One theory I’ve heard about the accelerating of the worsening conditions of western proletariat is that the USSR used to provide a bulwark against things getting too bad. People would point at the USSR and the illusion that capitalism was better for individual prosperity would collapse in comparison. Then, with the USSR gone things have been deteriorating for the past ~30 years.

If that is true, even somewhat, why haven’t we seen a similar effect from China’s example? Is the theory simply wrong? Maybe western capitalism is just unable to even offer scraps from the table at this point. Maybe people are unaware of how things are in China? Could we dare to expect that China’s example will force a lifting of the boot from our necks?

  • Muad'DibberA
    12·
    7 months ago

    That’s a tough one. The PRC is just as, if not more demonized, than the USSR was, and imperial-core populations believe that China is a monarchist dictatorship with 90% of the population of China living in a gulag or in extreme poverty.

    Some possible explanations:

    • Western europe was a front-line during the cold war, and part of the ideological victory of Capitalism > Communism meant that it was important to spend resources on social welfare in western europe. That isn’t necessary now, because the front line(s) of this new cold war aren’t on the borders of imperial core countries (yet).
    • Language barriers: not a lot of people in imperial core countries speak Mandarin, but in the first cold war, many countries with leftist movements had common languages: Spanish, Russian, German, etc. But right now, most of the world can stay ignorant of China’s success story, because its mainly told in Chinese. The PRC is trying to combat this via its news and education programs in English and other languages.
    • The USSR and the US were in a tech and military arms race, and the many successes of the USSR’s state-run programs forced the US to adopt its models. Its why they established DARPA and state-funded a ton of tech in the 50s onward. Those state-run models worked well, and were emulated in the social welfare sectors too, until they were dismantled in the 1980s with the downfall of the USSR. The US has had administrations that tried to “pivot to china”, but it never really considered it a competitor in tech or welfare until recently.
    • The PRC, unlike the USSR, made a conscious choice early on to not de-link from the world economy, but integrate into it. So the US completely ignored the PRC’s tech development, and was happy to export capital and technology from the 80s onward. US propaganda has only recently caught up to this, and only started demonizing China in the past decade or so. Even though their propaganda campaign was entirely successful (like 80% of the US and Canada hate China rn), you still see them trying to do things like “Build back better”, and other social revitalizing efforts, so they aren’t completely unaware of the threat of a good example.