I gotta say, your grasp of history is far deeper than mine. Thank you for treating my response with the civility you did and for teaching me.
These are vibes. ALL achievements come with costs.
A brazen dismissal of facts. You mentioned achievements, but did not highlight in any way the costs of such achievements.
Just because I didn’t mention the costs doesn’t mean I’m ignore them.
This is china under Xi using socialism to fix the problems that reform and opening up brought. I think Xi started heading down a correct route, and it is very likely it might continue heading down such a route, but a marxist analysis must be even and leave no stone unturned.
While I agree, I still think it’s difficult to conduct a thorough analysis of a contemporary revolutionary experiment. When we do analyze it, we need to do it with the understanding that we are blind to what’s actually going on and we don’t have complete access to the analysis of the party and its leaders. Much like we can analyze battlefield conditions, we have to acknowledge that we lack access to intelligence and we lack an understanding of the current understanding of the intelligence apparatus. This ignorance really needs to temper our willingness to move towards making judgments.
Neo-Liberalism is in decline as is the west and america. Capitulation to capitalism is no longer the necessity it once was.
I think this is an idealist understanding of necessity and not a materialist one, and I think further along in your response we get to a particular misunderstanding that could shed light on this. Suffice to say, capitulation to capitalism is a historical process, much like capitalism is. One cannot immediately end capitulation to capitalism anymore than one can immediately end capitalism. We are discussing massive hyperobjects. They take significant time to evolve.
when the libs Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao took power. They restored capitalism, even by deng’s own standards. Xi has been fixing the errors of those times since then, but seems to not restore state socialism and keep the equilibrium of a Party controlled government and a state capitalist economy.
I think it is likely that there were overcorrections, but I still think we’re not far enough away to make those judgments accurately yet. The fact that Xi came to power and is able to move the apparatus of state the way he has is evidence that there wasn’t a successful counter-revolution like there was in the USSR. I don’t think we can ever say they would be years or decades without mistakes being made. Mistakes were made under ever leader. The question is not whether mistakes were made but whether those mistakes were within operating boundaries of a successful revolutionary process. So far today, it seems like they were.
No nation has been able to develop industry without being capitalist in some way.
Although you have several good points, this is by far the worst one. Revisionist historically and materially. […] Saying we need capitalism is literally just liberalism
No, it’s historical analysis. Capitalism was a necessary, not contingent, social organization that emerged from the history that birthed it. I’m not saying we need capitalism as in we have to keep some capitalism around. I’m saying capitalism has so far been shown to be a non-contingent aspect of social development to some degree or another. My hope is that after the empire falls China will contribute to the conditions that will support some other state in becoming the first ever state to develop their productive capacities without a capitalism phase. That would be wonderful, and it is likely to happen to at some point, but we are not at that point yet in world history.
Capitalism is not necessary for industrialization, and has several times directly hampered such goals.
Of course it has directly hampered it as well as directly supported it - it’s a contradictory system! Just like socialism has both directly hampered and directly supported the liberation of the working class! Don’t be such an idealist. Materially speaking, we have yet to see a sustainable social development that did not go through some form of capitalism. Maybe the DPRK pulled it off, but again, we have that pesky reality that we don’t have the ability to analyze all contemporary experiments to the same extent. DPRK is too opaque for us to use as a specimen to examine and learn from outside of a few things. But it’s entirely possible that they’ve figured out something that is truly novel and when we finally get to the point where we can analyze that society as Marxists, maybe we’ll smack our foreheads with realization. But we just don’t have another path today.
China getting rid of capitalism would not just erase all of their gains they have made, it would merely remove the control of Capitalists and capital investments. Of course I think it cannot be instant and there needs to be a transition period, as we can’t just declare “we’re doing socialist economics now” (the country would basically break down into civil war and many of their allies would scramble to defend their interests), but
Of course it wouldn’t erase all of their gains. What it would do is create reaction that would cause internal instability, which they cannot afford to have this decade. They are actively working to integrate Hong Kong and Taiwan and that requires maintaining sufficiently favorable conditions. Failing to integrate these subdivisions represents an existential threat to the largest most successful socialist experiment in the history of humanity. Choosing to get rid of capitalism overnight through a radically disruptive process would open far too many opportunities for the West to catalyze disintegration of the Chinese project.
there should be active transition towards erasing capitalist control of the economy.
Is losing 36% of its billionaires not enough in 3 years not enough? Is focusing on managing the externalities of capitalism not a move in this direction? Is increasing domestic capabilities to reduce reliance on foreign capabilities not contributing to this eventual transition? You speak as though you are an experienced head of state who has a solid grasp on what sorts of decisions make sense for a modern party to make and that you are disappointed that the CPC isn’t making them. But from where I’m standing, I see watching China as an opportunity to learn, not as an opportunity to purity test.
Your narrative is that of defeatism, that we cannot possibly live without capitalism and need it to develop an economy, when that is historically not true. Its also just anti-communist.
You’re just choosing to interpret my words as object-oriented instead of process-oriented. I hope I’ve clear that up in the above comments.
How is China being anti-imperialist currently? [examples of armed conflict]
Let’s be clear on terms here - imperialism is not armed conflict. Imperialism, as defined by Lenin, is far more a socio-economic process than a military one. So to answer your question, how is China being anti-imperialist:
Issuing bonds in Saudi Arabia in USD
Taking a leadership role in BRICS
Creating economic flows that reduce the impact of imperial sanctions
Creating alternative institutions to the World Bank and IMF
Extracting profit from its intermediation of imperial value flows and deploying that profit into the BRI to deliberately develop the nations that have been historical over-exploited
Fighting imperialism in this millennium is not about deploy military presence (at least not yet). It’s about countering economic concentration with economic distribution, replacing the dominance of finance capitalism with the dominance of productive capitalism, replacing a tributary system with national economic self-determination through the development of productive forces in over-exploited nations, the countering of spatial stratification with connective infrastructure, and countering the division of the world amongst imperialist powers through the development of sustainable coalitions that do not include the imperialists.
China is doing all of this.
Although they are a very humanistic investor, and treats the global south with a great deal more respect than the Core, they are actively exploiting unequal exchange, inter-imperialist multipolar competition, and Imperialist profits. Don’t get me wrong, they have a very different way of going about it, and are far more forgiving, due to their socialist government having some guardrails, But such things are taking place. China is a far better alternative, and gives a better deal, but that doesn’t mean that capital extraction does not occur.
Again, you are confusing something China is doing with something that is a world historical process. You seem to take the fact that China has intermediated imperialist value chains as something of a terrible thing, failing to realize that such a thing was unthinkable 100 years ago. China isn’t merely doing similar actions that the imperialists were doing, China has supplanted the imperialist actors in an already extant world historical process. The United States did the same thing with England, France, and Spain - these 3 imperialists were exploiting Turtle Island until the US emerged as a liberal revolutionary state and took over the process. They didn’t just do similar actions that were like what the old guard did, they took over an existing process of colonization.
In the context of our discussion, China has managed to position itself between the imperialists and the imperialized in an already extant world historical process of exploitation. In so doing, it has managed to skim off a portion of that value stream. Were it to shutdown the value stream entirely, the imperialists would need to reassert their position in the process, which would be bloody. And I’ve run out characters. I’ll make another reply.
I gotta say, your grasp of history is far deeper than mine. Thank you for treating my response with the civility you did and for teaching me.
Just because I didn’t mention the costs doesn’t mean I’m ignore them.
While I agree, I still think it’s difficult to conduct a thorough analysis of a contemporary revolutionary experiment. When we do analyze it, we need to do it with the understanding that we are blind to what’s actually going on and we don’t have complete access to the analysis of the party and its leaders. Much like we can analyze battlefield conditions, we have to acknowledge that we lack access to intelligence and we lack an understanding of the current understanding of the intelligence apparatus. This ignorance really needs to temper our willingness to move towards making judgments.
I think this is an idealist understanding of necessity and not a materialist one, and I think further along in your response we get to a particular misunderstanding that could shed light on this. Suffice to say, capitulation to capitalism is a historical process, much like capitalism is. One cannot immediately end capitulation to capitalism anymore than one can immediately end capitalism. We are discussing massive hyperobjects. They take significant time to evolve.
I think it is likely that there were overcorrections, but I still think we’re not far enough away to make those judgments accurately yet. The fact that Xi came to power and is able to move the apparatus of state the way he has is evidence that there wasn’t a successful counter-revolution like there was in the USSR. I don’t think we can ever say they would be years or decades without mistakes being made. Mistakes were made under ever leader. The question is not whether mistakes were made but whether those mistakes were within operating boundaries of a successful revolutionary process. So far today, it seems like they were.
No, it’s historical analysis. Capitalism was a necessary, not contingent, social organization that emerged from the history that birthed it. I’m not saying we need capitalism as in we have to keep some capitalism around. I’m saying capitalism has so far been shown to be a non-contingent aspect of social development to some degree or another. My hope is that after the empire falls China will contribute to the conditions that will support some other state in becoming the first ever state to develop their productive capacities without a capitalism phase. That would be wonderful, and it is likely to happen to at some point, but we are not at that point yet in world history.
Of course it has directly hampered it as well as directly supported it - it’s a contradictory system! Just like socialism has both directly hampered and directly supported the liberation of the working class! Don’t be such an idealist. Materially speaking, we have yet to see a sustainable social development that did not go through some form of capitalism. Maybe the DPRK pulled it off, but again, we have that pesky reality that we don’t have the ability to analyze all contemporary experiments to the same extent. DPRK is too opaque for us to use as a specimen to examine and learn from outside of a few things. But it’s entirely possible that they’ve figured out something that is truly novel and when we finally get to the point where we can analyze that society as Marxists, maybe we’ll smack our foreheads with realization. But we just don’t have another path today.
Of course it wouldn’t erase all of their gains. What it would do is create reaction that would cause internal instability, which they cannot afford to have this decade. They are actively working to integrate Hong Kong and Taiwan and that requires maintaining sufficiently favorable conditions. Failing to integrate these subdivisions represents an existential threat to the largest most successful socialist experiment in the history of humanity. Choosing to get rid of capitalism overnight through a radically disruptive process would open far too many opportunities for the West to catalyze disintegration of the Chinese project.
Is losing 36% of its billionaires not enough in 3 years not enough? Is focusing on managing the externalities of capitalism not a move in this direction? Is increasing domestic capabilities to reduce reliance on foreign capabilities not contributing to this eventual transition? You speak as though you are an experienced head of state who has a solid grasp on what sorts of decisions make sense for a modern party to make and that you are disappointed that the CPC isn’t making them. But from where I’m standing, I see watching China as an opportunity to learn, not as an opportunity to purity test.
You’re just choosing to interpret my words as object-oriented instead of process-oriented. I hope I’ve clear that up in the above comments.
Let’s be clear on terms here - imperialism is not armed conflict. Imperialism, as defined by Lenin, is far more a socio-economic process than a military one. So to answer your question, how is China being anti-imperialist:
Fighting imperialism in this millennium is not about deploy military presence (at least not yet). It’s about countering economic concentration with economic distribution, replacing the dominance of finance capitalism with the dominance of productive capitalism, replacing a tributary system with national economic self-determination through the development of productive forces in over-exploited nations, the countering of spatial stratification with connective infrastructure, and countering the division of the world amongst imperialist powers through the development of sustainable coalitions that do not include the imperialists.
China is doing all of this.
Again, you are confusing something China is doing with something that is a world historical process. You seem to take the fact that China has intermediated imperialist value chains as something of a terrible thing, failing to realize that such a thing was unthinkable 100 years ago. China isn’t merely doing similar actions that the imperialists were doing, China has supplanted the imperialist actors in an already extant world historical process. The United States did the same thing with England, France, and Spain - these 3 imperialists were exploiting Turtle Island until the US emerged as a liberal revolutionary state and took over the process. They didn’t just do similar actions that were like what the old guard did, they took over an existing process of colonization.
In the context of our discussion, China has managed to position itself between the imperialists and the imperialized in an already extant world historical process of exploitation. In so doing, it has managed to skim off a portion of that value stream. Were it to shutdown the value stream entirely, the imperialists would need to reassert their position in the process, which would be bloody. And I’ve run out characters. I’ll make another reply.