If you know anything about China, you’ll know it barely reflects communism. It’s largely structured around capitalist goals and the government reflects more of a corporate structure than anything.
Google leans towards standardized/compatible features while Apple leans towards proprietary/incompatible features. Two competing corporate structures can go about things in very different ways.
Mainly high tech chips manufacturing, space technology, weapons technology (hypersonic weapons, nuclear weapons, stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles), high speed rail, and automotive and electric vehicle technology. To name the major ones.
But these goals aren’t inherently or exclusively capitalistic in nature, are they? Capitalism and Communism are both described as a means to an end - that is to say they both make prescriptions on how the means of production should be owned and controlled, but they don’t make much suggestion as to what production that refers to. So, in theory, there’s no reason to believe any of these goals are capitalist or communist in nature, because people have reason to want these things regardless of their preference of economic structure.
It can be shown in practice that these are not capitalist inherently either. The “5 year plan” is actually a trope amongst Socialist/Communist leaders. Stalin had a 5 year plan that sounded very similar to Xi’s, and Xi adopted this type of state planning from Mao himself.
China’s weapons are manufactured by China North Industries Group Corporation, which is a state owned corporation, not a private company. China’s tech chips are manufactured by SMIC, also a state controlled corporation. The high speed railway is being built by the China Railway Corporation, also state run.
I think people get confused by the idea of “exchanging capital” when referring to trade, because it leads them to believe that capitalism means something that profits from capital, but a state can profit from capital just like how a private unit can. Capitalism is NOT the exchange of capital, it’s the private ownership of the means of production. If a state (ie: China) participates in trade, that is not an example of capitalism, because the means of trade are not owned by a private unit.
You’re actually wrong, has China does have official 5-year plans that it develops every 5 years, and they have done so since world War II. So, it is not a trope at all:
“The Five-Year Plans (simplified Chinese: 五年计划; traditional Chinese: 五年計劃; pinyin: Wǔnián Jìhuà) are a series of social and economic development initiatives issued by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1953 in the People’s Republic of China. Since 1949, the CCP has shaped the Chinese economy through the plenums of its Central Committee and national party congresses.”
Economic growth and efficiency in the form of a consumer economy, which dovetails with a capitalism-oriented promotion of individual accumulation of private property–this has become a larger part of the Chinese economy not smaller
Along side this, there’s been a greater profit motive for developing productivity as well as through market competition.
The communist goals they’ve gradually abandoned has been things like economic equality, where their income inequality is similar to the US now and represents a highly unequal distribution of resources. Collective ownership is more of a mixed bag. Social justice is also fractured along socioeconomic lines with a high level of labor exploitation of the poorer classes by the wealthy classes. The way these problems manifest are characteristically quite similar to late capitalism in the west. Obviously there are differences and no system is entirely one or the other.
If you know anything about China, you’ll know it barely reflects communism. It’s largely structured around capitalist goals and the government reflects more of a corporate structure than anything.
True. But they have high speed rail whereas the US corporate-controlled government does not
Google leans towards standardized/compatible features while Apple leans towards proprietary/incompatible features. Two competing corporate structures can go about things in very different ways.
What capitalist goals are China structured around?
Their 5 year growth plans.
Mainly high tech chips manufacturing, space technology, weapons technology (hypersonic weapons, nuclear weapons, stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles), high speed rail, and automotive and electric vehicle technology. To name the major ones.
But these goals aren’t inherently or exclusively capitalistic in nature, are they? Capitalism and Communism are both described as a means to an end - that is to say they both make prescriptions on how the means of production should be owned and controlled, but they don’t make much suggestion as to what production that refers to. So, in theory, there’s no reason to believe any of these goals are capitalist or communist in nature, because people have reason to want these things regardless of their preference of economic structure.
It can be shown in practice that these are not capitalist inherently either. The “5 year plan” is actually a trope amongst Socialist/Communist leaders. Stalin had a 5 year plan that sounded very similar to Xi’s, and Xi adopted this type of state planning from Mao himself.
China’s weapons are manufactured by China North Industries Group Corporation, which is a state owned corporation, not a private company. China’s tech chips are manufactured by SMIC, also a state controlled corporation. The high speed railway is being built by the China Railway Corporation, also state run.
I think people get confused by the idea of “exchanging capital” when referring to trade, because it leads them to believe that capitalism means something that profits from capital, but a state can profit from capital just like how a private unit can. Capitalism is NOT the exchange of capital, it’s the private ownership of the means of production. If a state (ie: China) participates in trade, that is not an example of capitalism, because the means of trade are not owned by a private unit.
China is a state capitalist country. So was Lenin’s and Stalin’s USSR.
You’re actually wrong, has China does have official 5-year plans that it develops every 5 years, and they have done so since world War II. So, it is not a trope at all:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China
China is currently undergoing their 14th 5-year plan:
https://www.fujian.gov.cn/english/news/202108/t20210809_5665713.htm#:~:text=China will focus on the,innovation and application of core
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_five-year_plan_(China)
I didn’t say they had no 5 year plan, I said the 5 year plan isn’t inherently capitalist
Economic growth and efficiency in the form of a consumer economy, which dovetails with a capitalism-oriented promotion of individual accumulation of private property–this has become a larger part of the Chinese economy not smaller
Along side this, there’s been a greater profit motive for developing productivity as well as through market competition.
The communist goals they’ve gradually abandoned has been things like economic equality, where their income inequality is similar to the US now and represents a highly unequal distribution of resources. Collective ownership is more of a mixed bag. Social justice is also fractured along socioeconomic lines with a high level of labor exploitation of the poorer classes by the wealthy classes. The way these problems manifest are characteristically quite similar to late capitalism in the west. Obviously there are differences and no system is entirely one or the other.