84 SOCIAL SCIENTIST In the lands of capitalist development like ours we see vulgar luxury and ostentatious consumption to a disgusting extent by those who have benefited most from ^'development5' at the expense of the starving unemployed millions. Galbraith writes: As to whom the production is for, there is quick and easy answer: it is for every one in about the same amount. Some where in the recesses of the Chinese polity there may be privileged Party and official heirarchy. Certainly it is the last ostentatious ruling class in history. So far as the visitor can see or is told, there is—for worker, technician, engineer, scientist, plant manager, local official, even one suspects, table tennis player—a truly astonishing appoach to equality of income.1 * If "This is the nature of the military - bureaucratic dictatorship established by Mao" as one Soviet publicist11 tells us., then we have got the meaning of all these terms wrong all the way. An insight into the complex of social services in China is provided by Galbraith's comment on medical services: Medicine and medical services ....are major achievements. The cost of standard medicines is now about one fifth of the 1950 cost; the basic antibiotics, as I have mentioned, are available at nominal prices without prescription. I am prepared to believe that Greater Shanghai, with a population of around 12 million audits 412 hospitals, 44,000 beds and around 11,500 doctors (including the traditional practitioners), has a better medical service than New York. The average quality of practice is no doubt higher in New York. But the chance of getting no care is also much higher.1 a There are many aspects which do not receive the attention of Galbraith. Certainly more connot be expected from such a short visit and study. There are a few remarks with which we may not agree too. But still the general impression he conveys and the facts he adduces are very convincing. Galbraith concludes his observations on a ^jubilant note." Paraphrasing the famous words of Lincoln Steffens who returned from revolutionary Russia, Galbraith proclaims that he saw the Chinese future "And let there be no doubt: For the Chinese it works." We can only hope that the Soviet comrades also will one day discover the truth about China and that the Chinese too would return the compliment in due course. M G RADHAKRISHNAN. 1 Fyodor Dimitriev, Whither China, Moscow, p 45. 2 See the famous document known as Togliatti Memorandum. 6 V Gelbras, Mao's Pseudo Socialism, Moscow, p 140. 4 Ibid., pp 83-100. 8 See A Critique @f MOG Tse Tung's Theories and Conceptions by F V Constantinov and ethers, Moscow, pp 283-85.