The following article, first published in Struggle for Socialism / La Lucha por el Socialismo, compares the state of the US and Chinese railroad systems. The US system is in a state of disrepair, with a lack of investment and a focus on profit over service. In contrast, China has built a high-speed rail network … Continue reading A retired railroader looks at China’s fantastic rail system
This is the critical point in a lot of these online arguments. “Socialist” is such a vague term that two people can unknowingly be reading completely different questions from the same statement. It can mean anything from a person following a school of thought (“I’m a socialist”, “We are a socialist party”, “The socialist movement”) to a description of economic conditions (“That commune has a socialist economy”), let alone looser usage (e.g. describing social policies within capitalism, people who have no understanding of socialist theories calling things socialist, etc.). When possible, I find it’s best to avoid the whole “thats not real socialism” spiral by being more specific.
It literally isn’t real socialism. They don’t even have free healthcare.
As my previous post implied, socialism can refer to a school of thought/philosophy, or a movement, or a political position. China’s government clearly does not claim it has achieved a society with a socialist mode of production (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “real socialism”?), but that doesn’t contradict their claim of being a socialist, and further, communist party.
Furthermore, free healthcare is irrelevant. It’s not a precondition of socialism. The working class can control and own their means of production without having free healthcare. It’s a great policy which I support, but it’s not socialist.
Okay, so you’ve got one criteria: Socialized Medicine, care to list out the rest of them for how you determine if something is socialism?