Socialism Is Alive and Well ... in Vietnam

Vietnam is mentioned in the news quite often these days. But the references are almost always in relation to Iraq. What's not being covered is what's going on in Vietnam itself -- which is unfortunate, because economically, politically and socially, it might just be the most interesting and inspiring nation on the planet.

In the interest of full disclosure, my affection for Vietnam goes way back. As an anti-war activist I met with Vietnamese liaisons to the anti-war movement on several occasions. In 1970 I visited Hanoi and was profoundly impressed with the character and resolve of the people, not to mention the beauty of the country itself. Even then, during wartime, the food was terrific, too.

It still is, as I discovered earlier this year when I returned to Vietnam. The people are open, friendly and confident, just as they were before. But now, not only is the war over, Vietnam is the second-fastest-growing economy in the world. (China is first.) The standard of living of millions of people is improving at a rapid pace.

From the remote countryside to the cities, it is fascinating to witness an economy developing so quickly. It's like looking at one of those medical scale models of the human body minus the skin covering. You can see the equivalent of the arteries, the kidneys, the stomach, the liver -- virtually the whole economic circulation system and digestive tract before your very eyes. Building is going on everywhere. I've never seen so many brick factories in my life. Scooter traffic is intense. Internet cafes and appliance stores abound. All of that activity is cheek to jowl with the agricultural production that still dominates the economy. It's changing fast, but 80 percent of the population is still peasants. One reason the energy is so high is because the country is so young. The overwhelming majority is under 25.

Is it utopia? Of course not. People are proud of the gains that are being made in income, education and health. But no one is shy about telling you there are problems. During part of my trip, I attended a "Consequences of the Changing World Economy" seminar. It was cohosted by the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy and the Journal of Nature, Society and Thought, an American Marxist political journal. The scholars of the National Academy spoke quite openly of limitations and problems to be addressed. So did our tour guides, the very well done English language newspaper Viet Nam News, and others.

One Vietnamese speaker at the conference framed the challenge as trying to figure out how to get the good from the "market economy" while avoiding the bad.

Isn't that what we're all trying to figure out?

But the Vietnamese are starting from a quite different place to answer the question. The structure of their economy and their politics -- not to mention their culture -- is decidedly not the same as ours.

What is happening in Vietnam (and in China and Laos, too) is unprecedented in the evolution of economic development of our planet. Never before has a market economy been deliberately introduced into a one-party, state-ruled, socialist economy. This is a significant structural development.

The 20th century taught us to associate mass consumption with capitalism and the absence of personal consumption with socialism. Now things are starting to look different. A twenty-something Vietnamese person with a Nokia cell phone, an iPod and a car looks just like a twenty-something in Chicago with a Nokia cell phone, an iPod and a car. That does not, however, mean they represent exactly the same economic forces at work, or that they have identical values and aspirations. Sometimes a thing that walks like a duck and talks like a duck ain't no duck.

Vietnam did not start its transformation with much capital in the traditional sense of the term. That's why, in 1986, it adopted the Moi Doi policy of opening up to foreign investment in the first place. But accepting foreign investment does not mean that Vietnam has a capitalist class that rules the country. That doesn't mean they don't have "rulers," just that the rulers didn't acquire their power from their private ownership of the means of production.