“Those shady orientals can’t do Marxism properly, like me, a free and independent thinker who would never fall for bourgeois propaganda.”
“Those shady orientals can’t do Marxism properly, like me, a free and independent thinker who would never fall for bourgeois propaganda.”
lol acts of the bourgeoisie. what the hell does that mean? A public official from one of the handful of socialist nations spends time doing his job meeting with diplomats from a bourgeois nation and they end up doing bourgeois indulgences together, because that's a dominant aspect of modern international diplomacy. Where did this concept come from that communists are against doing anything that's expensive? The Vietnamese official didn't even pay for the steak.
"Nobody would judge him doing that any other day" Yeah except he's a communist public official from Vietnam, so if it wasn't this thing then it would be something else. Although Vietnam largely stays out of the crosshairs of this kind of attention, usually the talk is about like Maduro eating empanadas or Cuban officials driving fancy cars. When Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California, a lot of press attention was on the fact he owned three houses. Socialists are just supposed to be ascetics?
A gold leaf $1300 steak likely falls under the idea of conspicuous consumption, or consuming a good or services for the specific purpose of displaying ones wealth, status, or social class. Some may see this action as classist, against the classless society idea that marx advocated for.
I don't know the social responsibility of a communist in office. I think the media is sensationalizing it and I'm not defending them, I'm defending the idea that the people he represents may be justified in being upset about his behavior.
Stalin? Canceled
Mao? Cancelled
Stalin and Mao eliminated the extreme luxury markets.
Hypocrites!
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Paying respects to Marx then being served a literally gold plated lunch that cost 15% the yearly median wage is not at all hypocritical? But sure, if his constituents don't care then neither do I, and most of them don't care about communism anyway. This whole thing is just tabloid shit to get people angry.
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$1300 is chump change for either nation. It's that the act had apparent symbolic meaning, it doesn't matter who paid for it or how the tip was split or who paid for the driver to get them there.
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That's the entire argument of this post. Does his action have symbolic meaning. Is his action seen as conspicuous consumption and is in conflict to visiting marx's grave. My argument is that his constitutes that still value their communist roots may be offended by it and they are valid for doing so. If it offends or doesn't offend you or western leftists is irrelevant.