I'm firmly in the China-flawed-and-not-communist-but-what-country-isn't-flawed-so-why-carry-water-for-the-US-state-department train. They've done a lot for eliminating poverty, and are doing a lot for industrializing the nation, absolutely. But poverty elimination and industrialization while also having 700 billionaires does not a dictatorship of the proletariat with the absence of social class or money make. Sectarianism is pointless, and doesn't achieve anything, so it's not worth talking about any more than that. Hopefully they press the communism button soon!
I understand fully how things need to be built in stages. There are transitional and transitory stages moving from agricultural to industrial, from capitalism to socialism to communism. You can't just slap the go button and create a utopia. I know that the party has power and exercises power to make progressive changes quickly, material conditions permitting. I also understand that it's important to keep dickbag capitalists around on a tight leash because they're useful idiots better kept tied down instead of allowing them to just become new gusanos in the US.
My point is that, while I hope they do eventually move from where they are now over to actual real deal communism without class or money (or states, but that's another story), they aren't there yet and it's disingenuous to say that they are. I think as it stands, they have the best odds of getting there first out of everyone on the path, and knowing that communism is inevitable, it will happen eventually. I just hope we get to see it before the planet turns into a big duraflame log and lights on fire.
My point is that, while I hope they do eventually move from where they are now over to actual real deal communism without class or money (or states, but that’s another story), they aren’t there yet and it’s disingenuous to say that they are. I think as it stands, they have the best odds of getting there first out of everyone on the path, and knowing that communism is inevitable, it will happen eventually. I just hope we get to see it before the planet turns into a big duraflame log and lights on fire.
I find it odd that you say this and then say things like "they're not communist". When people call China communist they are referring to their ideology, not to whether or not it is currently in a communist economic stage of society. That has never existed and will never exist in our lifetimes, it's an odd thing to even say. Nobody makes the argument that China is currently in communism.
Nobody makes the argument that China is currently in communism.
I have unfortunately had to deal with people that were insistent on the concept that China is in the endgame, completed, celebrating after the finish line, full communism phase. That's why I said what I said. I think some people just need to convince themselves of a win in order to not descend into doomerism. I just hope the CCP is able to maintain and accelerate the momentum necessary to actually get to that point. That's all I'd like to say on that. Thank you.
Imma real quick text Xi and ask him if he can do that a little faster. Just gonna keep guessing at the number til I get it right. What's the area code for Beijing again?
If it's run by a communist party, it's communist. Unless you mean the conditions described by Marx as emerging from socialism, which will never apply to any country because it's stateless and borderless.
I did more mean the second one, but you have to admit the concept of a capitalist country run by communists does sound a bit odd. I hope they get to the socialist phase before 2050 because I sincerely doubt I'll live to see it otherwise, and I sincerely believe it's gonna be awesome.
It's definitely very confusing in the context of a dominant Western culture that has always intentionally misled everyone about what the word refers to as well! All these people saying things like, "well real communism has never been tried" are obliviously posting their Ls but generally go uncorrected, for example.
Communists are people who fight for a people's revolution such that the capitalist class is subjugated and the people are on top, eventually leading to a little-c communist way of being. That "eventually" is where communists disagree with one another on strategy and intermediate stages, but Marxist communists will, as Marx predicted, generally insist on an intermediate stage that looks almost exactly like the capitalist mode of production and which has not yet ended exploitation as a matter of continued practical existence. They will say it's a necessary step to get to another stage and to survive against imperialists, and I would say they are at least a lot more successful at continued existence than other attempts to build socialist projects. Also, both Mao and Lenin provide practical lessons in what negatives can occur when you hit the command economy button too hard and too quickly.
But there is the appearance contradiction due to the language when a communist must avidly promote the establishment and defense of state capitalism or adjacent modes of products. No doubt.
See, this is the problem with going to the US and getting a fancy degree in a bunch of shit some old dead white people wrote about politics 100-400 years ago. Regardless of whether the old dead white people were chill anarchist grandmas or sexist slave owners, you're not exactly learning shit about fuck when it comes to anything outside the western political zeitgeist in the late modern period or later.
Of course. The usefulness, imo, of anarchist grandmas from ages ago is seeing shared experience and what worked (and didn't) in their conditions. It's a great way to displace theoretical discussions that otherwise lack a scientific (in the social sciences sense) basis with real strategies that butted up against powerful forces and succeeded and failed for very specific reasons that we should be careful to avoid - when applicable. It also gives us shared language and examples to make communication between socialists easier.
But yeah, even though I'd like to say that, say, a la Luxemburg is a good idea, we have to remember that Germany was barely post-feudal at the time and fascism was developing at the same time as monarchs waned and capitalists were finishing their economic coup. Current conditions have similarities and differences that are both important. It's not an instruction manual.
Also Western lib discussion of all of this is so goddamn shallow and focuses on psychologically analyzing leaders and generally ignoring historical, economic, or cultural context outside of basic identity politics. Hell they still try to gloss over colonialism all the damn time. The backdrop to a mid-century American leftist is a euphemism like "Western expansion" without an analysis of how this racist appropriation drove the development of these ideas and movements. It's just there. Cowboys pew pew.
I'm firmly in the China-flawed-and-not-communist-but-what-country-isn't-flawed-so-why-carry-water-for-the-US-state-department train. They've done a lot for eliminating poverty, and are doing a lot for industrializing the nation, absolutely. But poverty elimination and industrialization while also having 700 billionaires does not a dictatorship of the proletariat with the absence of social class or money make. Sectarianism is pointless, and doesn't achieve anything, so it's not worth talking about any more than that. Hopefully they press the communism button soon!
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I understand fully how things need to be built in stages. There are transitional and transitory stages moving from agricultural to industrial, from capitalism to socialism to communism. You can't just slap the go button and create a utopia. I know that the party has power and exercises power to make progressive changes quickly, material conditions permitting. I also understand that it's important to keep dickbag capitalists around on a tight leash because they're useful idiots better kept tied down instead of allowing them to just become new gusanos in the US.
My point is that, while I hope they do eventually move from where they are now over to actual real deal communism without class or money (or states, but that's another story), they aren't there yet and it's disingenuous to say that they are. I think as it stands, they have the best odds of getting there first out of everyone on the path, and knowing that communism is inevitable, it will happen eventually. I just hope we get to see it before the planet turns into a big duraflame log and lights on fire.
I find it odd that you say this and then say things like "they're not communist". When people call China communist they are referring to their ideology, not to whether or not it is currently in a communist economic stage of society. That has never existed and will never exist in our lifetimes, it's an odd thing to even say. Nobody makes the argument that China is currently in communism.
I have unfortunately had to deal with people that were insistent on the concept that China is in the endgame, completed, celebrating after the finish line, full communism phase. That's why I said what I said. I think some people just need to convince themselves of a win in order to not descend into doomerism. I just hope the CCP is able to maintain and accelerate the momentum necessary to actually get to that point. That's all I'd like to say on that. Thank you.
They are very silly people who are incredibly rare occurrences in my experience.
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Imma real quick text Xi and ask him if he can do that a little faster. Just gonna keep guessing at the number til I get it right. What's the area code for Beijing again?
deleted by creator
If it's run by a communist party, it's communist. Unless you mean the conditions described by Marx as emerging from socialism, which will never apply to any country because it's stateless and borderless.
I did more mean the second one, but you have to admit the concept of a capitalist country run by communists does sound a bit odd. I hope they get to the socialist phase before 2050 because I sincerely doubt I'll live to see it otherwise, and I sincerely believe it's gonna be awesome.
It's definitely very confusing in the context of a dominant Western culture that has always intentionally misled everyone about what the word refers to as well! All these people saying things like, "well real communism has never been tried" are obliviously posting their Ls but generally go uncorrected, for example.
Communists are people who fight for a people's revolution such that the capitalist class is subjugated and the people are on top, eventually leading to a little-c communist way of being. That "eventually" is where communists disagree with one another on strategy and intermediate stages, but Marxist communists will, as Marx predicted, generally insist on an intermediate stage that looks almost exactly like the capitalist mode of production and which has not yet ended exploitation as a matter of continued practical existence. They will say it's a necessary step to get to another stage and to survive against imperialists, and I would say they are at least a lot more successful at continued existence than other attempts to build socialist projects. Also, both Mao and Lenin provide practical lessons in what negatives can occur when you hit the command economy button too hard and too quickly.
But there is the appearance contradiction due to the language when a communist must avidly promote the establishment and defense of state capitalism or adjacent modes of products. No doubt.
See, this is the problem with going to the US and getting a fancy degree in a bunch of shit some old dead white people wrote about politics 100-400 years ago. Regardless of whether the old dead white people were chill anarchist grandmas or sexist slave owners, you're not exactly learning shit about fuck when it comes to anything outside the western political zeitgeist in the late modern period or later.
Of course. The usefulness, imo, of anarchist grandmas from ages ago is seeing shared experience and what worked (and didn't) in their conditions. It's a great way to displace theoretical discussions that otherwise lack a scientific (in the social sciences sense) basis with real strategies that butted up against powerful forces and succeeded and failed for very specific reasons that we should be careful to avoid - when applicable. It also gives us shared language and examples to make communication between socialists easier.
But yeah, even though I'd like to say that, say, a la Luxemburg is a good idea, we have to remember that Germany was barely post-feudal at the time and fascism was developing at the same time as monarchs waned and capitalists were finishing their economic coup. Current conditions have similarities and differences that are both important. It's not an instruction manual.
Also Western lib discussion of all of this is so goddamn shallow and focuses on psychologically analyzing leaders and generally ignoring historical, economic, or cultural context outside of basic identity politics. Hell they still try to gloss over colonialism all the damn time. The backdrop to a mid-century American leftist is a euphemism like "Western expansion" without an analysis of how this racist appropriation drove the development of these ideas and movements. It's just there. Cowboys pew pew.