very interesting recent speech about xi's intentions on the present direction of common prosperity.
seems like this bit about social democracy is getting some controversy - online :hahaha:
" It is necessary to improve the system of public service policies and systems. To promote common prosperity, we must not engage in "welfare". At that time, some Latin American countries engaged in populism, and high welfare raised a group of "lazy people" and unearned incomes. As a result, the national finances were overwhelmed and fell into the "middle-income trap", unable to extricate themselves for a long time. Welfare benefits can't come down if they go up, and "welfareism" that exceeds one's ability is unsustainable and will inevitably bring about serious economic and political problems! We must adhere to doing our best and do what we can, focusing on improving the level of public services, accurately providing basic public services in the fields of education, medical care, elderly care, housing and other areas that the people are most concerned about, and taking care of the basic living bottom line of the people in need, without raising the bar. Appetite, not empty promises."
also interesting bit explaining xi's approach to market socialism
" The second question: correctly understand and grasp the characteristics and behavioral laws of capital. Marx and Engels did not envisage that a market economy could be developed under socialist conditions, and of course they could not foresee how socialist countries would treat capital. Although Lenin and Stalin led the socialist construction of the Soviet Union, at that time the Soviet Union implemented a highly centralized planned economic system and basically did not encounter large-scale capital problems. To engage in a socialist market economy is a great creation of our party. Since it is a socialist market economy, it will inevitably produce various forms of capital. Although there are many differences between capital in capitalist society and capital in socialist society, capital is all about chasing profits. "The people of the world are wealthy, and the wealth of the world is governed by the law." We should explore how to play the positive role of capital under the conditions of a socialist market economy, while effectively controlling the negative role of capital. In recent years, due to lack of awareness and lack of supervision, some areas of our country have experienced disorderly expansion of capital, wanton manipulation, and profiteering. This requires regulating the behavior of capital, seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, not allowing "capital predators" to act recklessly, but also giving full play to the function of capital as a factor of production. This is a major political and economic issue that cannot be avoided."
he goes over a lot of important shit to take note of so def check it out hexers :logo:
If that would be true, it would be an extremely fair point, but I don't think you can make such an argument about China anymore. China awarded 50% more STEM PhD's then the US last year, and that divergence is only expected to grow. But those numbers are actually an underestimate of how good China is doing, because the US counts many social sciences PhD's as "STEM", and the US loses about 10% of their PhD graduates, who move to the rest of the world. Granted, China has a much higher population, but still I'm inclined to say that their overall scientific development is really high.
I agree that they are making huge progress, and especially the proportion of STEM degrees to other degrees is very important for building their country later. However, you must note: China has a population 4x the USA's. So to begin to catch up, they need to award 400% more STEM degrees than the USA does. But there is still the matter of material development. The CPC has luckily addressed this issue recently and cut out a lot of exploitative practices in education to boost the numbers.