Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.

They’ve been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren’t Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it’s bots or wumao. Human beings can’t possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.

  • CatholicSocialist
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    11 个月前

    Right because not being a shill for Xi makes me “pro-west.” Please.

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      11 个月前

      Its not about being a shill for Xi. Its about defending the country that went from having a 20% literacy rate to a country with its own space station in the span of 70 years. With railways and infrastructure that outshines those of the American empire, the richest nation in the history of the be world.

      You may not call it socialism but it is still worth defending. My family and friends in China see improvement and growth before their very eyes. Dirt roads are now high speed rail. How many working class Americans can say things have gotten better in the last few decades? That they can afford to dine out more often, that they can afford a bigger apartment? How many can say their children are getting better educated, that schools are improving, that their extra curricular sports programs have gotten funding? How many can say that they’ve seen a new hospital built in a lower income area, or at all? I know households where the grandparents grew up literally illiterate, like animals they weren’t given an education, without running water or electricity, and in leaner months would have to skip meals to pay the landlord. Today their bilingual grand children sit next to them in a home that they own, learning physics from a Livestream from the Chinese Space Station. Can you even conceive that level of improvement to a life, let alone a million, let alone a billion?

      And the sheltered Reddit libs cannot understand that people would defend that. They cannot understand why people would defend that. They must be shills, there’s no way anyone could genuinely defend a system that improved the lives of a billion people and abolished poverty. Our memes depict Xi as Winnie the Pooh, so those defending China must be robots or paid shills. No-one would actually defend China right?

      • Jesus@lemm.ee
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        11 个月前

        All the Chinese people in China who I totally really know in real life for sure. Those Chinese people in China that I totally really know all say they love love Xi. It’s totally because they really really want to and not because dissent isn’t allowed. They totally didn’t start making grade schoolers go to several extra hours of school a day to learn to worship Xi 2 years ago btw. Also there is no air pollution in Beijing. Did I mention I totally know some Chinese people. You’re all a bunch of sheltered white libs…not like me. I mean yeah, I am a lib, only 15, white, and I do live in my parents basement…but I know things, things that you don’t. There’s no way other people have any experience of the world so you have to believe, because I pretend…I mean DO, I do know some Chinese people in China and they are Chinese. They totally love their Chinese life in China where everyone has 120% literacy rate and reads 5 astrophysics books on their way to work in Beijing where there’s no air pollution in China.

        …China

        • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

          Sorry, which country is brainwashing people to worship their country from childhood? I forget.

          • Jesus@lemm.ee
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            11 个月前

            Who said shit about worshiping the US? You guys are so pedantic. You are all worried about exact language when it comes to yourselves, but take all kinds of liberties when it comes to others. You don’t even have any goal other than being an asshole. there’s no actual discussion to be had. You just consistently make wild, inaccurate speculation in order to (try to) enrage people. You’re so far off the mark though that it’s completely impotent. Have good life auto-fellating your self-perceived intellect…

        • AlkaliMarxist@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          It really just blows your mind that there are real people with real opinions based on their life experiences that don’t reflect your biases, doesn’t it.

          • Jesus@lemm.ee
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            11 个月前

            It’s just evident that you don’t actually have that real life experience. This is not what Chinese people say when not under duress. Something like 80% of Chinese people not living in China (read, who aren’t forced to support the government) disapprove of the Chinese government. I’ve lived and worked with Chinese people. They don’t say what you say they’re saying. I’ve lived and worked in communist countries. It’s not this socialist utopia you make it out to be. So yeah, it’s pretty clear you don’t have any idea what you’re saying. You keep talking about “Experience” when it’s obvious you don’t have any…I do. So fuck off with your fantastical agenda pushing bullshit.

            • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Something like 80% of Chinese people not living in China (read, who aren’t forced to support the government) disapprove of the Chinese government.

              Rich people who can afford to leave and settle permanently in a foreign land disapprove of Communist home country, shocking!

              I’ve lived and worked in communist countries.

              Were you with the CIA or…?

            • AlkaliMarxist@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Thanks for telling me what 80% [citations needed] of all Chinese people (not counting the vast majority of them because they live in China) think. I’m sure they also appreciate being spoken for. Maybe people who like living in China don’t see a reason to leave? Seems like a pretty obvious explanation, even if I ignore the statistic being direct from your ass.

              Your “real life experience” is a pretty funny idea too, seeing as how you apparently think that all 1.4 billion Chinese people are so effectively controlled that even though they all hate living there they will never let their friends and family know. Seems like a fantasy to me. I could say that about the US “all Americans hate the us and want to leave but they aren’t allowed to say so, so they pretend to like it” it would be patently stupid and there would be no evidence of it, so it’d be on par with your claims.

              As far as a utopia, no one said that but you, it’s just a strawman argument. It is impossible to make an argument that material conditions for people in China are not improving at one of the most rapid rates in the world.

            • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              So fuck off with your fantastical agenda pushing bullshit.

              Posted with zero irony from someone with the username “Jesus” who is pushing the standard US state department line like he’s worldly. show us your dick

            • Zoift [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              It really just blows your mind that there are real people with real opinions based on their life experiences that don’t reflect your biases.

              ^That’s not a retorical question anymore btw.

            • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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              11 个月前

              Go to Sydney Chinatown and ask them what the opinion of China is and 80% will be pro China not against.

              Strike up a conversation in Mandarin with a line cook or waitress, any one of the working class.

              Having to pretend to dislike China is a defense mechanism, otherwise the cumskins will turn on you like you’re a subhuman or a spy because they all have attitudes like you, which I do get reinforces the notion that overseas Chinese dislike China. But hate crimes against Asians are on the rise, so better safe than sorry.

              We are not some brainwashed masses at the beck and call of the CPC, liberals like you just don’t understand the concept of critical support. You’re either 100% behind something or 100% against it.

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          11 个月前

          Dude I am Chinese. I was born in China, my family is from Tianjin and Wuhan. My grandfather grew up illiterate. His comrades were mostly illiterate. One of my grandfather’s comrades I call 爷爷 was the one that went from a peasant family to living in a flat he owns.

          你认识多少华人?

    • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 个月前

      Ah yes, because the only way we could possibly admire the achievements of the Chinese state is because we were being paid to do so. Fuck off, creep.

      • CatholicSocialist
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        11 个月前

        No I think you’re just in an echochamber that didn’t wanna go full doomer because of how capitalist the entire world is. You wanted some hope for socialism so you clung onto China for false hope.

          • CatholicSocialist
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            11 个月前

            Well the world is almost all neoliberal hell so maybe that’d be better than supporting a fascistic hellscape because they have socialist aesthetics.

            I support Cuba and various socialist movements… I don’t pretend Xi is a well-meaning person.

            • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Nothing about Xi indicates that he isn’t well meaning, and much more importantly the lives of hundreds of millions of people have been vastly improved during his governance as head of a dedicated communist party.

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                If you think the CCP is genuinely dedicated to communism I cannot take you seriously.

                • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  It’s CPC and of course they are, there’s no reason to believe otherwise apart from being a dumb little racist baby who thinks only white people can do socialism properly.

                  • CatholicSocialist
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                    11 个月前

                    It’s CPC

                    What are you on about, it’s both?

                    there’s no reason to believe otherwise apart from being a dumb little racist baby who thinks only white people can do socialism properly.

                    Maybe the fact it’s a dictatorship with no power to the people? Tell me, what Chinese factory workers own their means of production?

                    Call me a racist? Cuba and Burkina Faso are true attempts at socialism, while the USSR under Stalin was not (Lenin was good though).

                • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  Oh hey it’s you again, I think you forgot to answer me in the other thread as well: what is your solution to the Ukranian puppet government’s ongoing genoicide in the Donbas?

                  • CatholicSocialist
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                    11 个月前

                    Honestly if Russia ONLY invaded Donbas I think I would support that. But you guys are clearly warmongerers that want as many dead Ukrainians as possible.

                • spectre [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  Few people here think that the CPC is “genuinely dedicated to communism”. It is a party with millions of members, including communists, liberals, nationalists, and others (happy to chat about the specific major factions in the party if you’re interested). Many in the party are not ardent communists, and have mediocre to poor historical and political literacy from the perspective of a lot of the Marxist nerds on here.

                  Some people look at the party and see “hey they’re called communists, and many of them are communists, sure as hell better than whatever is going on in the US or wherever” and kinda hop on board with some enthusiasm that way.

                  • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                    11 个月前

                    I think they’re pretty clearly dedicated to communism. It’s a long process and a lot of work, especially in a hostile world. Anything I read where they state their intentions perfectly matches their actions. The challenge will be when the actual expropriations begin. The capitalist backlash will be extremely violent.

                  • Walk_On [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    11 个月前

                    Hey, at least I didn’t say that most communists that support China are doing it because they want to be contrarian. That would be an incredibly ignorant statement to make.

                • GaveUp [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  Right? All these fucking tankies don’t even believe that there’s a current genocide against the Mongolians

                  Bunch of fucking insane nutcases here

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          For me it’s like 5% desperately clinging onto China for false hope, 20% not wanting global thermonuclear war, and 75% the global poverty alleviation they’ve been achieving both domestically and worldwide.

            • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Even beginning to compare the fucking mass transportation and enslavement of Caribbean peoples and Africans and the genocide of the native Americans to China is an unbelievable take even from liberals, holy fucking shit. If my brain conjured that up I would send myself to the gulag to punish it. Mass poverty alleviation is actually enslavement? Yeah, how dare the Communist Party of China bind all those hundreds of millions of people to this mortal coil by dramatically increasing life expectancy among the population. Devoting hundreds of billions of dollars in a hundred countries to building infrastructure and helping other countries use and develop their own resources, rather than having all the raw resources be shipped away to some European country for manufacturing so they can sell it right back to the people they exploit, is actually exploitation itself.

              The impressive thing about China is that it explicitly DIDN’T require the imperialism of over half the global population to create the world’s biggest economy, it was achieved through the efficiencies and foresight of state-guided economics and Marxist theory. Instead of creating new, arcane mortgage scams to generate profit conjured out of thin air and nearly shatter modern capitalism in the process (2008).

        • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          “false hope”

          CatholicSocialist

          I think someone’s projecting a little lmao, sorry your religion is primarily known for protecting pedophiles, but you don’t need to assume everyone else is having a crisis of faith.

        • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          oh no, we’re fully aware of how dire things are globally. but that doesn’t mean we have to swallow propaganda whole and go “thank you, may I have another?” it’s a deeply servile attitude.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          China is a capitalist country. I don’t disagree with that. However, if you get your head out of your ass and actually read some theory, you will realize that the form of capitalism that is being practiced in China is actually a left-liberal classical capitalism, fundementally grounded in principles of industrial growth discussed by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, that, if it overtakes the U.S. as global hegemon, actually has the potential to transition into a socialist society.

          Their poverty reduction, infrastructure building, and general wheeling and dealing with underdeveloped countries is laudable and far outstrips the history and ability of the West, and while I don’t really like their foreign policy stances, particularly on MLM issues, refusing to actually analyze what is going on there and what has the potential to go on there is a sure sign of the typical, unread, left-com martyrdom complex where you have the audacity to criticize the projects of others without ever having done anything particularly productive or revolutionary yourself.

          • CatholicSocialist
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            11 个月前

            actually has the potential to transition into a socialist society

            LMFAO I’ve read plenty of Marx and it clearly does not.

            Their poverty reduction, infrastructure building

            Maybe tinges of social democracy in a fast-growing economy accompanied by mass human rights abuse.

            dealing with underdeveloped countries

            Ah yes because Xi is doing it out of the goodness of his heart, totally not getting anything out of it like imperialist influence in Africa and interest money.

            • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              mass human rights abuses

              your source chain:

              mainstream articles, citing -> the victims of communism fund, citing -> adrien zens, citing -> “an anonymous source told me bro”

              go actually follow up on this shit you read

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                7% of 10-15 year olds are child laborers in China but keep pretending shit isn’t happening. “If a western website says it is must be false!”

                • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  The 7% statistic seems credible to me at a glance, though somewhat dated. The data are from Peking University’s 2010 China Family Panel Study, not RFA or Zenz pulling numbers out of their ass

                  https://docs.iza.org/dp9976.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Family_Panel_Studies

                  I’ll wager this statistic is declining over time, but I don’t know. I’m about to go to bed or I would do a deeper literature search.

                  For me the more important question is: Why? Why is China like this? Why did China liberalize under Deng? What is the worldwide political and economic context? Is child labor in China possibly a difficult problem to address, when we look at the whole situation? What measures have been taken so far? I hope you are at least wondering.

                  I’m no expert, but I’ll point out two things:

                  1 ) Not long ago, China was still dirt poor and fighting tooth and nail to industrialize and modernize as fast as possible. China’s economic power today is a fairly recent development.

                  2 ) China liberalized in order to survive in a hostile global economy. Liberalizing brought in a huge influx of foreign investment and industry expertise. The alternative was to be politically and economically strangled like most other socialist states have been. There’s only so much you can do with a self-contained economy in a hostile world.

            • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Marx was incorrect about alot of socio-political things, in particular his specific model of social revolution. You clearly believe this otherwise you wouldn’t still be a Catholic.

              However his historical model for capitalist industrial development is sound, and eventually the internal contradictions will have to be solved, one way or another. My hope that it isn’t a violent struggle that overthrows the CPC, but it very well may be. It’s either that, aggressive internal reform (which wouldn’t be the first time that occured) or they will take a neo-liberal turn themselves and then I will re-evaluate my position, which will also be reflected in the mass degradation of living standards if they take that route. And who knows, that may happen. But it hasn’t yet.

              ‘Mass human rights abuses’. Ah yes, the country with a 90% approval rating even by Western studies is the one participating in mass human rights abuses. How is Zenz doing these days?

              Who the fuck ever said it was out of the goodness of his heart? It’s for multi-polarity, resource access and ally building. Again, as critical as I am in that regard, it is the diplomatic move to make if you are in China’s global position. They don’t need to shake the boat, because ultimately time is on their side. They are very cynical in that regard.

              Lol ‘imperialist influence in Africa’, where are the military bases? Where is the limited occupations, training camps, invasions and coups? Heaven forbid the Chinese build the things that they are paid to build. No please, keep spouting off IMF talking points.

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                Ok, they’re nicer than the west, that doesn’t mean it’s not still imperialism. Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt; they’re trying to win them over to become satellite states one day.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt;

                  Almost like some kind of unfalsifiable orthodoxy is being used to make the judgement here

                • GnastyGnuts [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt [emphasis mine]; they’re trying to win them over to become satellite states one day.

                  What do you mean when you say their debt forgiveness is “corrupt”? And why do you believe that they want to win them over as “satellite states” and not as regular-old geopolitical allies?

                  Ok, they’re nicer than the west, that doesn’t mean it’s not still imperialism

                  What about it makes it imperialism to you? Do you see any difference at all between lending money for development projects and imperialism? How does forgiving loans facilitate economic domination of these places?

                  From that news.com australian article I posted: “But the concept of a Chinese “debt trap” has also been criticised, with a study in 2020 finding China had restructured or refinanced about $21 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. The study also noted there was no evidence of “asset seizures”and that Chinese lenders had not used courts to enforce payments, or applied penalty interest rates to distressed borrowers.” For a go at economic imperialism, they don’t seem keen on putting the choke-hold on.

                  • CatholicSocialist
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                    11 个月前

                    It’s more like your billionaire friends gives you a $100k loan to buy a house and expects you to pay them back with interest.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 个月前

      Right because not being a shill for Xi makes me “pro-west.” Please.

      I’m not pro-west I just only believe the literal exact narrative pushed by the US state department and the entirety of bourgeoise-owned media.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          Say something worth responding to at least. You choose to put “socialist” in your name yet you’re angry people here might defend a socialist country and not spew the bile fed to you by media that is literally owned or controlled by the bourgeoisie. It’s absurd.

          Say what your problem is. Give me something to actually argue with instead of these non-answers.

          • CatholicSocialist
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            11 个月前

            I have like 200 comments from you crazy tankies in my inbox, do you think I have the time to write paragraphs to everyone?

                • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  This thread just blew up tbh, unlike anything I’ve seen here. Mostly, our news bulletin megathread sometimes breaks 1000 comments, when there’s big news happening. Most other threads never hit 500. This one seems like it was bait to draw in lib commenters from the wider lemmyverse after federation and it worked. The user in question came in pretty antagonistically and is replying to all the replies they got, so yeah it’s probably a lot of replies to deal with but they also brought it on themself and it wasn’t anything coordinated. I myself have been engaging with this person, but just the same way I would have argued with anybody else here that I disagreed with over the last 3ish years.

                • Zoift [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Then you probably shouldn’t post a few dozen comments in this thread here on our home instance. Avoiding doing that should keep your inbox clean.

            • randint@lemm.ee
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              11 个月前

              Hi there. Check my comment history. It’s no use arguing with these people who think they’re experts on China. Don’t waste so much time like I did.

              • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                Thank goodness you are, so you can tell us all about China from your position of expertise! Go on, give us your best materialist analysis of the current conditions of China, with reference to the surrounding literature and studies by Chinese economists! I need the enlightened take of a western China Understander!

              • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]@hexbear.net
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                11 个月前

                You are absolutely correct! There is no use arguing with these dopey politically uneducated liberals who think that viewing MSNBC+breadtube a few times makes them experts on a particular subject.

    • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      11 个月前

      What makes a country “socialist”?

      A society where public ownership of the means of production, a state controlled by a politically organized proletariat, and production for societal use rather than for profit is the principal aspect (main body) of the economy.

      Key term here is principal aspect. There is a weird phenomenon from both anti-communists as well as a lot of ultraleft and leftcom communists themselves of applying a “one drop rule” to socialism, where socialism is only socialism if it’s absolutely pure without a single internal contradiction. But no society in the history of humankind has been pure, they all contain internal contradictions and internal contradictions are necessary for one form of society to develop into the next.

      If you applied that same logic to capitalism, then if there was any economic planning or public ownership, then capitalism would cease to be “true capitalism” and become “actually socialism”, which is an argument a lot of right-wing libertarians unironically make. The whole “not true capitalism” and “not true socialism” arguments are two sides of the same coin, that is, people weirdly applying an absolute purity standard to a particular economic system which is fundamentally impossible to exist in reality, so they then can declare their preferred system “has never truly been tried”. But it will never be tried ever because it’s an idealized form which cannot exist in concrete reality, actually-existing capitalism and socialism will always have internal contradictions within itself.

      If no idealized form exists and all things contain internal contradictions within themselves, then the only way to define them in a consistent way is not to define them in terms of perfectly and purely matching up to that idealized form, but that description merely becoming the principal aspect in a society filled with other forms and internal contradictions within itself.

      A capitalist society introducing some economic planning and public ownership doesn’t make it socialist because the principal aspect is still bourgeois rule and production for profit. This would mean the state and institutions carrying out the economic planning would be most influenced by the bourgeoisie and not by the working class, i.e. they would still behave somewhat privately, the “public ownership” would really be bourgeois ownership and the economic planning would be for the benefit of the bourgeoisie first and foremost.

      A similar story in a socialist society with markets and private ownership. If you have a society dominated by public ownership and someone decides to open a shop, where do they get the land, the raw materials, permission for that shop, etc? If they get everything from the public sector, then they exist purely by the explicit approval by the public sector, they don’t have real autonomy. The business may be internally run privately but would be forced to fit into the public plan due to everything around them demanding it for their survival.

      Whatever is the dominant aspect of society will shape the subordinated forms. You have to understand societies as all containing internal contradictions and seeking for what is the dominant form in that society that shapes subordinated forms, rather than through an abstract and impossible to realize idealized version of “true socialism”.

      Countries like Norway may have things that seemingly contradict capitalism like large social safety nets for workers funded by large amounts of public ownership, but these came as concessions due to the proximity of Nordic countries to the USSR which pressured the bourgeoisie to make concessions with the working class. However, the working class and public ownership and economic planning never became the principal aspect of Norway. The bourgeoisie still remains in control, arguably with a weaker position, but they are still by principal aspect, and in many Nordic countries ever since the dissolution of the USSR, the bourgeoisie has been using that dominant position to roll back concessions.

      The argument for China being socialist is not that China has fully achieved some pure, idealized form of socialism, but that China is a DOTP where public ownership alongside the CPC’s Five-Year plans remain the principal aspect of the economy and other economic organization is a subordinated form.

      Deng Xiaoping Theory is not a rejection of the economic system the Soviets were trying to build but a criticism of the Soviet understanding socialist development. After the Soviets deemed they had sufficient productive forces to transition into socialism, they attempted to transition into a nearly pure socialist society within a very short amount of time, and then declared socialist construction was completed and the next step was to transition towards communism.

      Deng Xiaoping Theory instead argues that socialism itself has to be broken up into development stages a bit like how capitalism also has a “lower” and “higher” phase, so does socialism. The initial stage is to the “primary stage” of underdeveloped socialism, and then the main goal of the communist party is to build towards the developed stage of socialism. The CPC disagreed that the Soviets had actually completed their socialist construction and trying to then build towards communism was rushing things far faster than what the level of productive forces of the country could sustain and inevitably would lead to such great internal contradictions in the economic system to halt economic development.

      The argument was not a rejection of the Marxist or Marxist-Leninist understanding of what socialism is, but a disagreement over the development stages, viewing socialism’s development as much more gradual and a country may remain in the primary stage like China is currently in for a long, long time, Deng Xiaoping speculated even 100 years.

      I recall reading somethings from Mao where he criticized the Marxian understanding of communism, but not from the basis of it being wrong, but it being speculative. He made the argument that Marx’s detailed analysis of capitalism was only possible because Marx lived in a capitalist society and could see and research its development in real time, therefore Mao was skeptical the current understanding of communism would remain forever, because when you actually try to construct it you would inevitably learn far more than you could speculate about in the future, have a much more detailed understanding of what it is in concrete reality and what its development stages look like.

      In a sense, that’s the same position the modern CPC takes towards socialism, that the Soviets and Mao rushed into socialism due to geopolitical circumstances and did not have time to actually fully grasp what socialist development would look like in practice, and Deng Xiaoping Theory introduces the concept of the primary stage of socialism based on their experience actually trying to implement it under Mao.

      Despite common misconception, the CPC’s position is indeed that China is currently socialist, not “will be socialist in 2049” or whatever. The argument is that China is in the primary stage of socialism, a system where socialist aspects of the political and economic system have become the main body but in a very underdeveloped form.

      EDIT: just to be clear the above is by u/aimixin

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        11 个月前

        I, in general, agree with all of this, you should be posting this at CatholicSocialist, not me. My general criticisms of Marx’s social revolutionary model are ones that he recognized himself later in life (and would be incorporated into Lenin’s labor aristocracy critiques as well), which is that it is the periphery proletariat and peasantry that has more revolutionary attitude and need to organize and create a social revolution. He just never actually published them, so I struggle to really call them a part of Marx’s ‘social revolution model’.

        My general description of China as ‘left-liberal capitalist’ stems from the fact that while the party holds the vast majority share of political power in the country, many of those party members are members of bourgeoise, though not even close to a majority, with none of them making up the upper echelon of the party. However, notably, they are almost entirely made up of members of the industrial or petite-bourgeoise, not the FIRE or tech sectors, which is an unspeakably enormous improvement over the Western neoliberal model that fits incredibly neatly into Adam Smith’s idealized version of classical industrial capitalism described in the Wealth of Nations, which Marx saw as a clear and total upgrade to the feudal mode of production.

        That being said, I am perfectly content to call China ‘first-stage socialism’ when not in mixed company, but ultimately these stages are rather arbitrary, and it will be seen what happens when China actually achieves it’s destiny and breaks the shackles put around it by the U.S. I generally am in good faith about it, as I have seen factory conditions all over the place and China’s are, in general, much better than your average place, and the proletariat seem to be mostly in high-spirits and believing in the project and the government and their ability to change what the government is doing if it is doing something they don’t like. It’s a completely different attitude than the U.S. and it is completely alien to my experience in any other Western country. Even our most ‘patriotic’ chuds think that the government is out to screw them, so it is weird to see a patriotic nationalism that actually believes that government can and does do good things. Whatever their central mode of production, they are very clearly trying to achieve communism.

        • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          We all hope. In all honesty it seems like Xi actually believes and the fact that Chinese leadership is confident in him as their leader gives me a lot of hope. I would hate to see China devolve into another neoliberal dead end but given how well materialist-based development has served them it’s hard to see that happening.

          That said there will eventually be a big painful moment where they have to deal with the liberal elements and we are all going to be sitting on the sidelines wishing the best. You know, when we’re not busy riding around in Priuses stocked with miniguns stealing breast milk from milk town

        • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          I, in general, agree with all of this, you should be posting this at CatholicSocialist, not me.

          I’m confused by this because I was replying to CatholicSocialist? I wasn’t trying to come at you personally, not even indirectly. just wanted to make that clear. that piece is originally by u/aimixin (RIP) I will edit in attribution

    • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 个月前

      Hey since you’re refusing to answer in the other thread, you claimed that you supported Donbas independence and also stated that you would have less (but not presumably zero) problem with Russia “only” invading them.

      I asked how, if the DPR and LPR were the legitimate governments of the Donbas, and they invited Russia, Russia could possibly have invaded them at all and you responded to a bunch of other ones and not that one, probably because you’d basically walked into admitting you were acting in bad faith for the whole thread?

      Anyways can you explain here how Russia could invade a state that was asking them to send soldiers?

      • CatholicSocialist
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        11 个月前

        Considering China is a capitalist state much like America, not sure!

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          Damn where is America imprisoning and executing billionaires alongside harsh anti corruption campaigns in the government, maybe I’ll move there

          • CatholicSocialist
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            11 个月前

            I don’t care if they’re holding people accountable for corruption. Why does a country supposably aiming for socialism have BILLIONAIRES in the FIRST PLACE??

            • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              They have them as a byproduct of Deng’s reforms which allowed rapid development of the means of production, they need to be managed of course and suppressed by the people’s democratic dictatorship, which they are. Eventually development will reach the point where they are no longer useful and can be fully done away with.

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                Mhm keep telling yourself that hun. That’s a lot of words for “trust us bro the hyper capitalism is temporary”

                • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  The point of Deng’s reforms were to avoid getting killed in the crib by the west. Take their money and productive capacity in the short term to prevent them from couping/bombing you, and then when you’ve finished eating their lunch, you can do a socialist rug pull. Will it happen? Remains to be seen - but as for the capitalism, there are positive indications of tamping down on it. The anti-corruption purges are a great start. They rooted out many opportunist elements within the party, put the screws on capital and reasserted party primacy, and got the party back on track as a principled organization with serious cadre all around. That’s a positive development and puts them in a stronger position to manage a transition to a worker’s state when productive capacity and geopolitical conditions favor it.

                  In addition, some industries are being heavily restricted and reformed to prevent bourgeois saturation. Take education for example; foreign and private schools were rampant profit making/status manufacturing machines in China. These have been all but eliminated as for profit industries due to their misalignment with socialist development. This is just an example, not an exhaustive list.

                  • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    11 个月前

                    You’re wasting your time. You can’t argue with someone who’s working backwards form a predetermined conclusion.

                • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  It’s not in any sense “hyper” capitalism to begin with, it’s a limited form of capitalism while the working class maintains political control via the CPC and the stage maintains ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, for starters. And since the CPC has made good on pretty much all of its stated goals (usually ahead of schedule) and consistently improved conditions for everybody in the country for decades on end, what reason do I have to doubt their process?

            • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              it was either embrace partial capitalism or get strangled out of the world economy. Deng’s reforms brought a massive influx of foreign investment and expertise.

                • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  The wealth of Norway depends on the imperialist white supremacist settler colonial extractive ventures of the West. The wealth of China does not. Simple as.

                  • CatholicSocialist
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                    11 个月前

                    This isn’t about wealth. Does Norway have 12 year olds in factories? Tell me why Norway gives workers 3x more paid time off? Don’t you think China’s rich enough to make things better for workers?

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                Really wouldn’t be that hard to make a wealth cap but ok, keep sucking off the CPC (Capitalist Party of China)

                  • CatholicSocialist
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                    11 个月前

                    If anyone good was in Xi’s shoes they’d do a much better job. We don’t even know his wealth because there’s no transparency with the CCP, shit he’s probably richer than Elon.

            • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              11 个月前

              Dogmatism and ideological purity are blinding you. It certainly should be a conversation about why billionaires exist in China, especially as they strengthen their safeguards against capital flight, but their existence alone does not discredit the great strides of progress China has made under SwCC in under a century. There are few examples of such a large mass of people seeing such substantive improvements in their lives. No matter the system, such dramatic change will result in unforseen consequences because there is so much change occuring. The measure of the response though is what is important: protecting themselves from capital flight, placing party leadership within corporations, focusing on carbon reduction through reduced pollution, tree planting, and alternative energy sources are all measurable ways the government is correcting. Where else do you see such response by those in power for their citizens? The Chinese approval for their government is incredibly high, and this is why

              • CatholicSocialist
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                11 个月前

                Is Chinese capitalism efficient, and has the government helped the people’s material conditions (other than minorities/dissidents)? Yes. Are they aiming for socialism? No.

                • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  11 个月前

                  So I gather that the relatively few dissidents in mainstream media is how you decide that there is excessive repression? Could it be that so many in China approve of their government that there just aren’t many dissidents and those who do speak out aren’t covered in the media you consume unless they face consequences?

                  As far as minorities, there has been progress for the LGBTQ+ community as well as religious minorities and other races. Could it be better and faster? Certainly, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening or they are regressing.

                  As far as whether they are progressing towards socialism, if you believe Marx and Lenin, state capitalism is a necessary step towards communism and is generally accepted as ‘socialism’. What do you then classify as socialism?

        • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 个月前

          Li: At the moment, the Chinese the party state has proven an extraordinary ability to change. I mean, I make the joke: “in America you can change the political party, but you can’t change the policies. In China you cannot change the party, but you can change policies.” So, in the past 66 years, China has been run by one single party. Yet the political changes that have taken place in China in these past 66 years have been wider, and broader, and greater than probably any other major country in modern memory.

          Pilger: So in that time China ceased to be communist. Is that what you’re saying?

          Li: Well, China is a market economy, and it’s a vibrant market economy. But it is not a capitalist country. Here’s why: there’s no way a group of billionaires could control the Politburo as billionaires control American policy-making. So in China you have a vibrant market economy, but capital does not rise above political authority. Capital does not have enshrined rights. In America, capital — the interests of capital and capital itself — has risen above the American nation. The political authority cannot check the power of capital. That’s why America is a capitalist country, and China is not.

          from https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/

    • ilyenkov [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      11 个月前

      How can you even be a Catholic and not pro-west? The literal state religion of the Western Roman Empire. The last vestige of the Roman empire. Spread by the sword throughout the world. Housed in Rome itself, the vile cesspit whose progeny still despoil and exploit this world. Real Jesus heads would never be down with a vile empire coopting his message like that.