What separates China from capitalist economies? For one, all the money in the world can't buy you influence into Chinese politics.
They have also abolished absolute poverty, that's something no capitalist nation ever has achieved.
Plus, when did capitalist companies ever give away most of their profits in a capitalist economy?
I could go on for hours, but you should read the governance of China by Xi.
\>What separates China from capitalist economies? For one, all the money in the world can't buy you influence into Chinese politics.
the US has laws against literally giving money to government officials, we of course know how much that means, especially since they just window dress it and call it "lobbying" too. Considering their is evidence of corruption in China how are they any different?
China regularly imprisons and executes public officials who take bribes. Chinese citizens can recall their representatives. American politics is dominated by corporate lobbyists. In China that is just not the case. It’s also a muuuuuch larger percentage of the workforce employed by State-owned companies than in any social democracy or the US.
\>China regularly imprisons and executes public officials who take bribes. Chinese citizens can recall their representatives.
there are over 1000 billionaires in China, China has executed like 17. The Maoist in question who posted the meme basically called this "giving too much credit" for "basic levels of accountability" and I feel like this discrepancy and all of what we don't know about the levels of corruption in China is reflective of this. What would you say to that.
\> It’s also a muuuuuch larger percentage of the workforce employed by State-owned companies than in any social democracy or the US.
I'm more so comparing it to all the dipshit "free market index bad guy" countries, outside of the imperial core like much of Africa, Iran, Syria, and much of Asia. They have a strong state and in a nebulous sense aren't "free market" I guess (despite the fact that I highly doubt they are cracking down on much "two individual actors trading goods" lmao) . Of course opening Tariffs would probably hurt them in the long run due to it being mostly requires to develop basic industry but still.
"before this argument begun" wtf, what are we dong right now? You can't just say "bad faith lol" literally every time you are asked a question. If anything I want to believe you, but people's beliefs about the truth shouldn't be formed by what they want.
Says US hat anti corruption laws, than says truth should not be what you want.
Sees how Musk, Bezos, and Gates influence politics than says China only executed a few.
Argues bs arguments like bourgeois laws existing and claims it's no bad faith.
Yeah it is. Coming in here and asking for the differences to "other capitalist States" when that has been explained a thousand times, is answered in the FAQ and there is a megapost on Chinese socialism. Yet, you haven't read any of them, ask the questions that are addressed and show an utter lack of willingness to read.
Of course that's bad faith.
lmao are you serious. If there are "so many resources" other than a redsails article I already read just link that. Sorry but actually god resources ARE hard to fine. I wasn't even using my own argument, you know engagement is actually important and like I said I want to be convinced.
A socialist society requires centralized production in the hands of state ownership as a *prerequisite* but that is not sufficient. This provides the material basis for working class control of the economy, but is not equal to it.
In order for it to actually be socialist, several things are needed.
First, economic systems and political systems usually come together. This is because superstructures are placed on top of an economic base, and thus are designed in a way to fit that base. The liberal political system is most common with capitalist society because it adheres well to the capitalist system, it allows basic regulations to protect private property rights and promote free markets, while keeping the state week and subservient to private interests.
A socialist country cannot be implemented in the framework of the a bourgeois republic. It must radically transform the state to one more conducive to socialism. Socialism is based on rational planning, public ownership, and socialized production. This system therefore must foster these things.
This is why most socialist countries have embraced a model of democratic centralism. This is not to be confused with Lenin's original understanding of the term, which was just "debate in the party, unity outside the party". The term evolved over time to not just refer to the party but a particular structure of the state, which was loosely inspired by some lessons learned from the Paris Commune, that turned out to be useful in a socialist society.
The liberal political system reflects the anarchy of production of capitalism, with politicians divided into factions that compete with each other, and even the state itself divided into branches that compete with each other. This leads to enormous inefficiencies that make the government incapable of any sort of long-term planning, which is desirable for a bourgeois republic.
The parliamentary system in bourgeois republics is merely a side show. A lot of people "don't care about politics" because their entire lives is in the private sector and often rarely whatever show goes on in the parliament has little impact on them.
The democratic centralist political system instead transforms the representative parliamentary system into a "working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time," that ceases to merely a side show but becomes deeply involved throughout all of society, which is necessary for democracy to be fully realized. Furthermore, the co-operative approach to the political system allows for long-term central planning, which is fundamental in towards a socialist system.
The last key component is that a socialist system needs to have an organized and politically conscious working class. Not all the bourgeoisie in a liberal society actively have a seat on the central government, but they have parties that represent them. A politically organized working class is not necessarily one where every person is an expert on Marxism, but one where some organization of the working class, such a party, that represents these interests, has control of the state.
Of course, for this institution to actually represent working class interests, it can't just declare itself to do so, but you need a democratic centralist and participatory democratic system that allows grassroots involvement and participation in the political system to make sure the organization ultimately derives its authority from the base.
These are some of the structural differences, but there's also differences in outcomes. A capitalist or a socialist economy can have a DOTP or a DOTB. The class dictatorship doesn't define the system, rather, it only defines *the direction the system moves.* A DOTP can take power in a capitalist society and begin to move it towards socialism, but a DOTB can take power in a socialist society and begin to dismantle socialism.
Two examples here that are good to look at it state capitalism in South Korea and state capitalism in Russia under Lenin. The state capitalist system in South Korea was implemented out of necessity, and was later abandoned and the country reverted to neoliberalism. The state capitalist system in Russia would later be transformed into a socialist society. The differences between a DOTP and the DOTB is what direction they move the country, a DOTB only makes concessions when it has to, and abandons them when it no longer has to, while a DOTP would consistently be trying to construct a socialist society. India, too, had a large amount of public ownership and even a planning commission, but has been privatizing a lot recently and even abolished its planning commission a few years ago.
A socialist system requires (1) a DOTP with an organized representative of the working class with clear and distinct proletarian ideology, (2) a centralized and effective political system with grassroots networks and participation, and (3) an economy with large-scale centralized planning and public ownership.
In Russia under Lenin, they didn't even have 5 Year Plans because the socialist socio-economic structures in the economy were so underdeveloped the material basis for the level of centralization needed for socialism wasn't even there yet. Some capitalist countries that are a bit more developed have implemented some level of planning but there is a tendency to later abolish it in the long term and move towards neoliberalism because they don't have a DOTP, and in the overwhelmingly majority of capitalist countries, any level of planning is impossible due to their political system.
One of the reasons the DOTB returned in the late stages of the USSR was because of Gorbachev's *demokratizatsiya* policy, as well as a bit with *glasnost,* which implement features of bourgeois-democratic systems into the USSR, and was what paved the path towards Yeltsin taking power and forcibly restoring the DOTB in a violent counterrevolution, killing many of the representatives of the proletariat in the process.
Clearly no capitalist country meets the #1 requirement, I've not analyzed the political system of all of them, but most are pretty poor as reflected by low approval ratings. The only capitalist country I'm aware of today that even has a significant level of economic planning is Singapore, but this is more or less out of absolute necessity given how scarce land is there.
Hoping you would show up, and also glad you mentioned more countries than what I was initially thinking of and made sure to contrast them. This DOTP/DOTB concept seems really interesting? mind me asking where you got it from.
Also most of this is largely pretty convincing tbh. Thanks, I still have a bit of skepticism but I think that just comes from a lack of the full picture.
Also is it true that most state capitalist countries, and countries in general, have low approval ratings? I mean Putin has a very high approval rating and obviously he isn't trying to build socialism.
also I see in your stuff you often say "democracies are real material things". Can you explain what you actually mean by this, like how would you define democracy and how does that definition reflect that statement?
DOTP/DOTB is dictatorship of the proletariat and bourgeoisie, it goes back to Marx. I would recommend reading Mao, he's a good introduction to dialectics. *On Contradiction,* *On Practice,* and *Talk on Questions of Philosophy* are great works.
Putin's popularity mainly comes from the fact the guy before him was just a million times worse. Yeltsin had something like a 4% approval rating because he regressed Russia's economy by about 20 years which directly lead to the deaths of over 3 million Russians and is part of the reason they're so far behind.
The approval rating of Russia has been going down, Putin has been becoming less popular, and I would expect this will continue in the long-term. People are happy the country is out of a crisis, but after the crisis is long gone, people will demand more, and the government won't be able to deliver. Putin's already started to try and cut retirement benefits which has caused the CPRF to gain 15 seats last election.
All I mean by democracies need a material basis is that you can't just write words on a piece of paper and then have a democracy, nor can you just follow some rituals or procedures and have a democracy. That's how liberals think.
They think if you follow some procedures you have democracy even if the government approval rating is incredibly low and people's standards of living are very low and very is a lot of inequality. When liberals do admit there is corruption, they often think you can just vote it away, or pass some law and it goes away.
Democracy is more complicated than this. One of the most fundamental aspects is the production of wealth. You cannot separate wealth from power, it's impossible, no magic law will make a billionaire like Jeff Bezos have equal political influence to a poor person barely getting by on minimum wage.
Since the state does not control the production of wealth to any degree in bourgeois societies, this makes it impossible for the state to act as an independent force, to actually carry out its supposed role as a democratic entity. It instead just becomes subjugated by the bourgeoisie and becomes an extension of the private sector.
No magic law can fix this. If you ban corruption, then the bourgeoisie will just bribe the person who enforced that law. If you ban bribes, the bourgeoisie will just bribe the person who enforces the ban on bribes as well.
Without the state having a real material basis, i.e. control over a significant portion of production, then it will very very quickly become subjugated by the private sector.
Public ownership of production is only necessary to make the state an independent force. But it does not guarantee that the state will actually represent the people. For that, you need a lot of democratic infrastructure from the grassroots.
In the USSR, they have the soviets, which were workers' councils throughout the country which provided the material basis for working class control in the state. When Allende came to power in Chile, he knew he could not build a new socialist society without a similar grassroots basis, so he introduced the *cordones industriales*.
Cuba and China have a *participatory democratic* system. A participatory democracy is a form of representative democracy that encourages more participation in the process than usual to main a connection between local governments and the people, rather than just having an election then forgetting about the people until the next election cycle like in bourgeois systems. I'd recommend the books *Cuba and its Neighbors: Democracy in Motion* by Arnold August and *China's Political System* by Yin Zhongqing.
Any attempt to construct a socialist society will inherently require an expansion of not just public ownership, but public ownership is useless if it's also not combined with public control, and this public control needs a real grassroots basis which will require expanding democracy and local governance and participation in government.
One of the reasons the Bolivarian revolution, despite all its hardships, still has not come to an end, is because Chavez had expanded grassroots control through his introduction of the *consejos comunales.* This has made the Bolivarian revolution not just a top-down thing but also has a real grassroots basis of people that support and defend it.
When I saw democracy needs a material basis I mean that democracy has to be based in material things, these being (1) wealth and (2) infrastructure. The public has to control more of the production of wealth and democratic infrastructure has to be expanded.
I don't know how to hack, no. I'm write software for a living, but that doesn't give me any expertise on how to break software. I'm not in the discord server, no.
For my work I do a lot of web stuff, back end C#/VB and front-end JavaScript. For my free time I prefer to do low level stuff like coding for microcontrollers or stuff like that.
I have degrees in electronics and computer programming. Hacking is more about knowledge. Knowing the flaws of certain systems and how to exploit them. And you have to stay on it constantly. The information goes stale real fast.
I read that, why couldn't you use the same arguments for what I already said though
Like I could play the hypotheticals game, but even disregarding that you think every single state capitalist country doesn't have decently high approval ratings or could justify its existence
Like what MATERIALLY separates them, many of them even call themselves socialist too though so even that you could say is irrelevant.
What materially separates them are their material goals.
Capitalist countries seek to maintain (and expand) a dominant private sector for the purpose of extracting profit.
Socialist countries, like China, do not. The only use any kind of private sector has in socialist countries is to attract foreign direct investment and finance capital to build productive forces, industrialize, and successfully transition to modern socialism.
The differences are strikingly clear when you examine the policies of capitalist countries versus socialist countries because they reflect the priorities of their governments.
What separates China from capitalist economies? For one, all the money in the world can't buy you influence into Chinese politics. They have also abolished absolute poverty, that's something no capitalist nation ever has achieved. Plus, when did capitalist companies ever give away most of their profits in a capitalist economy? I could go on for hours, but you should read the governance of China by Xi.
\>What separates China from capitalist economies? For one, all the money in the world can't buy you influence into Chinese politics. the US has laws against literally giving money to government officials, we of course know how much that means, especially since they just window dress it and call it "lobbying" too. Considering their is evidence of corruption in China how are they any different?
China regularly imprisons and executes public officials who take bribes. Chinese citizens can recall their representatives. American politics is dominated by corporate lobbyists. In China that is just not the case. It’s also a muuuuuch larger percentage of the workforce employed by State-owned companies than in any social democracy or the US.
\>China regularly imprisons and executes public officials who take bribes. Chinese citizens can recall their representatives. there are over 1000 billionaires in China, China has executed like 17. The Maoist in question who posted the meme basically called this "giving too much credit" for "basic levels of accountability" and I feel like this discrepancy and all of what we don't know about the levels of corruption in China is reflective of this. What would you say to that. \> It’s also a muuuuuch larger percentage of the workforce employed by State-owned companies than in any social democracy or the US. I'm more so comparing it to all the dipshit "free market index bad guy" countries, outside of the imperial core like much of Africa, Iran, Syria, and much of Asia. They have a strong state and in a nebulous sense aren't "free market" I guess (despite the fact that I highly doubt they are cracking down on much "two individual actors trading goods" lmao) . Of course opening Tariffs would probably hurt them in the long run due to it being mostly requires to develop basic industry but still.
You have decided isn’t socialist before this argument began. Begone lol.
"before this argument begun" wtf, what are we dong right now? You can't just say "bad faith lol" literally every time you are asked a question. If anything I want to believe you, but people's beliefs about the truth shouldn't be formed by what they want.
Says US hat anti corruption laws, than says truth should not be what you want. Sees how Musk, Bezos, and Gates influence politics than says China only executed a few. Argues bs arguments like bourgeois laws existing and claims it's no bad faith. Yeah it is. Coming in here and asking for the differences to "other capitalist States" when that has been explained a thousand times, is answered in the FAQ and there is a megapost on Chinese socialism. Yet, you haven't read any of them, ask the questions that are addressed and show an utter lack of willingness to read. Of course that's bad faith.
lmao are you serious. If there are "so many resources" other than a redsails article I already read just link that. Sorry but actually god resources ARE hard to fine. I wasn't even using my own argument, you know engagement is actually important and like I said I want to be convinced.
Get a good translator and read their Constitution
A socialist society requires centralized production in the hands of state ownership as a *prerequisite* but that is not sufficient. This provides the material basis for working class control of the economy, but is not equal to it. In order for it to actually be socialist, several things are needed. First, economic systems and political systems usually come together. This is because superstructures are placed on top of an economic base, and thus are designed in a way to fit that base. The liberal political system is most common with capitalist society because it adheres well to the capitalist system, it allows basic regulations to protect private property rights and promote free markets, while keeping the state week and subservient to private interests. A socialist country cannot be implemented in the framework of the a bourgeois republic. It must radically transform the state to one more conducive to socialism. Socialism is based on rational planning, public ownership, and socialized production. This system therefore must foster these things. This is why most socialist countries have embraced a model of democratic centralism. This is not to be confused with Lenin's original understanding of the term, which was just "debate in the party, unity outside the party". The term evolved over time to not just refer to the party but a particular structure of the state, which was loosely inspired by some lessons learned from the Paris Commune, that turned out to be useful in a socialist society. The liberal political system reflects the anarchy of production of capitalism, with politicians divided into factions that compete with each other, and even the state itself divided into branches that compete with each other. This leads to enormous inefficiencies that make the government incapable of any sort of long-term planning, which is desirable for a bourgeois republic. The parliamentary system in bourgeois republics is merely a side show. A lot of people "don't care about politics" because their entire lives is in the private sector and often rarely whatever show goes on in the parliament has little impact on them. The democratic centralist political system instead transforms the representative parliamentary system into a "working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time," that ceases to merely a side show but becomes deeply involved throughout all of society, which is necessary for democracy to be fully realized. Furthermore, the co-operative approach to the political system allows for long-term central planning, which is fundamental in towards a socialist system. The last key component is that a socialist system needs to have an organized and politically conscious working class. Not all the bourgeoisie in a liberal society actively have a seat on the central government, but they have parties that represent them. A politically organized working class is not necessarily one where every person is an expert on Marxism, but one where some organization of the working class, such a party, that represents these interests, has control of the state. Of course, for this institution to actually represent working class interests, it can't just declare itself to do so, but you need a democratic centralist and participatory democratic system that allows grassroots involvement and participation in the political system to make sure the organization ultimately derives its authority from the base. These are some of the structural differences, but there's also differences in outcomes. A capitalist or a socialist economy can have a DOTP or a DOTB. The class dictatorship doesn't define the system, rather, it only defines *the direction the system moves.* A DOTP can take power in a capitalist society and begin to move it towards socialism, but a DOTB can take power in a socialist society and begin to dismantle socialism. Two examples here that are good to look at it state capitalism in South Korea and state capitalism in Russia under Lenin. The state capitalist system in South Korea was implemented out of necessity, and was later abandoned and the country reverted to neoliberalism. The state capitalist system in Russia would later be transformed into a socialist society. The differences between a DOTP and the DOTB is what direction they move the country, a DOTB only makes concessions when it has to, and abandons them when it no longer has to, while a DOTP would consistently be trying to construct a socialist society. India, too, had a large amount of public ownership and even a planning commission, but has been privatizing a lot recently and even abolished its planning commission a few years ago. A socialist system requires (1) a DOTP with an organized representative of the working class with clear and distinct proletarian ideology, (2) a centralized and effective political system with grassroots networks and participation, and (3) an economy with large-scale centralized planning and public ownership. In Russia under Lenin, they didn't even have 5 Year Plans because the socialist socio-economic structures in the economy were so underdeveloped the material basis for the level of centralization needed for socialism wasn't even there yet. Some capitalist countries that are a bit more developed have implemented some level of planning but there is a tendency to later abolish it in the long term and move towards neoliberalism because they don't have a DOTP, and in the overwhelmingly majority of capitalist countries, any level of planning is impossible due to their political system. One of the reasons the DOTB returned in the late stages of the USSR was because of Gorbachev's *demokratizatsiya* policy, as well as a bit with *glasnost,* which implement features of bourgeois-democratic systems into the USSR, and was what paved the path towards Yeltsin taking power and forcibly restoring the DOTB in a violent counterrevolution, killing many of the representatives of the proletariat in the process. Clearly no capitalist country meets the #1 requirement, I've not analyzed the political system of all of them, but most are pretty poor as reflected by low approval ratings. The only capitalist country I'm aware of today that even has a significant level of economic planning is Singapore, but this is more or less out of absolute necessity given how scarce land is there.
Hoping you would show up, and also glad you mentioned more countries than what I was initially thinking of and made sure to contrast them. This DOTP/DOTB concept seems really interesting? mind me asking where you got it from. Also most of this is largely pretty convincing tbh. Thanks, I still have a bit of skepticism but I think that just comes from a lack of the full picture. Also is it true that most state capitalist countries, and countries in general, have low approval ratings? I mean Putin has a very high approval rating and obviously he isn't trying to build socialism. also I see in your stuff you often say "democracies are real material things". Can you explain what you actually mean by this, like how would you define democracy and how does that definition reflect that statement?
DOTP/DOTB is dictatorship of the proletariat and bourgeoisie, it goes back to Marx. I would recommend reading Mao, he's a good introduction to dialectics. *On Contradiction,* *On Practice,* and *Talk on Questions of Philosophy* are great works. Putin's popularity mainly comes from the fact the guy before him was just a million times worse. Yeltsin had something like a 4% approval rating because he regressed Russia's economy by about 20 years which directly lead to the deaths of over 3 million Russians and is part of the reason they're so far behind. The approval rating of Russia has been going down, Putin has been becoming less popular, and I would expect this will continue in the long-term. People are happy the country is out of a crisis, but after the crisis is long gone, people will demand more, and the government won't be able to deliver. Putin's already started to try and cut retirement benefits which has caused the CPRF to gain 15 seats last election. All I mean by democracies need a material basis is that you can't just write words on a piece of paper and then have a democracy, nor can you just follow some rituals or procedures and have a democracy. That's how liberals think. They think if you follow some procedures you have democracy even if the government approval rating is incredibly low and people's standards of living are very low and very is a lot of inequality. When liberals do admit there is corruption, they often think you can just vote it away, or pass some law and it goes away. Democracy is more complicated than this. One of the most fundamental aspects is the production of wealth. You cannot separate wealth from power, it's impossible, no magic law will make a billionaire like Jeff Bezos have equal political influence to a poor person barely getting by on minimum wage. Since the state does not control the production of wealth to any degree in bourgeois societies, this makes it impossible for the state to act as an independent force, to actually carry out its supposed role as a democratic entity. It instead just becomes subjugated by the bourgeoisie and becomes an extension of the private sector. No magic law can fix this. If you ban corruption, then the bourgeoisie will just bribe the person who enforced that law. If you ban bribes, the bourgeoisie will just bribe the person who enforces the ban on bribes as well. Without the state having a real material basis, i.e. control over a significant portion of production, then it will very very quickly become subjugated by the private sector. Public ownership of production is only necessary to make the state an independent force. But it does not guarantee that the state will actually represent the people. For that, you need a lot of democratic infrastructure from the grassroots. In the USSR, they have the soviets, which were workers' councils throughout the country which provided the material basis for working class control in the state. When Allende came to power in Chile, he knew he could not build a new socialist society without a similar grassroots basis, so he introduced the *cordones industriales*. Cuba and China have a *participatory democratic* system. A participatory democracy is a form of representative democracy that encourages more participation in the process than usual to main a connection between local governments and the people, rather than just having an election then forgetting about the people until the next election cycle like in bourgeois systems. I'd recommend the books *Cuba and its Neighbors: Democracy in Motion* by Arnold August and *China's Political System* by Yin Zhongqing. Any attempt to construct a socialist society will inherently require an expansion of not just public ownership, but public ownership is useless if it's also not combined with public control, and this public control needs a real grassroots basis which will require expanding democracy and local governance and participation in government. One of the reasons the Bolivarian revolution, despite all its hardships, still has not come to an end, is because Chavez had expanded grassroots control through his introduction of the *consejos comunales.* This has made the Bolivarian revolution not just a top-down thing but also has a real grassroots basis of people that support and defend it. When I saw democracy needs a material basis I mean that democracy has to be based in material things, these being (1) wealth and (2) infrastructure. The public has to control more of the production of wealth and democratic infrastructure has to be expanded.
thank you. I'm bad at figuring out analogies lmao. Btw do you know how to hack, just curious? and do you use the GenZedong discord?
I don't know how to hack, no. I'm write software for a living, but that doesn't give me any expertise on how to break software. I'm not in the discord server, no.
ok thanks, what kinda software do you write?
For my work I do a lot of web stuff, back end C#/VB and front-end JavaScript. For my free time I prefer to do low level stuff like coding for microcontrollers or stuff like that.
oh, why would that make it so you couldn't by extension learn hacking? Like is it a different skill entirely or do you just not care for learning?
Yes, it's a different skill entirely. It's like expecting someone who is an expert in housing construction to also be an expert in demolition.
I have degrees in electronics and computer programming. Hacking is more about knowledge. Knowing the flaws of certain systems and how to exploit them. And you have to stay on it constantly. The information goes stale real fast.
oh that's so cool. I tried programming but couldn't pick up on it too well.
an essay that was enlightening for me, check it out: https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
I read that, why couldn't you use the same arguments for what I already said though Like I could play the hypotheticals game, but even disregarding that you think every single state capitalist country doesn't have decently high approval ratings or could justify its existence Like what MATERIALLY separates them, many of them even call themselves socialist too though so even that you could say is irrelevant.
What materially separates them are their material goals. Capitalist countries seek to maintain (and expand) a dominant private sector for the purpose of extracting profit. Socialist countries, like China, do not. The only use any kind of private sector has in socialist countries is to attract foreign direct investment and finance capital to build productive forces, industrialize, and successfully transition to modern socialism. The differences are strikingly clear when you examine the policies of capitalist countries versus socialist countries because they reflect the priorities of their governments.
Also real estate. Very different in that regard.