Page 237 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume II

WE CAN DEVELOP A MARKET ECONOMY
UNDER SOCIALISM

November 26, 1979

Gibney: Over a fairly long period of time China has remained closed
off from the United States. For such a country as China, it is really a big
challenge to achieve rapid modernization. It seems that China has to carry
out a new revolution.
Deng Xiaoping: Modernization does represent a great new revolution.
The aim of our revolution is to liberate and expand the productive forces.
Without expanding the productive forces, making our country prosperous
and powerful, and improving the living standards of the people, our
revolution is just empty talk. We oppose the old society and the old system
because they oppressed the people and fettered the productive forces. We are
clear about this problem now. The Gang of Four said it was better to be poor
under socialism than to be rich under capitalism. This is absurd.
Of course, we do not want capitalism, but neither do we want to be poor
under socialism. What we want is socialism in which the productive forces
are developed and the country is prosperous and powerful. We believe that
socialism is superior to capitalism. This superiority should be demonstrated
in that socialism provides more favourable conditions for expanding the
productive forces than capitalism does. This superiority should have become
evident, but owing to our differing understanding of it, the development of
the productive forces has been delayed, especially during the past ten-year
period up to 1976. In the early 1960s, China was behind the developed
countries, but the gap was not as wide as it is now. Over the past 11 or 12
years, from the end of the 1960s through the 1970s, the gap has widened
because other countries have been vigorously developing their economies,
science and technology, with the rate of development no longer being

Excerpt from a talk with Frank B. Gibney, Vice-Chairman of the Compilation
Committee of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. of the United States, Paul T. K. Lin, Director
of the Institute of East Asia at McGill University of Canada, and others.
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