On the photo is Jack Ma, one of the richest capitalists in China, the owner of Alibaba, the Chinese billionaire who said the working hours of the workers should be extended to 12 hours a day.
Many leftists and even people who call themselves marxists say China is still socialist, while other leftists/marxists say it has nothing to do with a socialist country today. Some people also argue that the reinstauration of capitalism in China, after Mao Zedong, was a treason against the revolution and socialism and there is now a lot of rhetorics to justify this opportunism.
If China is still socialist, as some people advocate, how to explain about the billionaires, capitalists, supposed explotation of workers etc.?
Yes, China is still socialist.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#is-china-state-capitalist
To add, most importantly, capitalists are not organized as a class in China, they have no enshrined rights, and they do not control or hold power over the political system, as exists in bourgeois democracies. And of course state-owned enterprises are at the commanding heights of every important industry, private capital doesn’t come close.
Super nice summary, I wish it were on a better resolution, though, since I can’t read the bottom text.
from what I can make out
“-the world’s largest bank, energy company and construction company are state-owned. -all companies with <100 employees are required to have a CPC trade Union cell which have final say over managerial decisions -Chinese companies are listed as privately owned when they are not privately owned. Leading to an underrepresentation of the Chinese state in analyses of the PPC’s economy….”
Idk too hard to read the rest.
In addition to everybody’s excellent answers, here’s a little sample platter of things to further drive the point home:
-China is pursuing green energy, green cities, environmental sustainability–not just talk but lots and lots of walk. Capitalist governments are constitutionally incapable of serious green initiatives of this size and effectiveness.
-China does not surpress leftists (except the type of Western-esque “leftists” who are at best useful idiots for the CIA to undermine China with), figures like Marx and Mao and Lenin etc. etc. are celebrated and the sciences they created are taught and expanded upon. Chinese youth have been having a massive anti-consumerist culture wave that the CPC is certainly not suppressing, the return to more ideological Maoist thought has been welcomed.
-China, as opposed to popular Western narratives, is not imperialist and goes to great lengths to build mutually beneficial relationships with vulnerable countries that an actual capitalist country could hardly stop itself from brutally exploiting.
-China is not directly operated by workers like the Western utopian conception of a binary socialism that just automatically switches on, but the people of China overwhelmingly support the CPC and are very satisfied with how it operates, especially on a federal level (we’re talking percents in the mid-to-high 90s, reported by Western NGOs even). Likewise the Chinese people in identical numbers report feeling like their country is the most democratic nation on the Earth, and there is a strong sense that the Chinese working class steers policy; this is why there have been such huge economic boons for the working class in China lately, if it were up to a separate class of politicians out-of-touch with people on the ground who did as they pleased then there would be no reason to not continue with the Dengist mode and strive for productivity and development with no such increases in living standards.
-Living standards-wise, they have elicited extreme poverty, have the fastest growing middle class in the world, the largest proportion of out-of-country vacationers across the world, Chinese workers of all fields these days regularly look forward to incremental increases in their real wages and work/life balance, etc. Again, all of this is impossible under capitalism, except perhaps social democratic concessions which are given under extreme duress when the ruling class feels it must placate the working class to prevent revolution; the Chinese people didn’t have to murmur threats of violent revolution to get treated well.
This tidbits are just surface level and go a lot deeper, and all these issues interconnect to clearly show that China is indeed socialist. Capitalism and capitalists are just tools to the Chinese who see it/them as necessary to their long term plan of building socialism. Of course after Mao and during Deng and onwards the economic reforms led to truly pro-capitalist forces within the CPC, which went hand-in-hand with the corruption and capitalist accrument kf power of that era, but this was an expected side effect of the Dengist operation, and after they succeeded in their economic goals leaders like Hu and Xi then made sure to uproot said corruption and re-supress said capitalists before they riddled the CPC and eventually led to a USSR type scenario and capitalist coup attempt. China has always been socialist and at this rate always will be, there was definitely some pressure exerted on them as they undertook this long game to secure a life for themselves and to thwart Western hegemony and, who knows, there might be a nearby alternative history in another universe where the corrupting forces slowly weaseled themselves into more and more power and socialism in China was destroyed, but this is not the case.
Within the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the capitalist mode of development has been allowed some space to advance the productive forces of the Chinese nation.
There is a critical difference between capitalist production in China and capitalist production in bourgeois nations such as the US or UK. In China the capitalists are allowed to be of limited and temporary use to the Chinese people, the limits of which are set and can be changed at any time by the Chinese people. Whereas in bourgeois nations the capitalists themselves control the state, and the people which reside within those borders are simply tools to generate capital.
When a Chinese capitalist steps out of bounds, they are held accountable - up to and including seizure of property and execution. When an American capitalist steps out of bounds they are either ignored or rewarded with adoration and publicly funded contracts.
If that guy did for real say that “workers should work 12hrs”, then it seems like it might be time to knock him down quite a bit. That is some Bezos shit, and means workers have no time to do stuff they both need and want to do in their own time. Just like the US CEOs that miss the point that even if they are willing to spend every waking moment doing company business. The masses don’t function that way. It is terrifying to let that kind of shit become normal and the bare minimum. No time to even consider having a family, and no time to actually spend time with one if you do. It (to me from a non-Chinese perspective) is like all the wrong habits are being normalized from the capitalist system.
I agree, that’s some Bezos shit. The difference is that MA is being held accountable, whereas American billionaires do whatever the fuck they want. China is trying to reduce working time. China is controlled by the people. The people don’t want to work twelve hours a day. There’s no need for it. Of course Ma says some stupid shit, he’s a billionaire, they’re all clueless about how life is for working people. That doesn’t mean his stupid greedy ideas are taken seriously.
Remember early last year or so when western media were going crazy about how Jack Ma had “disappeared”? He was consolidating too much power and influence and his Ali conglomerate was reaching in to too many industries, so the government reigned him in. He came back in to the public spotlight a few months later, his planned Ant Group IPO was canceled, he’s probably been sanctioned and limited in other ways as well. China has a larger plan to socialize all private business in the coming few decades, as they know that the time for limited capitalist production is coming to and end; the productive forces of China will soon be strong enough to stand on their own.
Thanks! One thing that is both a simple reason and oddly weird to just understand is the tactic they are trying. Without at least some better understanding of China from a non-US viewpoint, it all sounds like a capitalist state with lots of socialist iconography. But I have been trying to see things with a more good-faith lens so I could first get past the knee-jerk reactions so deeply ingrained from years of being told “China is evil and lies about everything” type stuff. I still find plenty of things I don’t agree with/support of course. However along with the above efforts learning more about the general flow of stages of reaching socialism/communism has aided in this starting to click. Both USSR (mainly the initial Russian/Ukraine starting points) and China kind of skipped the bourgeoisie revolution which has been seen as crucial for inspiring the proletariat revolution to take over. So understanding the rational of backing off a little in order to build-up the infrastructures that would’ve been seized from the capitalists makes sense. Like trying to jump straight to running a marathon without first building up to it with shorter distances. I hope they do start to get to the end goal soon, as the workers must start to see the promised liberation to have true time to enjoy living life (which I hope the US and other nations will finally see what we could have too). At the current rate, the greed of our capitalists to outsource everything (especially manufacturing) we won’t have the working internal infrastructures to make the transition to socialism without our own “training” to build shit back up first. Which sucks given how badly we need to get past the current worker and societal oppression from the ruling class. Though I would be fine if we at least started to execute our own corrupt elites for their actions for the moment. lol
It’s complicated but here is my take on it: (it might be wrong though, comrades, feel free to correct me!)
China IS socialist, but it’s still in transition between full socialism (where the modes of production are 100% controlled by the proletariat, but still not a utopia.) and capitalism. Reason being the Deng reforms, which allowed the economy to progress much faster with the influx of foreign capital. Capitalists found in China a way to make cheaper products and the Chinese a way to quickly develop the country (after the Japanese Invasion and the Civil War, which destroyed the country.) You could compare the Deng reforms with the NEP from Lenin.
The Chinese government controls 24 of the 25 biggest companies, 60% of the companies are state-owned (and state-owned companies are mandated by law to have democratic votes from the workers on how the company should act. Which is a way of letting the proletariat control the means of production). China has also announced the goal to socialize all the companies until 2050.
As other comrades have pointed, billionaires are kept on tight bounds, go out of them, and you will be held accountable. How many billionaires you have seen being accountable on America? Though I do think billionaires existing is a problem that should be corrected (and, that IS being corrected!)
I also would like to point that the Chinese government has used many Socialist characteristics, like the 5-year planning and protecting extreme important industries and not allowing them to be privatized.
TLDR: Billionaires existing is a side effect of the Deng reforms, much significant to the quick development of China, but that does not mean China is not full socialist yet, but just a transitory state to full socialism.
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I don’t understand how people here can be sold on the idea that the mega-rich use their wealth to corrupt institutions but can’t believe that Chinese billionaires could possibly be using influence to better themselves at the expense of the working class. Surely Mr. Make-Everyone-Work-12-Hours isn’t using his massive accumulated resources to corrupt any facet of Chinese governance. What level of cognitive dissonance is required to believe that he “earned” his wealth, in a socialist country no less.
I’ve found that people here are passionate in their hatred of capitalism and the unlimited ways it makes life worse for nearly every living thing on the planet, and that’s great. Then they’re told that socialism/communism is the answer that the other people who hate capitalism already accept so now they’ve got something to build an identity around. And once that happens it’s nigh impossible to convince them that China or even Russia is doing some heinous shit too because at some point the notion that “since the imperialists are awful, the socialists are perfect” became part of their DNA.
It’s no different thatn someone who sees the horrendous words and actions of America’s Republican party so they become a rabid Democratic, furiously defending anyone with a (D) next to their name. It’s the same polarization but it feels like the right kind to people because socialistis/communists are always the little guys and underdogs in every fight.
Instead of using something closer to the scientific method to learn and iterate on all good ideas from history, the “real leftists” like the one who dismissed my last comment and told me to read theory takes the Communist Manifesto - published 175 years ago - more as an immutable religious text instead of the start of sussing out some good ideas.
Anywho, vote down my comment because I didn’t say how amazing it must be to live in China and even questioned that the socialism itself is imperfect and subject to corruption as we see time and again from - you guessed it - China.
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Is this a troll? Lol material dude. 😂 you almost had me there.
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Haha, yeah. When they started talking ab 175 year old theory. I smelled the smelly smell that smells smelly. Fish, namely.
This probably isn’t the best place to ask that. I’ve found that any legitimate criticism of the Chinese government is met with people who will call you a neoliberal, a “useful idiot” (as below), a fake leftist, or being told that you buy into imperialist propaganda. Any source you provide that doesn’t support their personal narrative is fake and any pro-China news is absolute truth.
Nuance is not allowed here. Since capitalism is the bad guys (true) then a country that calls itself Socialist are the good guys and good guys can do no wrong. Therefore as you can see from every other response, “of course” China is socialist and not capitalist at all.
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this people say to be dialectic, but there’s any critique and every deconstruction they read is an attack of their values. Embrace the emptiness my comrades!! The history doesn’t follow any pattern
