485
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
485 points (98.8% liked)
politics
19246 readers
2776 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
China is right there. I have no idea how historians will answer the question "Why did the western empires hand their own means of production to the biggest ML country on the planet?".
Greed. Easy.
Hubris.
Surely they are Marxist-Leninist in name only in 2024? That's how I see it but I'm interested in hearing your points if you disagree.
It's Marxism-leninism adapted to the specific context of China. The scientific part of scientific socialism means you adapt your model based on experience. When they tried to adopt the soviet model as prescribed by the soviets, they suffered significant setbacks multiple times. I wish I could find the transcript of Mao referencing specific failures during and after the revolution to an Albanian (maybe Yugoslavian ambassador) after Stalin's death which illuminated a lot of the sino-soviet split for me, but google fails me.
A lot of westerners consider the overthrow of the gang of 4 after the cultural revolution to be a betrayal of MLism, here's the CPC's evaluation 5 years later. Section 32 is relevant to the course they've been following since, the rest is background and justification.
Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. Yeah saying they had some setbacks is certainly correct. Whether you agree with his outcomes or not, I assume we agree that Mao was a vicious, mass-murdering dictator. I haven't heard such accusations about the gang of four (fantastic band by the way).
They just seem so... Capitalist to me. It's amazing how many Chinese dirt farmers were lifted from poverty for sure. But they have all these seemingly unregulated huge corporations. There are over 400 individual billionaires in China which I think would be appalling to Marx or Lenin. But this is socialism with Chinese characteristics as you said so maybe that's all part of that description?
Anyway, I know I used a lot of weasel words there and that's because I don't know that much about China. I've become good friends with someone who lived in Shanghai for years and traveled through the country in that time. He's been educating me.
I haven't read much on the subject, but from what I understand, similar to the way the landlords were liquidated, during the cultural revolution it wasn't Mao going "kill these people" so much as the party telling villages "Set up courts and try the , we'll support whatever punishments you deem necessary. Here's why this is needed, these are some punishments we've seen effective at achieving the desired result" and they did.
Giving this kind of autonomy to the locals tends to result in people using the system to settle old scores or get promotions, especially when the scope was expanded to potentially target anyone during the cultural revolution. Similar mechanisms resulted in "Stalin's" terror.
As far as I can gather, Mao was a great revolutionary but a garbage administrator who probably would be remembered like Lenin if he died in the late 50s.
I'm glad we're kind of on the same page about Mao. What do you think about the rest of my comment though? Modern China seems like a capitalist country in a communist hat to me. Which comes back to the beginning of the debate about the US giving away all its production to a ML nation.
Don't get me wrong, I very much wish America didn't offshore everything. If they hadn't, it would be good for inequality and better for the climate.
I don't know enough on the subject to make any strong claims, but actions since the Hu Jintao era seem somewhat consistent with the "bird cage economy" idea where capitalism exists within specific bounds as a tool to develop the means of production and the capitalist class is subservient to the state rather than the other way around.
Why would you expect a capitalist country whose ruling class believe they can insulate themselves from the effects of climate change be better on the climate than a socialist country with 5x more people whose breadbasket is in danger?
I'd never heard of the bird cage economy idea, I'll definitely look into it.
Sure, the offshoring was all but inevitable due to capitalism. I'm just wishing pointlessly.
China is doing great on renewables and bringing prices down for the world. At least until the ridiculous tariffs start up.
Would you DM me if your Chinese friend recommends any english-language works?
I would. I'll ask him. But he's not much of a reader. He was there teaching art. What kind of books are you looking for?
Oh and he's American. He just moved to Shanghai for about three years to teach. His Mandarin is decent but not fantastic. But what can I say, I don't speak a word of it myself.
History, politics, anything that would help understand modern China really.