Public ownership is the principal aspect of China’s economy. This means that public ownership governs the large firms and key industries, and is what is rising in China, as private ownership is kept to small and medium non-essential industries. No system is static, meaning identifying the nature of a system depends on identifying what is rising and what is dying away. Cpitalists are held on a tight leash, and are prevented from gaining political power as a class. The reason private ownership is allowed at all is because China has very uneven development due to their rapid industrialization, and private ownership does help with filling in gaps left by the primary aspects of the economy like SOEs.
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China does have billionaires, as you might then protest. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principal aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes and the state, run along the lines of a common plan, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:
The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn’t been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.
Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized.
Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.
To call China “imperialist” or “capitalist” is to either invent a fantasy of China or to not understand imperialism, capitalism, or socialism. China isn’t a utopia, it’s a real socialist country.
Lmao I’m not wasting my time reading a whole Tankies schizo rant about how awesome China is and how it’s authoritarian 1 party system is actually super cool democracy.
You’re assuming this is the first time I’ve come across any information about China. Or he’ll even the first time I’ve seen an argument from pro china Tankie. But it’s not, I consider myself a socialist, I’ve read into the histories of china and Russia and a bit on other socialist countries and used to be quite pro china myself, but the more I read, the more information I got about how china actually operates, as I talked to actual people from China, HK and surrounding countries, and as my values matured I realise I can’t support the Chinese state (and that’s it’s not exactly even socialist) because its so authoritarian, corrupt and generally immoral.
Yes the west is shit in so many ways and capitalism is completely unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean I need to support Chinese “socialism” just because it’s not western capitalism.
And I don’t think a random post from a user that’s posting blatant propaganda is going to completely recontexualise everything I know about China and make all their bullshit suddenly ok. So why waste my team reading it?
And to give a more extreme scenario, if you encountered a Nazi who wrote a massive comment about how Nazi Germany was actually great and democratic and treated people well, would you bother to read it? Are you obliged to learn about it?
Again, you reject even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then? These are “blatant propaganda,” as you say? Regarding your comparison of socialists to Nazis, this is a ridiculous leap. No, socialism isn’t fascism, and equating the two is a form of Holocaust trivialization with ties to Double Genocide Theory.
To place Russian communism on the same moral level with Nazi fascism, because both are totalitarian, is, at best, superficial, in the worse case it is fascism. He who insists on this equality may be a democrat; in truth and in his heart, he is already a fascist, and will surely fight fascism with insincerity and appearance, but with complete hatred only communism.
I’ve explained before, but no, China is not capitalist. Public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, it governs the large firms and key industries and dominates the overall character of the economy. Private ownership exists, but is secondary to that, filling in the gaps left behind by the huge state driven industries in secondary and underdeveloped areas, and is folded into the public sector as it grows. The capitalist class is not allowed to gain political power, and the working classes control the state.
You should support China’s socialist system because it’s not at all like the figure you have in your head. It’s imperfect because it’s real, but is constantly improving.
Because you dismiss even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then? If the communists and socialists can manage to find well-respected western orgs backing our claims, why do you reject even them? How small is your echo chamber allowed to be?
Okay I’ll give you the tiniest little bite. Your first link is a fucking substsck article from a blatant propaganda pusher that mostly publishes “the west = bad” blog post
So he is trying to claim that China is actually a shining example of democracy, despite being a 1 party state that openly punishes it’s citizens for critisicing the government, the revolution, key reveloutionary figure or communism in general, because of opinion polls that, in a different blog post, he admits are only as high as they are because of China’s censorship of government criticism.
We have actual empirical standards for what a democracy is. China is basically the poster child for modern authoritarianism and does not fit the description of a democratic state in any reasonable way. No opposition is allowed, the party leadership is the one that picks candidates, not the citizens and even then citizens only get this performative vote at the very lowest level of government.
But that’s all I’m going to give you. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to argue with Tankies who are not arguing from a position of reason, you’re like Magas or Nazis but just intelligent enough to actually cherry pick data and use the language of political theory to attempted to disguise your lunacy.
Reply if you want, call me a shitlib for being pro free and fair elections if you feel like, but I’m not wasting any more of my time on you.
Okay I’ll give you the tiniest little bite. Your first link is a fucking substsck article from a blatant propaganda pusher that mostly publishes “the west = bad” blog post
Nope. My first link is to Wikipedia, my second link is to Jason Hickel’s substack. Here’s who he is, per Wikipedia:
Jason Edward Hickel[2] (born 1982) is a Swazi economic anthropologist, academic and democratic eco-socialist.[3] He is a professor at the Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA-UAB) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona,[4] a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a visiting senior fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and was the Chair of Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo.[5] He serves on the Climate and Macroeconomics Roundtable of the US National Academy of Sciences.[6]
I guess none of that matters to you? All of his sources are cited, including organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center. The fact that he posts some of his work on Substack doesn’t make it wrong.
So he is trying to claim that China is actually a shining example of democracy, despite being a 1 party state that openly punishes it’s citizens for critisicing the government, the revolution, key reveloutionary figure or communism in general, because of opinion polls that, in a different blog post, he admits are only as high as they are because of China’s censorship of government criticism.
Actually, Hickel’s point is that support for the CPC in China is popular because, above all else, the CPC has consistently delivered on its ambitious but grounded promises to the public. The PRC has seen an unimaginable climb from 1949 under CPC leadership, faster than any other country on the planet, and this has caused the working classes to support them.
We have actual empirical standards for what a democracy is. China is basically the poster child for modern authoritarianism and does not fit the description of a democratic state in any reasonable way. No opposition is allowed, the party leadership is the one that picks candidates, not the citizens and even then citizens only get this performative vote at the very lowest level of government.
This is incorrect, on multiple levels. China does not allow opposition parties, this is true, because factionalism is anti-socialist and is a product of liberal, bourgeois forms of democracy. Instead, policy is dynamic and focuses on consultative democracy. Democracy is not the ability to choose which party represents you, but is the rule by the majority. China has the latter, while the west only has the former.
To repeat myself, the Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
But that’s all I’m going to give you. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to argue with Tankies who are not arguing from a position of reason, you’re like Magas or Nazis but just intelligent enough to actually cherry pick data and use the language of political theory to attempted to disguise your lunacy.
No, socialists and communists are nothing like MAGA nor Nazis. As we have seen and I have proven, you’re dismissing decorated academics like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, as well as western organizations like the Ash Center, Wikipedia, and Harvard, all to cling to a false vision of reality.
Reply if you want, call me a shitlib for being pro free and fair elections if you feel like, but I’m not wasting any more of my time on you.
You aren’t pro “free and fair elections,” you’re in favor of elections dominated by capitalists, and believe Chinese people to be too stupid to realize the superiority of such elections. In order to maintain that chauvanistic view, you dismiss even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then?
Public ownership is the principal aspect of China’s economy. This means that public ownership governs the large firms and key industries, and is what is rising in China, as private ownership is kept to small and medium non-essential industries. No system is static, meaning identifying the nature of a system depends on identifying what is rising and what is dying away. Cpitalists are held on a tight leash, and are prevented from gaining political power as a class. The reason private ownership is allowed at all is because China has very uneven development due to their rapid industrialization, and private ownership does help with filling in gaps left by the primary aspects of the economy like SOEs.
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China does have billionaires, as you might then protest. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principal aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes and the state, run along the lines of a common plan, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:
The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn’t been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.
Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized.
Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.
To call China “imperialist” or “capitalist” is to either invent a fantasy of China or to not understand imperialism, capitalism, or socialism. China isn’t a utopia, it’s a real socialist country.
Lmao I’m not wasting my time reading a whole Tankies schizo rant about how awesome China is and how it’s authoritarian 1 party system is actually super cool democracy.
You should read it.
Why would I willingly waste my time on Tankie nonsense?
You might learn something. But who knows, maybe China is just evil and nothing can be learned about their society and governance.
Even if you think Chinese socialism is bad, aren’t you obligated to learn about it?
You’re assuming this is the first time I’ve come across any information about China. Or he’ll even the first time I’ve seen an argument from pro china Tankie. But it’s not, I consider myself a socialist, I’ve read into the histories of china and Russia and a bit on other socialist countries and used to be quite pro china myself, but the more I read, the more information I got about how china actually operates, as I talked to actual people from China, HK and surrounding countries, and as my values matured I realise I can’t support the Chinese state (and that’s it’s not exactly even socialist) because its so authoritarian, corrupt and generally immoral.
Yes the west is shit in so many ways and capitalism is completely unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean I need to support Chinese “socialism” just because it’s not western capitalism.
And I don’t think a random post from a user that’s posting blatant propaganda is going to completely recontexualise everything I know about China and make all their bullshit suddenly ok. So why waste my team reading it?
And to give a more extreme scenario, if you encountered a Nazi who wrote a massive comment about how Nazi Germany was actually great and democratic and treated people well, would you bother to read it? Are you obliged to learn about it?
Again, you reject even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then? These are “blatant propaganda,” as you say? Regarding your comparison of socialists to Nazis, this is a ridiculous leap. No, socialism isn’t fascism, and equating the two is a form of Holocaust trivialization with ties to Double Genocide Theory.
I’ve explained before, but no, China is not capitalist. Public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, it governs the large firms and key industries and dominates the overall character of the economy. Private ownership exists, but is secondary to that, filling in the gaps left behind by the huge state driven industries in secondary and underdeveloped areas, and is folded into the public sector as it grows. The capitalist class is not allowed to gain political power, and the working classes control the state.
You should support China’s socialist system because it’s not at all like the figure you have in your head. It’s imperfect because it’s real, but is constantly improving.
Do you think that your knowledge of fascist Germany and socialist China are at comparable levels? Do you think those societies are at all comparable?
Because you dismiss even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then? If the communists and socialists can manage to find well-respected western orgs backing our claims, why do you reject even them? How small is your echo chamber allowed to be?
What an excellent counter to academic sources mostly from western organizations. Pejoratives, ableism, and admitting to not even daring to read it.
Okay I’ll give you the tiniest little bite. Your first link is a fucking substsck article from a blatant propaganda pusher that mostly publishes “the west = bad” blog post
So he is trying to claim that China is actually a shining example of democracy, despite being a 1 party state that openly punishes it’s citizens for critisicing the government, the revolution, key reveloutionary figure or communism in general, because of opinion polls that, in a different blog post, he admits are only as high as they are because of China’s censorship of government criticism.
We have actual empirical standards for what a democracy is. China is basically the poster child for modern authoritarianism and does not fit the description of a democratic state in any reasonable way. No opposition is allowed, the party leadership is the one that picks candidates, not the citizens and even then citizens only get this performative vote at the very lowest level of government.
But that’s all I’m going to give you. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to argue with Tankies who are not arguing from a position of reason, you’re like Magas or Nazis but just intelligent enough to actually cherry pick data and use the language of political theory to attempted to disguise your lunacy.
Reply if you want, call me a shitlib for being pro free and fair elections if you feel like, but I’m not wasting any more of my time on you.
Nope. My first link is to Wikipedia, my second link is to Jason Hickel’s substack. Here’s who he is, per Wikipedia:
I guess none of that matters to you? All of his sources are cited, including organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center. The fact that he posts some of his work on Substack doesn’t make it wrong.
Actually, Hickel’s point is that support for the CPC in China is popular because, above all else, the CPC has consistently delivered on its ambitious but grounded promises to the public. The PRC has seen an unimaginable climb from 1949 under CPC leadership, faster than any other country on the planet, and this has caused the working classes to support them.
This is incorrect, on multiple levels. China does not allow opposition parties, this is true, because factionalism is anti-socialist and is a product of liberal, bourgeois forms of democracy. Instead, policy is dynamic and focuses on consultative democracy. Democracy is not the ability to choose which party represents you, but is the rule by the majority. China has the latter, while the west only has the former.
To repeat myself, the Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
No, socialists and communists are nothing like MAGA nor Nazis. As we have seen and I have proven, you’re dismissing decorated academics like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, as well as western organizations like the Ash Center, Wikipedia, and Harvard, all to cling to a false vision of reality.
You aren’t pro “free and fair elections,” you’re in favor of elections dominated by capitalists, and believe Chinese people to be too stupid to realize the superiority of such elections. In order to maintain that chauvanistic view, you dismiss even western academics and scholars like Jason Hickel and Roland Boer, organizations like Harvard and the Ash Center, and even Wikipedia. Who on Earth do you trust, then?