InMarxist-Leninist theory, thecommanding heights of the economy are certain strategically important economic sectors. Some examples of industries considered to be part of the commanding heights includepublic utilities,natural resources, and sectors relating to bothforeign trade anddomestic trade.
This phrase emerged from a branch of modernpolitical philosophy concerned with organisingsociety. According toYevgeni Preobrazhensky, aBolshevik economist, control over the commanding heights of the economy would ensureprimitive socialist accumulation.[1] The phrase can be traced back toVladimir Lenin's defense of theNew 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 thatfree markets could be permitted so as long as the government retained control of certain commanding heights likeheavy industry andtransport.[2]
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 sincereform 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
ThroughJiang Zemin's emphasis ongrasping the large, letting go of the small, the China's central government focused on developing a core group of largestate-owned enterprises (SOEs) in strategically important fields deemed as part of the commanding heights of the economy,[4]: 53 while relinquishing control over smaller and unprofitable SOEs.[5]
For an example fromsocialism with Chinese characteristics, while the Chinese economic reform has generally shifted funding sources forhigher education from the government to individual students, theChinese Communist Party also organized projects likeProject 985 andProject 211 to retain government funding and therefore influence over certain elite institutions.[6]
The second of theFive-Year Plans of India, overseen byJawaharlal Nehru, was an attempt to industrialize India through state control of the commanding heights.[7]
The phrase "commanding heights" often occurs in modern political commentary outside of Marxist connotations.[8]
Inservice economies, where the relative importance of industry has decreased,Arnold Kling posited in 2011 thathealthcare andeducation 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.[9] In the ten years preceding 2011, employment in education and healthcare in the United States increased by 16%, despite employment in other sectors decreasing.[10]
Other commentators have identified digital platforms and theinternet as the new commanding heights of the economy.[11][12]
'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 ...
The commanding heights of our economy today are not heavy manufacturing, energy, and transportation. They are, rather, education and health care.
... 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.
