• Ryan_Holman [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      China is too capitalist sometimes.

      Hand on the Bible and gun to my head, I think there is a good chance that what is happening in China is largely how it will remain. Even if Xi Jinping is a genuine communist (this seems to be an open question, as I understand), the stated transition to socialism is around 2050. By that point, Xi would be nearly 100 years old. He likely would not still be the head of government, if he would even still be alive.

      There could be a case where Xi's successor and other higher ups in the government and/or party have thoughts along the lines of "We got this powerful being like this, why should we change it up?", not to mention that nationalizing their manufacturing for foreign organizations would be giving up a lot of leverage they have.

      To be clear, I think China could become socialist and that would be great, but it is hardly a guarantee.

      • Owl [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think it comes down to whatever makes someone succeed within the CCP. All organizations eventually become led by people who do whatever action gains power within that organization. Then they continue doing whatever that is, because the organization selects for it.

        Whatever Xi believes and whatever the nominal goals of the CCP are don't really matter in the long run. Did Xi succeed in making an organization where advancing the cause of communism makes you gain power within the organization? Are other people that do this a threat to your own career? It's harder than just believing in the right things.

      • vccx [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The degenerative effects of the dictatorship of capital will eventually rear their ugly head. There is the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, nationwide sprint toward automating as much as possible as fast as possible in production (replacing workers with dead capital) and both climate change and embargoes pushing China towards a closed loop and planned economy. If the BRI is successful there will be fewer and fewer countries for capitalists, including China's capitalists, to extract surplus value from.

        The contradictions are only becoming stronger, and hopefully China, with its fully digitized currency and 4th-industrial-revolution economy with IOT reading inputs and outputs in real time, hopefully socialist revolution and the centralization of economic production with accounting based on labor hours will be inevitable regardless of whose in charge.

        And even if it doesn't happen in China, the country is non-interventionist and already supports more Orthodox Marxist projects like the DPRK.

        Let's just hope the backlash to Xi Jinping pseudo-nationalizing tutoring and the three mountains (Healthcare, Education, Housing) doesn't scare the party away from Socialism 2035.

    • MarxGuns [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      They might require another revolution. That new state might require yet another revolution. It might be revolutions all the way to near communism. The anarchist who remain all the way might be the final revolutionaries to force the whittling away of the state.