Look. I'm not trying to start another pointless struggle session. Far from that, I want each and every one of us to confront this most strange attempt at multilateralism by two of our favourite existing socialisms.

There's no substantial article on the environment. Not a single word on climate or pollution. And nothing on labour issues.

I get that the whole thing is brand new and the member countries will probably amend to add more to the document in later stages.

But now is the point the heads of governments go back to their respective legislative body for ratification. Again, nothing on labour, the environment or the climate.

I want us Chapos to confront the likelihood that existing socialist experiments are faltering, even abandoning, a key promise of socialism to workers: reducing work hours for more leisure time. That, and no idea how trade is going to connect to the climate crisis.

  • StarMelter [he/him]
    20·
    4 years ago

    Damn it's almost like China isn't socialist nor does it have a socialist government in practice huh.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      9·
      4 years ago

      Well of course. Everyone knows that nothing is really socialism unless it conforms to the impossible standards of western socialists whose historical accomplishments have been exactly jack and shit.

      Better go tell my comrades enjoying objectively better living and working conditions that none of this matters because whitey-mc-sofa doesn't approve.

      • Civility [none/use name]
        8·
        4 years ago

        This just seems like an argument against communism all together tbh.

        It's implicitly accepting that the best way to improve living and working conditions is too ... sign free trade agreements with capitalist powers?

        Allow people to exploit the wage employment relation for insane profit and balloon out wealth inequality?

        Also, I would be hesitant to call the USSR jack and shit.

        • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
          6·
          4 years ago

          At least the imperfect existent socialist projects of the world are trying something. Even if it's flawed, even if it's made mistakes, even if it's far from it's goals, at least the Chinese project has something tangible to show for its efforts.

          I'm just getting sick and tired of western leftists yelling from the sidelines while not doing anything in the Imperial core to abate the advance of imperialism or capitalism.

          If Fidel can look at China and say it is socialist and "the most promising hope for the third world" then forgive me for not putting much stock in some armchair theoretician whose attempts at revolution (if any) have objectively amounted to zilch.

          Everytime some Western lefitst criticizes China for not being socialist enough quickly enough, I get flashbacks to university group projects where the loudest and most vocal critics of everyone else's work was the guy who did the least work of all.

          Also, I would be hesitant to call the USSR jack and shit.

          When I say "Western socialists" I mean exactly that. I have never seen a credible definition of "the West" that includes Russia or the USSR and I don't believe many Russians view themselves as being "Western". European, yes. Western, no.

          Claiming the USSR as an accomplishment of Western socialists is such an incredible stretch.

          • Civility [none/use name]
            2·
            4 years ago

            I think "the west" is a reactionary social construct tbh. Don't really like using it. I was more referring to the USSR as a socialist project on the scale of the PRC that massively improved living and working conditions without allowing the exploitation of wage labour for private profit or (from 1928-88) trading with capitalist powers.

            I don't think anyone's saying the PRC was never socialist, but that Deng and gang fucked up the Maoist project almost beyond recognition and it's arguable whether Xi and Co can get things back on track, and, given their material interests run in the other direction (most of the CPC higher ups, including Xi's family are all super fucking rich) how hard they're actually trying to.

            Critical support for not being the US or anywhere near as bad and all, but there's a critical component to critical support and that component involves criticizing free trade deals and questioning whether or not a "communist party" whose membership includes actual billionaires and under whose leadership wealth inequality is rising, is in fact, communist.

            • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
              1·
              4 years ago

              the USSR as a socialist project on the scale of the PRC that massively improved living and working conditions without allowing the exploitation of wage labour for private profit or (from 1928-88) trading with capitalist powers

              This is a great observation. The counterpoint is that the PRC seems to be set up for long-term success as of right now, which by itself is a significant step up over the USSR.

              But that gets back to the central question raised by Deng and China's subsequent path: how far can your socialist state deviate from "pure" socialism (however that's defined in practice) before it's unrecognizable as a socialist state?

          • LibsEatPoop2 [he/him]
            4·
            4 years ago

            bruh. chill.

            i mentioned this elsewhere too, but this line of thinking really reminds of libs who defended Kamala's Pell Grant shit. "At least it helps some people. Bernie never even got anything done. He's too idealistic." Or my parents who call socialism too idealistic and love compromise. Like, ruthlessly criticizing socialists/anarchists was Marx's favorite pastime. idk, why you're against that.

            • Sphincter_Spartan [any,comrade/them]
              2·
              4 years ago

              The difference is that Kamala is one of the people insuring that nothing more can be done. Those like her could do more, but choose not to. China has done what it can do given its situation, and lifted millions from poverty while slowly supplanting the US doing it, that's why it's unreasonable for western leftists to decide it's not good enough when we have repeatedly failed to obtain anything beyond some nice concessions.

              • LibsEatPoop2 [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                yeah fair. i think saying "China has done what it can do given its situation" is an unfalsifiable statement. The same is said for the dems which we know is bullshit given just how much information there is calling them out on their shit, and what we know of the history of the dems and neoliberalism in general. but it's much harder to know the reality when it's on the other side of the world, in a completely different language and on completely different websites. you kinda just have to trust the govt which, i mean, isn't convincing anyone who doesn't already trust them. idk, i just felt the case for socialism (or, you know, state capitalism) was so much stronger and easier to defend with the SU. But I wasn't alive then so maybe it would be just as hard.

                • Sphincter_Spartan [any,comrade/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  I don't think that's unfalsifiable, you could prove it wrong by giving a solid argument that they could have done significantly more than they have. As you say, the same has been said for dems and is clearly bullshit, meaning that it is falsifiable, because you can easily show how much more the dems could do if they cared. It's definitely easier to defend for the USSR, they accomplished more than China regarding workers rights and quality of life, but they're gone and the CCP survived, because the CCP has managed to tie western economies to itself so that actions taken to damage China will almost all damage those western economies. But because of this, developing workers rights as much as the USSR wasn't possible, for the sake of attracting that western capital. Chinas methods are harder to defend because they don't help their people as much, but they have kept them around

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
      5·
      4 years ago

      Brush up on your theory.

      The basis of all socialist literature is clearly conclusive that free trade is a part of developing the productive capacity of the Chinese and Vietnamese proletariat, and hence it is a necessary phase as they move from feudalism at the beginning of the 20th century towards socialism.

      The contradictions of climate and labor rights will result in further struggle and revolutionary processes once the economic power of these countries has been advanced to the level where providing the benefits of equitable wages and worker protections and environmental restoration that are impossible to achieve prior to the hurdle of economic output.

      It's a utopian-socialist ideal to think that a country or region's development will skip steps in this very linear and straightforward process. Read Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      4·
      4 years ago

      It's much more like their government is Marxist-Leninist and they're running the country in absolute accordance with Marxism as a dictatorship of the proletariat, actually.