Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.
They've been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren't Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it's bots or wumao. Human beings can't possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.
I, in general, agree with all of this, you should be posting this at CatholicSocialist, not me. My general criticisms of Marx's social revolutionary model are ones that he recognized himself later in life (and would be incorporated into Lenin's labor aristocracy critiques as well), which is that it is the periphery proletariat and peasantry that has more revolutionary attitude and need to organize and create a social revolution. He just never actually published them, so I struggle to really call them a part of Marx's 'social revolution model'.
My general description of China as 'left-liberal capitalist' stems from the fact that while the party holds the vast majority share of political power in the country, many of those party members are members of bourgeoise, though not even close to a majority, with none of them making up the upper echelon of the party. However, notably, they are almost entirely made up of members of the industrial or petite-bourgeoise, not the FIRE or tech sectors, which is an unspeakably enormous improvement over the Western neoliberal model that fits incredibly neatly into Adam Smith's idealized version of classical industrial capitalism described in the Wealth of Nations, which Marx saw as a clear and total upgrade to the feudal mode of production.
That being said, I am perfectly content to call China 'first-stage socialism' when not in mixed company, but ultimately these stages are rather arbitrary, and it will be seen what happens when China actually achieves it's destiny and breaks the shackles put around it by the U.S. I generally am in good faith about it, as I have seen factory conditions all over the place and China's are, in general, much better than your average place, and the proletariat seem to be mostly in high-spirits and believing in the project and the government and their ability to change what the government is doing if it is doing something they don't like. It's a completely different attitude than the U.S. and it is completely alien to my experience in any other Western country. Even our most 'patriotic' chuds think that the government is out to screw them, so it is weird to see a patriotic nationalism that actually believes that government can and does do good things. Whatever their central mode of production, they are very clearly trying to achieve communism.
We all hope. In all honesty it seems like Xi actually believes and the fact that Chinese leadership is confident in him as their leader gives me a lot of hope. I would hate to see China devolve into another neoliberal dead end but given how well materialist-based development has served them it's hard to see that happening.
That said there will eventually be a big painful moment where they have to deal with the liberal elements and we are all going to be sitting on the sidelines wishing the best. You know, when we're not busy riding around in Priuses stocked with miniguns stealing breast milk from milk town
It really depends on how they deal with the inevitable development crises, though they continue to handle themselves well so far. As long as they don't let the fucking Shanghai clique dictate policy they should be fine, but there is a lot of money rolling around in that area and I never count the bourgeoise out until they are pushing up daisies. Fortunately, people, especially in Beijing, generally seem to hate the Shanghai clique because they fuck up so many government mandates, so they will likely only continue to play a marginal role in government for the foreseeable future. That said, it definitely seems to be one of those cases of 'friends close, enemies closer.' which is a difficult thing to juggle, particularly when they keep clumsily trying to stab you in the back.
Yup, I hope I am around to watch it happen, but I really doubt it at this point. What will really be interesting is to see who ends up taking over after Xi, because he is an very talented politician. Now I can be called a 'Xi shill'.
I too doubt I'll be around for it. I'm not even sure I'll want to be around for it, I've had such a shit time dealing with major depression for most my life I doubt I have the chops to deal with whatever's coming over the next few decades. There is, I think, a perverse fantasy of being some kind of gun toting leftist doing good in the world as it all falls apart but sadly I think I would more easily put the gun to myself.
Probably be too old to be some kind of armed resistance by the time it matters anyways. Best I can hope for is to pass down some amount of knowledge of self reliance and communal aid to the kids who will really need to be there when it matters. I guess a lot of us are in the same boat. Would be nice if there was a crazy project like revolutionary Spain to join in now. People like me could really use an international Marxist brigade to at least give some meaning to our latter years, in light of failure to adjust to the grinding system we live in
Well, depending on what happens in the Philippines over the next decade or so, you might get your wish. That said, if that does go off there is a very good chance that you would be facing weapons from China, hence where my level of critique does come from. We'll see though, the future is wild and very silly.
I've met enough people from the Philippines that I hope they don't go through too much shit. Like most southeast Asians there some of the nicest folks I've ever met (well, not the weird semi-fascist ones). Working towards a revolution somewhere would be a helluva lot better than rotting here in the imperial core, though.
Nobody knows when a truly revolutionary moment will occur. That revolutionary moment will only develop into an armed struggle if 1) the masses of people see it as legitimate and 2) the masses of people have (or are able to) organize a strong institution(s) of working class power in that moment. You could definitely live to see it. I don't think, particularly given the climate collapse, that we have much time to wait around or be complacent. It is definitely true that the global south will continue to be the locus of revolution, but we know as that contradictions exist everywhere and that they will eventually come to a head.
Revolution will always appear and be formed by the forces that currently exist in that moment. If you have come this far in your political development, then you can easily build towards 2, which is the most essential component to create a working-class revolution (and essential for 1 to occur at all). But all of these things take work, and you can work on them now. Sharing your knowledge on self reliance and communal aid is invaluable. You can and will also develop net skills as you organize. The work of building working class power it just that: work. Nobody else will do it for us. Don't give up, and don't fall prey to far off fantasies when the real world is in front of you and requires your help. Things will change. Organizing can feel feckless at times, but if you approach it scientifically then
I'm confused by this because I was replying to CatholicSocialist? I wasn't trying to come at you personally, not even indirectly. just wanted to make that clear. that piece is originally by u/aimixin (RIP) I will edit in attribution