So this episode is about the capitalist immiseration being experienced by gig economy drivers in China rn. Sounds just as fucked as delivery drivers in the US tbh.
I was expecting more context from a left pod. Like maybe if China wasn't forced to compete with a ruthless global hegemon in the course of their development, for the survival of their project, their system might not be quite so authoritarian. Instead it's an episode of chinabad.
It's easy to be liberal when you're in a position of unassailable power. Not so easy when the US has the stated aim of killing your project by literally any means necessary.
Is this pod legit? Maybe I'm wrong about this, but don't the presenters write for vice and isn't it a vice pod? Is vice still owned by news corp?
Anyway, fwiw, the episode is worth listening to imo, more in the context of a great power media war and less as concern for the rights of chinese workers.
I think the key difference between China and many other places is that the Chinese government isn't afraid to put its foot down on behalf of workers.
Recently, a high ranking Beijing city official went undercover for a 12 hour long shift as a delivery driver and his findings were that drivers made too little for how hard they worked. The company is already promising and implementing a bunch of measures to improve.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202104/29/WS608aa63fa31024ad0babb5d3.html
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222379.shtml
Like pollution before it, this sort of issue shows that the CPC is absolutely willing to put the interests of people above corporations and industry.
China is not a perfect country for the working class, but I firmly believe that conditions are going in an upwards trajectory, unlike anywhere in the capitalist world.
Yeah being critical of China from a leftist perspective is generally fine unless it's the sort of "they're not the specific kind of leftism I prefer, so they're actually just capitalists" bullshit you sometimes find online.
In my view the gig economy is the capitalist answer to the question of what to do with a permanent underclass. Give them a tiny amount of money for very time consuming work so they can't think about rising up. Such a question should absolutely not be resolved (or even asked) in the same way in a country which strives for socialism.
Again, the difference is that Uber and Co can lobby Washington and state governments to prevent themselves from being regulated. Meituan and Co have gotten negative attention from Beijing for the social impact of their business model and now have no choice but to do better or get their shit pushed in.
Interesting link. From from the same site there's https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222175.shtml
Hopefully it's a more dangerous game that the capitalists in China play.
China Daily and Global Times are both government mouthpieces. They have about as much spine as The Washington Post. If they're being critical it's been approved.
China Daily and Global Times are both
government mouthpiecesbased.No doubt, but given we're gonna be biased in favor of the post, it's good to hear the other perspective.
No one will even admit to reading Chuang anymore after several of their staff were found out to literally work for the feds. I don't know about Chuang personally, I feel like they have some insightful works still, and I don't find the idea of the CIA operating an ultra-left anti-capitalist China publication to be particularly realistic. But all of these analyses seem to divorce China from it's world historical context, which I don't see as a particularly useful mode of investigation. I like some of what I've read from the Qiao Collective though in contrast, where they seem to only focus on the world historical context, but don't have much to say about some of China's more questionable policies.
several of their staff were found out to literally work for the feds
It wouldn't surprise me but source pls?
Neocons literally started as trotskyists, they absolutely know the value of turning ultras.
I do find it strange that someone anonymous would spend so much time, money and effort writing in English (good English, too) about the minutia of Chinese internal social life.
I cannot find a source unfortunately. It was huge blowout on Twitter when people found out they took submissions from people with ties to the State Department I think. I don't remember the exact details.
No one will even admit to reading Chuang anymore after several of their staff were found out to literally work for the feds
Is this Max Blumenthal type "the six degrees of separation apply to the CIA"-finding out or something more legit?
There was big blow out when people linked maybe a contributor or editor to the State Department. I forget the details, but their reputation took a major hit and everyone was dunking on ultra-lefts for a quick second for citing Chuang.
yeah, chuang is bad but the reality on the ground is that these gig workers really do have it bad, even sixthtone admitted to it. government is too hamfisted to do anything effective and the grassroots shit gets cut down in the cradle by capital interests in the name of preserving political stability, life is real tough for chinese gig workers.
Like maybe if China wasn’t forced to compete with a ruthless global hegemon in the course of their development, for the survival of their project, their system might not be quite so authoritarian.
The USSR managed to compete with a similar level of "authoritarianism", but way more worker's rights than the PRC. I don't think "we need a gig economy to outcompete the US" is a valid point. What's next? "The US uses forced labour, so to outcompete them we also have to rely on forced labour"?
No choice. In the 70s, the KGB (the only ones with the real numbers) concluded the Soviets were going to lose the Cold War. The US was going to grow its economy to gargantuan size and outcompete the Soviets in every category. But don't believe me, here's Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff, no friend of capitalism:
"We cannot equal the quality of U.S. arms for a generation or two. Modern military power is based on technology, and technology is based on computers. In the US, small children play with computers... Here, we don't even have computers in every office of the Defense Ministry. And for reasons you know well, we cannot make computers widely available in our society. We will never be able to catch up with you in modern arms until we have an economic revolution. And the question is whether we can have an economic revolution without a political revolution."
Well, they had the economic revolution by Gorbachev and the political revolution came after that. But the point is they were backed into a corner and had no choice.
“we need a gig economy to outcompete the US”
Nobody said that. If you want to characterize things like that, it's more like "Another anomaly has arisen in the capitalist system we were forced to adopt to survive. We'll adapt and continue the development of our righteous project in the context of an agressive global hegemon ."
The second is a garbage, content-less re-wording that sounds like a student trying to reach an arbitrary word count. lmao at "anomaly".
ehhh.....of course it was a rewording. That the point of the post. Any opinion on the issue?
Your reaction to criticism of China's response to someone organising delivery and taxi app drivers is dumb and misses the point. It's a response that's clearly looking for excuses to justify it, and when people point it out, you deny it.
I would suggest outlining an actual specific critique of the content of the podcast or sources it relies on, instead of staying at the abstract and not remotely useful "a podcast has a criticism of China and that makes me feel weird :("
A mischaracterization of the OP and an attack, but go off.
The critique in the OP is fairly clear and understandable, and the questions about the pod valid. I think everyone should listen to it and be aware of the reporting, but not without considering context.
A mischaracterization of the OP and an attack, but go off.
It really wasn't. I want people to be able to seriously critically engage with things. Criticism is not attack, asking for specificity is not an attack.
The critique in the OP is fairly clear and understandable
No, it's vague and based on a general feeling that any criticism of China can be slotted in the "liberals say China bad" as a way to downplay or dismiss it out of hand.
Criticism is not attack, asking for specificity is not an attack.
Of course not. Garbage, dumb, lmao, "makes me feel weird:(" are closer to attacks. I gonna leave it here unless you've got something cogent.
Non-imperial nations don’t have the benefit of stolen colonial wealth.
This is the core point and the context that's always left out, even on the left. It needs to be emphasised in the simplest terms becasue people just don't want to think about it, it causes too much dissonance.
TMK is indeed legit and a pretty cool podcast. And this episode also presents some real problems with platform capitalism, and the worse described there is also something that platforms do want to have in the west as well and in some places already do.
Like maybe if China wasn’t forced to compete with a ruthless global hegemon in the course of their development, for the survival of their project, their system might not be quite so authoritarian.
"The USA is putting pressure on us and wants our political project to collapse, that's why we have exploited workers, simply to bolster our ability to compete against America"
Cliche time. It's not about competition in the way you're using the word there, implying a fair contest.
It's about survival and prosperity. The US has stated that they will do anything to prevent the rise of China and have demonstrated a willingness in the past to do anything to achieve their aims.
They have also said that they want to end the Chinese project and have ended other projects in the past by any means necessary.
There is also a full spectrum media, political and economic campaign against China right now.
You're narrowly focussing on one issue, leaving out any historical or wider current context, imo.
That's not my point.
The point is that you shouldn't excuse any/all of China's flaws due to competition.
The entire meaning of "critical support" is that they're better than the alternative but could still be improved upon.
Take your point and I get the concept of critical support of course.
The point I'm making is that this podcast somehow forgot any historical or current context and may as well be part of the campaign against China rn. It's disappointing from what's supposed to be a left pod.
If they are are acting in good faith, they're assuming a level of political and historical knowledge from their audience that just isn't there imo.
Hot take but how long has the gig econony existed? A year or two tops? Even if it is a comete failure I think it is too early to be mad about it. China is less than a century old and has four thousand years of history to comsider against an infinite future. Moving slow sucks but might be appropriate in these times.
literally doing "muh worker's paradise," like communists need to hedge their criticism and explain and justify any exploitation of Chinese workers because they're getting to it okay ;-;
No, literally not that, or that. All they should do is stop somehow forgetting the context every time.
