gonna be posting a bunch of quotes in this thread that I want to preserve. you are welcome to post critiques of a given pasta, just remember I don't 100% agree with all of these (only most) but consider them information worth saving. proposed edits will be considered

CONTENT WARNING: there's going to be mentions of imperial atrocities in here, including SA and torture.

  • emizeko [they/them]
    hexagon
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Now consider these excerpts from the aforementioned Guardian article:

    For a reliable benchmark about the power of the party in China, you only need to listen to wealthy entrepreneurs hold forth on politics. These otherwise all-powerful CEOs go to abject lengths to praise the party. To take a few companies listed in a single article in the South China Morning Post, Richard Liu of e-commerce group JD.com predicted communism would be realised in his generation and all commercial entities would be nationalised. Xu Jiayin of Evergrande Group, one of China’s largest property developers, said that everything the company possessed was given by the party and he was proud to be the party secretary of his company. Liang Wengen of Sany Heavy Industry, which builds earthmovers, went even further, saying his life belonged to the party. [14]

    Just as the lack of dignity of American workers isn’t merely superficial, but symptomatic, the same is true of the lack of dignity of Chinese capitalists. The periodic execution of corrupt capitalists and the humiliation of Jack Ma matter. Chauvinistic “Left” intellectuals may dismiss them as performative, but Western capitalists accustomed to impunity understand the threat loud and clear. The dignity or indignity experienced by different classes testifies more to the class character of a state than musings about its leaders’ sincerity.

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