Well its certainly more far-left than simping for repressive authoritarian regimes, no?
Also I don't simp for the USA either. I don't want to fight you but I don't understand your PoV at all. Are you just hoping for a multi-polar world to depose America so that instability can give revolution a chance or do you actually in it's present form support China (or god forbid Russia)?
I think most of us are indeed hoping for US imperial power to diminish, as it is historically, by far, the greatest impediment to any sort of left movement anywhere. And it’s not just leftism. It’s an impediment even to basic economic sovereignty. Russia is a good example. Not open enough to domination by US capital, therefore a US enemy, despite being otherwise fairly similar to the US politically. This can’t continue if any progress to be made.
It’s unfortunate that some of the countries successfully (at least partly) asserting their sovereignty against the US are doing so on strictly nationalist rather than leftist grounds, but that’s what we’ve got at the moment, and it offers at least a modicum of hope that US imperialism might also be resisted by more left wing states in the future.
Not going to get into anything about China because I suspect we have vastly different ideas about what is and is not true about China, and that’s another discussion entirely.
Lol if Russia or China became hegemony of any significant chunk of the world things would be exactly the same economically (at best, maybe in Russia's case we'd have more openly oligarchic economical structures the government is run almost exclusively for their interests whereas the US at least sometimes reigns in billionaires historically), but worse socially.
Is this some weird accelerationist take then? Because no leftism will come from any success for Russia, unless Pol Pot is the model here.
Because me and my queer comrades would prefer the status quo over that, despite how bad the status quo is. But we don't have to pick. We can be critical of all empires and the structures of oppression they create be they capitalism, patriarchy, xenophobia, queerphobia etc. by their nature as structures of oppression and apply both Marxist and Anarchist readings to that and be allies.
Lol if Russia or China became hegemony of any significant chunk of the world things would be exactly the same economically (at best, maybe in Russia’s case we’d have more openly oligarchic economical structures the government is run almost exclusively for their interests whereas the US at least sometimes reigns in billionaires historically), but worse socially.
There is literally no basis for this. It's just an unfalsifiable orthodoxy at this point that only exists to justify American imperialism. Russia or China becoming regional or global hegemons is simply a hypothetical, and you can make anything happen in a hypothetical. The fact is, right now, both countries have very good relationships with the global south. China especially has greatly helped many other nations by building infrastructure with cheap loans that they are often willing to restructure or even outright forgive.
In some imaginary future where China and Russia make an attempt at world conquest, they will be problems to deal with. There is just nothing to indicate that this is the future we are headed towards. This kind of future makes many assumptions:
China and Russia after a "confrontation" (likely war) with the west will still have enough strength left to become hegemons.
China and Russia want to become hegemons. They can see the troubles the USA keeps getting into because of its hegemonic role, why would they want that?
China and Russia are export economies, relatively self-sufficient, have massive populations and industrial bases. What are they even supposed to gain from establishing empires?
in the modern context, imperialism describes a phase of capitalism. it's characterized by international monopolies that control industrial capital, finance capital, and raw material extraction while partitioning the world among themselves. this is a phenomenon that includes monopolistic firms of many countries (US, western europe, australia, japan). while it could be argued that russia takes part in imperialism, it could also be argued that because russia is denied access to many routes of imperialist collaboration (NATO, G7, Davos, etc.) it more resembles a pre-imperialist structure that has national monopolies and takes part in colonialism in its own sphere of influence that is demonstrably separate from the imperial core. but China is not imperialist: monopolistic practices are cracked down on by the government, less than 40% of enterprises are privately owned, most of the raw material extraction is state-owned, and they dont engage in colonialism. we like China here because they are in direct opposition to imperialism and they are a great example of the successes of socialism
That's fair, honestly. Thanks for the explanation of your perspective.
I still oppose China on the whole largely due to social issues (and it's policies towards Taiwan) rather than economic, but also definitely acknowledge that it's had some great successes and that overall it maintains a good SoL for it's people.
My comrade in Christ, do you seriously think Russian oligarchs - who picked the corpse of whatever was left of nationalized infrastructure to give themselves unfathomable riches and own entire sectors of the economy - wouldn't?
These are capitalist vultures in as straight-forward a manner as possible.
Well its certainly more far-left than simping for repressive authoritarian regimes, no?
Also I don't simp for the USA either. I don't want to fight you but I don't understand your PoV at all. Are you just hoping for a multi-polar world to depose America so that instability can give revolution a chance or do you actually in it's present form support China (or god forbid Russia)?
I think most of us are indeed hoping for US imperial power to diminish, as it is historically, by far, the greatest impediment to any sort of left movement anywhere. And it’s not just leftism. It’s an impediment even to basic economic sovereignty. Russia is a good example. Not open enough to domination by US capital, therefore a US enemy, despite being otherwise fairly similar to the US politically. This can’t continue if any progress to be made.
It’s unfortunate that some of the countries successfully (at least partly) asserting their sovereignty against the US are doing so on strictly nationalist rather than leftist grounds, but that’s what we’ve got at the moment, and it offers at least a modicum of hope that US imperialism might also be resisted by more left wing states in the future.
Not going to get into anything about China because I suspect we have vastly different ideas about what is and is not true about China, and that’s another discussion entirely.
Lol if Russia or China became hegemony of any significant chunk of the world things would be exactly the same economically (at best, maybe in Russia's case we'd have more openly oligarchic economical structures the government is run almost exclusively for their interests whereas the US at least sometimes reigns in billionaires historically), but worse socially.
Is this some weird accelerationist take then? Because no leftism will come from any success for Russia, unless Pol Pot is the model here.
Because me and my queer comrades would prefer the status quo over that, despite how bad the status quo is. But we don't have to pick. We can be critical of all empires and the structures of oppression they create be they capitalism, patriarchy, xenophobia, queerphobia etc. by their nature as structures of oppression and apply both Marxist and Anarchist readings to that and be allies.
When in our lifetimes has this ever happened?
The US famously executes its corrupt billionaires, while China gives theirs a slap on the wrist if they're punished at all
Oh wait
There is literally no basis for this. It's just an unfalsifiable orthodoxy at this point that only exists to justify American imperialism. Russia or China becoming regional or global hegemons is simply a hypothetical, and you can make anything happen in a hypothetical. The fact is, right now, both countries have very good relationships with the global south. China especially has greatly helped many other nations by building infrastructure with cheap loans that they are often willing to restructure or even outright forgive.
In some imaginary future where China and Russia make an attempt at world conquest, they will be problems to deal with. There is just nothing to indicate that this is the future we are headed towards. This kind of future makes many assumptions:
in the modern context, imperialism describes a phase of capitalism. it's characterized by international monopolies that control industrial capital, finance capital, and raw material extraction while partitioning the world among themselves. this is a phenomenon that includes monopolistic firms of many countries (US, western europe, australia, japan). while it could be argued that russia takes part in imperialism, it could also be argued that because russia is denied access to many routes of imperialist collaboration (NATO, G7, Davos, etc.) it more resembles a pre-imperialist structure that has national monopolies and takes part in colonialism in its own sphere of influence that is demonstrably separate from the imperial core. but China is not imperialist: monopolistic practices are cracked down on by the government, less than 40% of enterprises are privately owned, most of the raw material extraction is state-owned, and they dont engage in colonialism. we like China here because they are in direct opposition to imperialism and they are a great example of the successes of socialism
That's fair, honestly. Thanks for the explanation of your perspective.
I still oppose China on the whole largely due to social issues (and it's policies towards Taiwan) rather than economic, but also definitely acknowledge that it's had some great successes and that overall it maintains a good SoL for it's people.
Taiwan is part of China, they lost the civil war
Supporting Taiwan is basically like supporting the Confederacy
Don't all peoples have a right to self-determination free from state interference?
Sure, what about Howard Hughes?
Fucking laughable citation.
A thief believes everybody steals.
My comrade in Christ, do you seriously think Russian oligarchs - who picked the corpse of whatever was left of nationalized infrastructure to give themselves unfathomable riches and own entire sectors of the economy - wouldn't?
These are capitalist vultures in as straight-forward a manner as possible.
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