They view the people of China as some sort of alien species.
It's called "orientalism"
The bit about how any action of the USSR will be interpreted as hostile?
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
Wasn't orientalism all about criticizing the domestic government by casting its leaders as foreign lords?
Like, doing a lithograph of the King of England in a turban, then complaining about how terrible the Ottoman Emir is to his people.
Americans think "gommunism no freedom" and since freedom is the only thing that makes people happy (as opposed to say, an improvement in material conditions), then the Chinese by definition cannot be happy with their government.
- Everyone reads it because you're forced to in high school
- It's an ink blot test for whatever type of opposition to authority you want to read into it
Most libs havent ever engaged with any real political theory, leftist or otherwise
Their only frame of reference is literally fiction - 1984, Animal Farm etc
Their only frame of reference is literally fiction - 1984, Animal Farm etc
And the most important title of all: Harry P*tter
That's a pretty spot on take.
Also, capeshit is inherently Great Man History writ large.
gotta be honest with you, I tried watching one of the Avengers movies and turned it off after 15 minutes because no one wanted anything except to be forced to act. The only other superhero movie I've seen, Guardians of the Galaxy, had the same problem - the antagonist was on a quest, motivated by his love for a woman, to be accepted and approved of by his father-in-law, while the protagonists had to make jokes and hang out. At least someone strove for something.
Plenty of libs engage with political theory. They just engage with a narrow band of it, and they engage with it in a political environment heavily slanted towards one set of conclusions.
Consider the user here who was posting her (?) AP government assignments discussing various political ideas.
Because their worldview is fictional so they can only parse reality when it has been filtered through fiction. It’s called idealism. It’s bad
they do realise that 1984 is fiction, right? and not an educational text
https://www.reddit.com/r/tech/comments/klr45x/china_orders_alibaba_founder_jack_ma_to_break_up/ghbeg7r/
But I thought China evil state capitalists who no care about gommulism 😱😱😱
this is still regulated capitalism, the us gov is trying to break up facebook so its not like this is even much better
The US government can “try” whatever it likes. What they end up actually doing is what matters. Call me when the government actually breaks up Facebook
Yeah, the Facebook comparison is a near-perfect one, and I guess we're about to see which government is more serious about taking on capital. I know who my money's on.
I mean, the US government never actually wanted to break up the social media conglomerates.
That was just a bargaining position they held until social media companies stopped resisting getting fully folded into the intelligence apparatus.
The U.S. government isn't a monolithic entity (at least when it comes to domestic policy, and especially when it comes to antitrust regulation). State AGs can bring antitrust cases, for example, and it's a big stretch to say every single one of them is on board with every single U.S. monopoly just continuing on untouched. Even if the relevant decision makers don't actually care about corporate power one way or the other, careerists are always out there looking for a way to make a name for themselves.
Some parts of the government do want to enforce antitrust laws; they're just the minority, and they're hampered by so much of the government being too old to comprehend the extent of what tech companies are doing. You're absolutely right, though, that there are a lot of insincere threats made with the intent of gaining cooperation with law enforcement and the intelligence state.
basic anti-trust
decent anti-trust
We have to see how this pans out before we classify it. It may go well beyond simply breaking up Alibaba into smaller companies.
they are following the same process here, Ant Group is yet to be broken up as well. They are the same stage in terms of "orders", and the campaigns against the tech giants have been going on for comparable periods.
The fact that China is willing and able to wield power over their capitalist class literally is evidence that they are a dictatorship of the proletariat. Does that mean they’re guaranteed to build communism at some point? I guess not but that wasn’t even my contention
And for as much as I’m being told “capitalist countries do stuff like this too” the only example I’ve heard so far is the US government threatening to break up Facebook, which I’ll believe when I see. Like someone else said, if we’re taking bets about which country is more likely to reign in capital, I know who I’m betting on
when it comes to China people on here are willing to take every single slither of evidence they can to justify their own preconceptions
I think you’re assuming a bit too much about my beliefs based on my low effort shitpost lmao
The only example I know of that is kind of similar is xerox. In 1975 they were forced to share their entire ip portfolio with competitors, and for a company that developed a lot of ip this was significant. Much of it went to foreign (Japanese and korean) companies and formed the basis of the first OLEDs. Xerox now is still attempting to recover from that and not doing well.
Imagine the government making one of its most successful companies share all of its trade secrets with foreign competitors.
Breaking up Bell is the actual example
*The counter example isn't Jack Ma it's the billionaires they've executed
The AT&T antitrust case started in 1974 and ended in 1982 -- back before neoliberal economics became the dominant system in the U.S., i.e., back when we occasionally offered limited resistance to capital.
The most recent big antitrust case is Microsoft, which was decided in 2001. Notably, Microsoft didn't even get broken up, and we allowed the big tech giants of today to come to power in that case's immediate aftermath.
Yeah, that's why I said bell and not microsoft, ms wasn't trust-busted. No disagreement in your analysis either, just that celebrating china for shit noted shitheads nixon, carter and reagan were doing feels like another example of the overton window shifting.
The subreddit reeducated my propaganda-addled brain by talking about capital punishment for billionaires and marx as required secondary and tertiary education.
Critical support for China and critical support for teddy roosevelt's trust busting I guess.
celebrating china for shit noted shitheads nixon, carter and reagan were doing feels like another example of the overton window shifting
I don't see much issue with celebrating a step in the right direction. No one is calling this communism, or even socialism; it's basically just being held up as an example of China keeping capital under control. That's evidence in support of the idea that China intends to keep progressing towards socialism, even if by itself it doesn't prove that contention. And if self-identified communists are credibly opposed to capital, I think they deserve a presumption that they know better how to manage the path than anyone here.
There's no one obvious thing that one can point to as a litmus test for whether a society is socialist (or working towards socialism).
You are right that breaking up powerful corporations is not determinative of socialism because liberal states do it to. However, I would argue that it is indicative of working towards socialism, taken together with numerous other pro-socialist policies. The same can be said of policies like redistribution, universal Healthcare, or state owned enterprises, which all exist in liberal states to one extent or another.
To put it another way, I cannot claim that the animal in front of me is a dog only because it has 4 legs because cats also have 4 legs. However, if it has 4 legs, wags it's tail, and barks? Probably a dog.
If your looking for something which requires minimal investment in language and culture learning, Chinese news companies put out media for English speakers. For 99 percent of people this is the best way for them to get a grasp on things because everything else will involve integrating into the culture enough to follow debates which your not going to do if your not already.
Understand that everything you read will be heavily biased in favor of China the same way the US is biased for its own interests. Without knowing Chinese you are always going through an interpreter so cutting out middlemen is your best option. Also remember the racist/dumb/stupid/incompetent parts of Chinese media will not be translated for you to understand and there are a loooot of them.
Peter Hessler is a great look at ordinary life in China. A bit lib but he captures the nuances that most western writers miss.
Read Mao and the governance of china and then modern Maoist or Marxist critiques (such as the critiques from phillipino, Indian and Nepalese Maoists and MLs)
Can dig up links but they are easy to find iirc
Thanks. Posting this link just for the fun URL https://www.bannedthought.net/China/Individuals/XiJinping/XiJinping-TheGovernanceOfChina.pdf
My method is basically just counter propaganda. When you see an article written by imperialist/western sources, check their references/sources. See if they have any chinese language stuff included (they almost always mistranslate, so feel free to just paste it in a translator, or use the Yandex image translate to translate images of stuff they include).
Almost always you'll find out that the article /paper they cite is just totally different than what they claim it to be. Often times it will even counter plenty of their points, but they know the vast majority of their readers can't understand it and won't try so they just lie.
Another thing is checking out expats. Look for someone who moved to China from your home country and see what their experience is. There are plenty of bloggers and vloggers that are all over China and trying to explain it from the point of view of their home country.
China is going against its motive of destroying western civilization
Too bad.
America: Come back here and destroy our way of life like you promised!
China: Why are you so obsessed with me?
