Beijing battles demographic crisis and pressure on pension system by keeping population in workforce for longer

  • CriticalResist8A
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    2 months ago

    The retirement age will be raised for men from 60 to 63 over the course of 15 years. Women had more favorable conditions and also dependent on their employment as blue collar or white collar, but 63yo will be the oldest retirement age.

    This marks the first increase since the 50s, and I assume they mean late 50s.

    At that time the average age expectancy in China was 33 years old. It was quickly increased in the early years of the PRC of course, reaching 78 years old today.

    15 years means that the CPC is once again planning long term, expecting higher increases in life expectancy over time, but perhaps also preparing for increased automation. The Chinese population ages like everyone else in the world, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they sometimes have to take decisions like these. There’s a huge qualitative difference with a 3-5 years increase in the retirement age over 15 years and a 5 years increase for everyone over 3 years. Regardless of system. In the west, they increase the retirement age to funnel more money to capitalists. With no capitalists to finance in China, this money is going into pension funds for a 1.6 billion population. We can decry the need for pensions but that’s how the system works the world over, so until they find a better system this is what they have.

    I’m sure this decision displeases Chinese workers and it would displease me too, but consider also the CPC tracks back when needed. With a one party system they can cancel policies easily. Though at the same time those nearing retirement age now definitely remember harder times.

    I say all that because I had this discussion not long ago on these news. I’m reminded of politzers words,

    Among the many examples we could cite, let us take just this one. We are told: "A worker in the Soviet Union receives a salary that does not correspond to the total value of what he produces, so there is a surplus value, that is to say, a deduction from his salary. So it is stolen. In France, it is the same, workers are exploited; there is therefore no difference between a Soviet worker and a French worker.

    Where is the metaphysical conception in this example? It consists in not considering that there are two types of societies here and in not taking into account the differences between these two societies. To believe that as long as there is added value here and there, it is the same thing, without considering the changes that have taken place in the Soviet Union, where man and machine no longer have the same economic and social meaning as in France. Now, in our country, the machine exists to produce (at the service of the boss) and man to be exploited. In the U.S.S.R., the machine exists to produce (at the service of man) and man to enjoy the fruit of his labor. The surplus value in France goes to the boss; in the USSR to the socialist state, that is to say, to the community without exploiters. Things have changed.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      In the west, they increase the retirement age to funnel more money to capitalists. With no capitalists to finance in China, this money is going into pension funds for a 1.6 billion population.

      What do you mean “with no capitalists to finance in China”?! There is objectively and obviously a Chinese bourgoisie, and this is therefore funneling money to them just like it would be doing anywhere else in the world.

      What is quoted after is of course true of the USSR between the end of the NEP and the revisionists restoring capitalism, but we already have overwhelmingly widespread capitalism (privately owned MoP producing commodities, extracting surplus value through wage labor) in China, the two systems are extremely different.

      • CriticalResist8A
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        2 months ago

        Explain the mechanism by which the pension funds get funneled to the Chinese bourgeoisie in the PRC. Capitalists never touch public money in China, hence they are not financed by the PRC.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          Ah, I see what you’re saying now I think, so it would still be benefiting the capitalists (expanding the labor pool does that) but, in terms of direct finances, it doesn’t really intersect with them.

          • CriticalResist8A
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            2 months ago

            Yeah, I was being very specific but I can see where the confusion came from. Thanks.