Western coverage of events in China is highlighting a lurch leftwards by Xi Jinping. But this misunderstands Beijing’s approach and is fuelled by dismay that Xi has not followed the path that the West wanted him to.
I gave you SO MUCH INFORMATION and you didn't even care to try and challenge your ignorance or learn ANYTHING
You don't care about the people of China you just care about winning a meaningless internet game. You don't know anything about socialism, or the monumental challenges that the Chinese people have had to struggle and overcome in the last century.
im not trying to aggravate you, but I sincerely do not understand the pov of someone who understands marxism and is also seemingly satisfied with the CPC
I don't look at Marxism as a set of unchanging dogmas, but a living ideology that examines contradictions from a scientific perspective, and therefore has to evolve and change as history progresses and as we learn new information. Actual revolutions and existing socialist experiments have shown that getting beyond wage labor and the dominance of capital is very difficult, and cannot be done on a basis of poverty. I admire the CPC because ever since the Chinese revolution, and especially since the period of Reform and Opening Up, they've been able to tremendously improve the living conditions of the Chinese people. If they had followed a strictly capitalist path, they could not have done this, as the history of capitalism decisively shows.
Yes, China has wage labor and capitalists, but that's not the be all and end all to Marxism- there's also the fundamental irrationality of an economy that's dominated by profit. Mao Zedong defined capitalism as a system of "profits in command," and systems of profit in command create poverty amidst abundance. Looking at the Chinese economy today, profits are not in command of it. The major sectors of the economy are controlled by the state, which works to benefit the people through five-year plans. The advances and surpluses created by the market sector do not create new poor people, but rather serve to lift up the living standards of the people as a whole. The lives of the workers may have many difficulties, but when you compare their standard of living now vs. before the revolution, they are much better off. This is a result of rational planning, what Engels calls socialized production according to a predetermined plan.
If profit was not the driving force of the Chinese economy, in which I include foreign investors in economic zones, why are the worker benefits and protections so poor and the hours expected of them so high? Profit in the name of reallocation to the parties directives is still profit raised from the worker that they do not receive. I'm not trying to argue that the Chinese citizen's standard of living in relation to their peasant past/other 3rd world countries has not greatly increased, I'm arguing that they can go much further than they are now in providing for their workers. There are homeless people in china, the Chinese healthcare system is almost identical to the United States one. China is the second-largest economy, soon to be the largest, if they can not provide mediocre relief for their workers currently, what hope is there in the future to free the populace from wage slavery?
I don't know that it's clear that they could be doing better. They have the second largest economy, but they also have an enormous population of over a billion people, and raising all their living standards is naturally going to take a very long time, especially from the incredibly low base they started from. I don't think it's reasonable to judge them by how well you theoretically think they could be doing, but by how they're actually doing and how they've done. And it seems like they're going in the direction you'd prefer. The 996 workday was just declared illegal, the past decade has seen a massive project to eliminate extreme poverty, and capital is being reigned in.
the Chinese healthcare system is almost identical to the United States one
Considering how often and how easily Chinese people go to the doctor, I don't think that's true. They may have private actors in health care, but only the US has problems with health insurance debt and bankruptcies.
China most definitely has an issue with healthcare debt/bankruptcies lol???? And where are you in the US where you can't easily go to a doctor/ER? (obviously, you'll get fucked money-wise, but general access to care normally is not an issue I've heard about, just the debt resulting)
It's not my job to answer for this or that policy decision that China has. I'm sure that if I did more research on this, I'd find the healthcare situation to be complicated and evolving and not at all black and white, just like with every other gotcha bit of trivia people use to try to attack them. Socialism isn't defined by one policy or issue. I've already given you plenty of information to argue for why China is a socialist state.
It’s not my job to answer for this or that policy decision that China has.
Not taking a side in this debate, but honestly I find the "it's not my job!" retort fucking lazy and sad.
Wasn't you're job to get into a debate in the first place, nothing on this forum is "your job". If someone brings something up you can respond to it or not, but saying that it's not literally part of your professional responsibilities isn't a fucking excuse for a lack of a response. I'd respect people more if they just said "I can't be arsed to do this".
The reason I'm saying "it's not my job" is because I have enough intellectual humility to understand that I don't know, and can't know, every good or bad thing that's happening in China. I'm not the one trying to deligitimize their claim to being a socialist state based on one potential policy.
I’m not the one trying to deligitimize their claim to being a socialist state based on one potential policy.
No but you are trying to legitimize their claim by posting a bunch of info. That’s sort of a “job” you took on there.
FYI I’m mostly agreeing with you in this discourse. Just hate the fucking “it’s not my job” bs. If that’s really how you feel just abandoned this whole endeavor and go touch some fucking grass.
you sent me a bunch of professors saying that opening up chinese citizens to foreign and domestic capitalist exploitation is a necessity for developing socialism. That most likely is true, that doesn't mean billionaires, awful working conditions, and an unrealization of even a fraction of the fruits of the worker's labor is an intrinsic by-product of that. China is developing socialism for the ~future , but that does not require the exorbitant, exploitation of billions of people in the meantime. It's like seeing the bare minimum and being completely satisfied, and not asking why things cant be improved or better.
Do you understand even remotely the inequality of development in 1970's China? By absolute standards? I'm guessing you don't appreciate the magnitude of that. It's the contradiction that Mao couldn't figure out how to bridge. Western powers had developed some industry before the CPC took charge. But large swathes of the country were stuck in roughly medieval peasantry. Mao was able to spread wealth in an egalitarian way but not actually realize sufficient growth to survive western imperialism. There is essentially no reduction in global poverty over the last several decades without china taking large fractions of their alienated labor product and investing it in rural areas. Marx's ideas about socialism were written under the assumption of wide spread industrialism -- existing capitalist production. The peasants seizing there farms can produce a rural communalism at best, but you simply can't reach abundance that way.
you sent me a bunch of professors saying that opening up chinese citizens to foreign and domestic capitalist exploitation is a necessity for developing socialism
it was a necessity for china
seriously, do you have any idea how miserable china was in 1980? people couldn't afford fucking bicycles, they were poorer than all of sub-saharan africa except for like 2 countries, and much poorer, just try to picture the meaning of an $160 per capita gdp (no missing zeroes here, it really was in the low 3 digits)
they had to do something because clearly a planned economy just wasn't working, they didn't have endogenous capabilities for growth given that despite every previous effort they were still basically in the 19th century
if you don't have those endogenous capabilities then you gotta go somewhere else and they sure as hell wouldn't go to the soviets, so what did you want them to do? to stay miserable?
even with all the exploitation of the 90s (which has been falling consistently since the late 00s), they were still living in better material conditions than 1980. it was cool that people had some of the basic stuff before then, but life still fucking sucked over there
I gave you SO MUCH INFORMATION and you didn't even care to try and challenge your ignorance or learn ANYTHING
You don't care about the people of China you just care about winning a meaningless internet game. You don't know anything about socialism, or the monumental challenges that the Chinese people have had to struggle and overcome in the last century.
im not trying to aggravate you, but I sincerely do not understand the pov of someone who understands marxism and is also seemingly satisfied with the CPC
I don't look at Marxism as a set of unchanging dogmas, but a living ideology that examines contradictions from a scientific perspective, and therefore has to evolve and change as history progresses and as we learn new information. Actual revolutions and existing socialist experiments have shown that getting beyond wage labor and the dominance of capital is very difficult, and cannot be done on a basis of poverty. I admire the CPC because ever since the Chinese revolution, and especially since the period of Reform and Opening Up, they've been able to tremendously improve the living conditions of the Chinese people. If they had followed a strictly capitalist path, they could not have done this, as the history of capitalism decisively shows.
Yes, China has wage labor and capitalists, but that's not the be all and end all to Marxism- there's also the fundamental irrationality of an economy that's dominated by profit. Mao Zedong defined capitalism as a system of "profits in command," and systems of profit in command create poverty amidst abundance. Looking at the Chinese economy today, profits are not in command of it. The major sectors of the economy are controlled by the state, which works to benefit the people through five-year plans. The advances and surpluses created by the market sector do not create new poor people, but rather serve to lift up the living standards of the people as a whole. The lives of the workers may have many difficulties, but when you compare their standard of living now vs. before the revolution, they are much better off. This is a result of rational planning, what Engels calls socialized production according to a predetermined plan.
If profit was not the driving force of the Chinese economy, in which I include foreign investors in economic zones, why are the worker benefits and protections so poor and the hours expected of them so high? Profit in the name of reallocation to the parties directives is still profit raised from the worker that they do not receive. I'm not trying to argue that the Chinese citizen's standard of living in relation to their peasant past/other 3rd world countries has not greatly increased, I'm arguing that they can go much further than they are now in providing for their workers. There are homeless people in china, the Chinese healthcare system is almost identical to the United States one. China is the second-largest economy, soon to be the largest, if they can not provide mediocre relief for their workers currently, what hope is there in the future to free the populace from wage slavery?
I don't know that it's clear that they could be doing better. They have the second largest economy, but they also have an enormous population of over a billion people, and raising all their living standards is naturally going to take a very long time, especially from the incredibly low base they started from. I don't think it's reasonable to judge them by how well you theoretically think they could be doing, but by how they're actually doing and how they've done. And it seems like they're going in the direction you'd prefer. The 996 workday was just declared illegal, the past decade has seen a massive project to eliminate extreme poverty, and capital is being reigned in.
Considering how often and how easily Chinese people go to the doctor, I don't think that's true. They may have private actors in health care, but only the US has problems with health insurance debt and bankruptcies.
China most definitely has an issue with healthcare debt/bankruptcies lol???? And where are you in the US where you can't easily go to a doctor/ER? (obviously, you'll get fucked money-wise, but general access to care normally is not an issue I've heard about, just the debt resulting)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-healthcare-debt/china-healthcare-costs-forcing-patients-into-crippling-debt-idUSKCN0ZQ03A
https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-020-05551-5
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2012-07/11/content_15568517.htm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/17/content_12522497.htm
It's not my job to answer for this or that policy decision that China has. I'm sure that if I did more research on this, I'd find the healthcare situation to be complicated and evolving and not at all black and white, just like with every other gotcha bit of trivia people use to try to attack them. Socialism isn't defined by one policy or issue. I've already given you plenty of information to argue for why China is a socialist state.
Not taking a side in this debate, but honestly I find the "it's not my job!" retort fucking lazy and sad.
Wasn't you're job to get into a debate in the first place, nothing on this forum is "your job". If someone brings something up you can respond to it or not, but saying that it's not literally part of your professional responsibilities isn't a fucking excuse for a lack of a response. I'd respect people more if they just said "I can't be arsed to do this".
The reason I'm saying "it's not my job" is because I have enough intellectual humility to understand that I don't know, and can't know, every good or bad thing that's happening in China. I'm not the one trying to deligitimize their claim to being a socialist state based on one potential policy.
No but you are trying to legitimize their claim by posting a bunch of info. That’s sort of a “job” you took on there.
FYI I’m mostly agreeing with you in this discourse. Just hate the fucking “it’s not my job” bs. If that’s really how you feel just abandoned this whole endeavor and go touch some fucking grass.
Leave me the fuck alone
It’s a public forum dude, if you’re goal is to be left alone I wouldn't post here. Perhaps take my previous advice.
disengaging from this
Welp thanks for taking my advice then.
Spend some time in Asia, China sticks out very obviously from the rest of Asia and especially its peer India.
you sent me a bunch of professors saying that opening up chinese citizens to foreign and domestic capitalist exploitation is a necessity for developing socialism. That most likely is true, that doesn't mean billionaires, awful working conditions, and an unrealization of even a fraction of the fruits of the worker's labor is an intrinsic by-product of that. China is developing socialism for the ~future , but that does not require the exorbitant, exploitation of billions of people in the meantime. It's like seeing the bare minimum and being completely satisfied, and not asking why things cant be improved or better.
Do you understand even remotely the inequality of development in 1970's China? By absolute standards? I'm guessing you don't appreciate the magnitude of that. It's the contradiction that Mao couldn't figure out how to bridge. Western powers had developed some industry before the CPC took charge. But large swathes of the country were stuck in roughly medieval peasantry. Mao was able to spread wealth in an egalitarian way but not actually realize sufficient growth to survive western imperialism. There is essentially no reduction in global poverty over the last several decades without china taking large fractions of their alienated labor product and investing it in rural areas. Marx's ideas about socialism were written under the assumption of wide spread industrialism -- existing capitalist production. The peasants seizing there farms can produce a rural communalism at best, but you simply can't reach abundance that way.
it was a necessity for china
seriously, do you have any idea how miserable china was in 1980? people couldn't afford fucking bicycles, they were poorer than all of sub-saharan africa except for like 2 countries, and much poorer, just try to picture the meaning of an $160 per capita gdp (no missing zeroes here, it really was in the low 3 digits)
they had to do something because clearly a planned economy just wasn't working, they didn't have endogenous capabilities for growth given that despite every previous effort they were still basically in the 19th century
if you don't have those endogenous capabilities then you gotta go somewhere else and they sure as hell wouldn't go to the soviets, so what did you want them to do? to stay miserable?
even with all the exploitation of the 90s (which has been falling consistently since the late 00s), they were still living in better material conditions than 1980. it was cool that people had some of the basic stuff before then, but life still fucking sucked over there