Eu is doing okay tho trending downward, India is trending upward but not there yet.
Uruguay doing okay. Brazil doing okay. Vietnam is trending up. Thailand is good. Australia is doing okay but trending downward.
I’m not saying they’re good just okay, but Better than China and US.
As a European, I can promise you the the EU isn’t good.
It’s a neoliberal cult that purposefully keep its poor eastern members down for the benefit of its wealthy western members; continues to meddle in and exploit Africa by any means at their disposal, including coups, invasions, funding and arming of death-squads and assassinations, even decades after so called “decolonization”; cultivate an attitude of horrific and bloodthirsty racism among their population, especially against migrants despite being the cause of most mass migrations in the first place, in order to keep migrants miserable and their labor cheap; fund and arms a genocide as we speak; has purposefully let overt and covert neo-Nazi factions gain power in every of its member states; stabbed their own economy for the benefit of the US, multiple times; and so on and so forth.
On the scale of “badness” the EU is right behind the US, they’re just more subtle and quiet about their evil than the US is.
The EU is imperialist though, and as the US Empire is falling they fall with it. China’s better than both, as it isn’t imperialist and instead is trending upwards. I agree with Vietnam, though, it’s similar to China in that both are rising, both are socialist, and neither are imperialist.
You’ll find all countries have engaged in imperialism in one way or another. China towards Tibet, Europe towards Africa, the US currently, well, everyone.
China is not socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. China is also currently lacking in some social features, particularly full universal healthcare coverage and strong worker rights. Vietnam, however, is quite steady and making great strides. Here’s hoping for more
China has not imperialized Tibet. Imperialism isn’t simply influencing, engaging with, or annexing territory, it’s a system of extraction on an international scale. Europe absolutely colonized Africa and currently imperializes it, and the US Empire as well, but the PLA liberating Tibet wasn’t an act of imperialism.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. This doesn’t at all apply to the relation of the PRC to Tibet. Tibet was a feudal slave society backed by the CIA. The PLA liberated Tibet.
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]
Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]
As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]
The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]
Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away. [25]
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
-Dr. Michael Parenti
China is also currently lacking in socialist features, particularly full universal healthcare and worker rights. Vietnam, however, is quite steady and making great strides. Here’s hoping for more
Social programs aren’t socialism. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution, where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Both Vietnam and China are socialist.
You’re using Lenin’s definition of imperialism. Lenin’s definition focuses on economic domination, not military or territorial control, so for the PRC’s invasion, which was “liberation,” it’s better to use the modern definition of imperialism, which most people reading this will be doing anyway.
Tibet was also a serfdom, not a slave society, there is a distinct difference. Serfdom binds a person to land. Slavery treats them entirely as movable property. One is labour, one is chains. Calling it liberation is also extremely negligent and steeped in bias, the US military uses this excuse all the time, that they are liberators instead of imperialist forces.
But ultimately this all avoids the question of whether or not the Tibetan population wanted integration with China, that’s the crucial part that makes it imperialist, the inability for the Tibetans to decide for themselves.
Which, again, you’re making a false conflation. We’ve established that Europe is imperialist, yes. We’ve established that the US is imperialist, yes. But then you’re including the PRC in an attempt to make it appear anti-imperialist – Which it mostly wasn’t. It’s a very camp argument. Imperialism is imperialism, it doesn’t matter who’s doing it and for what reason.
Redsails is also not a good source, it’s openly from an ML perspective, so it’s not neutral, which you absolutely have to be when discussing history. It’s also under no pretence to be academic or accurate either, Redsails is ideologically driven rather than factually driven - so it won’t ever be critical of the ML perspective. You can use redsails to talk theory, absolutely, but not as a historical or factual source, it’s dishonest.
China is also not entirely socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. They still have private property.
You’re using Lenin’s definition of imperialism. Lenin’s definition focuses on economic domination, not military or territorial control, so for the PRC’s invasion, which was “liberation,” it’s better to use the modern definition of imperialism, which most people reading this will be doing anyway.
Your definition, which you call “modern,” is neither modern nor useful. As you already said, by your chosen definition, all countries have “imperialized” others, but that doesn’t explain the mechanisms of how some countries plunder vast resources from others, or how to stop this.
If we use the “influence” definition, then I don’t think “influence” is a bad thing in all cases, while this form of international extraction is what we communists specifically take issue with and are arguing against. If you’re trying to talk about a point I made using Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, it doesn’t make sense to try to change the definition to argue.
Tibet was also a serfdom, not a slave society, there is a distinct difference. Serfdom binds a person to land. Slavery treats them entirely as movable property. One is labour, one is chains. Calling it liberation is also extremely negligent and steeped in bias, the US military uses this excuse all the time, that they are liberators instead of imperialist forces.
Tibet had serfs and slaves. Go back and read the excerpts I linked from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Calling it liberation is accurate, as Tibet has been uplifted and life metrics are skyrocketing, slavery and serfdom abolished, and culture preserved. Tibet is not having its resources extracted or labor super-exploited by the PRC. The US Empire destroys the countries it “liberates,” this is qualitatively different.
But ultimately this all avoids the question of whether or not the Tibetan population wanted integration with China, that’s the crucial part that makes it imperialist, the inability for the Tibetans to decide for themselves.
It isn’t actually what makes it imperialist or not, but Tibetans are quite happy to be freed from slavery and serfdom.
Which, again, you’re making a false conflation. We’ve established that Europe is imperialist, yes. We’ve established that the US is imperialist, yes. But then you’re including the PRC in an attempt to make it appear anti-imperialist – Which it mostly wasn’t. It’s a very camp argument. Imperialism is imperialism, it doesn’t matter who’s doing it and for what reason.
You’re changing the definition of imperialism to make your point. If your point is that imperialism is “influence,” and Lenin’s definition is “extractionism,” then my point is that every country is “influence imperialist” and not all “influence imperialism” is a bad thing, but all “extractionist imperialism” is bad. It isn’t camp, I oppose this brutal system of international extractionism, and you’re dodging it by taking issue with me calling that imperialism and not agreeing that influence can be good.
Redsails is also not a good source, it’s openly from an ML perspective, so it’s not neutral, which you absolutely have to be when discussing history. It’s also under no pretence to be academic or accurate either, Redsails is ideologically driven rather than factually driven - so it won’t ever be critical of the ML perspective. You can use redsails to talk theory, absolutely, but not as a historical or factual source, it’s dishonest.
Dr. Michael Parenti has well-sourced arguments and historical data. There’s no such thing as a neutral historian. Red Sails is merely hosting Dr. Michael Parenti’s work, which is both ideologically and factually driven. Dr. Michael Parenti is a Statesian historian, not really a theorist.
China is also not entirely socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. They still have private property.
Socialism is not the absence of private property, just like capitalism is not the absence of public property. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where public ownership is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries. The US Empire is capitalist not because everything is private, but because private ownership dominates the large firms and key industries. No mode of production is “pure.” From a Marxist perspective, it simply doesn’t make sense to socialize the sole proprietorships and small industries, as the basis of socialist production is large scale industry, and to socialize the small firms as they grow. This is repeated by Marx and Engels.
Where are you getting your ideas of socialism from?
The west assisting the USSR in defeating the Nazis is good influence, and “imperialist” according to your definition. Same with the Statesian north abolishing slavery in the Statesian south (similar to the PLA abolishing slavery and serfdom in Tibet). Western influence isn’t overwhelmingly negative because it’s western or influence, but because the west is “extractionary imperialist” and this influence nearly always is in service of that, such as kidnapping Maduro in order to steal Venezuela’s oil.
Eu is doing okay tho trending downward, India is trending upward but not there yet. Uruguay doing okay. Brazil doing okay. Vietnam is trending up. Thailand is good. Australia is doing okay but trending downward. I’m not saying they’re good just okay, but Better than China and US.
As a European, I can promise you the the EU isn’t good.
It’s a neoliberal cult that purposefully keep its poor eastern members down for the benefit of its wealthy western members; continues to meddle in and exploit Africa by any means at their disposal, including coups, invasions, funding and arming of death-squads and assassinations, even decades after so called “decolonization”; cultivate an attitude of horrific and bloodthirsty racism among their population, especially against migrants despite being the cause of most mass migrations in the first place, in order to keep migrants miserable and their labor cheap; fund and arms a genocide as we speak; has purposefully let overt and covert neo-Nazi factions gain power in every of its member states; stabbed their own economy for the benefit of the US, multiple times; and so on and so forth.
On the scale of “badness” the EU is right behind the US, they’re just more subtle and quiet about their evil than the US is.
The EU is imperialist though, and as the US Empire is falling they fall with it. China’s better than both, as it isn’t imperialist and instead is trending upwards. I agree with Vietnam, though, it’s similar to China in that both are rising, both are socialist, and neither are imperialist.
You’ll find all countries have engaged in imperialism in one way or another. China towards Tibet, Europe towards Africa, the US currently, well, everyone.
China is not socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. China is also currently lacking in some social features, particularly full universal healthcare coverage and strong worker rights. Vietnam, however, is quite steady and making great strides. Here’s hoping for more
China has not imperialized Tibet. Imperialism isn’t simply influencing, engaging with, or annexing territory, it’s a system of extraction on an international scale. Europe absolutely colonized Africa and currently imperializes it, and the US Empire as well, but the PLA liberating Tibet wasn’t an act of imperialism.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. This doesn’t at all apply to the relation of the PRC to Tibet. Tibet was a feudal slave society backed by the CIA. The PLA liberated Tibet.
Two excerpts from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth:
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
-Dr. Michael Parenti
Social programs aren’t socialism. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution, where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Both Vietnam and China are socialist.
You’re using Lenin’s definition of imperialism. Lenin’s definition focuses on economic domination, not military or territorial control, so for the PRC’s invasion, which was “liberation,” it’s better to use the modern definition of imperialism, which most people reading this will be doing anyway.
Tibet was also a serfdom, not a slave society, there is a distinct difference. Serfdom binds a person to land. Slavery treats them entirely as movable property. One is labour, one is chains. Calling it liberation is also extremely negligent and steeped in bias, the US military uses this excuse all the time, that they are liberators instead of imperialist forces.
But ultimately this all avoids the question of whether or not the Tibetan population wanted integration with China, that’s the crucial part that makes it imperialist, the inability for the Tibetans to decide for themselves.
Which, again, you’re making a false conflation. We’ve established that Europe is imperialist, yes. We’ve established that the US is imperialist, yes. But then you’re including the PRC in an attempt to make it appear anti-imperialist – Which it mostly wasn’t. It’s a very camp argument. Imperialism is imperialism, it doesn’t matter who’s doing it and for what reason.
Redsails is also not a good source, it’s openly from an ML perspective, so it’s not neutral, which you absolutely have to be when discussing history. It’s also under no pretence to be academic or accurate either, Redsails is ideologically driven rather than factually driven - so it won’t ever be critical of the ML perspective. You can use redsails to talk theory, absolutely, but not as a historical or factual source, it’s dishonest.
China is also not entirely socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. They still have private property.
Your definition, which you call “modern,” is neither modern nor useful. As you already said, by your chosen definition, all countries have “imperialized” others, but that doesn’t explain the mechanisms of how some countries plunder vast resources from others, or how to stop this.
If we use the “influence” definition, then I don’t think “influence” is a bad thing in all cases, while this form of international extraction is what we communists specifically take issue with and are arguing against. If you’re trying to talk about a point I made using Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, it doesn’t make sense to try to change the definition to argue.
Tibet had serfs and slaves. Go back and read the excerpts I linked from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Calling it liberation is accurate, as Tibet has been uplifted and life metrics are skyrocketing, slavery and serfdom abolished, and culture preserved. Tibet is not having its resources extracted or labor super-exploited by the PRC. The US Empire destroys the countries it “liberates,” this is qualitatively different.
It isn’t actually what makes it imperialist or not, but Tibetans are quite happy to be freed from slavery and serfdom.
You’re changing the definition of imperialism to make your point. If your point is that imperialism is “influence,” and Lenin’s definition is “extractionism,” then my point is that every country is “influence imperialist” and not all “influence imperialism” is a bad thing, but all “extractionist imperialism” is bad. It isn’t camp, I oppose this brutal system of international extractionism, and you’re dodging it by taking issue with me calling that imperialism and not agreeing that influence can be good.
Dr. Michael Parenti has well-sourced arguments and historical data. There’s no such thing as a neutral historian. Red Sails is merely hosting Dr. Michael Parenti’s work, which is both ideologically and factually driven. Dr. Michael Parenti is a Statesian historian, not really a theorist.
Socialism is not the absence of private property, just like capitalism is not the absence of public property. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where public ownership is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries. The US Empire is capitalist not because everything is private, but because private ownership dominates the large firms and key industries. No mode of production is “pure.” From a Marxist perspective, it simply doesn’t make sense to socialize the sole proprietorships and small industries, as the basis of socialist production is large scale industry, and to socialize the small firms as they grow. This is repeated by Marx and Engels.
Where are you getting your ideas of socialism from?
Let’s test that.
What influence has the US done that is good? What influence has the West done that is good?
The west assisting the USSR in defeating the Nazis is good influence, and “imperialist” according to your definition. Same with the Statesian north abolishing slavery in the Statesian south (similar to the PLA abolishing slavery and serfdom in Tibet). Western influence isn’t overwhelmingly negative because it’s western or influence, but because the west is “extractionary imperialist” and this influence nearly always is in service of that, such as kidnapping Maduro in order to steal Venezuela’s oil.