The ideology of pragmatism

I think that you're confusing natural and legal rights. "God-given rights" denotes a broadly Lockean conception of "natural rights", rather than any particular set of legal entitlements.

I disagree with natural rights either. Human society is an artificial structure created by human beings, there is nothing natural. Rights are in perpetual movement. (Did I get Marxist? Nope, I disagree with Historical Materialism, which considers social movements follow a set of rules comparable to natural science. I do not assume such rules exist. However, I am playing with Dielectric Materialism here.)
 
In order to achieve the ends of its ideology (creating a strong and enlightened society based on Chinese Communist values or whatever), it is willing to embrace methods that are even contrary to what its ideology might seem to prescribe, including adopting a broadly market-oriented approach in its economic policy. In that sense it is being 'truly' pragmatic.

However, what we see in the article is an articulation of something slightly different - pragmatism itself is becoming enshrined in the ideology of the party. The exception is becoming the rule. It becomes more important that party does whatever is necessary to the achievement of its current goals than that it is committed to achieving whatever ends its ideology might originally have. Thus, they no longer worship at the altar of Communism, but at that of pragmatism. Pragmatism has been made an end in itself.

The very conception of a given model of government as "working" and therefore being "right" is necessarilly constructed within an ideological framework to begin with.

Well said sirs. But I'll see you and raise you: Pragmatism is an ideology that typically claims to be non-ideological, and that secretes its goals from view and from discussion. The criteria for "what works" need never be specified. One suspects that not specifying them is kinda the point. I think I prefer bad old-fashioned propaganda.

And China's economic growth is directed towards.....what, exactly?

Is it growth and prosperity for its own sake? i.e. plain old basic greed? Or is it merely a means to an end? What end?

That is the 64,000 renminbi question.
 
China sees its current form of government, or any political system for that matter, merely as a means to achieving larger national ends.
This isn't "pragmatism," it's Fascism.
 
I disagree with natural rights either. Human society is an artificial structure created by human beings, there is nothing natural. Rights are in perpetual movement. (Did I get Marxist? Nope, I disagree with Historical Materialism, which considers social movements follow a set of rules comparable to natural science. I do not assume such rules exist. However, I am playing with Dielectric Materialism here.)
I'm not really interested in natural rights theory either, I'm just clarifying their position.
 
Fascism is not only authoritarian, it is expansionism and nationalism.
It involves a very specific kind of nationalism, which PCH identified as being essential to the world-view assigned to China's leaders in this article.
 
This isn't "pragmatism," it's Fascism.

Fascism is pragmatism, from the point of view of national interests. That is, whoever is pulling the strings of that nation.
 
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