Don't know about other folks but I'm rather optimistic about China not because I think its current conditions are good or anywhere close to ideal, but because they appear to be making astronomically more progress, faster and at a larger scale than anywhere else. You mention Scandinavian welfare states. How many millions of people do they lift out of poverty every year?
Like I do get that China has a massive inequality problem (addressing poverty seems to me like a more important issue though). Also I don't doubt conditions for workers are still quite bad there with 996 etc.,
But when I look at surveys like this, where 93% polled said they were very happy or rather happy, up 11% since 2019, and this, where satisfaction with the government went up at all levels from 2003-2016, with the 2016 numbers being 93.1% (Central), 81.7% (Provincial), 73.9% (County), and 70.2% (Township), I find it hard to believe they aren't going in the right direction.
yeah, the above post seems to be a huge nitpick on a post that has nothing to do with them. Nobody thinks China is currently a socialist or communist country, people just recognize the vestiges of left-wing policy and practices from the Mao era.
I think the concept of false consciousness in Marxist terminology should prove useful. The shared stake in Chinese nationhood, especially among those who have been designated as part of the Han ethnicity, serves to reinforce bourgeois hegemony. It's designed to snuff out any hint of class consciousness and class conflict between the proletarianized peasant underbelly, and the new (post 70s) bourgeoisie and ruling class. The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia both have extremely high percentages of "happy" people too, lol. Should we accept ruling class domination in these places, too? Should these states not be overthrown, and replaced with a genuinely working-class-controlled socialist regime?
Yes, there has been an increase in the availability of certain commodities and services, to a large number of people, that's defined as "poverty alleviation" by the state. Western European welfare states aren't doing this at China's magnitude every year because they, uh, don't have 1.3 billion people under their governance.
I really want to emphasize how much China's proletarianized masses are struggling, and will continue to struggle, against their capitalist oppressors, under the aegis of "progress", even if they themselves have not completely realized their class consciousness. I also want to emphasize that there are plenty who *have * realized this, including the Marxist students and unionizing workers I mentioned in my previous post, who have been crushed by Chinese capitalist forces. I want to emphasize how much non-human life, China's ecological base, has been completely terminated. It's a tragedy that you'll only only really be able to comprehend once you become familiar with the Chinese language, and visit and see the ravaged landscape in person.
Once again, I totally sympathize with you. You're my comrade, and we probably agree on much more than we disagree on. I really, really wish that China was a truly revolutionary force that could lead the way in saving humanity and our ecological base. But I think it's really important to make clear that that's not happening. Impoverished masses in the U.S., China, and all over the world cannot afford to rely on currently established regimes, because currently established regimes (once again, especially the US and China) are all deeply implicated in the continued functioning of the capitalist world system.
I highly, highly, highly recommend http://chuangcn.org/ for starters, in order to learn more about current political circumstances in China from a critical Marxist perspective. They're doing amazing work. If you have the means at all, or the interest at all, i also think it absolutely would be worth learning Chinese so that you could approach these things without relying on English sources.
here's a specific article from Chuangcn they released recently about Chinese delivery workers' struggles against capitalist logistics that I think would provide a good entry point: http://chuangcn.org/2020/11/delivery-renwu-translation/
http://chuangcn.org/ for starters, in order to learn more about current political circumstances in China from a critical Marxist perspective. They’re doing amazing work. If you have the means at all, or the interest at all, i also think it absolutely would be worth learning Chinese so that you could approach these things without relying on English sources.
Having checked them out before, I get the general impression that they do good work on exposing the various struggles that Chinese citizens are faced with, but do they also provide a compelling argument that shows that in the grand scheme of things, the country is not in fact generally moving in the right direction after all the positives and negatives are accounted for? Like given that their goal for 2021 of eliminating absolute poverty seems to have been met, is there anything to suggest that conditions won't continue to improve? Granted they've done nothing about inequality/made it worse over the years, but I always just assumed that was mostly because it wasn't a priority while absolute poverty was still a thing. Now that they're next milestone is to achieve a socialist society by 2049 though, I guess we'll see what happens in the next couple of years one way or another.
Yeah I have been meaning to learn Chinese. Would probably be a more productive use of my time than browsing social media websites lol.
At the end of the day though, whether my optimism is misguided or not, as a citizen of a different country whose time/effort would probably be most effectively spent on issues here and not there, I don't really see the harm in celebrating/being inspired by what appears to be significant tangible progress being made elsewhere currently.
Full disclosure, I'm very much a baby leftist so I do apologize if I'm misunderstanding/missing something here.
Don't know about other folks but I'm rather optimistic about China not because I think its current conditions are good or anywhere close to ideal, but because they appear to be making astronomically more progress, faster and at a larger scale than anywhere else. You mention Scandinavian welfare states. How many millions of people do they lift out of poverty every year?
Like I do get that China has a massive inequality problem (addressing poverty seems to me like a more important issue though). Also I don't doubt conditions for workers are still quite bad there with 996 etc.,
But when I look at surveys like this, where 93% polled said they were very happy or rather happy, up 11% since 2019, and this, where satisfaction with the government went up at all levels from 2003-2016, with the 2016 numbers being 93.1% (Central), 81.7% (Provincial), 73.9% (County), and 70.2% (Township), I find it hard to believe they aren't going in the right direction.
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I mean it seems a bit more than just a few tech companies: https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/tree/master/blacklist
but yeah just like so many other aspects of the country, I do get the general impression that things are improving on the working conditions front
yeah, the above post seems to be a huge nitpick on a post that has nothing to do with them. Nobody thinks China is currently a socialist or communist country, people just recognize the vestiges of left-wing policy and practices from the Mao era.
I think the concept of false consciousness in Marxist terminology should prove useful. The shared stake in Chinese nationhood, especially among those who have been designated as part of the Han ethnicity, serves to reinforce bourgeois hegemony. It's designed to snuff out any hint of class consciousness and class conflict between the proletarianized peasant underbelly, and the new (post 70s) bourgeoisie and ruling class. The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia both have extremely high percentages of "happy" people too, lol. Should we accept ruling class domination in these places, too? Should these states not be overthrown, and replaced with a genuinely working-class-controlled socialist regime?
Yes, there has been an increase in the availability of certain commodities and services, to a large number of people, that's defined as "poverty alleviation" by the state. Western European welfare states aren't doing this at China's magnitude every year because they, uh, don't have 1.3 billion people under their governance.
I really want to emphasize how much China's proletarianized masses are struggling, and will continue to struggle, against their capitalist oppressors, under the aegis of "progress", even if they themselves have not completely realized their class consciousness. I also want to emphasize that there are plenty who *have * realized this, including the Marxist students and unionizing workers I mentioned in my previous post, who have been crushed by Chinese capitalist forces. I want to emphasize how much non-human life, China's ecological base, has been completely terminated. It's a tragedy that you'll only only really be able to comprehend once you become familiar with the Chinese language, and visit and see the ravaged landscape in person.
Once again, I totally sympathize with you. You're my comrade, and we probably agree on much more than we disagree on. I really, really wish that China was a truly revolutionary force that could lead the way in saving humanity and our ecological base. But I think it's really important to make clear that that's not happening. Impoverished masses in the U.S., China, and all over the world cannot afford to rely on currently established regimes, because currently established regimes (once again, especially the US and China) are all deeply implicated in the continued functioning of the capitalist world system.
I highly, highly, highly recommend http://chuangcn.org/ for starters, in order to learn more about current political circumstances in China from a critical Marxist perspective. They're doing amazing work. If you have the means at all, or the interest at all, i also think it absolutely would be worth learning Chinese so that you could approach these things without relying on English sources.
here's a specific article from Chuangcn they released recently about Chinese delivery workers' struggles against capitalist logistics that I think would provide a good entry point: http://chuangcn.org/2020/11/delivery-renwu-translation/
Cheers to our struggles ahead.
Having checked them out before, I get the general impression that they do good work on exposing the various struggles that Chinese citizens are faced with, but do they also provide a compelling argument that shows that in the grand scheme of things, the country is not in fact generally moving in the right direction after all the positives and negatives are accounted for? Like given that their goal for 2021 of eliminating absolute poverty seems to have been met, is there anything to suggest that conditions won't continue to improve? Granted they've done nothing about inequality/made it worse over the years, but I always just assumed that was mostly because it wasn't a priority while absolute poverty was still a thing. Now that they're next milestone is to achieve a socialist society by 2049 though, I guess we'll see what happens in the next couple of years one way or another.
Yeah I have been meaning to learn Chinese. Would probably be a more productive use of my time than browsing social media websites lol.
At the end of the day though, whether my optimism is misguided or not, as a citizen of a different country whose time/effort would probably be most effectively spent on issues here and not there, I don't really see the harm in celebrating/being inspired by what appears to be significant tangible progress being made elsewhere currently.
Full disclosure, I'm very much a baby leftist so I do apologize if I'm misunderstanding/missing something here.
Cheers