Comment by vccx [they/them]@hexbear.net on Less China stuff please. Everyone knows you're not affecting anything

China’s success is single handedly one of the biggest propaganda tools you can use as a Communist. It makes a very strong case to those that are at least neutral toward China.

China is seen as a miracle of capitalism, in how after liberalization it grew rapidly and brought many people out of poverty. Most people would laugh at you if claim China’s economy is communist. Like try talking to people outside the leftist bubble. Try telling chuds, liberals, or even market socialists that China is proof that communism as in planned economies work.

China is seen as a miracle of capitalism,

The narrative you just proposed is real: “China is a miracle of capitalism, obviously then we should emultate them because Capitalism FTW baby yeah.”

The actual narrative: “Evil Communist authoritarian CCCCCCCCPPPPPP genociding muslims we must do something to stop communism from ruling the world.”

This narrative that most people see China as a “miracle of Capitalism” certainly does not align to anything you can find online. Maybe in real life you can find some neckbeard on the back of a trailer that believes China is great because of Capitalist but that is certainly not the narrative being pushed by the western media.

At the very least, if people thought China was the shining beacon of capitalism they wouldn’t be so hell bent on hating it and I can’t imagine the double think required to be a neoliberal zealot while simultaniously believing that China is the capitalist dream, sorry miracle on earth.

If you want to claim that most westerns have zero clue how the Chinese economy works and couldn’t explain the difference between China and the west, then sure that is fair.

But I am reasonably sure most people believe the Chinese government controls everything including the economy(that is their definition of authoritarian) and that most corporations are corrupt. If they accept that China is capitalist at most they’ll also point out it isn’t true capitalism because something something evil authoritarian CCP.

No seriously, talk to people irl. Try telling them, “I support planned economies because it works in China”. And see for yourself how people react.

ok show you a five year plan?? like give them the evidence??? heloo???

Evidence of what? That state involvement is good? How is that supposed to help the communist argument, unless you think that communism is when the govt does everything.

HAHAHAHAHAAHAH yeah good luck with that.

Lol yeah go ahead and try when the vast majority of people just hate China and the other ones don’t know shit about it and they’re gonna start hating too if they Google about it. Even if they were mostly neutral they just wouldn’t give a shit. Like, what part of China’s program would you even be willing to implement? Trains? Wait until they hit you with any more specific questions. Most people don’t even want to implement anything resembling China’s program, so what is the point? A huge point of contention in the US was universal healthcare, except China doesn’t have that. Strong labour unions? Nope, they don’t have that either, they have a single massive labour union which is largely controlled by the state and collaborates with employers. There is absolutely no good propaganda except maybe idk, urban planning or something? Unless you think having to argue with everyone about whether or not the Uighurs are being genocided is good propaganda (it isn’t).

Dissociating communism from poverty, rebuking the primacy of free markets, openly using the state as a tool of class warfare, Huawei as an example of a worker co-op surpassing private enterprises like Apple, pointing to the successes of both their nationalized heavy industry, state champions and SOEs to disprove the idea that the private sector is more efficient (or the only efficient form of organization) and pointing to China’s massive economic growth as an example of what the Soviet Union could have replicated if it wasn’t isolated from world markets.

People are tired of stagnant wages, even just pointing out how much wages in China have grown builds resentment toward Capitalism.

I am not American, I focus on radicalizing disillusioned young people and people of color. Capitalism is going to kill us all -> Planned economies are the only alternative -> China is a surviving example of a planned economy and transitionary state with heavy state intervention in the economy.

It doesn’t matter so much what you think China is but rather what they want China to be and therefore what the Soviet Union could have been. That is the strategy I use to radicalize young people concerned about the climate and disillusioned with capitalism. It doesn’t have to be 100% coherent as in a debate club or research paper, people are emotional, the point is to wear down faith in capitalism and getting them to come around to the viability of socialism as an alternative.

The Uyghur conversation doesn’t have to be bad either if you have the credibility can turn it into a discussion about imperialism and the false pretenses of American interventionism.

What do you use to win people over? I don’t think there’s any better tools that the successes and victories of existing or formerly existing socialist projects.

People are tired of stagnant wages, even just pointing out how much wages in China have grown builds resentment toward Capitalism.

China literally did capitalism to achieve that growth. Not exactly the neoliberal conception of capitalism but capitalism nevertheless. If that’s what you want to advocate for, there is plenty more examples to pick from than just China.

China is a surviving example of a planned economy

China is not a planned economy and hasn’t been for a long time. China is just more interventionist than most western countries.

I have no idea why someone would chose the most controversial country possible that isn’t even doing what you are advocating for for your propaganda.

The Uyghur conversation doesn’t have to be bad either if you have the credibility can turn it into a discussion about imperialism and the false pretenses of American interventionism.

Yeah totally, it’s definitely not like it’s gonna end up with you looking like a creepy genocide denier or whatever. Look, I’ve seen people try that stuff. I’ve seen the kinds of people who go around campus telling people how cool and misunderstood Stalin was and I’ve seen how badly it goes. If you wanna talk about some of the good aspects of China specifically, go ahead but if your propaganda is “haha hey I’m a socialist and China is also cool socialists, look how cool they are”, it’s gonna maybe work on 5 people and the rest are just gonna think you’re a bunch of creeps.

The growth is occurring under a dictatorship of the proletariat, wherein 70% of all heavy industry was nationalized and the state exerts a level of control, intervention and open class warfare far beyond Keynesian capitalist states.

Sure they have that large state union but laborers are still conducting strikes and wildcat strikes at a significantly higher rate than in union strongholds, and those radicals are much more likely to be literal Maoists than limp social democrats.

They are explicitly attempting to correct for the pitfalls of the Soviet Union, namely capitalist encirclement, autarky, and the overwhelming of the planning apparatus for as long as possible. They are also adapting to the reality of the world without the Soviet Union, wherein socialism is no longer a world power and concessions must be made to avoid being destroyed in the same manner.

On your last point that isn’t what I do. At least 40% of young people identify as socialists and I go based on their concerns. China is one of the best propaganda tools if you know how and when to use it. It’s an existing socialist project that is wildly successful. It’s not in second place like the Soviet Union was.

If you want to see what a state capitalist nation looks like when the Bourgeoise are in control, you can look at Russia.

you could make an eco-accelerationist argument that the maturation of capitalism in densely populated developing nations on a resource limited planet will much more quickly expose its inherent contradictions and is going to get us all killed decades ahead of schedule. but i’d imagine the easiest answer from most people would be to just kill all the poors, capitalism in one country, etc.

Kind of? Apparently only employees of the company can own stock in it though there still remains the question of how equitably these stocks are distributed

70% of the population working outside of the conditions of wage labor.

That… That’s not happening in China.

They are confusing that stat with the percentage of heavy industry currently nationalized in China.

They don’t even have universal healthcare? Can somebody remind me why we like them so much?

Well yeah although the counterpoint is 1) Cuba and 2) they used to have more or less universal healthcare before the market reforms.

Wages rising 12% every year from the CPC throwing their weight around in the economy, income tripling or more in the poorer regions across the board, a highly effective dictatorship of the proletariat, massive infrastructure projects designed to uplift the poorest regions of China and poorest nations in the world, and being overtaking the USA as the most successful and prosperous nation while broadcasting communist ideology and disassociating communism from poverty and stagnation.

They’re also the primary trading partner for both the remaining orthodox socialist nations and those under siege by American imperialism.

Economic development is not evidence of socialism. Countries like Japan or SK industrialized even faster than China.

Because anti imperialism/antiamericanism, greater degree of interventionism in the economy and the possibility of them supporting leftists in other countries. I kinda understand it, these are legitimate in general. But I don’t understand why someone would use them for propaganda.

Also some people hold the hope that since nothing else works China will come in and press the socialism button one day for everyone.

Also it’s not just that they don’t have universal healthcare, their healthcare is actually significantly worse than the US. Which is somewhat understandable since they are very poor comparatively, however even poorer countries do better a lot of the time.

in china, patients murder doctors instead of the other way around

generally, issues that can be solved by going to the ER in the US are much cheaper in china. it’s when you get into more capital intensive illnesses that you become just as fucked as an american (if not more so). the systemic problem is that doctors are generally less motivated to provide quality service since their salaries are so incredibly low that they get more returns on being good paper pushers and taking bribes than being good doctors. increased rule of law (read: actual consequences) has the bribery on a steady downward trend.

the government has been unwilling to further subsidize doctor salaries (they’ve actually been on a downward trend for a while now), and the ‘solution’ in recent years has been to promote public/private partnerships in the various departments in order to indirectly offload the cost on to the consumer in the form of diagnostics and other consumable tech, of which the doctors can get a cut. this has created a situation in which quality coverage has become more concentrated in capital-dense areas and people only ever go to the big name hospitals for anything. the government’s response to this has been to throw money at the smaller public clinics to entice people coming in with easy fixes away from the bigger hospitals so that the specialists there can do specialist things instead of spending 90% of their time treating stubbed toes.

tldr; complicated

success

If success requires that much carbon emissions just launch the nukes right now

China shouldnt have developed from third world levels in order to be able to not get fucked by the west and make its own path and better the lives of billion(s) cause carbon emissions. Go tell the African nations and proletariat next next, they better not develop to western levels materialy or be successfull ,. Sorry only the west is allowed to do so cause it did it before climate change was understood or analysed academicaly

Also the world has much better chances of fighting climate change with China as the dominant world power than with america so China developing is indeed worth ot even for climate prospects. I guess they should have done it with solar power or something

to reiterate: If development can only come at the cost of destroying the environment we should just end it now.

Kerala, Cuba, and even maoist China succeeded in raising standards of living without the ridiculous carbon emissions that took place over the past thirty years.

dank memes

Rules:

All posts must be memes and follow a general meme setup.
No unedited webcomics.
Someone saying something funny or cringe on twitter/tumblr/reddit/etc. is not a meme. Post that stuff in !the_dunk_tank@www.hexbear.net, it’s a great comm.
Va*sh posting is haram and will be removed.
Follow the code of conduct.
Tag OC at the end of your title and we’ll probably pin it for a while if we see it.
Recent reposts might be removed.
Tagging OC with the hexbear watermark is praxis.
No anti-natalism memes. See: Eco-fascism Primer

Less China stuff please. Everyone knows you're not affecting anything

memes

!memes@hexbear.net

Community stats

Community moderators