Pathfinder

Americans - even Americans like Bernie - have an incredibly shallow understanding of history. They will recall a few key words and ideas from their history classes, but probably even more just from the environment around us, which is skewed towards reproducing capitalism. So they understand historical subjects only at the most basic level and usually not in a way that is correct.

I don’t think historical ignorance is a huge problem in itself. The bigger problem is, despite their incredible levels of ignorance, Americans will insist their understanding of history is inviolably correct; No American will ever say “well, you sure seem to know a lot about Stalin, I don’t know anything so tell me more”. Suggest anything about Stalin outside of “authoritarian dictator who kiled millions and made everyone clap” and Americans will INSiST you are wrong and they are right, regardless of who has actually put in any work.

If you “leave it to the free market”, you will just get further sprawl of single family homes; Los Angeles-ifying the rest of the country. Maybe at best sprinkle in some paper mache five-over-ones in there. The US does need more, denser housing, but will never be provided by the free market.

The actual “Chinese” solution would be to take genuinely blighted areas of a place like Detroit, build very dense, affordable public housing, provide tons of services and public transportation, and ensure local residents get priority. It would be a solution everyone would love, better than Americans could possibly imagine, but the idea that this could be done by the free market strains credulity.

Edit: kicking myself for missing the bigger point in my original comment. In China housing is largely decommodified, it’s something to ensure everyone has. Meanwhile housing in the US is a speculative asset driven by exchange values first and a use value second. Of course there is a speculative element in Chinese real estate but it is not primary. This is a direct result of socialist vs capitalist relations. Since changing THAT isn’t on the table, the US cannot do what China is doing.

To many of us, socialism is simply the opposite of capitalism rather than its negation, therefore socialism must be the absence of the most hated features of capitalism in our experiences and opinions.

I have been thinking about this since I read it a couple hours ago. Brilliant insight, thank you for sharing.

I really enjoyed reading Socialism Betrayed. But I did take note of the page or two when they talked about contemporary China. They did kinda say “this sure seems like what the USSR did wrong under Khrushchev only on a much larger scale”. But that book was written in 2004, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for western Marxists to come to that conclusion, albeit incorrectly, at that time. Not to mention the authors did approach it with some humility, not outright saying China was doomed but still pointing out it sure seemed the same as revisionism the USSR in 2004.

This is a very reasonable take.

The US government did not remove Nelson Mandela from their terrorist list until 2008.

I dislike the fakenews thing but the reason the actual fakenews comm exists is for containment. I think very few people actually “like” it. But the problem is you have some turbo nerds who will not stop posting it. If you eliminated the comm then these posters would just go and do it in other places. Having a comm allows you to block a comm when you’re logged in at least, as for whatever reason the people who post the fakenews actually do tend to stick the comm when they have it.

Saying this as someone who has read and engaged with XHS’ comments over the years, that is obviously not the “real” XHS. I actually appreciate it because it’s obviously shitposting, I don’t think whoever that is really thinks anyone believes it’s really XHS based on how/what they wrote. It did honestly make me laugh.

Since have some libs who waltzed in here, here’s Qiao Collective’s reading list for the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 in case they want to actually try and learn something.

I actually like how I heard Hasan explain it once: billionaires’ wealth in China is similar to how farmers hold land there. All the land is owned by the government, but you can lease it and make money on it. Billionaires in China are merely holding onto some of the wealth of the nation. It ultimately belongs to the people and if the peoples’ representatives decide you should no longer hold it, you won’t have it anymore.

I hate how everyone buys into the myth of “the government budget should operate how a household budget operates”. It’s not the fact that it’s wrong that bothers me the most, what really bothers me is how it’s nearly impossible to explain why that analogy is bad. I read a whole book about MMT in part so I could explain why that analogy is wrong, and I still basically can’t do it well. When I try people just think I’m full of shit because the analogy is so easy to understand and the real explanation is not intuitive if you don’t have a solid grasp of economics (which is maybe 5% of the population at best, and most of those people, even liberals understand why the government isn’t like a company or a household).

(FWIW I’ve fallen back on the Keynesian “deficit in a recession and surplus in a boom” even though I don’t actually believe it. That seems to be something people can grasp better)

I mean, I would never say never (also wouldn’t bet on it happening).

The real job of the US president and the US government broadly is to manage the different factions of capital into a united front against the working class (both domestic and international). Finance capital, industrial capital, tech billionaires, etc. Get everyone on the same page and make sure every group is getting something out of it. It seems to me that Trump is just completely ignoring this part of the job and is favoring some bourgeois groups over others. Specifically, it seems to me that tech capital is running the show. Of course, there’s plenty of intersection between military contractors and tech billionaires. But the tech billionaires would be perfectly happy with a pared down military budget that still funneled even more money to the high tech sector i.e. Palantir, Boston Dynamics, et al. I also think that tech capital - in contrast to say finance or industrial capital - is perfectly happy to see US hegemony and maybe even the US state nearly evaporate as they believe they will still come out ahead in that scenario. Musk, Thiel, Andresson, and that group I believe want something like an AnCap USA; and in that world they will emerge on top. Those are the people Trump is listening to right now. They are ok gutting everything and funneling it back to billionaires because they think we’re in the “rip the copper wiring out and sell it” phase of capitalism. Entirely possible other members/groups of the bourgeoisie see it that way too - no way imperialist capitalism can be maintained given climate change, the rise of China, etc so just try to cash out now.