Having reached the age of reason during the first term of the Ronald Reagan presidency (1981-85), I distinctly recall two lessons from that period that were initially formative in my worldview, despite what appears in hindsight to be a fundamental contradiction. Both came from my father directly and were reinforced in various ways by other social and political forces then culturally hegemonic in that Cold War milieu.

First, his frequent repetition of the axiomatic expression, "One doesn't plan to fail, one fails to plan." And second, he was wont, after dinner, to read aloud from whatever book had caught his fancy, in this case, Milton Friedman's screed, Free to Choose (1979). The book praised free-market principles, lambasted government intervention in the economy and inspired Reagan's famous quip, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

It might be said that this sentiment still rings true in the White House today, given the Donald Trump administration's decimation of the U.S. government and the ongoing standoff with Congress over funding, which has left federal workers furloughed and without pay, many increasingly seeking assistance from food banks to feed their families, while American citizens go without public services.

The U.S. has indeed been in long cycles of decline since the 1970s at least, so it's not surprising that it finds itself returning in various ways to discourses and practices that are not merely symptoms of a system in crisis, but a system that normalizes cyclical crises to discipline the working class and perpetuate political control by economic elites. But whatever the underlying cause, the political consequences are clear, as are their criticisms of others. As a school kid, we were taught not only the foolishness of government and government planning in the U.S., we were taught to demonize the same wherever it was practiced in the world, above all in socialist countries.

"One doesn't plan to fail, one fails to plan." In fact, this quote is most commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), one of the most important and influential figures in American history, a polymath who aided the American revolutionary war effort and helped solve its initial Constitutional crises. Franklin's original formulation: "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." Consequently, we might say there's a bit of irony in the fact that someone who is so famously connected to a pro-planning sentiment would be one of the key architects of a political system that was from the outset designed to be self-limiting in its capacity to organize and plan, leaving such work for the most part to local governments that were more directly under the control of so-called civil society.

This famous quote is also closely associated with Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a leading English polymath working in philosophy, biology and the social sciences in the Victorian era, who coined the term, "survival of the fittest," which Charles Darwin would later adopt in his studies of evolution. In fact, while there's no record Spencer ever wrote or uttered an equivalent phrase on failing to plan, it is widely attributed to him because it aligns with his views on individualism, self-reliance and the importance of foresight. However, Spencer is recognized as founding what scholars would later call Social Darwinism, believing that social, economic and political competition weeded out weak people, thereby leading to societal progress. He developed this ideology to attack government welfare and intervention.

As I reflect on the recent Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), held in Beijing from October 20 to 23, and do so as an American Marxist exiled in China, I'm inclined to reflect firstly on Franklin and Spencer's ideas and their continued resonance in the United States. There is of course something self-serving and likely disingenuous about their sentiments and political positions.

It's not uncommon for some exceptionally talented people to believe they are superior to others, and it's unequivocally the case that Franklin and Spencer believed that of themselves individually, and likewise believed this of their class, race and gender, with both advancing misogynist and racist ideas. Franklin owned slaves and Spencer argued pseudo-scientifically that women and black people were biologically inferior and less capable intellectually or contributing to the management of society.

While Franklin wrote admiringly of Confucian philosophy he generally considered Chinese people to be "noble savages." Spencer's views were even worse, broadly describing China as a failed civilization, and the "Chinese people as being deceitful and obsequious, lacking in individuality and ingenuity, and industrious but in a servile way." Unsurprisingly, this way of thinking is still found in the U.S. leadership today, given the recent noxious quote from Vice President J.D. Vance in defense of the U.S. trade war against China and America's ongoing efforts to manipulate global currency and capital markets: "We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture."

In fact, while the People's Republic of China's experiences with centralized planning included a number of ups and downs in the first 30 years after its founding in 1949, which some historians in the West still talk about incessantly, the overall trajectory of Chinese development was overwhelmingly positive, and all the more so once China reached a threshold that made reform and opening up possible. What other major country using the rubric of centralized planning has accomplished more in terms of human development, social justice and national rejuvenation than China has, not just in the past seven decades but throughout all of recorded human history?

Let us now bring this reflection to a close by noting that the key outcome of the recent plenary session was the adoption of the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. This document sets the blueprint for China's development over the next five years, a period considered crucial for achieving the broader goal of "basically realizing socialist modernization" by 2035, and will be voted on by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, in March 2026.

The blueprint points especially toward building a modernized industrial system. It promotes greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology, moving toward breakthroughs in core technologies like quantum computing and biomanufacturing. In the meantime, to further improve quality of life and make China less sensitive to global demand fluctuations and trade wars, it aims to expand domestic demand and increase household consumption in sectors like health and culture. Furthermore, signaling China will be source of continued growth for the global economy, the blueprint also continues China down the path of reform, opening up and global cooperation, above all by continuing high-standard opening up and global economic engagement, positioning China as a stabilizer and engine for international growth and development. Finally, the plan accentuates China's continued commitment to green development and green transformations, sticking with China's carbon neutrality targets and outsized efforts to fight global climate change.

Planning is what the key to responsible governance looks like. It's one of the lynchpins of China's unapparelled success in bringing wealth and wellbeing to its people, including women, those of different ethnicities and above all the poorest of the poor. In these ways, China has exemplified the lesson I and many others were taught when we were kids about the value of planning, but it actually fulfills that wisdom in ways that should humble Franklin, Spencer and their ideological descendants who persist in positions of power in the U.S. today, and who seem to attack China above all because China plans and they don't...

The author is a professor of politics and international relations and director of the Center for Ecological Civilization at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is also a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University in Nanjing

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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