"Hahah heyy fellow capitalists, it sure is a Labor-is-not-the-source-of-all-value kinda day, am I right fellas?? Hahahah, anyway mind if I take those jobs? hahahaha thanks" :deng-cowboy:
Didn't work too great for the Chinese workers tho. At least they slaved for a better future
Agreed, but I think we have to look at the historical context. If the CPC stuck to the old ways, given the changing global tides, they would have been destroyed like the USSR and those very same workers would be substantially worse off.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
I saw this a while ago and I'll try to paraphrase it, but I probably won't get it exactly right. In the pre-Russian revolution era the Russians had pretty extensive correspondences with western European communists, and they had major disagreements about the course of revolution. The western Marxists wanted the Russians to not have a revolution, as they believed that following Marxist historiography a revolution needed to happen in an industrial core, not in an extractive/agrarian economy. The business of industrializing an economy will always be ugly, and they feared a Revolutionary Russian state rushing this process would poison the well of communism with the misery that would create. Better to let the capitalists take the blame for the suffering of industrialization and then have the communists come in, seize the MOP and reap the rewards.
Of course, the Leninists didn't listen, did their revolution, and went through the fairly unpleasant process of industrializing, but in the end were successful and were able to beat the industrialized Germans. China had a fairly similar process with a revolution happening within an agrarian, extractive, and extremely poor economy, and they've also had to deal with mechanizing their economy, which took a different path, but again has been pretty successful.
It would be nice if the communists had gone and won a revolution in France or Germany or England in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, but so far communists have only had success in the colonized world and not in the industrialized metropole. And that means that communists have had to do the ugly work of industrialization, and suffer the blame of that process.
Ya I see it with Cuba. Even if they were not crushed instantly, the great Satan is a persistence hunter
Yeah, plus Cuba is not a threat to global American hegemony in any serious way. A truly red China would have been the target for the neocon freaks who took over in the early 2000s were it not "opened up" to the West. Of course the CPC went far too much into market openness in many areas, and there was a real possibility of the fall of the communist system entirely. Thankfully it looks like that path has been closed by Xi and the left wing of the party, who are beginning to correct the excesses of the Reform period. :inshallah-script: they'll bring back universal healthcare in the next decade.
I think it's funny how western propaganda has build this whole myth of China being not really communist because of the reforms. At the same time, these reforms are supposed to be good, because communism is evil. The cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.
So which is capitalism, the way China is doing it, or the way America is? And why?
Then, whichever they don't say, delve into what makes it not capitalism.
That's how Soviet citizens saw their lives too, they toiled and sacrificed their lives in the struggle to build Communism.
Soviets also had ~40 hour work weeks too for normal jobs. A categorically different recreational, social, and daily life and relationship to the means of production (rent was 2-5% of income) but they still worked very hard and wouldn't see the full fruits of their labour for decades.
Also the repeated destruction of the country off and on for 25 years is unfathomable for us now. Regardless of the ideology of the govt, this material reality would mean someone would have to work very hard to pick up the pieces, start anew and prosper. And instead of depending on the exploitation of the periphery, the Soviets had the conviction and determination to do it themselves.
You think that working conditions and hours got worse under Deng and after reform and oppening up compared to the 50s and 60s ? That they were getting so much more of their labour value back ? And even if thats true and there was a substancial turn for the worse for the Chinese workers at that point, within 15-20 years wage and infastructure increases outpaced and overcovered any "increase in exploitation" from reform and oppening up by a big degree
Also yeah when your billion people country begins its socialist project as a medieval shithole a century behind the rest of the world and capitalist powers your workers will have to "slave" (aka not get their labour value back and put in serious hours in not good conditions) one way or another for a generation or two if you wanna have a hope to catch up in all ways. Cause imperialism and colonialism isnt an available tool for you, you are socialist. You cant get rich and prosperus by raping and pillaging the globe. You have to get out of the mud and develop x4 fatser with your own citizens labor and work hours
people seriously need to stop romanticizing the maoist era
urban workers were living in single room apartments (in those tube-shaped buildings) with their whole family for fucks sake
not to mention all the peasants who couldn't afford a god damn bicycle do people think they had flying cars or something
The six day week and Stakhanovite movement in the USSR in the 30s also sucked for workers, but they enabled the USSR to beat fascism.
While I agree there were threats, and conflict, I wouldn't compare the situation China was in to fucking WWII
I mean that's the point, the compromises both countries made were to try and preserve their societies against external threats, by opposition or integration.
I know there's a lot of conflict between Maoists and Deng but I can't help but imagine Mao if he were alive today just being like "wow I can't believe that actually worked"
There also are a lot of high quality Chinese made products sold outside China, they're just not dirt-cheap anymore
It’s only low quality because capitalists want it fast and cheap and will keep throwing money for it to happen.
Same thing happened with Japan. The country started out selling to the budget buyer, because manufacturing at that tier was relatively cheap and there wasn't a lot of countervailing political pressure. They won by building cheap products that didn't instantly disintegrate. Sony, Nintendo, Toyota - all originally notable for being both affordable and durable.
Then they began releasing higher end models, once they'd established themselves as superior brands. By the time the Lexus LS 400 landed in the US in 1989, Toyota already had a solid reputation in the states. And they reuse that technology. Sort of a joke that the only difference between a high end Camry and a base model Lexus is the hood ornament.
China's followed a similar trajectory. Huawei phones are easily competitive with Samsung and Apple. Hisense has a litany of high end products, from TVs to Refrigerators. Their solar panel exports lead the world.
And, unlike a lot of American brands, they aren't hopelessly wedded to the Planned Obsolescence business model that turns every American-designed product into a brick inside five years.
"Let me outsource all my manufacturing to one country, there are LITERALLY NO DOWNSIDES TO THIS"
:porky-happy::xicko: meanwhile
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we - wait, you're just giving us your means of production?? Shipping them over and everything? Sure thing, ya dumbasses!"
Just you wait... The Chinese collapse is coming any minute... Once all the world is red they'll have no one to trade with but themselves!
You can consume domestically.
If the US produces $1T in gross domestic product, exports $400B and consumes the remaining $600B, then it is its own biggest trading partner unless it imports in excess of $600B.
why was cuba slightly lighter in 2003? bush didn't lift the embargo, right?
