Normally they're pretty good, but man, that is a bad fucking take. Yeah, I'm sure China is going to fall apart annnnny day now because it's exactly the same as the US.

  • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I'm not Chinese, I have no fucking way to read Mandarin. What investment should I have in these critiques of the Chinese system? Are their flaws a lesson for future socialist projects; but couldn't the argument be made that whatever flaws the Chinese system has are a product of Chinese characteristics. Should we learn about the good things we could learn from them? Again, probably a good thing to keep in mind, but these are also the byproducts of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

    Maybe, on the grander scheme, we can peer into the capital flows, the systems theories that shape the world. Help us realize that we are not adrift at sea, but careful navigators of the tides and waves that carry us one way or another. Graeber talks about this in bullshit jobs. One day we could wake up and say "I quit" or "I'm done" with our bullshit jobs, then what stops us, and why, is worth studying, naming it gives us the power to counteract it.

    But if I looked to China, in some sense, as an adrift sailor looks to shore far away. And I said, "Oh it must be heaven there, it must be nice to be on solid land" what as a comrade can you gain by telling me the land is poisoned, crooked, salted, or sinking? You end whatever brief amount of hope I had and perhaps I sink, or perhaps I rather taste salted earth than die.

    These anonymous collectives sending critiques, these "socialists" who are in no way invested in the Chinese project, are not comrades. I don't know them, they haven't done anything for me. Neither has Xi Jinping, to be honest. There's no communist party in contact with the CPC, taken directives or in direct material benefit to and from.

    There are only the local groups that try and fail (mostly fail) to make nominal improvements in this country as the world comes to an end. What the fuck do I care about China when our progressive groups can't even get the weak-spined democrats to pass a "Build Back Better".

    This whole attitude can eat shit.

    • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Yeah that's where I am. There is no point to any principled stand in the imperial core other than anti-imperialism. Watching the context of how far China has really come in benefiting their people in 70 years from where they started from, it's incredible. No one really thinks that China is a magical utopia. But like you said, many of us need to have some sort of hope in a better world just to go about our days.

      • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        just the declarations of going carbon neutral, building high-speed rail, anti-climate change initiatives are the things that keep me from being a full-blown :doomer:. When people say "nothing can be done" and the Chinese are planning, designing, investing and building robust infrastructure. I can at least yell "eat shit you dumb fuckin genocidal maniacs". Everything else is meaningless to me.

    • solaranus
      ·
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Wang Hui is a Chinese Marxist professor who writes about the government from a critical perspective. Most of his work has been translated and is easily accessible. You can also read the October 2020 edition of the Monthly Review which had articles in English by Chinese Marxists for a Western audience. Be aware that all of these writings are academic in nature.