Commanding heights of the economy
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.
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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.[1] 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.[2]
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.[3]: 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.[3]: 20
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.[4]
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.[5]
New commanding heights
The phrase "commanding heights" often occurs in modern political commentary outside of Marxist connotations.[6]
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.[7] In the ten years preceding 2011, employment in education and healthcare in the United States increased by 16%, despite employment in other sectors decreasing.[8]
References
- Bonner 2013, p. 86.
- Wang, Rong (2014). "The commanding heights: The state and higher education in China". The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China. p. 78.
'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 ...
- Heilmann, Sebastian (2018). Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy-Making Facilitated China’s Rise. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN 978-962-996-827-4.
- Wang, Rong (2014). "The commanding heights: The state and higher education in China". The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China. p. 78.
- Tharoor, Shashi (2011). Nehru: The Invention of India. Arcade Publishing. p. 188.
- Joseph Stanislaw, Daniel Yergin (1998). The Commanding Heights. Free Press.
- Kling, Arnold (5 July 2011). "The New Commanding Heights". Cato Institute. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
The commanding heights of our economy today are not heavy manufacturing, energy, and transportation. They are, rather, education and health care.
- "Liberating The Economy's New Commanding Heights". Manhattan Institute. 24 August 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
- Denyer, Simon (10 July 2016). "The Internet was supposed to foster democracy. China has different ideas". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
- Rajadhyaksha, Niranjan (29 August 2017). "Digital platforms—the new commanding heights?". Livemint. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
... 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.
Bibliography
- Bonner, Stephen Eric (2013). Socialism Unbound: Principles, Practices, and Prospects. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231527354.
- Wesson, Robert G. (1978). Lenin's Legacy: The Story of the CPSU. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0817969226.
- Nove, Alec; Nove, Alexander (1969). An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. IICA. p. 83-86.