askchapo

This is nowhere near close to being proven. The planet has demonstrated enormous capacity for energy cycles. What we cannot handle is abundance built on extractive processes. We must build abundance from regenerative processes. Regenerative processes have produced eons upon eons of trillions upon trillions of organisms, all participating in systems of dynamic equilibrium.

It is deeply saddening to see communist just become Malthusians.

This is a misrepresentation of the world's limits. The world is a system, not a bank. The limits are not on natural resources, which all still exist on the planet. The limits are limits on systemic processes, and capitalism is exploiting those processes for profits in a contradictory way. If you think the world just has reserves that we'll deplete, you're thinking about it in a way that will lead to incorrect conclusions.

I guess misreading me to be an eco fascist is very... cool i guess...

I'm not talking about energy cycles, I'm talking about simple Natural Capital. No matter what system we need to extract natural capital. We are over exploiting for simple profit production with very little recycling. For the past 250 years we have annihilated nature and its processes, our farming has depleted the soil, new mineral deposits slower to find, the earth is very finite. Just saying it'll regenerate some in a few eons does not at all pertain to the conversation when we've long passed the point where we're exploiting faster than nature can regenerate. Multiple times over in fact. Are you defending this just because you want to defend china? You really don't need to, just point out china's investments into green energy.

I agree. But of course, China remaining completely underdeveloped does absolutely nothing to address this. Had China not "reformed and opened up" all of that production would be happening in the imperial core or in some other part of the empire's colonial holdings. Don't imagine that individual nations have any direct control over production volume. Production is a historical process that follows its own logic. China can no more stop it than the USA can.

Have I refuted that? like... ever? I'm simply saying that China's economy is State Capitalist, and that China restored Capitalism. These are true to theory and true to the considerations of what socialism is or isn't even for deng himself.

We have already ended scarcity of the most important things. We ended scarcity of many of the most important things easily 80 years ago.

through overproduction we have ended scarcity of goods, but increasing resource depletion. Of course a simple redistribution of many things would end scarcity, but again our current production is driving the earth towards extinction. Although I would say food, housing, and basic needs we can agree on for this. Although destruction of the meat industry would be required.

I don't think more growth will solve scarcity. I think more growth is going to happen regardless and I would rather have that growth under the control of a communist party that is populated with people who have been studying Marx for 6 generations than have that growth under the control of the empire. We don't live in a world of finite growth. That's ridiculous. Growth has never stopped on this planet. The problem with humanity is that it stopped operating within the boundaries of regenerative system flows and instead chose to pursue contradictory growth. These contradictions will cause their system (society) to collapse in various way at various times with various consequences. The solution for human society is to bring it back within boundary conditions of its host ecosystem and resolve the contradictions. Resolving those contradictions takes social development - literally the evolution of human society. We are currently deeply enmeshed in a historical process of extractive growth and it cannot be stopped just because you say so. We will either find a way to stop it by evolving our society or our ecosystem will force us to stop on terms we do not choose.

I'm glad we agree. When have I said that the CPC is the same as the USA?

You say that i'm wrong about finite growth and restate my point the next sentence. But that last system really makes me question why you think an evolution of capitalism is the next phase, although a workers dictatorship controlling production would be overthrowing it, not evolving it. I'm not saying to stop it because I say so, criticism from a Marxist Leninist perspective being demeaned as such is highly reductive to any conversation. I don't think people here know what critical support actually means anymore.

No, you have completely misread the situation. The USSR was the very first experiment and it had the seeds of its failure right from the beginning. By the time Mao started his project, he had the benefit of decades of analysis of how the USSR failed. China understood the USSR was a failure by the time Kruschev took office.

ah yes Mao's very serious deduction of "the USSR under Khruschev is the same as Hitler's Germany". Mao then proceeds to cope by integrating with global capitalism and splitting world socialism. Mao then proceeded to throw the country into chaos multiple times while deng cleaned up all his messes. Although that's too dismissive. The Great Leap Forward was necessary due to Kruschev cutting off economic aid to the PRC, and the cultural revolution was a decent effort to get rid of revisionists before it became ultra-left. After both Deng had to fix up China so that the economy didn't collapse. Khruschev definitely had his hand in splitting the communist movement, but Mao was just as opportunist. Kim Il Sung had the best perspective on this...

And although the USSR under khruschev sowed the seeds of its defeat, it still had a socialist economy until the mid 80s. You aren't judging the USSR but spitting on it.

Argument here. Profits should be abolished. Workers shouldn't own them because they shouldn't exist, nor should the concept of ownership over such things. Workers should contribute to social surplus and social surplus should be distributed by universal consent.

I agree.

You're arguing against a ghost. No one said socialist is solely about economic growth. But arguing that socialist projects must abandon economic development if it requires participation in the world historical processes of capitalism is a purity test that can never be satisfied. There is not a single serious Marxist that has ever refuted the position that the new society must necessarily be built from the old one and therefore will retain much of the old society's trappings until it can develop past them.

Building prosperity, redefining socialism as the building of wealth, is literally changing the focus to economic growth. Again, I have stated multiple times that socialism should build productive forces, but that doesn't necessitate building capitalism???? Capitalism is quite new, and productive forces can be built without it. There is a period of transition of course, we've seen it in every socialist society, but just continuing capitalism is not transitioning, its just continuing capitalism. China even admits toward preserving capitalism even when they reach 2050, and beyond it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be pleasantly surprised if I'm proved wrong, but that would require the CPC to take a different route than the one they're on.

Only purists, originally white Western purists, but now purists who have been poisoned by these idealist positions, hold these positions.

Lenin, Stalin, and Deng... famous crackers. I am just suggesting that we should fight for more than just capitalism with some red guard rails.

You are misrepresenting me totally so you can dismiss me, I question if you're really a Marxist in your mind. I merely have criticisms, and am fully willing to rescind them if I am proved wrong. You have made me rethink some of my positions and make different ways to express them... but you seem to just be throwing labels on me and then attacking those labels instead. Stop twisting my words.

That is EXACTLY what we see in China.

Again, capitalist in nature, but with the socialist government for now being able to direct it. The economy is the base of all analysis, and that base is capitalist in the PRC.

You do realize that communists are by far the most knowledgeable capitalist economists in the world, right? Marx knew more about capitalism than probably anyone of his period. Studying and understanding capitalism is literally the requirement for being able to understand world historical processes that make communism possible.

I... do? But theres a difference from analyzing capitalism to build socialism, than to analyze capitalism to... do capitalism better. Of course we must understand capitalism, and us marxists are the best at that. I never... said otherwise? Again you're treating me like a liberal for having criticisms of maintaining a state capitalist system.

Who, exactly, is arguing this (except Titoists)? Certainly I am not. You are arguing against ghosts.

The CPC definitely has quite a large faction that supports this way of thinking, and actively forces concessions for more liberal reforms. "Follow the party, start a business!". Also there is a large encouragement of petite bourgeoisie and national capitalist forces as it is seen, as through a state capitalist model, as duty. Arguing this doesn't exist is arguing against reality.

Part 1, reply continued in next comment.