If China really is a socialist country or one pushing towards communism, why do you think they are waiting to push more directly in that direction? What is to be strategically gained from capitalizing your economy, essentially going backwards for 50 years instead of continuing to push for communism?
The Belt and Road comes first. The immediate plans are for capping max wages to at the most 10x minimum wage by 2035 and automating the vast majority of the economy.
Digital Yuan and a nationwide IOT and AI network is being built right now. All of which are necessary to avoid the pitfalls of Soviet planned economies and catapult communist economies into the 21st Century.
Remember communism is not a competitor to capitalism, it is a generational leap over capitalist production on the same scale that capitalism was to feudalism.
Right now China's biggest priority is mass urbanization and pulling hundreds of countries into its economic orbit. Hundreds of countries owe at least 10% of their GDP to China thanks to the Belt & Road. These countries are then invested in China's success. China is pulling most of the world into its economic orbit at a scale that will genuinely make the USSR look like child's play and is industrializing and thereby strengthening imperialized countries that the Soviets were never have been able to get to.
Asking to revert to a Soviet mode of production in a world conquered by capitalists is ultraleftism. China literally dwarfs the Soviet Union's production output basically every industry by an order of magnitude and is very clearly building towards something that makes Soviet economic planning and economic products look like a toy. Never forget that the Soviet Union ended in autarky. China is encircling the rest of the world and is ensuring Communist technological and economic supremacy.
Never forget that you don't have to live in 996 China, you can choose to live in truly differentiated Socialist projects in its orbit like Cuba, Vietnam, The DPRK, Laos, Venezuela, Bolivia and soon Nepal, all supported by a supreme ''ostensibly'' Communist country that dwarfs the United States and is actively lifting billions out of poverty.
Asking to revert to a Soviet mode of production in a world conquered by capitalists is ultraleftism.
Exactly. The USSR as a socialist experiment also ultimately failed and collapsed into a capitalist oligarchy. We should learn from it, but not repeat it.
China is encircling the rest of the world and is ensuring Communist technological and economic supremacy.
I get that you mean well but I don't think this is a good way to answer OP's question. People want to know how this leads to the eventual abolishment of capital or the commodity form. People don't want communist supremacy under an ostensibly capitalist system, they want communism. They want communities of people that love and care for one another, a global brotherhood of mankind, and they want all the evils of wealth obsession and commodification to go away.
"Communist supremacy" strikes me as language that will particularly get a rise out of people and confirm all their pre-existing concerns.
Don't get me wrong, I am not against supporting China, I just think there's a very different rhetorical argument needed and that this will not cut through to any fence sitter, let alone anyone currently against it.
Hey, can I ask where you found out about the plan to cap wages at 10x the minimum wage? I watched the video and also looked online but couldn't find any sources. A maximum wage combined with limiting income from investments might go a pretty long way to convincing some liberals I know that China is good, actually.
Socialism by 2035. Transitioning to digital yuan for economic planning and to limit the black markets that plagued the Soviet economy, and unironically their 5G infrastructure and AI needs to be worked on in order to successfully transition their gigantic economy over to a truly Socialist mode of production smoothly.
Their economic plans are still reliant on the rest of the world playing nicely for the next few decades.
They are focused on lifting people out of poverty right now, belt and road, and are moving on capping max income to 10x minimum wage by 2035 while discouraging brain drain.
Strategically? Survival. China didn't have to have a "Special Period" like DPRK or Cuba and that made a real difference. Their material conditions (and their antipathy to the Soviets) limited their choices and they chose to strategically cave to the global market. I disagree with their path, I'd like them to be less marketised, I'd like them to be more internationalist, and I'd like the neo-Maoists to be more dominant. But they're still here so it doesn't matter what I think.
That's not to say that a Socialist Market Economy doesn't have risks, it absolutely does risk capitalist backsliding, and that happened during the 1990s-2000s. Corruption skyrocketed, and the party was infiltrated by capitalists and nationalists with no ideological commitment.
Xi has been slowly rolling back billionaire power. Using capitalist forces to drive primitive accumulation, then mercing the billionaires and nationalising the industry.
He is building Socialism but that requires rebuilding grassroots society, bringing the billionaires under control, isolating the nationalists and neo-Confucianists and capitalists in the party, warding off CIA "New Left" attempts (which unfortunately has occasionally resulted in loyal Marxists being targeted.) All while trying to prevent encirclement from the USA, which is still more than capable of destroying China if it tries for a Leeroy-Jenkins Permanent Revolution.
China is still not a developed nation and has to rise up to the level that allows Socialism as Marx understood it to be built. Mao understood this. So does Xi.
For one thing, the CCP is full of liberals. Purges have both requirements and consequences, neither of which the government is prepared to handle at this time.
For another, their direction in the past couple decades, especially under Xi, has been massively successful. Progress takes a long ass time, and their rate of social and economic development has been lightning fast. No reason to deviate from something that's working well, until that's no longer the case (some foresight should be used ofc).
I thought that it was incredibly hard to get into the CCP because they wanted to keep ideological purity. Is that not the case?
I would agree that they have been pretty successful in what they've been doing, but there is a hard limit coming up very fast in the form of exponential growth and coming climate catastrophe. Do you think they see that at all? They are already the world's largest (or very close) economy, they basically own the US both financially and in manufacturing, they know and they know that we know that the US military would get rinsed if they tried to pull some shit in Asia...I look around and I think IF what people say on here is true and they are just following a strategic path to communism, then they have to start really pushing towards communism and world-wide revolution pretty damn soon....
I think they're not pushing for global revolution and communism, CCP are a socialism in one country party. interventionism is just really not their thing, it's a point of pride for them. they absolutely should transition to socialism faster, and could even do so with a transitional market socialist stage with workplace democracy and co-ops becoming the dominant part of the economy. I think they just want to go slow and steady, and that the climate collapse will push them away from a market economy as markets become unstable and there's no foreign capital to soak up anymore
I thought that it was incredibly hard to get into the CCP because they wanted to keep ideological purity. Is that not the case?
This is not exactly the case. I don't want to speak too far out of turn since I'm not an expert, but one would definitely be misinformed to think that every (or possibly even a majority of) the CCP is a committed communist. Party dealings are more opaque than we are used to in the West, plus the language barrier, so it's hard to say much for certain unless you're really in the know. One thing that we probably agree on is that the Chinese political system is far more effective at actually getting things done (mostly good things at that) than the U.S. government, even if there are many liberals within it.
On climate: everything I've seen indicates that this is a major concern for the Chinese government, and they have begun to take measures to address environmental issues domestically, but it's going to be hard to do that all at once given that they are the world's factory at the moment. I would guess (pure speculation of course) that things will be looking pretty good on that front in 20-30 years, but there's a long path ahead.
When we talk about "climate catastrophe" it has less to do with the entire world ending and more that a lot of people are going to be displaced and or killed by the resulting effects. It's not China's responsibility to avert this alone, and it seems that they may be poised to lead the way whenever other countries are ready to actually address the issue. The idea of "pushing for a worldwide revolution" is incredibly dangerous and not really in the cards. Theyve been non-interventionist to a fault, and that's gotten them to where they are today. The American empire is decaying, but it's going to exist for quite a while longer. I think it would be a folly to depend on any one country to introduce/support some form of global socialism. More likely is that smaller developing countries develop organic symbiotic relationships with the PRC as the US declines into a middling level of relevancy, and form a socialist-oriented bloc over a very long time.
That last quote is very important to identifying and describing yourself as a communist. Its also a very good one to pull out against liberals/succdems when they wonder why conservatives and fascists label them as communists. ANY change, any adversity and fundamental alternative to the current state of things makes you much closer to us than to any of them.
This video from Bay Area415 explains China's plans to become a great modern socialist country by 2050. It's 20 minutes and worth watching.
There's no button, just a lot of hard work.
:xi-lib-tears:
He’s waiting until we’re worthy.
He’s waiting until our posts improve.
“Is China socialist?” is a simple question that has a multifaceted answer.
Is the Chinese government ideologically socialist? Yeah, I’d say on average.
Is the Chinese economy socialist? No, it pretty obviously has a lot of capitalism, despite strong regulations.
Is China ever going to become socialist? Dunno. Hopefully, but I can’t know the future.
Why hasn’t China become socialist yet? Same reason every other ideologically socialist country hasn’t; too many external forces pressing against it. When the USSR was a thing, it made great strides in increasing their material conditions, but the Cold War was like a vice strangling them. Their trade was limited, they spent way too much on their military to compete with the US, and other important sectors suffered because of it. This, among many other things, is why the USSR failed.
Assuming China is actually committed towards socialism, if they pressed the socialism button today and purged all their capitalism, it would absolutely start the second Cold War. Right now a lot of countries rely on China for trade, but this isn’t irreversible. In a real Cold War situation, many wealthy western nations would still side with the US, even though China has more industry. After all, nothing revs up US industry like war.
China wants to get to a point where they are so integrated into global trade that not only would they win a Cold War, they would make it impossible for a new one to start. If they can get to that point, they can go beyond what the USSR did.
Revisionists or afraid of rebellion, also they still depend a lot on western tech
Nothing. The more China 'waits' to push the communism button, the more capitalists entrench themselves within society and infect the country. You honestly think that after the previous 3 decades of economic gains, their millionaires will just give it up?
It doesn't matter, because the Chinese economy is not dominated by their profits, or the need to make profits.
Not dominated by the need to make profit, are you fucking serious?
Learn the fucking basics of the Chinese economy before you talk shit. They have a market sector where capitalists can run profit-making businesses, but they exist on a basis public ownership, are subject to state control, and they don't dominate the economy. The commanding heights of the economy are controlled by the state, which makes five year plans.
I truly believe any "mask off" moments from China trending the economy anywhere near socialism would provoke world war III
What does China need to do to get on a viable path to communism, in your view?
I believe that Xi Jinping has stated that about 2050 is when China would start to move towards socialism. Now, even if you believe that he is being genuine, he would be about 100 years old by that point. In all likelihood, he would no longer be President or the head of government, if he would even still be alive.
The question becomes: will his successor try to implement socialism? Certainly, that is possible, like anything. Of course, there could be a significant amount of people in positions of power who have the view of "We got this powerful this way, why change it?".
A calculation that we are not privy to that roughly balances productive capacity, China's strategy for international influence and security, and socialism. A calculation that prioritizes sustainable interventions and avoids sweeping changes that lack a scientific basis, where scientific is relative to current conditions and the result of economic experiments. A calculation that also has to balance current party factions while attempting to undermine those opposed to Xi's.
It might take thousands of years to actually achieve communism. I'm wondering what exactly you think China is supposed to be doing to push towards it.
Ah idk. I think it's either within the next 50-75 years or the world becomes uninhabitable
