The chinese government has often had to make decisions in the past on the basis of pleasing foreign institutions and capital, otherwise, the reform and opening up strategy would have failed. It is only a very recent thing (like the past 4 or so years) that the Chinese economy has become strong enough that it can adopt a more independent path, which we are just beginning to see. And even then, china still doesn’t have things like food sovereignty. It has to tread very carefully.
Also your whole “the state does not represent the workers” thing is frankly, idiotic. It betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how either the chinese state or CPC works. The same goes for the historical reasons certain decisions were made.
If you really want to see whether or not the chinese state represents the workers. Just consider the fact that it lifted over 800 million people out of extreme poverty in 40 years. Without china in the stats, world poverty actually goes up, as is the natural tendency of capitalism. Also consider the fact that they went out of their way to develop clean energy resources for the whole world. Virtually all or the progress made in the 2010s on solar power and wind power (solar power became nearly 10 times cheaper) was because of the chinese government’s directions. They have gone so far in helping the green energy transition that recently, the Europeans have started to complain that china is overproduction green tech.
None of those things sound like things highly regulated capitalism couldn’t accomplish to me. I don’t see it, that makes china a nice country, not a socialist one.
Talk to me about china being socialist when they actually do something socialist.
Do you actually believe that capitalists have never lifted people out of poverty? Not even marx agrees with any of what you said
Why did they remove workers right to strike in 1982?
None of those things sound like things highly regulated capitalism couldn’t accomplish to me.
None of those things are things that even the most highly regulated of capitalisms has accomplished. Or come close to accomplishing. It is a historic fact that the rise of capitalists was responsible for the extreme poverty of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The result of closing off the commons and the genocidal plunder of the third world. This was observed by marx, who remarked that the growth of wealth coincided with the growth of poverty.
Remove all of the socialist countries from the world statistics and adjust for cost of living. Then show me how well the capitalists lift people out of poverty
Talk to me about china being socialist when they actually do something socialist.
China sets itself on a decades long path to invert the power dynamic between the imperialist countries and third world, and this is somehow just something capitalists do. China aggressively builds not only its own infrastructure, but of other countries, for very favourable rates (often forgiving loans outright if they can’t be paid). This is another thing that capitalists do.
Remove all of the socialist countries from the world statistics and adjust for cost of living. Then show me how well the capitalists lift people out of poverty
The vast majority of capitalist systems see little to no regulation, the closest thing to an exception is norway, that doesn’t change the fact that china is a highly regulated non-socialist country. Your observations of what marx said are irrelevant here, I completely agree with what marx said, especially during that time, but china is just an even more regulated norway situation, more akin to a social democracy than socialism. Once the workers own the means of production, if they ever do, that will change, but we live in the present.
China sets itself on a decades long path to invert the power dynamic between the imperialist countries and third world, and this is somehow just something capitalists do.
This is good but does not make them socialist, that’s just foreign policy, the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. What have they done to make socialism happen in their own country? The answer appears to be nothing other than promise that they wlll someday. You say they just can’t right now, and you trust them, but the fact is, they haven’t done anything in this regard yet, you’re just hoping they will stand by their word.
China aggressively builds not only its own infrastructure, but of other countries, for very favourable rates (often forgiving loans outright if they can’t be paid). This is another thing that capitalists do.
This is a thing highly regulated social democracies can absolutely do. They’re still capitalist, 60% of their gdp is privately held, and the rest still isn’t even owned by the workers.
Also, they don’t forgive the loans outright, they keep what they worked on and continue to use it.
If they’re going to do socialism, why don’t the workers own the means of production? If they don’t right now, they aren’t socialist.
What is the difference between a social democracy that claims to be communist and china?
This conversation is getting tedious because you refuse to understand or acknowledge the timeliness of events here. The Chinese government said that it would open up and reform the economy in order to attract much needed foreign technologies, and to use market forces under state guidance to eliminate extreme poverty. They then proceeded to do it, and in the deadline they promised (2020).
Now the goal of the Chinese government is to become a developed nation with “intermediate socialism”, aka more worker coops and state owned firms by 2049. There is no reason to believe they won’t make a sincere effort, since they have already started. On the technological level, china has achieved immense levels of automation (with over half of the world’s industrial robots) and continues to improve at a rapid pace. On the social relations level, the Chinese have already begun to aggressively promote worker cooperatives, which today in china make up a substantial portion of the “private sector” gdp. In the other private firms, the CPC has great control over the boards of these firms and actively participates in them. They have also begun reigning in the malactors in the economy, as evidenced by their recent actions against even the biggest of Chinese firms. I honestly doubt they will need until 2050 to get to this goal. They already almost classified as a “higher income” country, and things in china move fast.
Now you deny that state ownership is socialism to begin with. But the Chinese are not anarchists. They do not care what poorly defined definition of socialism you use. You refuse to accept the Chinese system as socialist (even if it’s only work in progress), but that doesn’t matter because the Chinese move on regardless of what you think. Maybe in 10-20 years when china is further down its path of development will you see my point.
This conversation is getting tedious because you refuse to understand or acknowledge the timeliness of events here. The Chinese government said that it would open up and reform the economy in order to attract much needed foreign technologies, and to use market forces under state guidance to eliminate extreme poverty. They then proceeded to do it, and in the deadline they promised (2020).
…that is yet another explanation of why they are not yet socialist, what do you not agree with what i’m saying here?
They’re not socialist, at best, they’re promising to one day become socialist.
Now the goal of the Chinese government is to become a developed nation with “intermediate socialism”, aka more worker coops and state owned firms by 2049. There is no reason to believe they won’t make a sincere effort, since they have already started.
I see no evidence that they have started.
On the technological level, china has achieved immense levels of automation (with over half of the world’s industrial robots) and continues to improve at a rapid pace.
This has nothing to do with whether or not they are socialist.
On the social relations level, the Chinese have already begun to aggressively promote worker cooperatives, which today in china make up a substantial portion of the “private sector” gdp.
How much, exactly? Can I have evidence of this?
In the other private firms, the CPC has great control over the boards of these firms and actively participates in them.
The CPC is not workers, they are separate entities, this is meaningless to me.
They have also begun reigning in the malactors in the economy, as evidenced by their recent actions against even the biggest of Chinese firms.
Norway does this. They are not socialists.
I honestly doubt they will need until 2050 to get to this goal. They already almost classified as a “higher income” country, and things in china move fast.
We’ll see, but they still have not yet done anything socialist that I can see.
…that is yet another explanation of why they are not yet socialist, what do you not agree with what i’m saying here?
No society has ever achieved fully developed socialism. But different societies have gone down the path of developing towards it. In China’s case, with the weakening and dissolution of the USSR and almost the whole socialist bloc, they realised that the developmental strategy they had been using was fatally flawed, which is why they had to make a temporary retreat so they could go down a different path. That doesn’t mean that the political dominance of the proletariat was removed. Nor did the economy stop being directed.
Now, you may feel as if a state-managed economy, or state ownership is not socialism, but nobody cares. You literally say “this is meaningless to me”. What are you, the fucking arbiter of socialism? Even Marx himself does not get this privilege. You say that the state is not the workers, and yet, any organization that the workers use to control the economy will not be the same thing as them. This is obvious. it doesn’t matter whether or not the workers control the economy through the state, through unions, through cooperatives, because none of those entities is equivalent to the workers themselves.
This has nothing to do with whether or not they are socialist.
On the contrary, it is extremely important. As materialists, we recognise that the technological base is as important to determining the mode of production as are the social relations. Capitalism is not wage labor, as wage labor existed throughout most of history. Capitalism only becomes fully developed capitalism when wage labor becomes socialised and is combined with machine production and fossil energy. When the capitalist class becomes politically dominant.
Much in the same way, a fully developed socialism requires the political dominance of the proletariat class, a fully command and automated economy and clean energy. These aren’t arbitrary or optional requirements. A command economy is necessary to overcome the anarchy of production, automation is necessary to abolish the law of value, and clean energy is necessary to ensure the sustainable perpetuation of the system.
Norway does this. They are not socialists.
It does not. Show me an example of Norway literally letting a sector constituting 20% of its GDP die a painful death because its not useful anymore.
That doesn’t mean that the political dominance of the proletariat was removed
It was never there, the workers have no democratic control over anything, they have no way to force the state to do anything, they have literally no power whatsoever over the state. They can’t strike, they aren’t even legally allowed to complain since there’s no freedom of speech.
Nor did the economy stop being directed.
The economy being directed by someone other than the workers is the very problem.
Now, you may feel as if a state-managed economy, or state ownership is not socialism, but nobody cares. You literally say “this is meaningless to me”. What are you, the fucking arbiter of socialism? Even Marx himself does not get this privilege.
It doesn’t matter if nobody cares, the definition of socialism is worker ownership over the means of production, and china doesn’t have that, therefore they are not socialist, it’s really that unbelievably simple. Do you not actually believe in socialism?
You say that the state is not the workers, and yet, any organization that the workers use to control the economy will not be the same thing as them. This is obvious. it doesn’t matter whether or not the workers control the economy through the state, through unions, through cooperatives, because none of those entities is equivalent to the workers themselves
What makes them equivalent is democratic control over those things, if the workers can control those things democratically, then they control them. In china, the workers have literally no say whatsoever. They don’t even have the right to strike. The state is not equivalent to the workers because they are wholly separate entities, if it was a union, that would be the workers, because the workers can democratically control a union. Cooperatives would also be socialism, because yet again, that would be the workers controlling things.
If the workers have no agency whatsoever, then they are not in control. The state is not even comprised of workers.
It does not. Show me an example of Norway literally letting a sector constituting 20% of its GDP die a painful death because its not useful anymore.
I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about with this, but it’s not really relevant anyway, socialism is when the workers control the means of production, not when the state does nice things.
I will show you evidence of the coops thing when I get home. But it’s not hard to find yourself. Just Google the farmer’s specialised cooperatives. Or the other industrial cooperatives in china
“Registered membership surpassed 110 million famer households by 2016, according to Ministry of Agriculture statistics, accounting for about 44.5 % of the total in China.”
so 44.5% of just farming? that’s not inspiring, i guess that’s decent? It’s still not socialism. Having co-ops isn’t enough, all of the businesses need to be co-ops or you’re still capitalist.
So not only are you incredibly smug, arguing authoritatively about a topic you have never properly researched, your reading comprehension is also shit. I show you a source that explains that in farming alone there are 110 million households in cooperatives now because of agressive promotion in recent years. And this article is pretty old too. In a country with 700 ish million workers, that alone is a significant amount. Then you turn around and claim that this is somehow proof that what I was saying is contradicted. I am done. Some people refuse to learn
The chinese government has often had to make decisions in the past on the basis of pleasing foreign institutions and capital, otherwise, the reform and opening up strategy would have failed. It is only a very recent thing (like the past 4 or so years) that the Chinese economy has become strong enough that it can adopt a more independent path, which we are just beginning to see. And even then, china still doesn’t have things like food sovereignty. It has to tread very carefully.
Also your whole “the state does not represent the workers” thing is frankly, idiotic. It betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how either the chinese state or CPC works. The same goes for the historical reasons certain decisions were made.
If you really want to see whether or not the chinese state represents the workers. Just consider the fact that it lifted over 800 million people out of extreme poverty in 40 years. Without china in the stats, world poverty actually goes up, as is the natural tendency of capitalism. Also consider the fact that they went out of their way to develop clean energy resources for the whole world. Virtually all or the progress made in the 2010s on solar power and wind power (solar power became nearly 10 times cheaper) was because of the chinese government’s directions. They have gone so far in helping the green energy transition that recently, the Europeans have started to complain that china is overproduction green tech.
None of those things sound like things highly regulated capitalism couldn’t accomplish to me. I don’t see it, that makes china a nice country, not a socialist one.
Talk to me about china being socialist when they actually do something socialist.
Do you actually believe that capitalists have never lifted people out of poverty? Not even marx agrees with any of what you said
Why did they remove workers right to strike in 1982?
None of those things are things that even the most highly regulated of capitalisms has accomplished. Or come close to accomplishing. It is a historic fact that the rise of capitalists was responsible for the extreme poverty of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The result of closing off the commons and the genocidal plunder of the third world. This was observed by marx, who remarked that the growth of wealth coincided with the growth of poverty.
Remove all of the socialist countries from the world statistics and adjust for cost of living. Then show me how well the capitalists lift people out of poverty
China sets itself on a decades long path to invert the power dynamic between the imperialist countries and third world, and this is somehow just something capitalists do. China aggressively builds not only its own infrastructure, but of other countries, for very favourable rates (often forgiving loans outright if they can’t be paid). This is another thing that capitalists do.
The vast majority of capitalist systems see little to no regulation, the closest thing to an exception is norway, that doesn’t change the fact that china is a highly regulated non-socialist country. Your observations of what marx said are irrelevant here, I completely agree with what marx said, especially during that time, but china is just an even more regulated norway situation, more akin to a social democracy than socialism. Once the workers own the means of production, if they ever do, that will change, but we live in the present.
This is good but does not make them socialist, that’s just foreign policy, the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. What have they done to make socialism happen in their own country? The answer appears to be nothing other than promise that they wlll someday. You say they just can’t right now, and you trust them, but the fact is, they haven’t done anything in this regard yet, you’re just hoping they will stand by their word.
This is a thing highly regulated social democracies can absolutely do. They’re still capitalist, 60% of their gdp is privately held, and the rest still isn’t even owned by the workers.
Also, they don’t forgive the loans outright, they keep what they worked on and continue to use it.
If they’re going to do socialism, why don’t the workers own the means of production? If they don’t right now, they aren’t socialist.
What is the difference between a social democracy that claims to be communist and china?
This conversation is getting tedious because you refuse to understand or acknowledge the timeliness of events here. The Chinese government said that it would open up and reform the economy in order to attract much needed foreign technologies, and to use market forces under state guidance to eliminate extreme poverty. They then proceeded to do it, and in the deadline they promised (2020).
Now the goal of the Chinese government is to become a developed nation with “intermediate socialism”, aka more worker coops and state owned firms by 2049. There is no reason to believe they won’t make a sincere effort, since they have already started. On the technological level, china has achieved immense levels of automation (with over half of the world’s industrial robots) and continues to improve at a rapid pace. On the social relations level, the Chinese have already begun to aggressively promote worker cooperatives, which today in china make up a substantial portion of the “private sector” gdp. In the other private firms, the CPC has great control over the boards of these firms and actively participates in them. They have also begun reigning in the malactors in the economy, as evidenced by their recent actions against even the biggest of Chinese firms. I honestly doubt they will need until 2050 to get to this goal. They already almost classified as a “higher income” country, and things in china move fast.
Now you deny that state ownership is socialism to begin with. But the Chinese are not anarchists. They do not care what poorly defined definition of socialism you use. You refuse to accept the Chinese system as socialist (even if it’s only work in progress), but that doesn’t matter because the Chinese move on regardless of what you think. Maybe in 10-20 years when china is further down its path of development will you see my point.
…that is yet another explanation of why they are not yet socialist, what do you not agree with what i’m saying here?
They’re not socialist, at best, they’re promising to one day become socialist.
I see no evidence that they have started.
This has nothing to do with whether or not they are socialist.
How much, exactly? Can I have evidence of this?
The CPC is not workers, they are separate entities, this is meaningless to me.
Norway does this. They are not socialists.
We’ll see, but they still have not yet done anything socialist that I can see.
No society has ever achieved fully developed socialism. But different societies have gone down the path of developing towards it. In China’s case, with the weakening and dissolution of the USSR and almost the whole socialist bloc, they realised that the developmental strategy they had been using was fatally flawed, which is why they had to make a temporary retreat so they could go down a different path. That doesn’t mean that the political dominance of the proletariat was removed. Nor did the economy stop being directed.
Now, you may feel as if a state-managed economy, or state ownership is not socialism, but nobody cares. You literally say “this is meaningless to me”. What are you, the fucking arbiter of socialism? Even Marx himself does not get this privilege. You say that the state is not the workers, and yet, any organization that the workers use to control the economy will not be the same thing as them. This is obvious. it doesn’t matter whether or not the workers control the economy through the state, through unions, through cooperatives, because none of those entities is equivalent to the workers themselves.
On the contrary, it is extremely important. As materialists, we recognise that the technological base is as important to determining the mode of production as are the social relations. Capitalism is not wage labor, as wage labor existed throughout most of history. Capitalism only becomes fully developed capitalism when wage labor becomes socialised and is combined with machine production and fossil energy. When the capitalist class becomes politically dominant.
Much in the same way, a fully developed socialism requires the political dominance of the proletariat class, a fully command and automated economy and clean energy. These aren’t arbitrary or optional requirements. A command economy is necessary to overcome the anarchy of production, automation is necessary to abolish the law of value, and clean energy is necessary to ensure the sustainable perpetuation of the system.
It does not. Show me an example of Norway literally letting a sector constituting 20% of its GDP die a painful death because its not useful anymore.
It was never there, the workers have no democratic control over anything, they have no way to force the state to do anything, they have literally no power whatsoever over the state. They can’t strike, they aren’t even legally allowed to complain since there’s no freedom of speech.
The economy being directed by someone other than the workers is the very problem.
It doesn’t matter if nobody cares, the definition of socialism is worker ownership over the means of production, and china doesn’t have that, therefore they are not socialist, it’s really that unbelievably simple. Do you not actually believe in socialism?
What makes them equivalent is democratic control over those things, if the workers can control those things democratically, then they control them. In china, the workers have literally no say whatsoever. They don’t even have the right to strike. The state is not equivalent to the workers because they are wholly separate entities, if it was a union, that would be the workers, because the workers can democratically control a union. Cooperatives would also be socialism, because yet again, that would be the workers controlling things.
If the workers have no agency whatsoever, then they are not in control. The state is not even comprised of workers.
I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about with this, but it’s not really relevant anyway, socialism is when the workers control the means of production, not when the state does nice things.
I will show you evidence of the coops thing when I get home. But it’s not hard to find yourself. Just Google the farmer’s specialised cooperatives. Or the other industrial cooperatives in china
Edit: https://www.dlg.org/en/agriculture/topics/dlg-agrifuture-magazine/knowledge-skills/china-rapid-development-of-farmer-cooperatives
“Registered membership surpassed 110 million famer households by 2016, according to Ministry of Agriculture statistics, accounting for about 44.5 % of the total in China.”
so 44.5% of just farming? that’s not inspiring, i guess that’s decent? It’s still not socialism. Having co-ops isn’t enough, all of the businesses need to be co-ops or you’re still capitalist.
So not only are you incredibly smug, arguing authoritatively about a topic you have never properly researched, your reading comprehension is also shit. I show you a source that explains that in farming alone there are 110 million households in cooperatives now because of agressive promotion in recent years. And this article is pretty old too. In a country with 700 ish million workers, that alone is a significant amount. Then you turn around and claim that this is somehow proof that what I was saying is contradicted. I am done. Some people refuse to learn