Tomorrow morning they're testing the whole 26mio people in Shanghai (me and my family included!) in a single morning 😲 Starts at 5am and goal is for everyone to be tested by noon. Results expected the same evening around 7pm.— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 3, 2022
How are they socialist? Their economy is clearly based upon a capitalist mode of production. Perhaps they are led by a socialist party, but since the market reforms of the 70s-90s, the arrangement of their economy has been decidedly capitalist, no?
Furthermore I think proletarian internationalism has always been an important tenant of socialism, and china has not engaged in that in a long time (See: giving money and guns to Israel, Philippines, etc).
China is cool for this but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I mean, there's multiple camps on this (ultimately semantic) debate, right? And which position you take has less to do with reality and more to do with your politics.
There's the marx-against-marxists people who'd point out that Marx defined the DoTP as a phase of capitalism in the Gothakritique.
Then there's the Leninists who define the DoTP as the lower phase of socialism.
There's the immediatists and communizers who believe that China is capitalist because the MoP aren't in the control of the working class "to do communism you have to do communism."
There's the trots who believe that China isn't internationalist enough.
There's the maoists who believe that China's liberal reforms were revisionist.
There's the anarchists who don't care if China's socialist because it isn't trying to do away with the state, but often opportunistically say it's not socialist.
But ultimately, these are more reflections of your own politics rather than what China is, which is a capitalist mixed economy managed by an ML party, to put it as neutrally as possible.
The more interesting questions are "what roles does China play in the world system?" "How can western leftists combat empire?" "When is China an ally (for example in Bolivia)" "When is China an enemy? (for example in the Philippines)." Because ultimately you can only act from the space and position of your own body, and no state is going to be any one thing.
The party exerts inordinate power over businesses, forcing technology transfer from foreign businesses, nationalizing industries on a regular basis to be run by the party, creating and favoring co-op models, etc. It also centrally plans large portions of the economy and development, even with Deng's reforms, like the "ghost cities" that actually do fill up, the massive mass transit infrastructure development, the elimination of absolute poverty through providing public housing, job training, etc based on sending out party cadres to assess needs and problems in local communities. It is moving increasingly in these directions.
Whether a country is socialist is a distracting question without a lot of payoff when it comes down to brass tacks, as there are so many aspects of society that you could call more or less socialist during any DOTP-focused process. Following a Marx-ish process, you should expect to see aspects of capitalism all over the place. This makes answering the question "hey is that country socialist?" hard to even define. Is it socialist if there are still landlords? How about a petty bourgeois owner class? Private property in any sense? Nobody actually has (nor should) have concrete definitions that make any sense. Instead, they are kept general. Does the party represent and respond to the workers against capitalist class interests? Is the party dominant over the capitalist class? Per Marx, that means you're probably looking at a DOTP and struggling through a socialist process. And then people will argue endlessly about whether the party really represents the workers, etc etc.
Rather than asking whether China is socialist, it is more useful to ask whether they are engaging in a sustainable socialist project, and the resounding answer there is yes.
Allow me to preface by saying I'm generally not against deng or the market reforms, nor am I an ultraleft Maoist. I just think China is absolutely not a socialist country yet.
I don't agree with obfuscating the definition of socialism as you have done, because with a flexible or nebulous definition we end up with people claiming that social democracies are socialism so long as they're run by a "worker's party". To the contrary, I think there are real conditions a society must observably reach for it to be regarded as socialist. If we define socialism as, generally, a society in which "the means of production, distribution, and exchange are democratically controlled by the workers", then China is not socialist. A large proportion of China's wealth comes from privatized companies. Much like in capitalist countries, goods and services are distributed through the (more or less) free market. I imagine a majority of Chinese people labor for wages in privatized or state-run workplaces.
Take a second and just read this paragraph. This is the country you describe as being socialist (inb4 redsails article):
As of 2018, China was first in the world in total number of billionaires and second in millionaires – there were 658 Chinese billionaires[96] and 3.5 million millionaires.[97] In 2019, China overtook the US as the home to the highest number of rich people in the world, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse.[98][99] In other words, as of 2019, a hundred million Chinese are in the top ten percent of the wealthiest individuals in the world – those who have a net personal wealth of at least $110,000.[100] In 2020, China has the world's highest number of billionaires, which is more than the US and India combined,[101] and as of March 2021, the number of billionaires in China reach 1,058 with the combined wealth of US$4.5 trillion.[102] According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2021, China is home to six of the world's top ten cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Guangzhou in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th spots, respectively) by the highest number of billionaires, which is more than any other country
China surely is at the primary or early stage of socialism, and probably is on the path of socialism, but it's still very far from genuine socialism. It's okay to be excited about China's progress and achievements, I am too, but as I said earlier, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm sure we can at least both agree that China has many leaps and bounds to make before they are able to realize a genuinely socialist country.
I don’t agree with obfuscating the definition of socialism as you have done
That's not what I did.
because with a flexible or nebulous definition we end up with people claiming that social democracies are socialism so long as they’re run by a “worker’s party”.
You're going to have to deal with that anyways. Your current focus actually wastes your and others' time in this manner as well, O China-is-not-socialist-dialog-pusher.
This is a form of toxic liberalism that doesn't go anywhere except infighting about some very stupid shit.
To the contrary, I think there are real conditions a society must observably reach for it to be regarded as socialist. If we define socialism as, generally, a society in which “the means of production, distribution, and exchange are democratically controlled by the workers”, then China is not socialist.
Is that something you've simply observed? You're looking to make observable conditions, right? So you're ready to go with concrete and universal definitions of democracy and control, yes? Because many Chinese communists have described the country as democratic and in control over those things - and representing workers - via the party. Are you prepared for that discussion and have you done the readings to anticipate it? Would you say it's chauvinist to not have discussed them in the first place? I would.
A large proportion of China’s wealth comes from privatized companies.
What proportion must be observed for socialism to exist? 40%? 12.7%? 0%? What do you learn from this endeavor of creating a hard line that you apply to every other culture on the planet? I would suspect that this actually vibes-based line would not be met by any current or historical country, so what have you, let alone anyone else, gained in that circumstance? What are you going to do in organizing or in describing other countries' processes? I'm going to call, say, Cuba socialist because it's dominated by an effective anti-imperialist communist party engaging in a struggle towards socialism. Are you going to wag your finger and say, "well Cuba isn't true socialism"? To what effect?
Much like in capitalist countries, goods and services are distributed through the (more or less) free market.
This is a lib take that confuses me. No markets actually operate according to the capitalist idealism of a "free market". Saying that any more or less do is itself a capitalist take, like shit pushed by the IMF to force privatization on exploited countries.
I imagine a majority of Chinese people labor for wages in privatized or state-run workplaces.
Why are you imagining things? I thought you were observing concrete conditions to draw a line between socialism and non-socialism?
Take a second and just read this paragraph. This is the country you describe as being socialist
You are simply revealing that you just wanted to have a "China isn't socialist" fight because I actually didn't fucking say that. I told you that this discourse is a distraction and that it's far more useful to describe based on whether a country (or other group) is actually engaged in a socialist process. I also made reference to the DOTP.
[an except from Wikipedia]
What am I meant to take away from this? Do you want me to guess and argue with the guess?
China surely is at the primary or early stage of socialism, and probably is on the path of socialism, but it’s still very far from genuine socialism.
lol I was going to write a whole thing about toxic Western leftism and liberal soul-searching about true socialism (always an effort to exclude targets of imperial violence, btw) earlier but thought I shouldn't speculate too much.
It’s okay to be excited about China’s progress and achievements, I am too, but as I said earlier, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m sure we can at least both agree that China has many leaps and bounds to make before they are able to realize a genuinely socialist country.
As of 2018, China was first in the world in total number of billionaires and second in millionaires – there were 658 Chinese billionaires[96] and 3.5 million millionaires.[97] In 2019, China overtook the US as the home to the highest number of rich people in the world, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse.[98][99] In other words, as of 2019, a hundred million Chinese are in the top ten percent of the wealthiest individuals in the world – those who have a net personal wealth of at least $110,000.[100] In 2020, China has the world’s highest number of billionaires, which is more than the US and India combined,[101] and as of March 2021, the number of billionaires in China reach 1,058 with the combined wealth of US$4.5 trillion.[102] According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2021, China is home to six of the world’s top ten cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Guangzhou in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th spots, respectively) by the highest number of billionaires, which is more than any other country
The party has never claimed of having achieved a primarily socialist economy or not utilizing capitalism as a mode of production . They claim to have just entered the primary stage of socialism as a historical and developmentall process utilizing state capitalism and market forces largely And under the control of the party to achieve prerequisite to get to the next step levels of development, infrastructure And technology,as well as superiority against western capital in order . And that's not some dengist make up theory, it's a process and stage analysis outlined by Mao himself.
Soviet Union also had aspects of capitalism, as does China. But China's aspects of capitalism are more bigly and significant than USSR's, and it is thus far more closer to capitalism than the USSR or other previously existing socialist societies were. Because China's Aspects of Capitalism include having privatized workplaces and free markets (to a greater and more significant extent than the USSR did), and because the socialization of workplaces and distribution of goods (I, as a reasonable person, would assume) is a tenet of socialism, this makes China a country with a capitalist mode of production. Hence China is not a socialist country yet.
Its much more complicated than just a dial being turned from communism to capitalism. The means of production are owned by the communist party, and they are leased to the capitalists to manage, which does allow them to make a profit. But the communist party has total power to control and dominate the economy; the capitalists have absolutely no political power.
How are they socialist? Their economy is clearly based upon a capitalist mode of production. Perhaps they are led by a socialist party, but since the market reforms of the 70s-90s, the arrangement of their economy has been decidedly capitalist, no?
Furthermore I think proletarian internationalism has always been an important tenant of socialism, and china has not engaged in that in a long time (See: giving money and guns to Israel, Philippines, etc).
China is cool for this but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
There should be a bot for this: https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
I mean, there's multiple camps on this (ultimately semantic) debate, right? And which position you take has less to do with reality and more to do with your politics.
There's the marx-against-marxists people who'd point out that Marx defined the DoTP as a phase of capitalism in the Gothakritique.
Then there's the Leninists who define the DoTP as the lower phase of socialism.
There's the immediatists and communizers who believe that China is capitalist because the MoP aren't in the control of the working class "to do communism you have to do communism."
There's the trots who believe that China isn't internationalist enough.
There's the maoists who believe that China's liberal reforms were revisionist.
There's the anarchists who don't care if China's socialist because it isn't trying to do away with the state, but often opportunistically say it's not socialist.
But ultimately, these are more reflections of your own politics rather than what China is, which is a capitalist mixed economy managed by an ML party, to put it as neutrally as possible.
The more interesting questions are "what roles does China play in the world system?" "How can western leftists combat empire?" "When is China an ally (for example in Bolivia)" "When is China an enemy? (for example in the Philippines)." Because ultimately you can only act from the space and position of your own body, and no state is going to be any one thing.
With all sincerity, thank you for strangling this discussion in the crib. You’ve saved us all a post thread 50 replies deep.
I agree with you, and I guess this discussion is kind of pointless.
This should be a copypasta, it's good.
The party exerts inordinate power over businesses, forcing technology transfer from foreign businesses, nationalizing industries on a regular basis to be run by the party, creating and favoring co-op models, etc. It also centrally plans large portions of the economy and development, even with Deng's reforms, like the "ghost cities" that actually do fill up, the massive mass transit infrastructure development, the elimination of absolute poverty through providing public housing, job training, etc based on sending out party cadres to assess needs and problems in local communities. It is moving increasingly in these directions.
Whether a country is socialist is a distracting question without a lot of payoff when it comes down to brass tacks, as there are so many aspects of society that you could call more or less socialist during any DOTP-focused process. Following a Marx-ish process, you should expect to see aspects of capitalism all over the place. This makes answering the question "hey is that country socialist?" hard to even define. Is it socialist if there are still landlords? How about a petty bourgeois owner class? Private property in any sense? Nobody actually has (nor should) have concrete definitions that make any sense. Instead, they are kept general. Does the party represent and respond to the workers against capitalist class interests? Is the party dominant over the capitalist class? Per Marx, that means you're probably looking at a DOTP and struggling through a socialist process. And then people will argue endlessly about whether the party really represents the workers, etc etc.
Rather than asking whether China is socialist, it is more useful to ask whether they are engaging in a sustainable socialist project, and the resounding answer there is yes.
Allow me to preface by saying I'm generally not against deng or the market reforms, nor am I an ultraleft Maoist. I just think China is absolutely not a socialist country yet.
I don't agree with obfuscating the definition of socialism as you have done, because with a flexible or nebulous definition we end up with people claiming that social democracies are socialism so long as they're run by a "worker's party". To the contrary, I think there are real conditions a society must observably reach for it to be regarded as socialist. If we define socialism as, generally, a society in which "the means of production, distribution, and exchange are democratically controlled by the workers", then China is not socialist. A large proportion of China's wealth comes from privatized companies. Much like in capitalist countries, goods and services are distributed through the (more or less) free market. I imagine a majority of Chinese people labor for wages in privatized or state-run workplaces.
Take a second and just read this paragraph. This is the country you describe as being socialist (inb4 redsails article):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China#Wealth_in_China
China surely is at the primary or early stage of socialism, and probably is on the path of socialism, but it's still very far from genuine socialism. It's okay to be excited about China's progress and achievements, I am too, but as I said earlier, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm sure we can at least both agree that China has many leaps and bounds to make before they are able to realize a genuinely socialist country.
That's not what I did.
You're going to have to deal with that anyways. Your current focus actually wastes your and others' time in this manner as well, O China-is-not-socialist-dialog-pusher.
This is a form of toxic liberalism that doesn't go anywhere except infighting about some very stupid shit.
Is that something you've simply observed? You're looking to make observable conditions, right? So you're ready to go with concrete and universal definitions of democracy and control, yes? Because many Chinese communists have described the country as democratic and in control over those things - and representing workers - via the party. Are you prepared for that discussion and have you done the readings to anticipate it? Would you say it's chauvinist to not have discussed them in the first place? I would.
What proportion must be observed for socialism to exist? 40%? 12.7%? 0%? What do you learn from this endeavor of creating a hard line that you apply to every other culture on the planet? I would suspect that this actually vibes-based line would not be met by any current or historical country, so what have you, let alone anyone else, gained in that circumstance? What are you going to do in organizing or in describing other countries' processes? I'm going to call, say, Cuba socialist because it's dominated by an effective anti-imperialist communist party engaging in a struggle towards socialism. Are you going to wag your finger and say, "well Cuba isn't true socialism"? To what effect?
This is a lib take that confuses me. No markets actually operate according to the capitalist idealism of a "free market". Saying that any more or less do is itself a capitalist take, like shit pushed by the IMF to force privatization on exploited countries.
Why are you imagining things? I thought you were observing concrete conditions to draw a line between socialism and non-socialism?
You are simply revealing that you just wanted to have a "China isn't socialist" fight because I actually didn't fucking say that. I told you that this discourse is a distraction and that it's far more useful to describe based on whether a country (or other group) is actually engaged in a socialist process. I also made reference to the DOTP.
What am I meant to take away from this? Do you want me to guess and argue with the guess?
lol I was going to write a whole thing about toxic Western leftism and liberal soul-searching about true socialism (always an effort to exclude targets of imperial violence, btw) earlier but thought I shouldn't speculate too much.
I'm guessing you thought this was conciliatory?
As of 2018, China was first in the world in total number of billionaires and second in millionaires – there were 658 Chinese billionaires[96] and 3.5 million millionaires.[97] In 2019, China overtook the US as the home to the highest number of rich people in the world, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse.[98][99] In other words, as of 2019, a hundred million Chinese are in the top ten percent of the wealthiest individuals in the world – those who have a net personal wealth of at least $110,000.[100] In 2020, China has the world’s highest number of billionaires, which is more than the US and India combined,[101] and as of March 2021, the number of billionaires in China reach 1,058 with the combined wealth of US$4.5 trillion.[102] According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2021, China is home to six of the world’s top ten cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Guangzhou in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th spots, respectively) by the highest number of billionaires, which is more than any other country
:PIGPOOPBALLS:
The party has never claimed of having achieved a primarily socialist economy or not utilizing capitalism as a mode of production . They claim to have just entered the primary stage of socialism as a historical and developmentall process utilizing state capitalism and market forces largely And under the control of the party to achieve prerequisite to get to the next step levels of development, infrastructure And technology,as well as superiority against western capital in order . And that's not some dengist make up theory, it's a process and stage analysis outlined by Mao himself.
https://ibb.co/NsLzkcD
Hey, I was around before mass content moderation, and I absolutely will not click on a no-context shortened link.
It's a SpongeBob meme
Soviet Union also had aspects of capitalism, as does China. But China's aspects of capitalism are more bigly and significant than USSR's, and it is thus far more closer to capitalism than the USSR or other previously existing socialist societies were. Because China's Aspects of Capitalism include having privatized workplaces and free markets (to a greater and more significant extent than the USSR did), and because the socialization of workplaces and distribution of goods (I, as a reasonable person, would assume) is a tenet of socialism, this makes China a country with a capitalist mode of production. Hence China is not a socialist country yet.
Its much more complicated than just a dial being turned from communism to capitalism. The means of production are owned by the communist party, and they are leased to the capitalists to manage, which does allow them to make a profit. But the communist party has total power to control and dominate the economy; the capitalists have absolutely no political power.
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/