Press|year=1978|isbn=978-0817969226|ref=CITEREFWesson1978}}
- {{Cite book|last1=Nove|first1=Alec|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vyX6PH0NYScC|title=An Economic History of the U.S.S.R.|last2=Nove|first2=Alexander|date=1969|page=83-86|publisher=IICA|language=en}}
{{Marxist & Communist phraseology}}