“We are never more than nine meals away from anarchy.”
Look, the US is fucked up and an evil country, everyone can agree on that
But why in the everlasting hell do you all act as if China is a savior, as if China can do no wrong?
China is the fucking same plus worse
Same goes for Russia
All those three are evil empires that should be ALL dismantled into loads of smaller countries
It doesn’t matter what the country pretends to want to be, as soon as it gets too powerful you always end up with some asshole dictator, whether they’re called Putin (need a good nickname for him, getting tired of having to write that name every time), Cheeto, or pooh Bear. These so called leaders should all hang for the crimes they’ve committed
So with that said, why the China worship, why the pretence they China can do no wrong? This is literally “US propaganda baaaad, China propaganda goooood”
In what way is China an empire?
This is what happens when instead of material analysis you default to mainstream media to be honest about its geopolitical enemies.
No one is saying we’ll like it if China does bad shit in other countries, but they haven’t invaded anywhere in decades even when provoked. Meanwhile the US bombs a few countries a year, and launches a full on invasion every few years, not to mention the unilateral illegal sanctions they impose which kill over half a million people every year. When China does nearly a tiny fraction of that we can talk. In the meantime you’re just repeating western propaganda. China develops our countries, the US coups or invades them.
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Their first emperor is a fucking dragon.
Your first president is an ungrateful British colonist.
China gets mad praise on Lemmy as long as you say US bad in the same sentence
Who’s the lady in the picture?
Been waiting over a year!
Source?
What’s the context?
My dudes, you have nothing to lose but your Chains.
So, workers of the world need to unite?
Eat the rich asap obvsly
No thanks I’m on a low fat diet
Hence why some of the US simply CAN’T protest. If they miss a single pay check-- or get fired for missing work-- they’re fucked. Insurance is also tired to work.
The decoupling of employment and insurance needs to be possible
Financial slavery
Mario’s brother said what?
it all started in the city of Wurms in the year 1000
Or get injured and end up with a bunch of medical bills. Or about any number of other things that can go off the rails.
get injured and end up with a bunch of medical bills
especially when having health insurance
Looks like tankies took over c/memes
Y’all have no idea what you’re asking for
Y’all have no idea what you’re asking for
Lol. How dare those commies take over their own community…
Communists created Lemmy, and have been here since the start. Not sure why you’re surprised that communists are on Lemmy.
Y’all have no idea what you’re asking for
I’ve got a pretty good idea: Death to America
You’re on lemmy.ml
This has always been a Tankie instance.
Yep, communists were here from the start.
is xi santa now?
isnt that a silver fox flying a plane backwards?
No but they’ve met up irl
Fuck it. Chips on the table, china taking over america would be a net positive at this point. I’ve never bought into the “country bad because ideology different” bullshit we’re fed here in the us. As I can see from here, just about any other large nation assuming control would bring me everything I ask my government for as a default.
Please, president Xi, the Statesian public yearns for liberation
Maybe the Chinese proletariat can launch a concurrent revolution to overthrow Xi.
Why would they do that? Over 90% of Chinese citizens support their government.
Trading late stage capitalism for mid stage capitalism and a pre-existing merger of state and corporate power doesn’t sound like a permanent fix. Also, deposing a strongman in favor a system that has reestablished it’s leadership as a strongman is not an improvement.
I think you underestimate the term “improvement”. Lossing two fingers instead of three is an improvement. 8inches from the ledge is better than 4inches from the ledge even if either measure isn’t even one whole step. If in never going to see best then I’ll take any better I can get.
China is socialist, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned and the working class is in control of the state. They don’t have a “strongman,” just because Xi gets re-elected. Stability is good if public support is high.
See here for a possible solution to turning a global China into a sustainable hybrid of communism and capitalism: https://philosophyofbalance.com/blog/new-monarchy/
China isn’t turning into a “hybrid of communism and capitalism,” it’s socialist, ie transitioning between capitalism and communism. It isn’t possible to sustain this transitional phase indefinitely, as production grows and develops so too does socialization, which forces higher stages of socialism.
If one paycheck is all that stands between half of the people and homelessness, can it really be called the “middle” class?
There’s only two classes. There’s nothing in the middle.
If you’re in doubt which class you belong to, look at the paycheck. Does it have your name on it? Then you’re one of the ones who get paid.
It’s better to think of working, middle, and upper class in terms of how much of their income derives from labour vs capital.
Working class = majority of income from working.
Upper class = majority of income from owning capital, i.e. can afford not to work at all.
Middle = somewhat evenly split.
Traditionally working class was associated with “lower” jobs such as labourers, and those working cushy office jobs usually earnt a high enough income to accumulate enough capital to become middle or upper class.
This is more aligned with the British definition, where their “middle class” is more equivalent to the US “upper middle class.” Make no mistake though, with many jobs not paying enough to accumulate capital, professionals such as teachers, accountants, and nurses would firmly be considered working class, because they you know, need to work.
I mean, the “middle class” doesn’t usually refer to the poorest 50%. The Lower class has always been the majority, Middle a large minority, and Upper a vanishing minority.
So I learned it this way:
Upper Class - can live a luxurious life without working at all, and even have domestic employees etc.
Middle Class - can live comfortably but only if they work
Lower class - cannot live comfortably even if they work, and can very easily end up homeless (no social safety net)
The dude who taught me this was my Sociology of Work teacher over twenty years ago.
This isn’t particularly helpful, though, as it doesn’t explain why these classes exist. Class traditionally refers to how we engage with societal production and distribution, like wage laborers, business owners, sole proprietors, artisans, etc. By focusing on the outcomes of this class distinctions, you obscure the mechanisms by which they persist and are reinforced.
I was just trying to offer a quick explanation/summary of the concepts or the main distinguishing external features of each class, because I see a lot of confusion and wrong self-perception. I see a lot of people saying they’re “mid to upper class” because they can afford a nice home and two cars. Just looking at how much money they have, not how do they have it or whether they can maintain that without working. Obviously to understand class and social stratification you have to read more. I am aware that the upper class are there because of the work of the lower classes and the surplus etc. I’m not obscuring anything, just offering some definitions. Sorry if it didn’t come out that way.
Understood, I just wanted to build on your comment.
Class traditionally
It only refers to how we engage with societal production in a handful of belief systems such as Marxism. These are different from how Anthropologists view class which is different from how sociologists view class and all of the above are different from how many older societies viewed class.
Marxism did not invent that class previously meant things like “serf, lord, slave, merchant, etc,” this was something Marx just used that everyone else was using. Marx developed class struggle further by developing dialectical and historical materialism, but did not invent this conception of class.
There was an article with a pretty compelling argument a while ago that basically said the true poverty line in the US is over 100.000$/year family income (when you look at what that number was originally supposed to measure). Below that you’re getting fucked left and right.
Every dollar a family earns between 40k and 100k makes them poorer, because it triggers benefit losses (like health care & child care) that exceed income gains.
So what the US reports as “the middle class” are actually the working poor
I was reading Michael Roberts’ blog the other day, and he pointed out something similar. The official calculations for inflation significantly understate it for various reasons. However, if you look at actual labor hours needed to cover the essentials of life, and you use the median income amount from 1950 (for the US), then that number comes out about $102k per year. Said another way, for a standard of living based on real life, to have the standard of the median American in 1950, you would need to earn over $100k today. But if you take that 1950 median income and just adjust it for official inflation, you only get to like $42k.
Its right in the middle, between homelessness and billionaire.
It’s helpful to divorce class from simple material wealth, and return to how we engage with production and distribution. The true “middle class” is the small business owner, in reality most people are working class.
I certainly don’t disagree, but I think it’s very useful to highlight how this has changed (IMO) in recent decades. I think there was a time when the boomer generation was earning relatively good incomes that allowed them to live comfortably and accumulate wealth (mainly in houses and the stock market). I think this arrangement between capital and the (predominantly white) working class created a situation where even those workers without much wealth could be “bought off” and swear allegiance to capitalism. This wasn’t sustainable of course, as the postwar industrial boom and then the gains from neoliberalism were never sustainable. Couple that with the fall of the Eastern Bloc and with it the “threat of a good example”, and I would say that this arrangement lasted as late as the GFC at most. I think this helps explain how older people today - even if they are solidly working class - might still be hostile to anything they think is “socialism” while younger generations do not share those opinions, it seems.
Yep, you’re referring to the “labor aristocracy.” The working classes in the imperial core are bribed by the spoils of imperialism into complacency. What’s causing the rise in radicalization is a decline in imperialism, due to global south development (largely due to projects like BRI and trade with China). This is why the US Empire is surging to the right, as imperialism is being brought inward and austerity forced on the labor aristocracy. This is causing radicalization:
So it’s important not just to look at the local, but also the international aspects of class. There’s also the fact that the US is a settler-colony, and this is the primary contradiction within Statesian society.
Middle: in between homelessness and millionaires
Nor even “the working class”.
The precariat.
Yeah cuz the lower class don’t get paid at all. Homelessness is rampant all over the states
Median class? Mode class?
Precarious class.
Brits and Germans too.
Canadians and Australians too while we’re at it. … And and and and and…
But sure. First rule of triage, tend to the most in danger first.
It’s almost like we need a goal working class revolution or something. Nepal gives me hope.
Just keep working harder! It’ll trickle down!
isn’t homeownership rate around 66%?
Home ownership rate is the percentage of homes occupied, not the percentage of people who own their homes (or even have positive equity in them).
From what I could find, 1/3rd of the adult population rents, another 3rd have mortgages with negative equity, and 1/3rd have positive or paid off mortgages. I couldn’t find the number who fully own their homes.
Either way all of the above categories could still be house-poor, meaning you’re spending most of your income on housing and upkeep, and could still be a paycheck away from homelessness, unable to pay rent/mortgage. I had a relative who fully owned her home, but was unable to pay the property tax and her house was seized.
