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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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Calling China communist is a stretch. More like planned authoritarian capitalism tempered with socialism. China has 607 billionaires, communism would have 0.
Also, Japan is very capitalistic and they have amazing trains.
look I don’t care who’s communist and who’s capitalist, we need them trains
It’s not a stretch, it’s outright false to call it communism or socialism, systems which necessitate the abolishment of capitalist mode of production (commodity production, private ownership, markets) and money. China, meanwhile, literally has billionaires, still produces things under capitalist mode of production and the only oddity it has compared to other Capitalist countries is partially nationalized economy (which Mussolini has also done, it’s not socialism by itself).
It’s just a social democracy.
Isn’t there only one political party in China? How is that democracy? Not being hostile, genuinely curious how that would work
You can have disagreements within a single party. Like how in the US they banned communist parties because it didn’t align with the capitalist ideals that all American parties are required to align with.
The US has not banned communist parties from existing. There’s even a few local elected communist mayors. The Red Scare for sure did it’s job though, and declaring as a communist in virtually any US office is a surefire way to lose.
Which was ruled unconstitutional in 1973 by the federal district court of Arizona. Did you finish the article that you linked?
It’s like burning down a house and asking what’s the problem after the fire has gone out. Repercussions last a long time. The cultural changes produced go on for generations.
Anyways, none of that matters cause this is America. We just did the unconstitutional thing at the State level instead.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.557.htm
Please read and hit me with some more complaints. Maybe if I keep knocking them down you will eventually change your mind :)
43·3 days agoWikipedia lists 9 parties in the NPC
And all of those parties are listed as being under the control of CCP. So it is a one party state.
Cool, thanks, TIL
You should also learn that those parties are subsidiaries of CCP, the governing party. They are not actual alternatives.
I think people have some degree of chouce at the more local levels, but you’re right.
democracy is a far stretch though, isnt it? And capitalist is also not entirely true, when entire industry branches are nationalized, planned and not privatized
Socialism does not necessitate the abolishment of commodity production in totality to be considered Socialist, just that the society we are analyzing is working towards abolishing it in the future, which is further cemented by running an economy where the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are in the public sector and thus have leverage over the rest of the economy.
This is because no system is static. Whoever controls the Means of Production controls their development, and in which direction. As production improves, centralization increases, and state management becomes more feasible and more fundamentally necessary. This propels further socialization of the economy, as long as there is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the development of the productive forces drives the development to higher and more developed stages of Socialism, eventually giving way to the establishment of Communism.
Further, to compare China to fascist Mussolini is just absurd. Mussolini had minor nationalizations, in order to support the Capitalist state. In China, it’s fundamentally the opposite. Engels went over the difference in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
But the modern state, too, is only the organization with which bourgeois society provides itself in order to maintain the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against encroachments either by the workers or by individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its form, is an essentially capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal aggregate capitalist. The more productive forces it takes over into its possession, the more it becomes a real aggregate capitalist, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-workers, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished, rather it is pushed to the limit. But at this limit it changes into its opposite. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains within itself the formal means, the handle to the solution.
Engels is specifically speaking about economies where the state is thoroughly bourgeois, and thus the character of the state ownership is to support Capitalism. This is not the case for China, however, which has gradually been seeing large gains for the working class and the Capitalists within China thoroughly submissive to the proletarian state. China has already had its revolution, it did not abandon it, neither did Cuba, Vietnam, etc. This is supported by what Engels says later:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Production is gradually transformed into public property as it develops and is more capable of being publicly owned and planned.
But you’ve already been explained this before, repeatedly. Your stance is that there can be no such thing as Socialism until commodity production, markets, and money all cease to exist, when in all likelihood vestigial elements of each may continue to exist even in the earliest stages of Communism, if we agree with Marx. Your stance is the “One Drop Rule,” which eliminates the entirety of Dialectics and treats Socialism as a unique mode of production defined by purity, while Capitalism, Feudalism, and so forth were all defined by which element was the principle aspect, as no system has ever truly been “pure.” This is plainly a wrong stance to take.
The term state capitalism cover a lot of the basics of the Chinese system.
Thank you. Was looking for a better term.
Lets call it state capitalist, as thats the proper term
It’s not even that, given how there’s a decent chunk of their economy owned by private individuals
As I understand it, the majority shareholder is the cccp in those little capitalist bubbles?
“CCCP” is the “USSR,” so no. I think you mean “CCP,” which stands for “Chinese Communist Party,” although the preferred term is “CPC,” or “Communist Party of China,” as is the international standard designation for Communist Parties.
Either way, the CPC does have control over the economy, including the private sector, through mechanisms like “the golden share.” Even further, key industries like steel, energy, etc are publicly owned and controlled, hence the companies that do exist in the private sector must still rely on the public sector and play by the rules or else they can’t actually do business.
?
carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone
Ah, fair enough, there is that too.
I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn’t really exist in Communism, but China hasn’t managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.
@[email protected] how does it work in China, again?
The PRC is a Socialist economy. The overwhelming majority of the economy is in the publiv sector, and is subject to government planning and outside of the hands of Capitalists. There’s a decent chunk of the economy in the cooperative sector that needs to be developed more in order to fold it into the public sector, usually in agriculture. There’s also a good deal of private property, which is handy for rapid development but of course creates contradictions, which requires a state that will resolve contradictions in favor of the working class.
The difference between social democracy and the PRC’s economy is where the principle aspect of the economy lies, the private sector or the public. The reason the principle aspect is important is because it determines to a good degree the balance of class power. Countries like Norway have broad safety nets, but largely fund them from exploitation of the Global South, and have an economy dominated by private interests.
The principle aspect, in short, is whichever form of property holds the large firms and key industries, as well as the state. In China, this is overwhelmingly the public sector.
China has a numver of contradictions it will have to solve over time. Cooperative property, like Huawei, as well as Private Property, will have to all be folded into the public sector. Commodity production will need to be abolished. Wealth disparity will need to be reigned in far more. However, these are problems to overcome, not proof of China being Capitalist.
Thanks! Great input, as always
No problem!
China is sentencing billionaires to death. You’re just Sinophobic.
to be fair, in communism corruption and favoritism have always been creating rich people as well, similar to capitalism, but usually not in the same scale. greed is a problem that has to be addressed.
Then that system is not communist regardless of what they call themselves or what their political opponent calls them! If they are in a fundamental opposition to the work of Marx then they are not communist
That’s the problem though, communism is ‘everyone puts their resources in a big pile and then we re-ditribute them evenly’ and then you realise you need someone to administrate the distribution and hope like an idiot that they don’t just take the whole pile for themselves. Capitalism is ‘everyone maintains their own pile’ and you hope like an idiot that the people with the biggest piles don’t conspire to steal everyone elses for themselves.
Communism is not “everyone puts their resources in a big pile and we re-distribute them evenly.” Marx blasted the “equalitarians” who wished to do so. Communism is about collectively running production to fulfill the needs of the people. Your random anecdote can best be countered by asking why managers of single payer healthcare institutions aren’t just taking all of the surgery for themselves, or why post office managers aren’t shipping all of their own packages instead of others.
Now, Social programs are not “socialism” themselves, but these are quick examples.
muricans calling everything communism that isn’t gop cock sucking is getting old
Whos trains are those ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the world may never know
Are they belong to a stateless moneyless society? It would be very embarrassing for you if they aren’t.
Would it be? True it’s not communist but also China doesn’t claim to be. They claim it as an aspiration not as a current state of affairs. However we are random internet people. Are we really going to explain to every dumbass how China isn’t communist, only a vanguard state hoping to evolve into one in the future according to the chain of events described in the communist manifesto?
No. Cause that’s a waste of time. Being angry that all that context wasn’t added is pedantic because we ain’t operating with strict definitions that everyone agrees to. We are working with cultural vibe checks. And as far as culture is concerned, China is communist.
They are run by Communists over a Socialist society, working to reach Communism. They have not reached Communism, nobody has, but they have an overwhelmingly publicly owned and planned economy they are advancing year over year.
Did you have a stroke writing that? It makes zero sense
Attributing the achievements of Socialist economies governed by Communist Parties to the ideology driving the decision-making of the government is very different from a random republican calling the Post Office “Communist.”
Believing that capitalist autocracy is socialist or communist, however, is absolutely the same as republicans calling everything communist.
Sure, republicans tend to think the Russian Federation is somehow still Communist despite the fall of the USSR in the 90s. However, China is absolutely Socialist, which is a fact recognized by every major Marxist-Leninist organization worldwide, so that doesn’t have any relevance here. Their economy is Socialist, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and they have a form of democracy that results on over 90% of the population supporting their government.
China is as communist as I am a french male model. That said, it is indeed a mistake to allow the “free market” to determine the nation’s critical infrastructure. American rail is an absolute joke.
I… I already told you.
I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn’t really exist in Communism, but China hasn’t managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.
The downvoting shitlibs cant handle reality. They see what China has done for its citizens while dreaming that the capitalists they hold dear will let them occasionally have fresh table scraps
Yep, it’s generally telling that people can’t articulate why they disagree, they just downvote and move on.
Close. Put the capitalist train on its side, spilling hazardous waste into a community water source.
yeah we almost got a high speed rail system but some dipshit from south africa decided to build a shitty tunnel instead
Communism is when trains run on time
’Communism is when communal efforts produce results.’
Accidentally correct, you dolt.
Well, America is so communist then, it’s not even close. None of their results were the result of any individual, it’s always a communal effort.
The only non-communism is a small personal garden, as long as there are more than two people working on something, it’s communism because community.
Either that, or the word communism means something very different, you doltYes. All of our successes are the result of communal effort. It’s not communism because the means of production are controlled by a small group of people, who also absorb all of the excess wealth created from the communal efforts.
Reply back please. Your self-owns are cracking me up.
Daamn, you’re so close to the point I was making, you can almost taste it. Now you need to actually engage with it in good faith, for real. I don’t expect you do though.
Likening a Socialist country to a fascist party just because both have trains is the epitome of western anti-communist “Marxism.” There’s no materialism here, and you’re upvoted because the only Marxism approved within liberal spaces is the anti-communist kind. Michael Parenti, in Blackshirts and Reds, quite clearly sums up the role of western “Left” anticommunists:
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
Funny how Parenti himself recognizes China as capitalist:
While the Chinese government continues under a nominally communist leadership, the process of private capital penetration goes on more or less unhindered.
In the late 1990s, when Blackshirts and Reds was written, it really did seem like China was capitulating in the same way many other countries had, by letting in foreign Capital. It was only with time that it was proven to be genuinely limited in scope, and that the CPC had course-corrected from the Ultraleftism of the Cultural Revolution to a more traditional Marxist understanding of development. Parenti has since turned around on China, as all major Marxist-Leninist orgs who were skeptical of Reform and Opening Up have.
Further, Parenti himself is less of a Marxist and more of a “pro-Marxist.” His understanding of Marxist Theory is weak, what’s strong is his understanding of Western demonization of Communists and Socialist countries. He’s valuable because he nails western anti-communism.
Relax, it’s just a joke given how the image essentially is “communist is when many trains, capitalism is when one bad train”. Making a reference to Mussolini, one of the most famous liberals of all time is always gonna be funny
That’s what you had to say the other time you tried to compare fascist Italy with Socialist China, to the point of calling it “identical to how fascist Italy worked.” This is of course wrong, Italy was driven by Private Ownership, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries were controlled by the bourgeoisie, and Mussolini murdered countless workers and crushed worker organizations. The opposite is true of the PRC, which is an economy dominated by Public Ownership.
Your comment is essentially “China has good railways? Mussolini cared about railways, and he was a fascist! Checkmate, commies!” It’s extremely surface level to the point that any humor it may have had is thoroughly undermined.
My god, stop putting words in my mouth that I’m some kind of anti-communist as a whole due to not recognizing China as being Socialist. Sorry for viewing things through historical materialism and it not passing the sniff test I guess.
That comment was referring to the private model which, you’re right, is not the exact same in execution but it’s remarkably similar in principle given both systems’ state dominance in key economic areas with the co-existence of private ownership.
Fascist Italy did hold a significant portion of state ownership in heavy industry/shipbuilding/banking/infrastructure by 1930, so it wasn’t entirely driven by private ownership. China economy isn’t necessarily public either (at least depending on who you ask) given how it’s state owned with state acting as the surplus-extracting capitalist and having the final say rather than collectivized and owned by the workers.
I called you a “Left” Anticommunist, which I think is accurate. You’re overwhelmingly negative about Actually Existing Socialism, as in you deny it as such, which I don’t think is putting words in your mouth. The reasons you have given have actually rejected Historical Materialism, in our previous conversations you indicated that Socialism is a unique Mode of Production defined by the absence of all other forms of property relations, which entirely disregards the Dialectical aspect of Historical Materialism, ie how each Mode of Production emerges from the old, containing elements of both the old and the emerging society. There’s no “sniff test” done by you, no Historical Materialism from what I’ve found, just US State Department friendly “Marxism.”
Mussolini’s Italy and Socialist China are not at all the same, which is again utter nonsense. In Fascist Italy, throughout the 1920s privatization of state industry was the norm. In the 30s, the instituti were formed, which brought the bourgeoisie into government unity, quite literally a state designed from the 1920s to strengthen the bourgeoisie now further entrenching them. This was said in 1934:
“While nearly everywhere else private property was bearing the major burdens and suffering from the hardest blows of the depression, in Italy, thanks to the actions of this Fascist government, private property not only has been saved, but has also been strengthened”.
In China, this is obviously not the case. SOEs are publicly owned, as well as key industries, and in the medium firms the CPC has the golden share. The Public truly owns these, and the CPC has power over all Capitalists. Marxism is taught in school as the basis for ecomomics, and gradually the public sector is growing and exerting more power over the medium and smaller firms which are more privately owned. The CPC is not a “Capitalist,” nor is the NPC. The funds they bring in through SOEs, taxation, and more get used for development and social services, Marx talked about this in Critique of the Gotha Programme:
But “all members of society” and “equal right” are obviously mere phrases. The kernel consists in this, that in this communist society every worker must receive the “undiminished” Lassallean “proceeds of labour.”
Let us take first of all the words “proceeds of labour” in the sense of the product of labour; then the co-operative proceeds of labour are the total social product.
From this must now be deducted:
First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up.
Secondly, additional portion for expansion of production.
Thirdly, reserve or insurance funds against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.
These deductions from the “undiminished proceeds of labour” are an economic necessity and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.
Further, Fascist Italy crushed Communists and worker organizations, Socialost China is run by Communists that strengthen worker organizations. Fascist Italy was designed to enrich the business owners, Socialist China works comprehensively towards strengthening pay year over year, eradicating poverty, and building towards higher stages of Socialism.
As a tangent, your comment implies cooperative property is the basis of Marxism, ie direct worker ownership, but Marx and Engels themselves rejected it as petite bourgeois relations. Exclusive ownership over a small portion of the economy cannot truly be considered abolition of private property, but protecting it. That’s why Engels describes the Proletarian State gradually collrctivizing all property until class struggle is resolved through “lower stage Communism,” or what we would call “Socialism,” before the state withers into the “Administration of Things,” which still wouldn’t be direct worker ownership but publicly owned and planned production to fulfill use-value.
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
I take what you say seriously because your type of views ultimately end up working against Marxists globally, and are often magnified in liberal spaces. “Left” Anticommunism is something that deeply permeates Western Marxism, so it’s important to call it out when I see it.
Capitalism (good) Vs Capitalism (bad)
FTFY
Capitalism with literal slave labor vs capitalism that outsources the literal slave labor or calls them prisoners with jobs
and I wouldn’t want to live in neither the US nor China
Capitalism with literal slave labor
You’re talking about the US prison population, right?
prisoners with jobs
Capitalism (with speedy trains) vs capitalism (with slow trains)
FTFY
until you live in an actual communist state. Ever tried that?
You mean the communist and socialist regimes the capitalists used military force to destabilize for wanting to be societies instead of a bunch of rugged individuals at each other’s throats for scraps in order to keep their resource markets open to our capitalist’s exploitation?
Nah, once one try fails you’re not allowed to do it again, that’s why we all live in absolute monarchies (while ignoring the failures of other absolute monarchies)
