Yet another one of China's elite has disappeared after criticizing Xi Jinping
businessinsider.com
A top economist has joined the growing list of China's elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.
CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China's cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a "body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership."
According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China's sluggish economy and criticizing Xi's leadership in a private group on WeChat.
If you think the Chinese economy is bad now, wait 15 years. No amount of sending economists to the gulag will hide this disaster.
Edit: tankie downvotes are like nectar of the gods to me. Your precious CCP will wither like a plant in the desert.
I’ve already been banned from Hexbear. Bunch of assclowns over there.
Edit: and now lemmygrad
Lemmy.ml next?
That's easy mode, since Rule 2 is basically "don't write a fact about China."
Well damn, I’ll try harder next time.
"Everyone keeps banning me, I'm surrounded by assholes"
Hmm...
They are cosplay commie instances, and they all live in western countries especially the USA.
I browse by all and don’t usually check what instance I’m commenting in. They will swarm like fire ants if you don’t chirp like them. They also have very thin skin so I don’t think they would make good comrades if they ever reach their Utopia.
I won’t even get into the Hexbear because that’s too easy, but look at the mods for USA at .ml
I was told they were all Wumao from China and bots from Russia.
Found the tankie!
Arbitrary bans from overly sensitive mods? Straight to Jail.
Made a comment about tankies in lemmy getting mad over some news about China getting hit with influence ops by the US. Believe it or not, ban.
It’s okay man, it takes me a few seconds to scroll through all my bans. It’s funny because all these pro China dweebs are living in the USA. Can’t even commit to the bit and just sit there all day posting anti USA or western stuff. They are obnoxious.
They are privileged children sheltered from reality by mommy and daddy's money.
This you?
Oh the cockroaches have showed up
What a stark example of Mao's legacy (look at the dip between ages 60 and 65).
Who thinks Chinese economy is bad now??
92 upvotes would suggest a lot of people.
But everything you could say about China rings just as true in Europe, in Japan and Korea, in India, in Russia...
Global populations are heading for a heavy sag, but westerners only know how to heckle the Evil Foreigners.
Funny because I'm European, and the GDP per capita levels of most EU countries are at 2008 levels.
As for a population pyramid, China will face the same problem as other countries as you say, possibly more magnified.
EU countries are filling up with war and climate refugees. And... 2008 is one hell of a year to pick as your benchmark.
Yeah, blame the immigrants. Very .world thing to do lol. Taking Germany, for example, according to Wikipedia, 0.17% population growth per year between 2010 and 2020 doesn't seem too great for me, compared to China's yearly >4% GDP growth for example they'd reduce per-capita growths by an insignificant amount. I'm European myself, and I can tell you that the lack of GDP per capita growth between 2008 and 2024 isn't due to population reasons either, and I'm guessing it's the same for the bigger EU economies like France,Italy and Spain but feel free to correct me otherwise.
2008 as my benchmark is exactly my point: the European economy has only now economically recovered from the effects of its own self-imposed policy of austerity and deprivation of worker rights and welfare, without having restored said rights or welfare to pre-2008 levels. And we see countries like the UK under "labor" administration falling to the same policy again as soon as they enter the government. In the meanwhile, without falling into such policy (although without many significant victories for welfare and labor AFAIK), China has grown its per-capita GDP threefold since 2008.
So no, I don't think "Chinese economy looks bad", I wish my European country's economy would mimic a fraction of the Chinese growth actually
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted that much
Lots of people, especially the Chinese. The sentiment about work, investment, economic prospects, consumption are all quite bad. The central bank is cutting rates. Just today the government dipped their toes into the helicopter money game. The only thing keeping the party going is exports
Source?
Source?
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/consumer-confidence https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-august-2024-economy-record-export-growth-amid-domestic-challenges/ https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/09/09/europes-luxury-goods-market-set-to-feel-the-pinch-as-china-growth-weakens https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/analysis-chinas-monetary-volleys-miss-key-threat-to-economic-growth/ar-AA1r9V9Q
Plus anecdotal stories from people I know that traveled to China in the past few months.
Basically, the post-COVID recovery was already slower than expected. Then the property sector all but halted. People are stuck with gig work and temporary contracts.
Why do you imagine the government is doling out money for the first time if everything is peachy?
ROFL, the consumer index that your first source portrays, is still twice that of Canada at 86 points Vs 45, and Germany's consumer index is -15 points... It's on par with Australia and Spain, so what does that tell you?
The rest aren't really indicators of Chinese people seeing the economy struggling aren't they? They're just western reports predicting the imminent collapse of the Chinese economy... as they've been doing for the past 20 years
I’m not going to do your homework for you. Suffice is to say China is still an emerging market and all indicators aside from exports are unusually low for the kind of economy China is. I don’t know what kind of point you’re trying to make because you seem to be skirting the issue. None of the pieces I linked proclaim China is about to collapse, only pointing out the challenges. Again: what the hell is your point?
What is this supposed to show?
This is what a healthy population looks like:
Even then, it isn't healthy, just healthier. The USA is still going to going to experience economic issues of a growing elderly population, it just won't be as bad.
The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration that they can adjust at will. On the other hand, China's leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.
Immigration definitely helps, especially compared to China. I'm just noting that there will still be some decrease in the ratio of retired workers to current workers.
glances at US immigration policy
Does it?
Wit drier than a lint trap.
Coming from one of the foremost resident tankies here, that's a glowing compliment. Thank you.
People still pay upwards of $10,000 US to get smuggled into the country that they will only work in for 4 years as basic farm and factory workers in a house of 20 people.
The world is a mess and America is the gold mines of california with no gold in it. But a lot of people are getting rich selling immigrants the shovels.
You're just describing human trafficking. This is modern slavery. Might as well brag about all the Africans who moved here in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Who can forget the huge influx of East Asian immigrants flooding into the California gold mines to be worked to death in the mines? Another excellent example of American prosperity.
Oh it's awful but I'm saying people are paying the privilege to be treated like shit in the US cause it's "better" than their crumbling local country or beats the idea of their false impression of their crumbling country of origin.
I didn't brag about it. But the US sure does have this happening at a rate hard to be ignored.
I mean I literally used an example that is historically known to have been basically a scam to import cheap labor and you still got defensive and hostile.
Your need to be right will kill any conversation you are part of.
Also you are wrong about how the east asian populace in California was used, as it often wasn't about working the mines as much as them racking up a debt trying to get rich and then owing money so that they could be used as cheap labor elsewhere. God do you even actually have a point or is it just be angry at whatever people say?
That's debt peonage. And debt peonage is enforced through the violence of loan sharks, who serve the same function as overseers in a plantation system. African slaves were also roped into debt peonage as the first step in African export. You get told you owe X and have to work Y years to pay it off, then you get placed on a ship and sent halfway around the world to spend your most productive years working for someone else.
When you're exhausted, you're disposed of. There's never any real promise of "repaid debts". Its just a social convention used to gull people into working for free.
Yes. But the point offends you, so you're closing your ears to it.
Make your point then and make it factual? Cause so far you have said America doesn't have immigration to fall back on which it does in spades even though I agree it looks like, and is in all practicality, slave labor.
Then said, incorrectly, Chinese immigrants worked in mines and used unrelated other slave labor immigration as whataboutisms.
The point was that America can sell the idea of itself to keep import of cheap labor high and you have wafted about without a point just yelling at people about all the things you think are wrong with the world and nitpicking, poorly, other people.
You don't stay on topic and you basically don't have a point other than be angry. If you have a point make it. If you want to be angry and rant then fine but be honest about it and just be angry and rant.
You get yelled at because you slip off topic to sputter out a "fact" that you think wins an argument while it being tangentially related and off topic. Your dog dying is not a good excuse for failing gym class. Yes it's sad. But it's not the point.
Take this as a learning moment from someone that agrees with you and won't back down at telling you, find a different way to talk to people.
This "holier than thou" shtick where you say random factoids as a way to feel superior in a conversation ain't doing you favors and isn't accomplishing anything other than stroking yourself out. And it's fine if you want to do that but do it in private. We don't need to see you jacking off your ego.
Have you.... have you seen how Americans have been talking about the border? Especially this election cycle? I don't know if would characterize either party's constituencies as "receptive".
You realize there's more to immigration than the border between Mexico and the US, right?
I know they ignore it, but you don't have to follow along with them.
50 million immigrants in the US, and that data is 5 years old. Germany comes in second with 13 million. It’s not even close. I don’t see how a demographic crisis could happen, even if they hypothetically cut immigration in half
It's all talk. Corpos crave dirt cheap desperate immigrant workers and will make sure neither party messes this up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_immigrant_and_emigrant_population
Was there supposed to be some argument or statement attached to this source, or..?
The US has the highest volume of immigrants in the world, 50x more than China. With or without a reduction of new immigrants that number will remain high.
Sure, the US has an advantage in raw number of immigrants versus China. No one is arguing that.
My point is that touting "our melting-pot-loving leaders" versus "their Han-supremacist demagogues" at the height of your unprecedented devolution into fascism isn't quite the own you think it is.
Never claimed to “own” you, but I’d argue this anti-immigrant rhetoric is exceedingly precedented for the US (see Chinese exclusion act, Japanese internment, Alien Act, etc). Even with those shameful events as a part of the US’ history, the nation has been a consistent and significant net importer of immigrants. That makes me confident that the US won’t face a demographic crisis in the same way China may (barring a change in Chinese policy)
Except that even in the Americas the population is declining. There is a limit to it. The US can outlast many other countries because of immigration but it too has to face the same problem as everyone else.
Not really. They are the #1 immigration destination. If the US runs out of potential immigrants that means every other country is far worse off. This game is like the old joke about outrunning a bear: you don't need to run faster than the bear — you only need to be faster than the guy next to you.
This is the new normal for highly developed economies. The best they can hope for is a 1 to 1 replacement of their population. We're not likely to see another baby boom occur.
We're not going to see a typical population pyramid any more. Because that means a large infant death rate and either war, disasters or a massive suicide epidemic cutting away the young adult population to get the pyramid shape.
Given that the amount of habitable land will decrease causing mass migrations, you don't need a 1 to 1 ratio to maintain a population size.
glances at Ferguson
glances at Columbia
glances at the NYC subway
How bad are we talking?
I don’t see how any of that relates to a potential demographic crisis
thicc
Basically, yes. The sides are nearly parallel, which is great. Compare with China's, which forms a steep V. Once GenX hits retirement age they are completely screwed. The CCP's recent push for "traditional family values" and increased birth rates is no coincidence.
The birthing rates are only dropping, in 15 years all of those people will be to old to work but there are not nearly enough to replace them.
Thank you for the clarification.
wtf is that chart?? Why does it look like that :0
Sure, China will certainly collapse, as they have said since the 1990s.
Still waiting
The glorious economy is always in the shitter it seems.
Enjoy the 996 becoming 7-10-7
What does this mean?
996 = working from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, work schedule practiced currently in many companies in China
7-10-7 = I'm guessing 7am to 10pm, 7 days a week because of worker shortage?
Old enough to remember people talking about a 4 day work week and complaining about how many bullshit jobs our economy is swamped with.
But I guess we actually do have a sever labor shortage and all that surplus manufacturing jettisoned out into the global market simply isn't enough.
996 is a term the Chinese use to describe working 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week.
What gives workers even less time to be consumers, making China even more dependant on overseas markets.
Oh bother…
Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to determine whether this image is racist, or not.
Lol he does look like that fucking bear
You have been banned from lemmy.ml for violating rule 2
ML anxious attachment style. Banning people for comments they make on other instances is some weeeird little dog behavior.
Already been down voted by a .ml user that got offended by me daring to insult their precious instance. Fuck .ml and their trash mods and admins lmao
At least they're slightly better than Truth Social. Apparently that's literally a completely defederated Mastodon instance.
You wouldn't be here without us
Eh, that's a bit much. Let's remember that they created Lemmy in the first place, and for that I'll always be grateful.
This is not lemmy.ml.
Is that why I got banned? Makes sense, I do have a tendency to refer to him as Xi Xinpooh
This was literally my first thought on seeing this
Wait but Hexbear said that China is a democracy? Did they lie?!??
I had the most hilarious discussion with a Tankie about China a while back. They refused to accept that China is pretty much communist in name only. I pointed out that they had billionaires, privately-owned companies, a stock exchange and private property, meaning you can earn capital in China.
The Tankie actually said something on the lines of, "If you would JUST READ MARX you would know that earning capital is a fundamental cornerstone of communism!"
Tankies are just communist cosplayers.
Where are the "real" Communists? What draws the line between a Marxist and a tankie?
Might be a few left in a small part of India.
If by definition but not by name, a lot of advocates for direct democracy, public goods and services, and nationalized industry still exist all over the world. They just don't refer to themselves with the same moniker as Mao "History's Greatest Killer" Zedong.
I'm a communist who doesn't want to call China a communist country, so I don't really agree with the person that you were talking to, but your second paragraph does show you haven't researched communism or its history. The debate of whether societies need to undergo capitalist capital accumulation first to enter communism is about as old as communism, and the history of communism is full of examples of this. It's the ideological reason why the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party split into two wings: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, the former believing that the Russian Empire had to undergo capitalism first in other to become communist, and the latter wanting to implement socialism to the primitive almost feudalist Russian empire. Some similar split happened more discreetly inside the Communist Party of China, with Mao implementing socialism directly to the extremely underdeveloped Chinese society, and later Deng Xiaoping opting for the more market-socialism (known now to many as "socialism with Chinese characteristics).
So you may or may not agree whether china is communist, but from your comment it's clear that you're very oblivious to the historical and ideological reasons for the argument as to whether china is or isn't a socialist country and whether they're on the path to it. It's good to discuss things and to have opinions, but please get informed before dismissing other people's opinions on topics they've probably dedicated more time than you to studying.
Weird how this path went from a communist country under Mao to a capitalist one under Xi. I guess it goes back again?
How exactly do you achieve communism via billionaires, a stock exchange, private ownership, etc.? That's ludicrous.
I'm not myself trying to make the assertion that china is communism or that it will achieve communism, I'm saying that what you consider "ludicrous", has been a hotly debated topic for the past 100 years with many proponents on both sides, many of them with much more knowledge of socialism and revolutions than you or I possess.
Yes. I stand by my statement that it is ludicrous to go from no private property to private property and still call yourself communist.
And I'm saying that you have clearly not dedicated much time to thinking about or studying the issue. I'm a Marxist-Leninist, so I'm not very supportive of Dengism, but if you listen to Dengists and Mensheviks they will tell you that China still has a communist party in power (as does Vietnam and as does Laos) whereas the former USSR has a capitalist proto-fascist in government. Only time will tell who's really right, and whether china shifts to a less market-socialism society and more towards a democratic centrally planned economy in the hands of the workers and the state.
I'm not saying China isn't a country, I'm just saying it's hotly debated whether or not it should be called west Taiwan. Only time will tell whether the CCP admits defeat and hands over control in line with their one China policy.
Man, making shit up is fun.
Do show me where Marx said that the path to communism is eliminating private property and the ability to accrue capital and then bringing it back again.
From Wikipedia article on Mensheviks: (you've been talking to someone else in the comments)
So yes, mate, there are literal historical figures of communism debating this exact same issue that you find so laughable, it's literally the raison d'etre of the word Bolshevism. There is no specific "Marx passage" as if it was the bible, where it says "in case some fella called Mao organizes a socialist revolution in a peasant agrarian society, pls pull it back to capitalism first, and then go to socialism once it's capitalist, ok?" If you generally read Marx, you can see how he puts socialism as the necessary and logical end of capitalism, as something inevitable that will happen because capitalism will bring forward the material conditions for the revolution. But despite that, Marx also was a highly politically involved individual, who pushed forward momentously the socialist movement in Europe together with Engels.
Marx isn't a gospel that you're supposed to be able to chant and have undying faith for, it's an analysis of reality that you can agree or disagree with, which explains the existence of different flavours of communism such as menshevism and bolshevism or such as Maoism and Dengism, which can be explained by the material and historical conditions leading up to those moments. Marx himself said that Marxism has to be constantly interpreting the reality of the moment and critically adapting everything. So if you're looking for a direct quote from Marx about Dengism or Menshevism, I'm not here to provide that, I'm here to tell you that the definition you consider stupid has been hotly debated for a hundred fucking years, so maybe it's not so stupid.
And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.
Because that makes no sense.
And you and everyone else arguing for this are ignoring that.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics is just taking cues from the popular sport of ping-pong.
I'm honestly waiting for something like that. It's so fucking weird to think that dawn has to keep getting darker for the sun to rise.
My brother in Christ, Mensheviks and Dengists were against the consolidation of centralised socialist economy before the historical consolidation of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the difference being that Menshevism died off and Dengism ended up taking the lead after Maoism. The restoration of capital is simply a consequence of Dengism taking over AFTER Maoism, not because Dengists believed there should be first Maoism and then Dengism.
Cool. How many billionaires does China get to have before they get rid of them and go to communism? Because it currently stands at over 800 according to my searching. When will their billions be distributed to the masses rather than to their children?
In his theory of Historical Materialism. Mao and the later Gang of Four succeeded in broadly eliminating private property, but had done so without developing the Means of Production adequately, resulting in economic stagnation. The people were poor, they had tried to leapfrog development to Communism in an idealist, Utopian manner, which was a rejection of the Historical Materialist idea that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous.
Communism requires a certain level of industrial development that the PRC did not have, and for that reason the Cultural Revolution was in many ways highly damaging.
Would you have had the PRC uphold the Gang of Four's dogmatic, anti-Marxist line simply because China had largely abolished Private Property? Is it better for the proletarist to be poor under Socialism, or rich under Capitalism?
Yes, you can claim that. I asked you to show me where. At the very least a reference to where he says it, but you could quote him. I don't see why you think I should just trust your interpretation.
Also, I am not making a value judgment about communism. Do not try to twist what I am saying into an argument against communism, because you are starting to look like you're here in bad faith.
Marx hadn't lived in a time where there was a society that tried to jump to Communism immediately without developing the Means of Production first, so the closest we can get is his critique of Anarchism. Critique of the Gotha Programme also provides perspective on the transition to Communism:
However, I encourage you to read Marx for yourself. You shouldn't "trust" my interpretation, you should dive into Marxism if you wish to critique Marxists along Marxist lines. You can critique as a non-Marxist, that's perfectly valid, but trying to critique as a Marxist without a solid understanding of Marxism isn't good-faith in my opinion.
I am not trying to say that you're making a value judgement. My argument is that, as a Marxist-Leninist that has read no fewer than 2 dozen books by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, Parenti, Politzer, and other Marxist writers, it is evident to me that your understanding of Historical and Dialectical Materialism is lacking, and that clouds your judgement when you critique using Marxist analysis.
Don't worry, ML theorists like Stalin take precedence over Marx, like how the New Testament takes precedence over the Old. It's basic theology.
Oh believe me, I know. They don't care about what Marx actually said.
Frankly, Marx strikes me more as an anarchist than a communist, at least insofar as those labels are used today. I suspect he'd find tankies repellent.
The end goal of Marxism is Communism, which is anarchist by a strict definition. There are quibbles between traditional Marxists and anarchists on how to get there - with Marxists typically taking a "We need to take over the state first" approach and anarchists going for "Dismantling/bypassing the state is literally step 1" approach. Tankies, of course, mock 'anarkiddies' without the slightest hint of what the end state of Communism is, because they love slobbering on authoritarian boots.
Marx railed against Anarchists for his entire life, what gives you the impression that he would be an Anarchist today?
No, no, you see, people who Read Theory(tm) have taken a side, therefore, the position is valid. Like how the value of the holsum Khmer Rouge is debatable instead of gruesomely apparent!
If the Bolsheviks didn't believe that Russia had to undergo capitalism then why did they implement, and I quote Lenin, state capitalism.
Also there's already a term for socialists who tolerate capitalism, it's social democrats. Maybe the "democrat" thing is the issue MLMs have with the whole concept, not the tolerating capitalism part.
Social Democrats don't want a transition to communism, not even ideologically. Dengists and Mensheviks do, at least ideologically. Whether you believe that or not is a different debate, but equating socialdemocrats with mensheviks is dumb, not a dunk.
Look, I'm not here to argue for Marxism-Leninism against you because you're obviously trying to be smug, not trying to have a civilized discussion. If you actually want some good (in my opinion) analysis of actually-existing socialism, there are plenty of Michael Parenti videos online, or you can pick up his book "Blackshirts and Reds". But I suspect you're just here to punch to those communists that are further left than you are. If you do want to have this discussion let me know.
Last I checked the SPD's party program still speaks of socialism.
I'm an Anarchist. Council Communists are generally to the right of me, quite adjacent but not quite there, Tankies somehow managed to seat themselves at the very other side of the plenum.
I'm sure the SPD party program talks about the end of capitalism /s
Again, not here to engage with smug factionalists. Have a good day
I'm not a factionalist you're the factionalist. Just agree with me and be done with it!
I mean you can still have private property under communism, it's the capital making property that's more owned by the workers themselves, but you can still own things under communism.
Similarly, you can earn capital under communism too, it's just that the tools for earning said capital aren't owned by corporations under corporations under CEOs under the 1%. It's not a cornerstone for sure, but it's not like communism is anti capital and growth and owning things
Directly from The Communist Manifesto:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
Read a bit ahead if you may:
Okay? That doesn't change the summary about private property, which is a thing in China. It wasn't under Mao, it is now.
And then the adherents fought over the means and meaning, and everybody else threw their hands up
Tbh Marx is intentionally questioning definitions and such so it makes sense, simplifying it down to terms we use isn't very productive in that sense, because what he argues for is the abolishing of "private property" as we know it, but without removing the fruits of labour from its people, so if you and your mates worked for your house you can have it, until the moment you start making a business out of it then it's less ok.
A bit nitpicky here, but personal property isn't Private Property. That being said, Marx and Engels maintained constantly that Private Property cannot be abolished in one sweep, that goes fundamentally against Historical Materialism. Socialism emerges from Capitalism, you can't establish it through fiat, hence why the Cultural Revolution wasn't a resounding success. Mao tried to establish Communism immediately, misjudged, and then Deng stepped in.
Thank you you've put the difference in better terms than I did
No problem. Marxism is pretty difficult for most people to understand entirely without reading far more than you would expect, it isn't simply criticism of Capitalism or advocacy for Socialism and then Communism, but also Dialectical and Historical Materialism, which is where people can easily trip up.
That's probably the smartest tankie in existence
This is actually hilarious
I mean, you definitely should read Marx. China is Socialist, guided by a Communist Party. It hasn't reached Communism, and when they tried to jump to Communism under Mao and the later Gang of Four, they ran into massive issues because the Means of Production weren't developed enough.
Marx maintains that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous, dialectically. That doesn't mean China needed to let Billionaires run rampant, doing whatever they want, it means that it was the correct gamble to heavily industrialize and interlock itself with the global economy while maintaining State Supremacy over Capital, focusing more than anything on developing the productive forces.
Like it or not, the USSR largely collapsed due to trying to stay isolated from the West, which legitimately led to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They had strong safety nets and all the necessities they needed, but lacked the fun toys (to simplify a multi-faceted issue, along with increased liberalization and betrayals from Gorbachev). The PRC watched this in real time, and didn't want to repeat it.
In that manner, the PRC is Socialist. It maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over Capital, Billionaires fear persecution, state ownership is high and growing, the Proletariat's real purchasing power is growing. The bourgeoisie exists, but has been kept no larger than can be drowned in a bathtub, in terms of power relation to the CPC, so to speak.
There is risk of Capitalist roading, and the bourgeoisie wresting control from the CPC. This risk is real, and is dangerous, but it hasn't happened yet. Wealth disparity is rising, so we must keep a careful eye on it.
The greatest analytical tool of a Marxist is Dialectical Materialism. When analyzing something, it isn't sufficient to take a present-day snapshot, you must consider its history, its relations to other entities, its contradictions, and its trajectory. Engels was a Capitalist, was Marx hypocritical for keeping Engels as his closest friend and ally? No. Class reductionism is dogmatic, we must analyze correctly.
The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn't significantly change this. It doesn't matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.
What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.
Can you explain this? The PRC practices Whole Process People's Democracy, which certainly isn't Liberal Democracy, but is democratic. Xi is elected according to this process, and the PRC enjoys 90%+ approval ratings even in peacetime. Does the fact that China has a government at all mean, in your eyes, that it isn't a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or do you have meaningful suggestions for how they may improve in your eyes?
The near totality of the energy, shipping, railways, mining, banking, and construction sectors are state owned, operated, and planned. 17 of the 20 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. 70% of the 200 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. The idea that the PRC is a largely state owned and managed "hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape" with 90%+ approval rates is dizzyingly contradictory. The fact that China has private sectors and heavy international trade with Capitalist countries does not mean it isn't Socialist. Rather, they learned what happens if you don't integrate with the global economy by watching the dissolution of the USSR.
My impression is informed primarily by visiting several small and medium sized businesses across China. What I saw in these industrial regions was an incredibly widespread entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone wanted to get ahead and have their own business. When the money gets really big, I don't have direct experience, but it stands to reason the autocracy takes control. Greedy pieces of shit who Elon it up like Jack Ma find this out when they get too big for their britches.
As I'm sure you're aware, many democracies around the world are largely performative (see e.g. USA) and based on fear, lies, and social engineering. Nothing and nobody in the world could honestly achieve a 90 percent favorability rating, and having observed thousands of workers in China I cannot believe such a number.
But Jack Ma was punished. Surely you can see the difference, can't you? It isn't the bourgoeisie in control, but the CPC. Regardless of individuals with "entrepeneurial spirit," how does that translate to subversion of the CPC?
So, because the vibes are off, you call it a "libertarian Capitalist hellscape" where billionaires who "Elon it up' get punished by the state, and you fully trust your gut instead of diving into hard-evidence? You'll forgive me for not taking much stock in your analysis.
That's legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.
I don't think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.
The USSR didn't collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.
Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60's.
Russia didn't want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn't track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.
But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.
Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.
I'm sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to "drown in a bathtub". 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.
Yes, and now let's look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We've gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.
What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn't productive enough to make that particular leap....who the hell can?
As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership....modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.
Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I'm grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn't coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?
Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who's disciples were Jews.
You can't be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.
Cowbee didn't do that. Cowbee said that Engles was a Capitalist, i.e. he had Capital, I am reading it as if you are mistaking it for Liberal? Cowbee also didn't call Marx a socialist.
My point was that his assertion that Marx didn't judge Engles for being a capitalist isn't really meaningful as they didn't ideologically conflict at the time. There wasn't an ideological divide between a capitalist and workers, as workers hadn't developed a stratified class consciousness.
The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can't just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.
This doesn't really follow. I'd like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical. Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?
This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.
I said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC. There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.
Okay.
It can't be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.
Sure, that's the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can't openly attack it.
It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.
Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.
I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.
Source for forced labor in China.
Ahh, so examine internal contradictions......but don't actually call them contradictions.
It depends on what era and region you are talking about. Stalin was a supporter of communism in one country, as opposed to Mao who urged each country to adopt communism with characteristics unique to each culture.
A large part of the split between Trotsky and Stalin occured over how to handle the CCP during the Japanese invasion. Stalin wanted to make a deal with the KMT and later turn on them, Trotsky wanted to aid the budding CCP in their fight against imperialism.
When talking about the spread in eastern Europe, the Soviets implemented programs to replace languages and culture.
In Korea the Soviets disappeared the socialist leader of Korea who was paramount in fighting off the Japanese, because he wanted control of the country to be transferred back to Koreans and for unification to begin ASAP. He was replaced by the Kim family, who they had trained in Russia.
Or we could just take a look at how the Soviets treated the non Slavic people withing the USSR. Whom are overwhelmingly more impoverished and have historically had the wealth of their land extracted to support the Slavic population. As well as being drafted for wars at a tremendously higher rate than their Slavic counterparts.
What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?
Source?
Soo if the state "owns" the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don't have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America...... What does that say? Something isn't adding up here.
Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose.... Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.
You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.
And what has that ownership meant for the people who "own the means of production"? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.
Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.
Is that worker really worker ownership....? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.
How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you "own"?
Right...... But my point was there's not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.
Wikipedia has a lot of western-friendly reporting on the increase in SOE's in quantity and control. Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.
Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.
I assumed you were familiar with Marxist theory, I was not referencing the idea of Socialism in One Country vs Permanent Revolution or anything. Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.
As above with the SOEs.
Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances. The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn't at "breakneck speeds," you're going to have to describe what that entails. Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng's statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.
No, I could not, because the American Bourgeoisie controls the state entirely.
Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there's even workplace democracy. Simply saying "it seems as though xyz" and gesturing isn't an argument.
Yes, it's a contradiction that requires careful planning.
Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management "class?"
I did not. My statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.
So you're saying state ownership is a response to increased disparity, yet the increase of state ownership hasn't been effective at controlling the disparity.
An ad hominem? I see this response a lot about anything having to do with the uyghur population. Even if some of the information referenced was gathered by a fascist, that doesn't mean the information itself is flawed.
The haber process was invented by a literal Nazi and we still utilize it to produce nitrogen. Whatever his motivations, the information he gathered has all been verified by reputable journalists to originate from internal part communications or publicly released information.
You don't speak for all Marxist, and Marxist don't get to redefine terminology to exclude themselves from valid criticism. Even if everyone accepted this definition of imperialism..... What do you call it when you violently expand your territorial holdings with ethno national intent?
What do we call it when they transfer entire nationalities to places like Kazakhstan to extract the wealth to support the Slavic population? It's a complete cop out to think that redefining a term to muddy the waters is meaningful despite the end results being tragically similar.
Source?
The share of China’s national income earned by the top 10% of the population has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, nearing the U.S.’s 45% and surpassing France's 32%.
Similarly, the wealth share of the top 10% of the population reached 67%, close to the U.S.’s 72% and higher than France’s 50%.
Then why is wealth disparity still growing? If SOE have nationalized the majority of production, how is the disparity continue to grow?
Well, it's because SOE are still profit driven...... A nationalized business that still has profit motive isnt inherently different from private organization, especially considering that most of these SOE still have a significant amount of shares being publicly traded.
How is creating wealth for the state and share holders different from creating wealth for a capitalist and share holders for a workers perspective. There still an inherent motivation to maximize profits at the expense of their own workers.
Simply stating there are "Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power," isn't an argument. Especially considering there's widely available reports of workplaces ignoring these guilines without retort. On top of that nearly a third of their workforce lacks the protections outlines by the state as they are migrant workers who dont work full time for a single employer.
As far as real estate purchasing power...... I think we both know the extent of their issues within the real estate market.
I don't really have any criticisms about the majority of their large infrastructure projects, that's an area I think theyre ahead of the rest of the world, however id hardly say that's a byproduct of "workers owning the means of production". I'd say that's more a byproduct of a more centralized government .
Yes, real wages are rising. But is that a product of industrialization or socialism? Every nation that industrializes sees a rise in wages, that's not inherent to workers seizing the means of production. What's strange is that real wages and disparity are rising in eerily similar patterns as western nations.
Are you being purposely obtuse, or just can't make the leap in deduction? What do you call a class of people whos job is to represent capitalist in the actual workplace? People whom don't participate in ownership, but work on behalf of the owners to maximize their profits at the behest of the capitalist?
Just because people don't utilize the same internalized diction accepted in your particular political ideology, doesn't mean the information isn't valid. That's just asking for discourse based purely on semantic reasoning.
Right, but you you said it in reference to class reductionism.... Which doesn't really make sense as there wasn't an established stratified class consciousness at the time.
I honestly don't have a problem with Communism, I think Marx was brilliant and dialectical materialism is probably one of the most important ideas of the millennium. Im just not as optimistic about the contemporary implementations of it, and I think it's important to point out the internal contradictions of past and current states for future attempts.
I constantly see people talking about the importance of addressing internal contradictions, however when anyone points out something like rising disparity or soe having profit motive, I tend to just get knee jerk reactions that are usually based in logical fallacy.
I think you and most Marxist who reflexively defend the contemporary CCP from valid criticism would benefit from a different perspective from someone once very engaged in the party. This isn't a liberal perspective but someone who is upset at the liberalization of the modern CCP.
From Victory To Defeat: China's Socialist Road and Capitalist Reversal
by Pao-yu Ching
Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but this is an extremely lengthy conversation where each minor paragraph could be the focus of a single conversation, and the information conveyed would be much better. I'm not going to disrespect you and accuse you of gish-galloping. If you want to focus on a particular topic, I am okay to continue, you can pick one strand and develop it into a sizeable argument and we can discuss from there, but as it stands there is no way to do justice to any of these topics in one cohesive lemmy comment thread.
I read your comment, you have points worthy of responding to. I'm not dismissing that, and I don't want this comment to be interpreted as such, I just wanted to give you the respect of explaining why I would rather focus on one topic at a time, or disengage altogether. Lemmy isn't the right format for such a convo.
Have a good day if you decide you don't want to continue, I appreciate your time.
Fair enough, however I would like to point out that my responses have been direct responses prompted by questions and statements originated by you and the person you were originally responding to.
But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.
In my opinion so long as the company's structural hierarchy and it's inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there's not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don't really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.
There's still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There's still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there's a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.
Thank you for your time, it's pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don't 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.
First off, thanks for bearing with me. This is a good question!
The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I'll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Since I am assuming we are evaluating from a Marxist perspective, it truly is important to apply Dialectical Materialism. One of the pillars of DiaMat is that any analysis that doesn't see the entirety of the system, and purely compares stationary snapshots of entities, is not Dialectical analysis but mechanical.
Within the context of the PRC, SOEs are guided by the CPC, which practices central planning as can be made to work with the rest of the CPCs planning, while private companies in Capitalist countries are the ones lobbying the State for lucrative projects of their own. The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests. It's a measure similar to the NEP.
Private companies within the PRC as compared to SOEs obviously see less direct influence and guiding than SOEs do, but similarly exist under the thumb of the PRC, who allows them to act in their own interests as long as they fulfill their role in rapidly building up the productive forces, which we can see is a role that, to this point, has helped dramatically compared to the era of Mao and the Gang of Four, which saw much slower development.
This really depends on outside factors, again analyzing the context within which these entities exist. In SOEs and Private Companies within the PRC there are elements of Workplace Democracy, as I showed prior, but the idea that business entities are perfectly democratic within the PRC is false, which is why I haven't attempted to make such a point. Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie. Given that the CPC regularly punishes their domestic bourgeoisie and the CPC itself has a 90%+ approval rate among the people, we can at least see that the CPC appears to be acting and managing for the benefit of society as a whole, and not for their bourgoeis class.
You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can't beam information into everyone's brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.
I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind. Cheers!
I would say it's important to evaluate all of these points as a whole. I think evaluating certain aspects of a system under a microscope without equating how it's supposed to function tends to divert attention from the purpose of the hierarchical system to begin with.
I don't know if it means they're automatically guided by bourgeois interest, but I would also hesitate to claim that just next it's an SOE it's immune from creating class stratification. My fear is that an increase of wealth disparity is an indication of a new mode of class stratification.
Not that I want to spiral into endless discussion again , but I think framing the argument where we must assume a dictatorship of the proletariat has occurred isn't a logically sound way to question the effectiveness of any hierarchical system.
I understand the benefit of a centralized economy, my main fear is that systems of hierarchical control are self reinforcing. Hierarchical systems stabilize over time as you utilize them for their intended purpose. If we take a look at the purpose of a profit driven SOE, it's still to create capital. Now that capital is being controlled by the state, but simply putting that under a stricter hierarchy doesn't mean that the system is going to change its inherent purpose.
If we assume that the CCP continue to nationalize private organizations until 100% of the production value is being controlled by the state, does that mean the purpose of the hierarchical system is going to change? There will still be people attempting to reinforce the hierarchal system they have been judged upon their entire careers. People have risen to places of power by reinforcing the system of profit, and they will try to protect the system that they excelled at.
I'm not an anarchist or anything and don't agree with a lot of his hot takes, however if you're interested Murray Bookchin's analysis on hierarchy is pretty impressive.
An unfortunate rarity now a days. Thanks for keeping it classy.
Ah, okay. Well, the previous mode of production involved no private property and no accrual of capital. Now there is both. So do please point out where Marx talks about how things go from not earning capital to earning capital to not earning capital again.
I did. Mao tried to jump ahead to Communism, without developing the Means of Production. This was misguided. Deng noted the failures of the Gang of Four:
The PRC had eliminated Private Property, but were poor. The people were struggling. They had not actually developed the Means of Production to the level they needed to be.
Here's a Marxist "test," if you will. If you take expert Marxists and place them in an entirely new Earth-like planet, with no tools, what would their course of history look like? Would they be able to achieve Communism through fiat, or would they have to go through similar stages of production as we did in history?
The Marxist answer is that, while they may be able to go through the process of development more quickly, with the knowledge of key technologies like agriculture and the steam engine that allowed for major leaps in Mode of Production, they would not be able to achieve Upper-Stage Communism outright, and would have to develop Modes of Production alongside technological development, just like you can't skip from wooden pickaxes to diamond pickaxes without iron pickaxes in Minecraft, if you'll forgive the analogy.
No you did not. You did not point to where Marx said it or what he said despite me asking you to multiple times. That is just a lie. You are clearly here in bad faith and this discussion is over. And I better not see this kind of trolling from you to other users.
In my opinion, I did provide it. I could link The German Ideology and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and if you read them you would perhaps understand Dialectical and Historical Materialism better, but we are having a discussion on Lemmy. The capacity for sharing information and the expecations for a single thread of replies are very low.
Marx was incredibly intelligent, but he couldn't predict the future, thus, like I have linked in Critique of the Gotha Programme, the closest we can get is his insistence that the next Mode of Production emerges from the previous. Asking for a quote for him saying "communism is when you eliminate private property, struggle a ton, then bring it back in a controlled manner and gradually increase public ownership" won't happen, because the initial failure isn't necessary.
Imagine trying to build a modern cell phone with bronze-age technology. You can't, just like you can't materialize Communism through fiat without developing the Means of Production. Marxism isn't Utopian, ie it isn't about picking a good society and forcing it into existence, regardless of the level of development of the Means of Production. Marxism is Scientific, ie it focuses on historical developments, the Mode of Production is tied to the technological level of the Means of Production. Feudalism disappeared after the Industrial Revolution, largely, and not earlier. Having achieved a backwards, idealist, impoverished "communism" like under Mao and the Gang of Four goes against Marx's theory of historical development of class society, and China paid the price for ignoring that.
Theory must meet practice, and practice must inform theory. The PRC tried to establish Communism without developing the Means of Production adequately, readjusted, and has now rapidly developed. Holding an ultra-Maoist line like the Gang of Four that insisted it is better for the Proletariat to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism is Revisionism. Maoist Theory regarding Class Struggle did not meet practice, therefore the correct choice was to take a gradualist approach while maintaining CPC control so that when the Means of Production are more developed, they can be more Socialized in turn as Socialism emerges from Capitalism.
This is insulting, especially considering you haven't attempted to respond to the rest of my comment, where I try to actually engage with modern analysis of a country Marx never lived to see and actively analyze. If clearly high-effort replies are considered "trolling" and "bad-faith" by your standards, then how can you consider your "gotchas" any better?
You're nice for engaging in good faith.
It's a bit funny that people who seem to think they are the politics, Marx, and communism understanders don't even seem to understand basic Marxism that I picked up in an intro to political philosophy class, which covered Marx for all of about two weeks.
Thanks. In my opinion, people easily fall into idealist critiques of Marxists if they don't read Marx. The Marxist critique of Capitalism is easy enough to grasp the basics of, as well as the Marxist idea of Socialism as Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, but concepts like the Marxist theory of the state, historical development, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism are much less intuitive.
You want quotes? Here are quotes
That's an extremely long article. Can you point out where he says that communism is developed through eliminating capital, bringing it back again, then eliminating it again?
You may not have seen it, but I changed it to an image with a bunch of quotes.
All the Marx quotes there are discussing a very classic Marxist view of capitalism leading to socialism, not the ML view of feudalism leading to socialism if you believe really hard, much less the claim that modern China, in going from feudal-to-socialist-to-capitalist is somehow riding the right path.
I see that. I asked for Marx. You said Engels. Then you provided an image with a bunch of stuff that not only is not what I asked for, but also includes quotes from fucking Stalin.
If you want me to take your arguments in any way seriously, maybe don't include the thoughts of someone who committed genocide.
Yeah, those damn people queueing up in bread lines when they had all the air and water they needed!
They got what they needed, yes.
I don't think having lines for food for people who need it is a bad thing if it gets results. The US just lets people starve. Can't have breadlines if you decide not to give out food, after all!
Bread lines meant they did get the food the needed, which is better than the US solution at the same time, which was travelling bands of kids that found work or starved.
Wall of text
Circular logic
Not going to read
Where, exactly, was the circular logic? Choosing not to read is your right, of course, but if you saw an error in my comment I'd like to know what it is.
Not reading that either.
Peak liberalism, lmao. Even when I ask for a critique, I can't get any.
The first comment is self-contradictory, "not going to read" yet there is "circular logic". If they haven't read it, how can they know that it is there?
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they doubled down. Oh well.
Why make a comment if you aren't going to engage in good faith? What is the point?
Im ArGuInG iN GoOd FaItH!
Private property as in land or a house? Because that's not how it works in China. You can only buy it for a specific set of time. Besides that it is indeed just a capitalistic country with an oppressive state.
Any time someone describes something that happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they are misrepresenting what happened 100% of the time.
Hahaha, are you saying that because it was you on the other end of that discussion? I know you love China so much that you are willing to praise their genocide of Uyghur people.
Maybe you could distill the theory for us a bit so we can decipher why "socialism" is producing hundreds of billionaires.
Not to my knowledge, but there's no way for anyone to know what incident it's referencing so it could be any conversation they had with anyone, or made up whole cloth. I say this exact thing every time I see someone claim something happened on the fediverse without providing a link 1 2 3, and I haven't been wrong yet. And that's not really surprising, why wouldn't someone provide a link to something that made the other side look bad, unless it didn't actually play out the way they claim?
For example, when you say that I "praise the genocide of Uyghur people," that is a lie, and it should be obvious that it's a lie from the fact that you didn't provide a link to it.
I'd be happy to have a good faith discussion regarding China's economic policies and how they relate to socialism. Just not with someone who I already know is going to lie, misrepresent whatever I say, and act in bad faith, as I know you will.
From the position of your acceptance of Uyghur genocide and pretending that China is anywhere near the left, it's astonishing you are comfortable accusing anyone else of bad faith.
There's simply no way to have a serious discussion with you regarding anything about China. That's why you have chosen the lemmy.ml instance, it is a hivemind of like thinkers all sheltered from the truth by fragile admins.
Oh, look at that, you can't provide a link. Because you're a liar. And once again my rule is proven true.
Oh, you want links? I can give you links.
Here you are linking to an article saying it isn't genocide: https://lemmy.world/comment/12211000
Here you are refusing to accept the genocide is happening despite a huge number of links: https://lemmy.world/comment/11959309
And as a bonus here's some trollish avoidance of admitting that the Tienanmen Square massacre happened: https://lemmy.world/comment/12256833
You do know there's a search function, right?
None of those links show me "praising" a genocide. That remains a bold faced, blatant lie.
Tbh, I find that this sort of casual lying is so common in spaces like .world that nobody even seems to care. Maybe it's a neurotypical thing, where you're allowed to tell lies so long as you're lying about the out group. Frankly, when people don't even acknowledge such things as lies, I have to wonder if they're even capable of being truthful or acting in good faith.
Those "huge number of sources" I actually went through point by point. Here's a book from the 1930's called 100 Authors Against Einstein which presents "a huge number of sources" claiming that Einstein's findings regarding General Relativity were wrong. Every one of them is wrong.
Also, I'm amazed that you'd link that last one as if it makes me look bad. The person was caught in saying something wrong so they abruptly pivoted to completely unrelated topics in the most textbook example of Whataboutism that I've ever seen in my life, so obviously I refused to indulge them.
Still waiting on a link for your original claim btw.
Also btw I think your first link is to the wrong comment.
Speaking of casual lying, this is what you were accused of:
You were not accused of praising a genocide even if you put that word in quotes.
Neither of these links show OBJECTION accepting a genocide.
Correct. They do not accept that there is a Uyghur genocide.
I don't feel like wandering your comment history looking for what you've had to say about China's treatment of Uyghurs. Unless you're not the same Objection I saw posting anime cartoons?
That's me.
I find it pretty convenient how you can so distinctly remember me praising something, but you can't remember anything else about that conversation that would allow you to find it in the search function. Are you sure we can rely on your memory? Because I don't remember ever saying that and I'm pretty sure I would.
Was this the same conversation where you were praising the Holocaust? I can't provide any evidence that that happened because I don't feel like wandering through your comment history, but I have a vague memory of you saying something like that, so I guess if vague memories are the standard of evidence we're relying on, you're looking pretty bad too.
Oh, we can solve that. I'll state for the record right now that the Holocaust is evil, rather than allow you to continue lying about that.
Will you say the same right now about China's treatment of the Uyghurs?
I will say right now that no genocide is praiseworthy, and that I have never praised any genocide in my life.
Right, you won't. You will prevaricate. You deny the China is doing anything to the Uyghur people, which is your form of supporting it. Thank you for proving me correct.
That's right! OBJECTION! is just a genocide denialist, like Holocaust denialists! Much better.
I'll have you know that America did some bad stuff so that justifies literally any amount of authoritarianism from China.
America doing ‘bad stuff’ is a comical understatement. Sure, the genocide of native Americans and chattel slavery is “bad”, but it is probably worse than general authoritarian actions. You seem to have them the other way around, or at least imply that.
Both suck. Both have superiority complexes. I have to deal with American superiority complexes, so that paints me as “pro China”.
I’m simply pro unity.
You seem to grasp and miss the point at the same time.
When tankies are faced with terrible shit their government is currently doing, they bring up terrible stuff America did a hundred years ago as if that somehow justifies it. Yes, both things bad, but the second thing has zero bearing in relation to an article about China literally disappearing dissidents.
Do you actually realize how little sense this makes?Just realized that the previous comment was sarcastic, I'm taking everything backThey were being sarcastic and facetious. Tankies use a similar argument everytime somebody speaks ill of China.
Examples:
"TikTok is a military campaign proven to spy on messages and photos and send massive amounts of data to Chinese headquarters."
"OH OKAY but its fine when FaceBook and Google hand over info to the USA, is that it?"
"Chinese hostile takeovers of Hong Kong, Tibet, and soon potential war with Taiwan and Philippines is worrying. World War 3 could be upon us."
"BuT nAtO anD IsrAeL eXiST!"
My favorite is how they claim that PRC doesn't invade anyone, ignorant of their attempts in Korea (Korean War) and Vietnam (after the Americans left).
And their success in Tibet.
Yes.
Sorry, I read it too quickly and didn't notice that it was sarcasm.
Tell it to hexbear and .ml
maybe they’re just trying to avoid dissapearing
Reminds me of the Clinton Death List, where anyone tangential to Bill and Hilary who had a bad turn was allegedly victimized to cover up an even more insidious crime.
I already see tankies making up some of the most delusional excuses youve ever heard.
The most ridiculous I have heard is that when I pointed out that people had to wait for years to get a car, and bread lines were common, I got told that the scarcity in communist states is by design.
SuRe yOu lIvE iN tHe CoUnTrYsIdE, bUt YoU dOn'T nEeD a CaR. JuSt WaLk oR gEt A bUgGy.
Yeah over production of goods is a problem but the ussr was built different. Hungary(where im from) has the second best land for agriculture in all of europe only after ukraine and somehow we still had food rations. Same in ukraine too. They had it even worse.
Ukraine'e famine was likely intentional (or at the very least, it was controlled in a way to only affect that one area that happened to have a burgeoning independence movement).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Yeah ukraine probably was but i still dont understand what kind of brain rot happened in hungary. The ussr (almost) always went easy on us but they decided that a country with excellent agriculture and absolutely no ores and heavy industry should prioritise the latter.
Breadlines weren't common. Breadlines never took place in the USSR between WW2 ending and Perestroika taking place, you're being ahistorical. Food supply wasn't secure for all the population in any nation until the green revolution, the USSR being no exception to that.
Regarding waiting for a car, the soviet economy simply didn't prioritize car manufacturing. The planning didn't intend for every citizen to have a car in the 70s or 80s, they didn't intend to make so many cars, so naturally, the people who had the wealth to buy a car, had to wait in waiting lists to get one, it's not so hard to understand. There are no waiting lists in capitalism because you can segregate 99% of the population from consuming a particular good simply by making it expensive. In socialism, when you don't have extreme inequality, most people will have access to purchase power for the vast majority of goods you produce. This in turn means that either you manufacture literally from the start one product for every citizen, or there will be waiting lists, it's really as simple as that.
When you can't afford a house in capitalism until you're 35 (if you can ever afford it) you aren't technically in a waiting list, so even if there's only new housing for 5% of the population every year, there will be no "waiting list" because simply the prices will go up until only 5% can afford it. In socialism, the same 5% of housing can be afforded by 50% of people, so the way to allocate the goods is a waiting list instead of priority through wealth accumulation.
Do you really fail to understand this?
Access to transport is as important as housing, man. Do you really fail to understand this?
Transport and a personal vehicle are two different things, go to any country outside the US, car ownership is reserved for the upper classes globally.
So I, a resident of Europe, am an upper class for owning a 2004 1.3 litre petrol engine Toyota Yaris.
We started this comment chain poking fun at the most laughable arguments by tankies.... And you guys keep on giving.
Yes given you statistically don't have a reason to own the car as you have well designed cities and functional public transport, the latter almost exclusively due to the socialist movement.
Dublin is nowhere near a socialist city, nor having a "functional public transport". Many people in Ireland still live in hinterlands and rural areas with sparse public transport that comes only an hour or so. Ireland is ranked as having one of the worst public transports along with Poland, the latter being a former communist country!
Lol, you give the worst cope I have seen from a tankie. Even tried to gaslight me that I don't need a car! I wish so I don't have to spend ludicrous amount of money! I can tell you're an edgelord Yank who thinks capitalism oppresses you personally, even though you are typing this from a computer or smartphone, developed thanks to capitalism, and while sipping hot cocoa that is not being rationed. And expressing opinions safe and sound protected by the rule of law of wherever you are.
Tankies keep on giving the most absurd responses and cracks me up. Thanks for giving me a quick chuckle!
If you are so enamoured by communism, go to Cuba, China or North Korea and let's see if you won't return begging for your passport back!
And access to transport was widely available to the overwhelming majority of the population through trains, trams, buses and trolleybuses. Even if your American mind can't comprehend this fact, owning a car isn't the ultimate form of mobility, there are alternatives that are arguably better. City design was centered around walkability, density and public transit; metro systems were luxurious and a predicament all out of themselves, and housing being generally obtained through the worker's union implied that workers usually lived in relative proximity to their workplaces.
The soviet economy was a developing, centrally planned economy, not running under the premise of overproduction and surplus but running under the premise of 5-year plans of production. There was full employment, and almost complete usage of the raw materials extracted and industrial goods produced. Making twice as many cars, implied removing all of that labor and those resources from another sector of the economy. When the premise isn't to "make money selling cars to rich people", but to "grant adequate material conditions and welfare to every citizen", you have to make decisions like that. More cars could have implied, for example, fewer hospital beds or fewer trams, but my point is that making more private cars would have NECESSARILY meant making less of something else of which there's also no surplus (because the premise of the USSR was the non-existence of surplus). It's very easy to have surpluses in a capitalist economy when you don't care about 80% of the population not having access to the goods and services available, when you want everyone to have access it's a different story.
Tell that to people living in the countryside, lol. Even if your wannabe-communist, Western-born, city dwelling, mindset tell you otherwise, those on the country have limited access to transportation and infrastructures that city folks take for granted.
Data says otherwise. Since the end of the soviet block, there's been a massive migration outwards from the countryside in favour of urban life all over the former socialist republics. Maybe the idea of subsidizing the infrastructure of the countryside despite it not making sense within capitalism wasn't such a bad idea after all... Please, try to respond to that: why are people flocking from the degrading countryside in post soviet countries
"I don't understand why people live in cities." - Peak Tankie Analysis, apparently
We're talking about during communist era, you goal-post moving dong head.
You are literally just did what this comment chain is criticising lol.
Think harder. I'm not "moving goalposts", I'm saying, if life in the countryside was so bad during soviet times, why are people from the countryside moving out now and not before... You said "tell that to the people living on the countryside", the reality is that the people in the countryside were forced to leave the countryside after communism. So why don't you go ask them?
Man, that all sounds great.
It totally succeeded, right?
It turned a backwater pre-capitalist empire where 80% of the population were poor farmers, into the second world power in unprecedentedly quick industrialization and development, defeated the Nazis and prevented their extermination of the Slavic people including Poles and Ukrainians, it guaranteed rights to women and to national minorities like Kazakh, Uzbeki, Georgians, Armenians, it established for the first time in history concepts like socialized healthcare and pensions for every citizen which western Europe later emulated... After being dismantled, of which it's been 33 years, Russia still hasn't recovered the GDP per capita of the USSR, so what does that tell you about how well liberalism is working in Russia?
Socialised healthcare and pension first came during Bismarck's time-- long before communism has come to Russia.
And how much did they expand in Europe and how long did they last? Anyway, nice that you can only respond to that point
Pretty much all of Europe have affordable healthcare and pension-- right now?
How long did it last in the Weimar Republic (whose ideology you failed to mention btw). And when was it implemented in the rest of Europe.
But yeah for how long will our glorious liberal democracies have affordable healthcare and pensions, we've done nothing but degrade them for the past 30 years because apparently doing better is communism
Bismarck was long before the Weimar Republic. Jesus Christ.
So they're still around right, because of how well it succeeded? It didn't completely fail and send the country into famine and despair did it?
... oh
No, it didn't "fail" by any historical account. If you look up even on Wikipedia, which has an extremely western bias, you'll see that the article is called , "dissolution" of the USSR, not failure or crumbling or whatever revisionist word of the day you wanna choose. The USSR was booming, it enjoyed overwhelming legitimacy in the vast majority of its republics (with some notable exceptions in the Baltics mostly) as proven by the soviet referendum to maintain the USSR, and it was only dissolved from the top down by a few party members, not a failure or crumbling by any means. The 90s crisis wasn't created by socialism, it was created by the newly formed capitalist government which auctioned the country to the most corrupt bidder and created the russian oligarchy that we all hate now. It was literally directed by western institutions like the International Monetary Fund and economists from MIT, you can feel free to study this subject in the slightest if you're interested and you'll see that what I'm saying is right (clearly you haven't done so before).
Lol k
Nah seriously, look up the role of the IMF in the "restructuring" of the Russian economy. And look up the social and economic consequences
I will.
Not.
Neither of those things are true, unless you're extremely poor, in which case why are you trying to buy an extreme luxury like a private car?
Oh bother!
Wow, what a useful state-sponsored think tank.
I'm sure everyone else who works there will make sure to be completely honest with their findings going forward, regardless of how it might make the Party look.
Things are afoot in the Hundred Acre Wood.
Idk why he assumed the private chat was actually private and not fully monitored.
Oh, do they fall out of windows in China too?
No they just get sent to Lake Laogai for...reeducation.
Is that another word for disintegration?
More like re-integration by way of re-education. Forced re-education.
There is no war in Ba Sing SE after all...
I think Russia patented that technique.
People complain when Trump and Biden puts tariffs on Chinese products or try to ban Chinese software, or invest hundreds of billions into bringing manufacturing back to the US, but it's like they just can't comprehend what a horrific government China has, between an authoritarian police state and leveraging slave labor to take over global industries, they're a huge threat to freedom everywhere.
Where do people think the honey used to feed Xinnie Jinping comes from?
Free West Taiwan! Hopefully, the CCP built dump will implode.
I'd prefer to redirect them to the north. Let them invade the fertile and undeveloped lands russia has neglected, and get back Yongmingcheng. It beats fighting every other country in the pacific - aside from North Korea.
No one will care if China invades Russia. Do eet!
Xi is just a walking
talkingcrying infant with an ego that can barely fit in mainland China.Guess Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was closer to the real story than the originals by Milne..
Truly no emperor has ever worn such fine clothes as our beloved Xi. This will absolutely never backfire on them
Omg he really does look like Winnie the pooh
Hmm, strange? How could that have happened? 🤷♂️
Not the billionaires I love those guys!
Criticizing Xi in a WeChat group is Jack Ma levels of smart.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/Rqsfm
I'll have the Pooh Pooh platter
I said no salt!
Angyy dragon emperor uwu
Dictator
This guy worked for state agencies and published his critique in a state-run economics newspaper. If he drew enough ire to get black bagged and thrown in the back of a van I feel like it would have happened sometime before now.
It’s fine until it’s not. China is sort of notorious for such grey lines that can shift overnight. And if you are influential, you may just fall victims to the “kill the chicken to scare the monkeys” practice
Yeah sometimes things don't happen until they do, shocking
I don't think you get black bagged for a ride in a Chinese execution van
Western media talking about "disappearances" is always the funniest thing to me. If somebody just goes like a week without appearing on TV, they can say they "disappeared," and the audience will immediately assume that they're in some black site with a bag over their head. If they show up the next week and tell everyone they're fine, then they have plausible deniability since they never actually said anything bad happened to them. Of course, then you've got your audience primed to believe that something's up and can write another headline like, "Questions remain regarding the disappearance of so-and-so." Once you get a name trending, it doesn't matter what the facts are.
I remember coming under fire from an irl friend over the "disappearance" of tennis player Peng Shuai... until she reappeared, and the International Olympic Committee confirmed that she was perfectly fine. The only evidence that anything bad had happened to her was the lack of a public appearance, but then, after making public appearances, the story didn't die, instead each new appearance simply gave the media more to talk about, keeping it in the public consciousness and always insisting that "questions remain."
Of course, that's not even mentioning all the times the media doesn't just claim a "disappearance" but just outright lies about these things. If Business Insider can't even muster up a "detained," it's pretty safe to assume it doesn't mean anything. And of course, if someone says anything critical of the government, then they are immediately absolved of any and all suspicion of having committed actual crimes - absolutely zero investigation into the charges of corruption is needed for everyone to conclude with 100% certainty that they're trumped up.
I can't wait to see how many downvotes I can get lmao.
People in China say something the government doesn't like and aren't heard from at all for a while, you really think they can say that something bad happened to them when they reappear?
We're really entering into conspiracy theory territory here. Imagine if I monitored every public figure in the US and whenever one of them didn't appear in public for a while, I automatically assumed that they had been abducted by the NSA, and when they later showed up and were fine, I concluded that the only reason they weren't talking about it was because the NSA was holding their family hostage or something. Do you need any actual evidence to make conclusions like that, and is there any form of evidence that could possibly falsify such conclusions?
It's impossible to account for ever minute of every person's life so it's always theoretically possible that any time someone doesn't have an alibi, it means that they're being held in detention where they are also sworn to secrecy about being held in detention - but just because it's theoretically possible doesn't make it a reasonable assumption.
This isn't people being unaccounted for for a few minutes. It's people who normally doesn't do things for sensationalism saying something controversial and then going missing, and this happening in a pattern in one country in particular.
Yes by definition it's a conspiracy theory, but these people aren't providing a detailed accounting of the time they were away. That should rightly raise questions, and international media is absolutely ethically in the right in wondering publicly about their wellbeing.
Is it actually that it happens in one country in particular, or is it that nobody makes a note of it when it happens in other countries because someone not being in the public eye for a bit is normal and routine, and it's only because China is treated with suspicion that it's considered noteworthy?
Of course, I can't even imagine the shitstorm that would happen if another country tried to demand that public figures in the US provide, not only testimony saying they were fine, but a detailed account of any time they were out of the public eye, to confirm that they weren't being interrogated by the NSA and then forced to lie about it. It's absurd, as you admit, it's a conspiracy theory. There are so many actual real problems that have actual real evidence that I don't understand why anyone would care about something that's grounded on pure conjecture and circumstantial evidence.
Probably because most other countries aren't under the justified suspicion that China is for directly repressing speech it doesn't like. It's a conspiracy theory but it's not at all absurd, it is plainly the most reasonable explanation for what is happening.
When was the last time this was asked about anyone in Saudi Arabia? Or Israel? Or...
All the fucking time. Holy shit, do you just not pay attention to international news? The Saudis are constantly fucking with internal dissidents.
Israel doesn't kill journalists in secret. They do it in the open and claim it was an accident. There's a lot of reporting on it (ironically?)
But they aren't front-page news.
Israeli killings of journos very much are. The Saudis, it's just expected.
What i find interesting is that youre so quick to criticise "the west" but when its china there is always a way out. Where you fail is you are extremely one sided while on lemmy most people i see are pretty critical of the US, china and every other entity that does a bad thing. If china does something bad, you try to explain why its actually good but when the eu wants to do some shitty thing, lemmy actually wants to change that instead of just mindlessly criticising or endorsing it.
I'm happy to criticize China on its actual faults, but I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on inadequate or inaccurate information. The standard for evidence is much lower when it comes to criticizing China, most of the media we consume comes from Western sources, and people just don't have firsthand experience and will believe just about anything, and so I may push back more simply because there is more bullshit to push back on.
You accuse me of "mindlessly endorsing" everything they do, but there is stuff I criticize and when I don't, I explain my reasons quite thoughtfully. What I don't do is mindlessly criticize everything they do (or are accused of doing, or assumed to be doing, without evidence) which is pretty much the standard that people expect from me. There's countless accounts on here that only ever criticize China and do so without providing explanations or justifications for it. They don't even come up with any original quips, it's all just lazily repeating "haha Winnie the Pooh" to each other with zero thought or analysis. Generally, these people could only name one or two events from Chinese history, and have no interest whatsoever in learning about or understanding their perspective, which makes having an intelligent discussion on the subject impossible.
You seem much more reasonable than most ml users and while i dont agree with you on a lot of things, i dont think downvoting evrything you disagree with is a good idea and you even responded which is more than i expected. But yeah both "sides" are guilty of this.
I try to take such claims seriously and I think we all should, just in case there’s any truth to them and someone is actually kidnapped. Of course knowing that they may not have been. Flagging certain individuals as potentially at risk isn’t wrong per se. But I get your point about how it is a relatively easy claim to make and exploitable politically. Still, I think it should be taken seriously, just in case.
That's perfectly fine, I just think it's important to treat claims critically, and to understand what it actually means to say that someone has "disappeared" in this context - it doesn't mean that their friends or family have reported them missing, it doesn't mean that a reporter has checked their house and found it abandoned, it just means that they haven't been on TV, and it requires a lot of assumptions on the part of the audience to conclude from that that they've been kidnapped or extrajudicially detained.
You make a fair point. Not all “disappearances” are made equal. Unfortunately some people on here (and many out there) love taking sides, and once they have, they find it difficult to process anything with a certain critical distance. Maybe it didn’t help that your original comment sounded very dismissive, as if any such claims in Western media are more likely to be BS than not. We don’t know that. At least I don’t know that. One could of course collect data on that, could be an interesting little project. I’m sure there are folks tracking disappearances and disappearance claims.
::: spoiler Business Insider - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for Business Insider:
::: spoiler The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for The Guardian:
::: spoiler Wall Street Journal - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for Wall Street Journal:
::: spoiler Search topics on Ground.News https://www.businessinsider.com/zhu-hengpeng-china-economist-disappears-after-criticizing-xi-jinping-wechat-2024-9
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/16/what-the-isolationist-qing-dynasty-tells-us-about-xi-jinpings-china
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-gdp-macro-policy-retail-demand-labor-market-forecast-2024-9
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/top-economist-in-china-vanishes-after-private-wechat-comments-50dac0b1 ::: Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
Lemmy: someone should make billionaires disappear
China: disappears billionaires
Lemmy: this is an outrage!
Associate professors, well-known billionaires.
To be fair, this is Lemmy.world, not the entirety of Lemmy.
Oh for sure, I was just being funny, or at least funny to me. Appears I'm laughing alone as usual