Western coverage of events in China is highlighting a lurch leftwards by Xi Jinping. But this misunderstands Beijing’s approach and is fuelled by dismay that Xi has not followed the path that the West wanted him to.
Because we all know that it's better to get overrun by the capitalists than try something different. The CPC caught up in 60 years and you're what? Mad that it wasn't quick or utopian enough? Dictatorship of the Proletariat, nor socialism, entail a full escape from capitalist alienation. The point is that the CPC hasn't ceded control of the economy.
socialism does entail an escape from capitalist alienation lol, how can you argue otherwise? You own the fruit of your labor
but yes the cpc can have much stronger workers protections/rights. I mean just look at 996, while yeah it is "illegal" it is not enforced and expected of workers
i think there is a difference between alienation and voluntary contributions for redistribution. Like in a socialist country a factory owned and operated by the workers can decide that they can sell their product at 100% to other companies but offer a reduced rate for redistribution/donate it. The alienation would only occur if the latter was forced because they are having the product of their labor stolen from them in that case. But there is no reason to believe that a collectively owned factory would decide against the voluntary redistribution of a portion of their product to help other people.
996 is just one example, one that has been happening for the better part of a decade.
Yeah those are different things. I think it's unreasonable to consider China in the context of what maybe they could have done that might have worked and been less alienating. We'll never know. But it's clearly hard to compete in terms of existential survival with the capitalist hegemon when you're growing your new socialist economy slowly but in a way that isn't as alienating. It's the story everywhere in AES or former AES countries. The USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, China, they all had the same immediate strategy upon achieving victory. They also immediately had to try and overcome the contradictions that come along with inheriting a deeply unequal society and economy. No one said building socialism would be quick or easy. What I think a lot of us are trying to express is the idea that it's not unreasonable to wait and see what the CPC is going to do to resolve the contradictions that came with Dengism and opening. In another comment, you asked if people were supposed to just wait a while to see a brighter future? They literally are, but they also have seen the brighter future, very many of them. Yes, capitalist mode of production is alienating. It's still better than being a literal peasant in a lot of ways. Marx wrote about how capitalism paved the way for many improvements in European life over the old feudal nobility and serfdom. What's important is the idea that the Chinese economy nor government are controlled by a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. The CPC have social solidarity with the people. It's a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, not the magic contradiction resolution squad. They've taken a poor, vastly populated, relative backwater and developed it into a country that is just now beginning to challenge u.s. imperial hegemony. So yeah, critical support for developing to this point, let's see what they actually do with post-scarcity now that they've gotten close to achieving it. We used ours (imperial west, u.s. in particular) to create a global climate collapse. Hopefully the CPC is able to use theirs to shield their people from it. We'll see.
Because we all know that it's better to get overrun by the capitalists than try something different. The CPC caught up in 60 years and you're what? Mad that it wasn't quick or utopian enough? Dictatorship of the Proletariat, nor socialism, entail a full escape from capitalist alienation. The point is that the CPC hasn't ceded control of the economy.
socialism does entail an escape from capitalist alienation lol, how can you argue otherwise? You own the fruit of your labor
but yes the cpc can have much stronger workers protections/rights. I mean just look at 996, while yeah it is "illegal" it is not enforced and expected of workers
I replied elsewhere and addressed the first part. It's hard to envision the necessary growth without some amount of alienation to reinvest elsewhere.
And yeah, they need to work on that. Let's see if they do it before continuing to shit on them, eh?
i think there is a difference between alienation and voluntary contributions for redistribution. Like in a socialist country a factory owned and operated by the workers can decide that they can sell their product at 100% to other companies but offer a reduced rate for redistribution/donate it. The alienation would only occur if the latter was forced because they are having the product of their labor stolen from them in that case. But there is no reason to believe that a collectively owned factory would decide against the voluntary redistribution of a portion of their product to help other people.
996 is just one example, one that has been happening for the better part of a decade.
Yeah those are different things. I think it's unreasonable to consider China in the context of what maybe they could have done that might have worked and been less alienating. We'll never know. But it's clearly hard to compete in terms of existential survival with the capitalist hegemon when you're growing your new socialist economy slowly but in a way that isn't as alienating. It's the story everywhere in AES or former AES countries. The USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, China, they all had the same immediate strategy upon achieving victory. They also immediately had to try and overcome the contradictions that come along with inheriting a deeply unequal society and economy. No one said building socialism would be quick or easy. What I think a lot of us are trying to express is the idea that it's not unreasonable to wait and see what the CPC is going to do to resolve the contradictions that came with Dengism and opening. In another comment, you asked if people were supposed to just wait a while to see a brighter future? They literally are, but they also have seen the brighter future, very many of them. Yes, capitalist mode of production is alienating. It's still better than being a literal peasant in a lot of ways. Marx wrote about how capitalism paved the way for many improvements in European life over the old feudal nobility and serfdom. What's important is the idea that the Chinese economy nor government are controlled by a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. The CPC have social solidarity with the people. It's a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, not the magic contradiction resolution squad. They've taken a poor, vastly populated, relative backwater and developed it into a country that is just now beginning to challenge u.s. imperial hegemony. So yeah, critical support for developing to this point, let's see what they actually do with post-scarcity now that they've gotten close to achieving it. We used ours (imperial west, u.s. in particular) to create a global climate collapse. Hopefully the CPC is able to use theirs to shield their people from it. We'll see.