this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Yeah, or like they do in China.
Unfortunately for many parts of the world, it doesn't matter if you're trying to go full socialist or not, if you get in the way of multinational exploitation and neocolonialism, you're gonna get couped. There's no shortage of left-leaning non-socialists who have also been targeted by the CIA. Like Guatemala, where they just wanted to do basic land reform so farmers could work their own land, but Chiquita didn't like that so it became the origin of the term "Banana Republic."
What do they do in China, exactly? It looks like single-party fascist corporatism. If it's communism, why do they have a rising number of billionaires and worse conditions for workers than many european countries?
The funny thing about discussions about China's economy is that you can use pretty much any term to describe it as long as it's bad. If "socialist" or "communist" is understood to be a bad thing to those in the conversation, you can use those terms without objection, but you can also say stuff like "Feudalism" or "Fascist Corporatism" or "Colonialism" or "Capitalist" or "State Capitalist" or whatever tf else, it's all just vibes-based and the only requirement is that the vibes be bad.
China has a mixed economy with a combination of state ownership and private investment, with the state maintaining a controlling share in certain key industries, and preventing (at least so far) economic elites from infiltrating the government for the purpose of widespread regulatory capture and deregulation. Billionaires exist but sometimes face real consequences for illegal activity, and the balance between public and private ownership tips more heavily towards public when compared to other countries such as those in Europe.
The partial liberalization of the economy is meant to encourage economic development post-industrialization, and prevent the challenges the USSR faced with economic stagnation post-industrialization. Central planning works great if you're just trying to meet people's basic needs like food or shelter, but the demand for consumer goods is more fluid. This policy is also adapted to the global situation, China has benefitted greatly from industry moving there and by becoming a major trade partner of the US and other countries (while also holding the bulk of manufacturing output), that makes it difficult for outside forces to go to war or level sanctions/tariffs on them.
It is not a "communist" country in the sense of having achieved communism (in this sense, a "communist country" is an inherent contradiction). It could be called a communist/socialist country in the sense that it is governed by (self-identified) communists. Socialism, or I should specify Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, aren't a set of specific policies but rather a materialist and class-based mode of analysis to be applied and adapted differently depending on material conditions.
Some hardcore Maoists would argue that China's current system is a deviation from the correct socialist ideas, as espoused by Mao. However, there's also this odd branch of Westerners that don't like China's liberalized system because "it has billionaires," but also don't like what they had before under Mao when they didn't have billionaires, but also claim to dislike full-on capitalism - so as far as I can tell, they just dislike China regardless of what they do or don't do. I've yet to find any such person who's actually willing and capable to engage in a discussion of "what should they do/have done economically" as opposed to just bashing them. And in fact, when asked what kind of economic system they support, they'll often describe a mixed system similar to what China has, but then be like, "but not like that."
I didn't say they weren't doing fine or that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing.
I just said that they're not communists. This is not a bad thing! But lying about it is of course somewhat distasteful, especially for those people who think themselves as being communists.
So your position is that their system is "Fascist Corporatism," but also... that's fine, actually?
Whether they're "lying" is a matter of interpretation and ideological differences. Like, if I'm a hardcore, traditionalist Roman Catholic, maybe from my perspective, all Protestants are "lying" about being Christian because "true Christianity" means my interpretation of it. Likewise, if you're a hardcore Maoist, then maybe you'd argue that China is governed by revisionists who are "lying" about being communists.
If we want to look at it from a relatively objective point of view, the largest number of self-identified communists in the world are Marxist-Leninists, who don't view China as "lying about being communist" but rather agree with or at least critically support their approach. So, idk, if you want to join some fringe Christian sect that claims every other sect as being heretical and themselves as the sole defender of the faith, or if you want to join some fringe communist group that denounces every other communist group as revisionist and themselves as the only "real" communists, then idk, you do you ig. But not everyone who believes different things from you is "lying."
Great point. That was a mistake from my part. So what China is doing is indeed not fine at all, even though it kind of works for them.
I'm sure that your branding of the Chinese economy is based on a very high degree of intellectual rigor and definitely not just pulling words out of your ass based on vibes.
No, I didn't.
I already explained to you how China's economy works based on actual facts. You completely ignored it and doubled down on vibes based nonsense that you didn't even bother to defend or explain in any way. Telling you you're wrong is not "less intellectual" than being blatantly wrong.
As a reader btw, I appreciate your point of view. Don't get discouraged when your interlocutors put in less work than you. I think snuffing out the liberal fervor for capitalism by using examples where different systems are successful is vitally important. I'm just not very educated on it as I could be. People like you help with that!
OBJECTION! does a great job with this, they especially have a strong understanding of rhetoric that I tend to lack.
China has a Socialist Market Economy. Large firms and key sectors like steel and banking are nearly entirely under public control, while there are a large number of self-employed people. They actually have a falling number of billionaires in the last couple years.
As for worker conditions, Europe is Imperialist and many European countries act like landlords, and China is still a developing country, though rapidly developing.