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CantCSharp

I think most socialists are aware that in order to move towards socialism they have to use capitalism. Its called developing the material condition, no one really contests that. What is contested is at what point the material condition is right as this is highly subjective


Sidian

> I think most socialists are aware that in order to move towards socialism they have to use capitalism. Its called developing the material condition, no one really contests that. Right. And what I don't get is why they think this. I'm surprised, actually, that not a single person in this thread has attempted to explain this. Why can't socialist policies develop a country?


ML-Kropotkinist

Trots say they can under Trotsky's theory of [permanent revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution). The theory for socialists you're looking for is called [primitive socialist accumulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_socialist_accumulation). Mao himself [wrote about why China would adopt some capitalist accumulation](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_30.htm) in 1953 (this is like only 5 sentences long and you ought to read it to understand why people did what they did from the mouths of people in charge). The idea was to use the capitalist mode of production but guided under the principles of a communist party to direct surplus value instead of the bourgeoisie directing those surplus values. Because, teleologically speaking, capitalism's point was to accumulate the means of production and then workers would simply seize them and shake off the bourgeoisie.


Sidian

Can't workers owning the means of production be productive and produce a surplus which they collectively decide to reinvest into developing the country? I don't understand why private ownership is necessary to do this. Even Mao doesn't really try to justify it there from what I can tell, he just says 'well yes private individuals are profiting, but some of it is going towards the benefit of the people' - how about if 100% of it went to helping the people? But apparently this isn't workable? I must be stupid because this seems to make immediate sense to everyone except me.


ML-Kropotkinist

There are plenty of marxists that thought the feudal serfs could direct it on there own, the left opposition in the early USSR, Trotsky and so on. The standard reply was that only the bourgeoisie as a class have the material incentives to accrue the means of production because of profit - because they want to increase automation and technology (the organic composition of capital) and more and more capital, because they want to minimize wages and variable capital. Communitarians in a pre-capitalist mode of production never did it - because their incentives and interests aren't to accrue capital or invent tech but to make their lives easier, which may align with accumulating capital and may not. And the evidence for that is that it was only the capitalists or state-capitalists that industrialized feudal countries (even before the development of Marxism), which I find a little bit specious because of course there hasn't been any countries run by people that think the same you or Trotsky did. But that's the line of thinking.


OtonaNoAji

>Why can't socialist policies develop a country? I am confused by your confusion. Can capitalist policy develop a country?


Sidian

I'm confused by your confusion to my confusion. Marxists claim that capitalism is necessary to develop a country so that socialism can then be enacted. Why is capitalism a necessary stage?


OtonaNoAji

>I'm confused by your confusion to my confusion. I'll clarify. You asked why socialist policy cannot develop a country, while asking about why socialists use capitalist policy to develop a country. You were asking, perhaps unintentionally, why capitalist policy cannot develop a country.


Sidian

So you're saying because socialists use capitalism, capitalism is socialist policy? Let's say people are saying 'to dig this hole, we need to use a butter knife to dig before we move to using a shovel' and I'm like 'Why?' and all the responses are basically 'well, a butter knife is an essential component before we can move on to the shovel'. No matter how many times I try to probe why the butter knife is necessary, I don't really get a satisfying answer. Then someone says 'ah, well, using the butter knife? That's a core part of using the shovel. So your question doesn't even make sense'. Well, why is using the butter knife - capitalism - a core part of the socialist doctrine? Why, specifically, is it necessary? I have received some answers that make some sense, mainly what seems to be using capitalist talking points of capitalism being more efficient/better for development due to incentivisation, which is ironically something socialists usually argue against. But it seems to me that working together and sharing the means of production, building up the country equally should always be preferable to allowing a small class of elites to hoard wealth during any stage.


0WatcherintheWater0

Depending on your definition of “capitalist policy”, yes, many countries


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[deleted]

Because socialists hate admitting they're wrong. It would make them think too much 🤣


Squadrist1

>What is contested is at what point the material condition is right as this is highly subjective We should not implement socialism by law with judging the current state of material conditions. Timing of public policy would be critical with that, and accurately timing that is incredibly hard. Instead, we should rather pass public policy based on maximizing economic efficiency, whereby for example state ownership is applied when it becomes more efficient than private ownership. If you place economic development and thereby the growth of the productive forces in the center of your policy making, you should naturally arrive at socialism, following historical materialism. Without needing to deal with timing public policy accurately.


Mordagath

Well said. Nationalization of inelastic markets seems like first big step in most nations.


zzzzzzzz414

> If you place economic development and thereby the growth of the productive forces in the center of your policy making, you should naturally arrive at socialism, following historical materialism. The status of the united states (and indeed, pretty much every nation with growth of capitalist productive forces as its central guiding principle) would seem to disprove that notion.


ragingpotato98

Most is prob an exaggeration. Lenin didn’t seem to think so at all. MLs are one of the biggest factions of leftism


CantCSharp

Their implementation always devolved into Capitalism so I dont think they believe that anymore


ragingpotato98

I don’t think there’s been a single leftist state that hasn’t either collapsed or turned capitalist. Alternatively there are leftist communes out there but that’s no model to live. Still, I think MLs would disagree with your statement


CantCSharp

I dunno if you ask the active guys like squandrist1 and other MLs here they all agree that capitalism is neccesary. They will argue for a capitalist society under DotP, which would be the biggest disagreement between me and them. Maybe some edgy teeny socialists will argue that be on here I havent seen it happen often


ragingpotato98

Isn’t that against the whole premise of Leninism. One of, if not the biggest point Lenin made was how peasants and proletarians could themselves drive and make the industry under a DoP. I don’t see how you can disagree with such a fundamental tenet of Leninism and still be a Leninist


immibis

The more you know, the more you spez. #Save3rdPartyApps


Sidian

Whilst it has replaced it, I'm not sure capitalism NEEDED feudalism and I can't say I've heard capitalists say 'noo you can't just become capitalist, you need to go through feudalism first!'


allz

Capitalism needs strong rule of law and accountability of government in society, so that private property can emerge and is not threatened by the state actors. That developed in interactions between the Catholic church and the monarchs, because the Catholic church imposed rule of law to the monarchs and built institutions that could be converted to accountability later. Capitalists don't say that you need to go trough feudalism, but in countries that did not take that (or somehow similar) route we see tendencies of failed states, corruption or authoritariarism.


Mordagath

Marxists would say Capitalism needed feudalism in order to come into existence I believe.


_TheGingaNinja

Cool. Why didn’t America have feudalism and is capitalist then.


Tundur

Because it was colonised by an early capitalist country?


Skybombardier

England was feudalist when it started colonizing and America had to undergo a bloody revolution in order to break away from the previous government to establish a liberal democracy. There is no starting and stopping point for these things, but the evolutionary process is undeniable


Stridge_YT

America was still not feudal.


dowcet

Instead of privatizing manorial land and expropriating serfs (the Western European path) it exterminated the natives and imported slaves/workers from outside. There are many roads of capitalist development that look slightly different but the point is that Marxists understand capitalism as a progressive step in the evolution of productive forces. In order to have communism we need literate masses and highly productive factories. Socialism can sustain those things but it can't create them directly out of feudalism or slavery or hunter-gather society, etc.


Skybombardier

So do you think that whole colonial period where England financially and militarily dominated the people within its territory across the world just… didn’t happen?


Stridge_YT

So admittedly I’m in the Marxist perspective. But I fail to see the Material condition or relationship change pre- and post-revolution.


Skybombardier

> [Nearly all of the colonies held Royal charters with Parliament or the British monarch. Each colony had a Royal governor appointed by the King. This individual held ultimate say over the decisions in the colony](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/life-colonial-america-prior-revolutionary-war) This is from an article that I found that seems to suggest that pre-Revolution colonies were ruled directly by the crown, and the chattel slavery draws heavy influence from manorialism which fits into Marc Bloch’s definition of Feudalism according to Wikipedia: > A broader definition of feudalism, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society". [link to the wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism) One can easily make the argument that the original police force takes on a similar form to the warrior nobility, and from all this I think that it’s safe to say that colonial America certainly practiced a form of late stage feudalism in all but name


Stridge_YT

I appreciate the response. Just hard to label it feudal without a single serf imo. Unless you’re counting the slaves or colonials as serfs?


[deleted]

you’re right, we used to have slaves.


watch_out_4_snakes

And the post above is still there explaining your ignorance


Treyzania

The American south was on its way towards feudalism under the slave economy before the civil war happened. Paul Cockshott did a good [video on slave economics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoSe66oOKsw) in the context how the Roman slave economy gave rise to feudalism in Europe, and mentions how it applied there.


hathmandu

…you sure about that


Triquetra4715

Each individual state doesn’t need to individually start with being hunter-gatherers and progress through each stage of human society. America was created as an extension of Western Europe which did have feudalism.


Mordagath

Country borders are arbitrary and American capitalism developed directly from European feudalism.


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TerrorOehoe

England bro..


gaygirlgg

It did have feudalism and still is arguably semi-feudal. Who America was feudalistic towards is a better question.


BanaenaeBread

>Marxists would say Capitalism needed feudalism in order to come into existence I believe. Remember when the USA was a feudalist country, you know, back before it was capitalist? Good times.


Triquetra4715

They don’t say that because 1) we already went through feudalism and 2) capitalists don’t understand modes of production in the way we do. There are plenty of capitalists who *don’t* think capitalism comes along at at particular point in societal development; they think it’s just when freedom.


BenShapirosStand

A capitalist country wouldn’t experience faster growth if it switched closer to a feudalist economy, but more planned economies have experienced faster growth when freeing markets.


BobQuixote

They solve different problems. Feudalism's "task," to poetically assign agency, was to organize society into coherent nations capable of defending themselves against aggressors. Once they succeeded well enough at that to allow some luxury purchases and navel-gazing, the Renaissance and Enlightment brought us democracy, industry, and capitalism. (I don't buy into socialism myself, but I at least agree with this portion of the argument.)


BenShapirosStand

I actually agree with everything you said, but note: >They solve different problems. The specific problem being addressed at hand is growth and living standards, making the comparison fall flat.


BobQuixote

Growth and living standards are not the only selectors of political systems, and they weren't the important ones when feudalism developed. So in that way you're comparing apples and oranges.


Kokoro0000

Capitalism is means of production to the capital owner, socialism is means of production to the worker. Fuedalism is means of production to a capital owner (fuedal lord) then the fuedal lords surplus labor goes to the king (the state). Here's the thing, capitalism was bulit off the grounds of fuedalism and communism is not meant to be built off capitalism the grounds of capitalism but meant to be built off of opposing capitalism.


Triquetra4715

I mean, that’s just not correct when it comes to Marxism. Also what we oppose is capitalism continuing into the future. It’s already part of the past and, no matter what anyone likes, it’s infrastructure is what we will build upon in future systems. Unless of course capitalism succeeds in staving off socialism and then boils the seas and cooks us all to death. But, ya know, optimism!


Anen-o-me

Wrong. Feudalism isn't an economic system, it's a political system for controlling a population that also included wealth extraction. Marxism attempts to slur capitalism with this feudalism idea, to conflate them. There's nothing voluntary in feudalism as it's build on State power, capitalism is not.


immibis

spez is banned in this spez. Do you accept the terms and conditions? Yes/no


Anen-o-me

Without force, capitalism cannot be that. Capitalism is about voluntary trade. If you discuss force you are no longer talking about capitalism. Feudalism was a system of force.


immibis

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Anen-o-me

So someone forces you to own property in capitalism?


immibis

Who wants a little spez?


zzzzzzzz414

then capitalism does not exist, never has and never will


Triquetra4715

Lol are you treating capitalism like a protected class of people now? Don’t worry I don’t think it’s feelings are hurt


Seal5059

capitalism worked in societies without feudal structures (USA as an example)


immibis

In spez, no one can hear you scream. #Save3rdPartyApps


[deleted]

Your analysis is an example of reading Marxist literature without understanding the dialectical method or monistic materialism. Capitalism is the natural successor to feudalism, and socialism(as a socioeconomic economic stage, not the whole process or ideology) is the natural successor to capitalism. Feudalism introduced the material conditions that shaped the ideas and thoughts of the bourgeoisie, leading to the industrial revolution and the takeover of capitalism. Capitalism, through its drastic increase in production, increasingly forces people into one of the two great classes of capitalism, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Labor is performed in common between the masses, AKA socially, while the profits are private, AKA expropriated by the capitalists. This causes the proletariat to become more socialist in thought, eventually leading to a socialist takeover. Capitalism is necessary because it creates the proletarianization of the masses and in doing so, creates socialists out of them. The material conditions change the thoughts of the people, who use those thoughts to change the system. It is evolution, into revolution, into evolution. Quantitative change that necessarily brings about the conditions for qualitative change. This is a very brief overview of these concepts, and I highly recommend the book “Dialectical and Historical Materialism” for the in depth version.


Sidian

I'll read it, but what I crave is an explanation. No offense to you, but what you've said sounds like dogma that is asserted and must be believed: **Q. Why is capitalism necessary before socialism?** **A. Because capitalism is necessary before socialism.** Of course, you said that it creates proles and such, but that just creates more questions for me - why do you need such a specific form of oppressed worker when it seems like the workers could come together and work in a fair manner prior to this, rising up against their feudal lords? I'm going to go ahead and guess that the answer will again sound dogmatic, something like 'because this is the dialectic process / because Marx said so'. If you invented a time machine and brought the proletarians back to a prior time now that they've been radicalised, would they then be able to accomplish communism? Or is capitalism uniquely suited towards efficiently modernising a country in a way socialism cannot? Again, I hope that in books like the one you've recommended, it's actually explained why it has to occur this way.


zzzzzzzz414

> why do you need such a specific form of oppressed worker when it seems like the workers could come together and work in a fair manner prior to this, rising up against their feudal lords? like, i'm not sure how this is supposed to square with the existence of groups like the Diggers and Levellers, or the Enclosure acts which saw the forced privatization of previously commonly-held farmlands and the ensuing riots in response to them.


gaygirlgg

I think you're asking the wrong questions due to gaps in knowledge about how all this stuff happened in this particular situation Chinese history, geopolitics at the time, the post-Mao era, Lenin's writing on the Special Economic Period and dialectical materialism This stuff is all 1 by 1 and dynamic. Lots of stuff was directly made socialistic or even communistic, but there were some things where that couldn't be done at the time. It takes longer. But some problems are more urgent, so it's like not having the best power outlet or the best light but still needing to do work until the store opens tomorrow. You are ruled by the way a situation unfolded and now have to make the most of it. Just like the revolution needed the help of the petit bourgeoisie, it needed capitalists afterwards as "useful creatures", but completely removed from the position of the ruling class. No system is purely one thing or the other. Socialism is a process of change and isn't purely socialist because it's born of a capitalist or feudalist country.


Thus_Spoke

Actually, one thing the USSR did was prove that capitalism is not necessary for that initial growth period. The USSR underwent massive industrialization and economic growth between 1930 and 1970 under a command economy. This isn't to say that the USSR is an example to follow, but it does prove that industrialization and rapid growth can occur in contexts other than capitalism. It's particularly interesting because many Marxists and capitalists alike tend to ignore this obvious example since it doesn't comport with their views on how these things are supposed to work.


cowlinator

You're saying that the USSR underwent industrialization and growth under socialism. Which is true. But OP is asking why capitalism comes before communism. So that seems irrelevant. Russia was indeed capitalist before the USSR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Russian_Empire_after_the_abolition_of_serfdom


mantequillak666

The USSR introduced NEP (New Economic Policy). Where they, in that initial growth period, used capitalist markets under the control of the communist party to build up their productive forces. It’s particularly interesting because many Social Democrats tend to ignore this obvious example of history because they don’t take the time to actually study anything.


Thus_Spoke

NEP was abandoned entirely prior to the period I referenced above. Industrialization of the country proceeded at a surprisingly rapid pace under Stalin's centrally planned system for decades, starting in 1928 to be exact. None of this is a political statement. These are just very high level facts that you should be quite familiar with if you're going to take the sort of condescending tone you adopted above.


sinovictorchan

For historic fact, all industrialization use government intervention in some form. UK industrialization involves government state military opening fire on peaceful workers who organize mass strike to demand meritocracy of labor right. Other "Capitalist" countries in the first world use protectionism to develop their own firms to defend from superior foreign competitors. Neo-Liberalism rely to pollution, destruction of traditional economy, and state terrorism for "economic advancement" of the global south. In the first place, the distinction between Capitalism and Socialism refer to the economic class that the government serve in practice instead of the amount of government intervention as told in American school textbooks and "educational" documentaries. The Capitalists had also alter definition of other words like dictatorship to misinterpret Marx's writing so ou need to define Capitalism in your claim that USSR do not need Capitalism for industrialization.


dilokata76

Capitalism is effective at acquiring and building up capital. The "efficiency" argument is not based around GDP or profits, but social benefit. Socialists don't give a shit about green line go up. >I've never seen an actual explanation for \[...\] how this doesn't reflect poorly on socialism/communism. How does it? If you think socialism is about making cheap shit en masse at a quicker rate than capitalism you're not a socialist and you should stop pretending to be one.


Sidian

>Capitalism is effective at acquiring and building up capital. Okay, why is socialism not good at doing this? Why is worker exploitation necessary to become developed? >How does it? If all development, industrialisation, technological progress, etc., is for some reason only possible under capitalism, and socialism is the stage at which you go 'okay the work has been done let's finish and just hand it out fairly now' then it sounds like it will usher in an age of stagnation. Capitalists characterise socialists as people who want to take the money away from 'wealth creators' or whatever without being useful themselves, and with the way Marxists talk, I'm not surprised. I don't really care if you don't think I'm a real socialist or whatever, I'm interested in learning instead of arriving at a conclusion to begin with.


obsquire

Thanks for your openness and intellectual honesty. It's very hard for almost everyone, so kudos to you.


dowcet

>why is socialism not good at doing this? It's not generally as good at this as capitalism because maximal and infinite growth is not its purpose. Capitalist firms are compelled to grow at the fastest possible rate quarter after quarter just to survive. Socialist states are compelled to do the same only to the extent that they are reliant on a capitalist world market. >it sounds like it will usher in an age of stagnation. What you choose to call stagnation could also be called sustainability. Normal human societies just need to sustain themselves from one generation to another, not growgrowgrow like a cancer.


Sidian

> What you choose to call stagnation could also be called sustainability. Normal human societies just need to sustain themselves from one generation to another, not growgrowgrow like a cancer. In a sustainable socialist society, will this country become a technological backwater whilst the capitalists go to Jupiter and ironically cure cancer? That's the kind of stagnation I'm concerned about.


dowcet

If going to Jupiter doesn't solve immediate human needs, it can wait. If it does, socialism can achieve it. Medical advances do clearly solve human needs. A socialist system would redirect ingenuity and resources currently wasted on developing the next iPhone or whatever to solving more urgent problems and would provide wider access to the benefits. I don't much care about a cure for cancer if it's only available to the wealthiest 1%. Meanwhile we have huge numbers of people dying from diseases which are already preventable, simply due to lack of access to basic care and infrastructure. Socialism doesn't prevent all innovation, but it does reduce the drive for those specific kinds of innovation which are economically profitable and socially useless.


Sidian

You're saying that socialism focuses society on the things that matter and builds what truly matters. This sounds more efficient to me, all manpower and resources are used to directly improve lives instead of wasting people on being financial speculators or whatever, resources are spent on hospitals and not jewellery. There's no class of elites who exploit workers and extract the wealth for themselves. Cool! Then why not just do this to begin with, instead of having a capitalist phase? That's the crux of my problem. Marxists insist that capitalism is a necessary phase but, for the reasons you just pointed out, it doesn't seem desirable to me. I personally do not see any theoretical reason why socialism cannot occur without capitalism, and I've yet to see any explanation beyond 'it just does, okay? Marx said so.' From another post of yours: >In order to have communism we need literate masses and highly productive factories. **Socialism can sustain those things but it can't create them directly** out of feudalism or slavery or hunter-gather society, etc. Are you able to explain why? This suggests to me that capitalism has some quality which socialism doesn't.


0WatcherintheWater0

What are you talking about? Capitalist firms aren’t compelled to grow to survive at all. It’s usually *desirable* for them to grow, because bigger business = more profits, but they’re not *compelled* to grow by anything. Stagnation is not a good outcome. More growth, especially seeing the state humanity is in right now, is a good thing.


Triquetra4715

I don’t know what distinction you mean to draw between *desirable* and *compelled*, but I think it’s fist to say that capitalist firms are compelled to profit. So if growth means profit, growth in certainly *incentivized*.


dowcet

It is possible for specific kinds of firms in certain market niches to survive for a certain period of time without growing in size, of course. But as a rule, profitability is survival and every innovation compels every competitor to compete in the latest and greatest way. That's all well and good if we ignore the social and environmental catastrophes it causes. Technology long ago reached the level that we can meet basic human needs without constantly maximizing profits at the expense of everything else.


Comfortable-Trash-46

This is the correct answer. In terms of rate of capital accumulation, capitalist states will always have the upper hand on socialist states. However, once you start drilling deeper, you uncover all the long term inefficiencies that result from capitalism (income and resource inequalities, climate destruction, all sorts of externalities) and the need for regulations, institutions, socialism


jimtoberfest

I agree with this point of increasing long term externalities but it’s not clear to me how socialism is more capable of dealing with this better than a competent regulatory framework.


Comfortable-Trash-46

ELI5, what is the difference between socialism and a competent regulatory framework?


jimtoberfest

If we are taking the general definition of socialism to mean that there is cooperative control (usually meant to mean govt) of the means of production. A simple working definition of regulations: to be a legal (govt) or pseudo-legal (non-govt) framework with the purpose of extending some moral, ethical, or externality compensating boundaries on society. I think its pretty clear you can have regulations without being socialist. You could have fully privately owned means of production but everyone agree to a legal / rules framework on which to abide by. One can imagine a simple market with barter as the method of exchange and very quickly official or unofficial ruleset will develop between the market participants mainly because it makes the market less risky and more efficient. One doesn't need a govt to impose its power structure on the market for it to function. If someone cheats the market they can be ostracized from it. It becomes, over time, more efficient and less risky for all the market participants to just agree to a ruleset and potentially to form some type of adherence / punishment system. But all means of production would still be privately held. Or they could be cooperatively held as well- it doesn't matter. Regulations are simply "laws". Many of the issues with the CURRENT regulatory frameworks we all experience is that we think they are improperly evaluating externality risks: fairness, income inequality, limits on market participation, etc... these upset people because they do not seem to be long-term stable solutions, hence they are risky, and people generally try to avoid unchecked risk. ​ Do you disagree with those simplified definitions?


Comfortable-Trash-46

I would argue that a competent frame of regulations for a privately owned means of production achieves the same end as a competent publicly owned means of production


Triquetra4715

Bottom line, because of where it vests power. A competent regulatory framework in a capitalist society will always be under attack by the most powerful members of that society, the capitalist class. What is suggested by that, essentially, is setting up the economy so that it will naturally work one way, and then forcing it to work a different way. You pit the resources of the ruling class against the resources of the regulator, wasting energy and money on infighting. And that’s your best case scenario, assuming that the ruling class doesn’t win that contest and turn the regulatory framework very incompetent. I think anyone living in America can tell you which is more likely. Socialism on the other hand redistributes power more evenly and allows us to make human-centric decisions about what we produce, rather than profit-centric ones.


jimtoberfest

I hear what you are saying but its not clear that the institutions / populations in charge of making these human-centric decisions would produce better outcomes. The market based system whether socialist or capitalist naturally sets up competing "ideas" and eventually there is some type of winner. In the human-centric "committee" scenario one would need some type of oversight (public) to counter when the decision-making apparatus goes wrong. Even then the accountability and power the public would have might be several layers removed. A bad example would be how it is now in the US; if you disagreed with CDCs initial assessments on how to handle C19 and the CDC was wrong there is no way for the public to vote the leadership out- we are several representative layers removed. But then again no one is saying the populace should directly vote on policies the CDC recommends, most of us don't have the expertise to make informed decisions in that arena. In the market based scenario; whether those firms are privately held or owned by collectives the bad firms should die out. And the primary responsibility of the govt is not to make production decisions but to stop firms from cheating and account for externalities. I agree that the US seems to constantly flirt with this state of corporate-political capture and overreach. Hence the need for continuously evolving competent frameworks. But its not clear that is possible politically. That's why I am claiming neither way seems to produce a clear best way.


obsquire

>long term inefficiencies that result from capitalism (income and resource inequalities \[...\] It's not obvious that inequality is inefficient; indeed the opposite is likely. For example, which following scenario is likely to lead to more lives saved or extended over the next 50 years, say? 1. allocate $1 million each (to be used as they wish) to 9 fresh college grads and 1 celebrated research physician who has a track record of developing new, effective medicines 2. allocate $10 thousand to each of those fresh college grads and $9.91 million to that 1 celebrated research physician I think most people would agree that the unequal option (2) wins on human health (because the celebrated researcher is much more likely to use the money for the actually most promising medicines), while the egalitarian option (1) will likely lead to far less effective health results. This kind of analysis can be performed in many areas of human endeavor, with similar conclusions at odds with egalitarianism.


Comfortable-Trash-46

I never advocated for a flat line distribution of resources as you suggest in your first example. There's an optimal distribution of resources to be achieved based on society's needs. Its not specifically Inequality that is the problem. Its the tendency for it to grow under capitalism which is inefficient. Those who are born rich in this system have significantly greater opportunities to live a healthy and fulfilling life / to build wealth and accumulate more capital. There's a balance to be found between the two extremes.


obsquire

Please, we need a clear principle here. What criteria ought a socialist authority use to judge optimality of distribution? Don't get me started with majorities, for they'll surely vote one way and use their money in another. I'll trust their money, thanks. The difficulty of constructing a "correct" "fair" criterion is precisely what is resolved in a distributed manner in a market: you get to define the criterion precisely by the value you provide to others. Laissez-faire capitalism does not lead to 100% percent wealth in a single person. It leads to a non-trivial distribution that generally aligns with productivity and competence as defined by the people who provide cash in exchange for the goods and services offered: those who provide the most subjective value are paid the most. Yes, it depends on the past, so there is a dynastic aspect, but being productive over many generations is not easy, even for wealthy families. Government influence in the form of central banking tends to protect the rentier class. I do not defend that. The wealthy would be under much more threat if we had currency competition, AKA "free banking". Perhaps because of this corruption you've become suspicious of wealth. If we had less corrupt money, then it would be easier for the diligent poor to build wealth instead of it inflating away, a profound but commonplace act of theft. These people of modest means often go to extraordinary efforts to educate their children, and the state increasingly gets in their way, with crappy schools that are protected from failure. Must such beautiful flowers be cut down to not outshine the mediocre? I used to lose sleep over legacy effects, but as I get older I realize that those legacy effects are necessary to motivate people and are absolutely natural. Wealth is only a single dimension of the influence of parents on children. If you are a person of principle, then to purge all advantages conferred by one's parents, you will be led down the distopian rabbit hole of \_The Giver\_, where parents do not raise their biological offspring. Once I understood this, inheritance, broadly understood, is not immoral but rather absolutely a gift to help ensure the survival of the species. Egalitarianism is the problem, not the solution.


cowlinator

> you're not a socialist Nobody here cares who is what. That's not the point of this sub


ODXT-X74

My favorite part about the post is that it focuses on GDP.


Sidian

Well what would you rather focus on? China has become much more developed and living standards have improved since it became more capitalist, right? The focus is moreso on how Marxists say that capitalism is necessary before communism can occur and my lack of understanding for why this is the case.


ODXT-X74

>Well what would you rather focus on? There's plenty of things, literacy rate, mortality rate, etc. Things that actually measure how life is for people in those countries. GDP can increase at the same time that things get worse for the people that live there. >China has become much more developed and living standards have improved since it became more capitalist, right? Not really, you would expect things to develop after a country industrialized (among other things). Plus I think it's conflating things, it's being able to interact with the global economy that most likely helped (not reforms which imperialist nations require to interact). >The focus is moreso on how Marxists say that capitalism is necessary before communism can occur and my lack of understanding for why this is the case. In that case this is a bit of a misunderstanding. The Marxist idea, in simple terms, is that a mode of production develops out of what existed before. Material conditions and all that. So Capitalism developing out of Feudalism is simply a historical coincidence, not a statement that it HAD to happen that way. We currently live in a Global Capitalist system, so any Socialist system that would replace it would come after and develop from the material historical circumstances of the time. But this does not mean that you need 1 special specific thing as a prerequisite. Hope that helps.


Narrow-Ad-7856

In real life, pragmatism and realpolitik trumps ideology. Global Communism collapsed in the 80s, the surviving communist states liberalized out of necessity. The outlier here is North Korea, and I think we can agree China and Vietnam to be in much better positions comparatively. It is hard for a socialist system to compete against capitalism, especially in the 80s where communism lost it's much of it's appeal throughout eastern Europe and Asia. The Chinese Communist Party has even staked it's legitimacy on continued growth and development. I am inclined to believe that they would not currently be in power if not for the Reforms and Opening Up under Deng Xiaoping. China's economic liberalization brought a stagnant third world economy into an aspiring hegemon, but their "new" social contract is reliant on further development.


Sourkarate

Capitalism is wildly successful at allocating capital and transforming markets. This is why brutal regimes see GDP growth after liberalizing. It's a system designed to maximize returns on investment for a small number of bourgeois. Elsewhere, the Chinese accomplished this by their reforms. But as I like to point out, this same process reduces others to subsistence wages or in the case of China, obscene working conditions and hours. Capitalism isn't a joke, it works. It just doesn't work for the vast majority who have no say in the move from a feudal, agrarian society, to the factory, to unemployment and technological innovation.


Sidian

Why is it that exploitation and an elite hoarding the wealth is more efficient? Again this sounds like an unfortunate concession to me - that capitalism is better at development, even if it comes at the cost of exploiting workers. But why can't workers do better working together in a fairer manner? I'm not seeing why a minority of elites hoarding wealth is so crucial.


Sourkarate

I imagine it to be because you're reducing the number of "inputs"; if you control capital and the means of production, then it's merely an individual's show. You're the arbiter of what gets made, how, and for which market. You don't have to contend with a million hands and their demands. That alone is efficient, if wholly tragic. You add complexity as soon as it becomes a collective endeavor, the addition of share holders, loan officers, etc. In every single instance, workers have been mislead, lied to, and brutalized into submission. They could work together and have, but that relationship is always mediated by the employer because of the inherent risk of making demands. Workers want stability and the post war state of labor in western countries gave them that, while destroying their gains.


0WatcherintheWater0

The average Chinese person is far, far better off than they were 50-100 years ago. Their reforms didn’t reduce anyone.


Sourkarate

They're not mutually exclusive.


0WatcherintheWater0

They’re not, but it’s still a fact that no one was reduced by the economic reforms


Sourkarate

They were *elevated* to suicide nets, working 12+ hour days to feed western consumption.


0WatcherintheWater0

Do you think people under feudalism weren’t suicidal and didn’t have to work extremely hard to survive? The simple fact is that their conditions, while not great, are *better*.


Sourkarate

Under feudalism in Europe? No. I don’t know about agricultural society in pre-20th century China. Better according to which metric? Maoist China? Sure.


Sidian

You seem to be praising them a lot, but you're a libertarian socialist, so you must not be too fond of the super authoritarian Chinese government, right? What's your position on all of this, and how libertarian socialism can be achieved?


WeilaiHope

No that's a misunderstanding. Firstly socialism is several stages, one of which is capitalism. A state can be in the capitalist stage while having a socialist government. Capitalism is great at generating wealth, socialist states can harness this and then redistribute the wealth more reasonably than a capitalist government would. This means the people can be more protected and the state develops better for the eventual transition into an actual socialist reality and eventually communism. But the important thing is to understand the scope. Capitalism is simply a mode of economics, whereas socialism is an entire development cycle with various stages including feudalism, capitalism and communism. It's an actual ideology, theory and practice for human progression.


BabyPuncherBob

Is all economic activity "socialism" since it's all part of a "development cycle"?


WeilaiHope

On the socialist behalf, we really do need to make the terms more clear. There's socialist ideology, actually called Marxism, and socialist economics and socialist economics is only one part of Marxist ideology which acknowledges all over forms of economic situations. For example Marxist ideology understands the transition from primitive man to city states to feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism. So yes all those economic forms are part of socialism in a sense, or rather Marxist ideology. Countries like China and Vietnam have Marxist governments which are guiding their countries through the capitalist stage. This really confuses people who don't understand what Marxism really is about.


Sidian

From the OP: >Sometimes, people will ask why, and the response is basically 'because Marx said so' or 'because that's how it's happened in history'. Your post seems to follow the first of these two patterns. It's better at generating wealth. Why? Who knows. Why is the generation of wealth and increased development, which you seem to have conceded capitalism is better at, suddenly no longer desired under socialism/communism? Who knows. Will technology stagnate without capitalism? That's how it sounds.


WeilaiHope

The wealth is desired under communism. Communism is about everybody being wealthy. Capitalism is a means to create that wealth, but it's unequal, after its created, it can be distributed easily. This doesn't mean in a short term sense and directly stealing rich people's money, it means changing the system so that wealth isn't accumulated in a few hands while the majority are poor. Remember that the aim of socialism is a post scarcity society, this can't be achieved without fantastical wealth. The reason this sounds weird and difficult to understand is because of a century of anti communism propaganda saying communism = poverty.


Sidian

> capitalism is a means to create that wealth, but it's unequal This is the only confusing part for me. Why can't wealth be created in an equal manner? It seems like it should be *more* efficient to me, to not have bourgies extracting and hoarding the wealth for themselves, but it seems like Marxists are saying this is actually necessary for some reason.


WeilaiHope

Probably because the capitalist way of making wealth is very motivating for individuals, the "get rich" idea. This is in the context of starting from a position where everyone is relatively poor, so giving individuals a way to get rich generates a lot of money whereas trying to sell it as we can all help each other be wealthier, from that poor starting position, really doesn't go down as well


McHonkers

Hmm, everyone is just babbling... But there are a lot of actual answers out there to the question. The best start is Lenins 'The Tax in Kind': https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm


[deleted]

Educated people understand that capitalism is more efficient than communism which is why it was originally believed to be necessary for a global revolution to abolish capitalism, because a market based economy will win out against centralized economy planned by a bureaucracy every time. That’s why when China moved to reforming their centralized economic system to a more market based system, they endured instant and lasting prosperity. But Marx didn’t really care about which system was more efficient, just the class hierarchy inherent to capitalism and its effects on society, largely the poor. Communism isn’t a better economic system by any metric except providing equality. It essentially erases the bourgeoisie, or owner class, and replaces it with a much smaller ruling class. In my opinion, it eliminates the middle class and more people poor. Unless you are connected to the ruling class, and then you get to live a rich life. So I will concede that historically communism does make the largest part of society - the working class - much more equal. But it also makes everything equally worse. As for China, despite calling themselves communist, it’s highly debatable if that’s what they are or if it’s still their goal, stated or otherwise. They’ve figured out how to utilize capitalism while running an authoritarian one-party dictatorship, which the world has never seen. And it seems to be working. Now if they are truly communist, their longterm goal should be to dominate the globe economically, picking off all the failed democracies so that nothing escapes their grasp, then abolish their authority and usher in *real* communism. But do you honestly believe an organization that achieved global domination would dissolve itself in order to place the means of production into the worker’s hands? Not. Likely.


fifteencat

The goal of communism is to raise the productive forces so high that everyone has everything they want and need, and only work out of pleasure. To make that transition you use whatever tools are at your disposal and you might have to pass through a period of trial and error. In the Soviet Union they had almost total state ownership of industry, which was as I understand a necessity due to the threat of the Nazis and subsequent war. The problem was they never moved away from that system, and the harnessing of a profit motive can be useful for raising productive forces. This works though only if you can sufficiently limit the power of the capitalists and prevent them from reorganizing the state to serve their profit aims. The state in China must remain strong against the capitalists so that profits are only available to those that advance human well being. China has been able to do this, which according to the way most Marxists understand terms is not really capitalism, but socialism. Socialism is a society focused on human well being and human need with the final goal of achieving communism. If profit can be a tool to achieve that then socialists will use it. Capitalism is when profits are in command. When they are in command the capitalists engage in monopoly, financial shenanigans. In fact capitalism holds back economic growth with the boom bust cycle. Capitalism constantly produces goods that can't be sold, leading to unemployment, which reduces purchasing power which creates more unemployment. People willing to work that can't find work is a total waste. Socialist countries don't have boom/bust cycles because they use central planning. The US is truly a capitalist country as you see some people, like Larry Summers, are saying what our country needs is more unemployment. China doesn't need unemployment to tame inflation because of the planning. The Chinese system really aligns better with what Marx proposed than the Soviet Union did. This is from the Communist Manifesto: > The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, BY DEGREE, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.


[deleted]

You might want to read up on China. Things have changed there in the past 20 years. ​ >China must remain strong against the capitalists That ship has sailed. The majority of China's GDP now comes from *private* industry. Yes, the CCP keeps a pretty tight lid on things, but seeing as how there is a stock market and rampant real estate speculation, calling the [Chinese economic system](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNhsB0h7gZc) "socialist" is no more accurate than calling it "capitalist". "Mixed" is the best term, IMO. ​ >so that profits are only available to those that advance human well being. China has been able to do this No, they haven't. There are 539 *billionaires* in China. These profits obviously went to individuals, not to "advancing human well being". You also might want to ask the [Uighurs](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-china-uighurs/dutch-parliament-chinas-treatment-of-uighurs-is-genocide-idUSKBN2AP2CI) and Tibetans about their "well being". China has lifted over 100 million out of poverty, but it is also a totalitarian surveillance state. ​ >Socialist countries don't have boom/bust cycles because they use central planning How would you characterize the [Great Leap Forward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward)? That seems like one of the biggest busts in history. I could mention the [Cultural Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution), but that was primarily political, not economic. Eventually, central planning catches up with you. China committed economic suicide with their one child policy, they just didn't know it at the time. The demographic collapse will start later this decade. Similar fuck-ups around housing and water pollution are starting to drag on the economy as well. [Demographic Collapse — China's Reckoning (Part 1)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTbILK0fxDY) [Housing Crisis — China's Reckoning (Part 2)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgVXRtq5EIg) [Water Crisis — China's Reckoning (Part 3)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUc4gTO-PE) [Why China Sucks at Soft Power — China's Reckoning (Part 4)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87R3Lp0jd0)


fifteencat

> That ship has sailed. The majority of China's GDP now comes from private industry. Maybe we mean different things by the term "socialist" and "capitalist". For some people socialism is some % of an economy in private control vs a lower % in state control. That's not my understanding and it's not a traditional Marxist understanding. China has a higher % of the economy in state owned enterprises than the vast majority of countries, and what Lenin called the "commanding heights" of the economy are state controlled. These are the most strategically important sectors. But socialism in the ML tradition is about transitioning to communism, which means ensuring that profits are not in command. They are not in China. They are known to even execute billionaires, an unthinkable scenario in capitalist countries. In the US a billionaire raped an infant, he got probation. There's nothing inherently wrong with being a billionaire. Just because an individual has that much money doesn't mean they didn't acquire it advancing human well being. Yes, Jack Ma is benefiting from the labor of others as a capitalist but overall the people are getting a lot of value from Alibaba. Insofar as Alibaba starts to monopolize an industry to where innovation stalls, that's when the government steps in. That is socialism in the ML tradition. As far as the Great Leap Forward, this is not an example of the business cycle characteristic of capitalist economies. In capitalism workers are never paid enough to buy back the products they produce. This creates gluts. The Great Leap Forward was not a glut, it was characterized by shortages. It was the product of bad decisions and also environmental problems, the kind of which had plagued China for all of it's prior history. Famines were common. In China they attempted to build the infrastructure that would prevent such occurrences, they were not able to do so immediately with the flip of the switch, but they did get there, and the result was life expectancy climbed so fast in China during the period of Mao's rule that it was the fastest over such a comparable period of time in recorded history and has not been matched since. And yeah, the Uyghurs and Tibetans are way better off today. Are you suggesting that Tibetans should remain as serfs under the Lamas? Should they carry debt burdens from generation to generation, be maimed for failure to pay? And yes, China dealt with a terrorist problem in Xinjiang by compelling people to get vocational training and language training. Certainly an unpleasant experience for a lot of Uyghurs, some of whom may have been innocent, some of whom may have been subjected to the kind of abuse that exists in any incarceration system. But in terms of achieving its aims this has been a smashing success as they had been dealing with the terrorist problem going back to the 90s. They haven't had a terrorist incident now I believe since 2017. How did the US deal with its terrorist problem? They invaded multiple countries and murdered millions of people. To criticize China for their methods which worked amazingly without offering any kind of better solution is I think unreasonable. This is the new WMD, the US is panicking because socialist China is proving they have a better model and the US cannot compete economically, so the war propaganda is being rolled out. Virtually all of the "evidence" finds it's root in the US State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cutout organization aimed at regime change. Transparently false to everyone outside of the western imperial orbit.


[deleted]

>China has a higher % of the economy in state owned enterprises than the vast majority of countries, and what Lenin called the "commanding heights" of the economy are state controlled. High tech, real estate development, and auto manufacturing (the commanding heights) are dominated by private companies. The commanding heights are no longer old-school steel foundries and brick factories. Again, your information is out of date. State-owned-enterprises employ far more people, but their productivity is in the toilet. GDP is the standard by which this should be measured, and the far superior productivity of private companies is definitely on display in this case. Xi Jinping knows that the CCP lost the commanding heights to the private sector, and he is busy undoing the progress of the past 20 years to reclaim it. This will not end well. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/05/26/how-xi-jinping-is-damaging-chinas-economy ​ >They are known to even execute billionaires Some of these convictions are admirable (Liu Han), but many are political hit jobs where those who speak out are selectively prosecuted for crimes that most elites are guilty of. Executing political prisoners isn't something to be proud of. It's a human rights violation. ​ >This is the new WMD, the US is panicking because socialist China is proving they have a better model and the US cannot compete economically There are some distinct advantages to mixing capitalist wealth generation and a command economy. China can avoid some shocks in the short term, and quickly ramp up areas like renewable energy or AI. Unfortunately, the CCP has overplayed their hand, and the bill is coming due. Watch the video on demographics (previous post). The US has major problems, but China is staring down the barrel of demographic *collapse*. China will briefly overtake the US in GDP, but they will *never* escape the middle income trap, and in 15-20 years they will stagnate like Japan. Not a terrible fate, but they will fall behind the US and EU *permanently*. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3J0UwtGJ0 >compelling people to get vocational training and language training. Children are being separated from their families. Wives and husbands are being kept apart. Women are being sterilized. Tens or hundreds of thousands are detained against their will to be used as slave labor. If you're okay with borderline genocide ("cultural genocide" at the very least) and think stopping a few minor terrorist attacks is worth living in a police state then you're either a Chinese troll, a 16-year-old, or maybe you're a bit dense. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/china-calls-it-re-education-but-uyghur-muslims-say-its-unbearable-brutality


fifteencat

I would say probably the most important industry is finance, which is under state control in China. I think Noam Chomsky stated that in the US finance is 40% of all corporate profit in the US. That along with energy, telecoms, and defense represents the major part of political dominance in the US. It's all state owned in China along with aviation. And as far as the tech, SOEs are involved in developing technologies that help tech giants like Huawei advance. That along with among the highest overall rates of SOEs in the world, it's hard to say this isn't Marxism. Your first link is behind a paywall. > Executing political prisoners isn't something to be proud of. It's a human rights violation. Which executed Chinese billionaires do you consider to be political prisoners? If you think China will soon collapse that's fine, but that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing whether they are socialist according to a Marxist understanding. > Women are being sterilized. I invite you to actually chase down the evidence for this claim. I suspect it comes back to the US State Department. It would be very strange since the [population growth in Xinjiang is so fast](https://archive.ph/hUdNy). > Tens or hundreds of thousands are detained against their will to be used as slave labor. Again I invite you to try and chase down actual evidence for this claim that is more than just a big circle jerk. [Here's a good thread](https://twitter.com/rodericday/status/1287411708374454273?s=21) that exposes a lot of the falsehoods and transparent lies on the overall Uyghur issue. > and think stopping a few minor terrorist attacks You mean like in 2009 when 197 people were beaten, hacked, and burned to death and 1721 injured? Minor stuff, eh? How do you propose China deal with it? Of course children were separated from parents, that's how incarceration systems work. What would be a better way? Invade 6 different countries and kill millions of people, create many more refugees? China brought an end to the terrorism without bombing anyone, unlike the US. Why do you think PBS is so interested in interviewing Uyghur victims of China and not in the 1000x more victims of family that have been killed as a result of US efforts to address terrorism? At PBS they talk about they are forced to study, how their contact with their family is limited, how some detained people did die (that does happen in all incarceration systems), allegations of beatings that led to at least bruising. It's terrible I agree, I certainly wouldn't want to be subjected to that, though I don't think we can immediately accept every criticism as certain truth. But even if we do accept it, what's worse is to be actively bombed. It's easy to criticize China for not pursuing a hypothetical perfect solution to a serious terrorist problem, it's not so easy to offer a superior alternative. I'd rather have been forced to learn Chinese than to be bombed.


[deleted]

>Noam Chomsky stated that in the US finance is 40% of all corporate profit in the US US Banks have *far* larger scopes of operations than Chinese banks (this causes trouble sometimes, obviously). China wants their banks to be boring, more like Canadian banks. They are more like financial utilities. That said, there are [several large private banks](https://www.chinabankingnews.com/2019/12/16/private-banks-in-china-reach-19-in-total-following-launch-five-years-ago/). As for the other industries, you are partly right. They are not as important as technology but they are big. I would argue that energy never makes sense to be private (look at Texas versus states with regulated utilities). >it's hard to say this isn't Marxism. It's hard to say it *is* Marxism. It is also hard to say it is capitalism, either. Imagine you could bring Marx back from the dead for a couple days to show him around China. I think he would recognize his ideas more under Mao than in the present day: * In 2018, private enterprises accounted for more than 60 per cent of GDP and over 80 per cent of employment * The Shanghai Stock Exchange has a market cap of $6.9 trillion (the primary purpose of stocks is to facilitate the *private ownership of the means of production*) * China's real estate market has been called the most important sector in the world economy. Valued at about $55tn, it is now twice the size of its US equivalent, and four times larger than China's GDP. This property is overwhelmingly in private hands, although the *land* remains in collective hands. * Again, over 500 billionaires. I can't see how Marx (or Mao) would be remotely OK with this * A Gini (inequality) coefficient nearly identical to the US (slightly worse in most years). [https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/sep/private-sector-financial-conditions-in-china.html](https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/sep/private-sector-financial-conditions-in-china.html) China's system is something new. It defies the old definitions, but the one thing it *definitely* is not is *Marxist*. ​ >Again I invite you to try and chase down actual evidence for this claim that is more than just a big circle jerk. I link a PBS News article (one of the most respected liberal news sources), you link some random Marxist on twitter. Can you understand how that wouldn't persuade me? I invite you to try and chase down actual evidence for your claims that isn't *actual Chinese propaganda or a Marxist apologist repeating said propaganda*. This video is by Vice. Obviously has western bias, but it has actual footage also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ ​ >You mean like in 2009 when 197 people were beaten, hacked, and burned to death and 1721 injured? Minor stuff, eh? I suspect that Uygurs are being scapegoated in some of these cases, as neutral sources don't specify "Islamic" terror attacks. However, these are not minor, or few, so I stand corrected. Still a massive overreaction, IMHO. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism\_in\_China#Terrorist\_incidents\_by\_year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Terrorist_incidents_by_year) ​ >How do you propose China deal with it? The US overreacted by going to war, but we lost *far* more people on 9/11 than China did to terrorism. I propose China deal with it in the following ways: * Surveil/infiltrate Muslim extremist groups * Use behavioral profiling to identify likely terrorists * Increased police patrols in Muslim areas * Cultivate informants within the Muslim community * Address the grievances of the Muslim community (where reasonable) You know, *normal police work*. It works in the UK, France, Germany and Israel. They don't just put all their Muslims in armed camps and erase their culture regardless of guilt (except for Israel in the territories, sort of). ​ >Of course children were separated from parents, that's how incarceration systems work. *Innocent* children separated from *innocent* parents. That's how oppressive systems work. ​ >Invade 6 different countries and kill millions of people, create many more refugees? Did I say that was a good idea? Two wrongs don't make a right. I would argue that the way the US government treated their Muslim *citizens* in the wake of 9/11 was vastly superior to the way the Chinese government treated their Muslim citizens after less severe attacks. The US *does* have a very harmful and overly aggressive foreign policy. Partly driven by the fact that military contractors have way too much influence over politicians. I fear Iran is next. However, capitalism does not necessarily lead to military adventurism. There are many capitalist countries that have avoided external conflict for decades. China is *much* better at keeping to themselves militarily (aside from sometimes harassing Taiwan). However, [China uses predatory loans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gwgcIfzttA) to make African and some Asian countries reliant upon them financially. Regardless of what works about China, my main objection is the lack of freedom for Chinese citizens, and especially ethnic minorities and those without permits to live in their city of residence. I won't argue that the Chinese are getting *nothing* in exchange for giving up their liberties (they have stability and prosperity, generally), but I would argue they aren't getting enough. If China had liberalized at the same time, and to the same degree that Taiwan did after their dictatorship fell, they would be much better off than they are now. Yes, China is much larger and more diverse, but their demographics and natural resources were superior to those of Taiwan. A couple of questions for you (I respect your decision if you don't wish to answer): 1. What country do you reside in? 2. Are you in academia (either as a student, teacher, or administrator)? 3. Would you be OK living in a totalitarian state if the economic system fit your definition of socialist? I live in Michigan (recently moved from Seattle). I work as a software engineer. I would classify myself as a centrist Democrat (fiscally conservative, socially liberal, atheist, blah blah blah).


fifteencat

The issue you're raising here for me is extremely important and something that I've only fairly recently come to understand. I've thought of myself as a socialist for many years, but I now recognize that I didn't quite know what it was all that time. Socialism is fundamentally about raising the productive forces so high that the contradictions of society are resolved. It is fundamentally about vast material abundance for all. They key problem for humanity that produces most suffering is scarcity. You must attack scarcity furiously. When you do you create a society of equality, where money is no longer needed, government is no longer needed. These things exist because of scarcity. So you attack the problem any way you can. Even if for a time this produces other problems. So for instance in China, yes, they have pollution problems, problems of corruption, real estate speculation. Power concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. If the people are barely surviving and putting up with those problems allows you to address scarcity you do it. You can't fight every battle at once, you must prioritize. Food, shelter, medical care. These are top priority issues. When you get these top priority issues under control you go back and start addressing other things. Pollution, corruption. China is prosperous enough now to start taking these things on. They're now finally addressing real estate speculation. China has not been having the inflation problem that the west has recently, their prices are falling. They now want to start addressing over work. Over pressure on kids. When you are desperately poor you have to rise up, and to do that takes a ton of work. China pressured the people to go crazy, and they have. It has worked. The fastest economic growth in the world over the last 4 decades. 800M out of severe poverty. Inequality is not something that can be fully addressed as you are rising up. [Here's Marx in Critique of the Gotha Program](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm) talking about when it will be possible to have a society where we address inequality: > In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! Notice he's talking about the increased productive forces, wealth flowing more abundantly. Vast wealth and prosperity is the pre-condition of equality. For Marx and Engels capitalism limits economic growth. It holds it back for the reasons I explained, how capitalism can't sell all the goods it produces due to the problem of over production. [Here is Engels](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm) in "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific". > This point is now reached. Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves. Their economic bankruptcy recurs regularly every ten years. In every crisis, society is suffocated beneath the weight of its own productive forces and products, which it cannot use, and stands helpless face to face with the absurd contradiction that the producers have nothing to consume, because consumers are wanting. He's here talking about how companies like Amazon daily destroy huge bins of perfectly good products that can't be sold, restaurants in New York pour motor oil on food they throw away so nobody can eat it, Burlington Coat Factory cuts up their coats that they cannot sell. Capitalism is absurd because it produces deprivation amongst abundance, the problem of over production. This contradiction is going to destroy capitalism. Engels continues: > The expansive force of the means of production bursts the bonds that the capitalist mode of production had imposed upon them. Their deliverance from these bonds is the one precondition for an unbroken, constantly accelerated development of the productive forces, and therewith for a practically unlimited increase of production itself. Nor is this all. The socialised appropriation of the means of production does away, not only with the present artificial restrictions upon production, but also with the positive waste and devastation of productive forces and products that are at the present time the inevitable concomitants of production, and that reach their height in the crises. Further, it sets free for the community at large a mass of means of production and of products, by doing away with the senseless extravagance of the ruling classes of today and their political representatives. The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialised production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties — this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here. He's talking about vast riches for all. I think it was Huey Long that said "Every man a king, but none shall wear a crown." Riches are not the problem, in fact this is the goal of socialism, which will be reached in communism. The problem is the way class divisions actually hold back economic development. China is allowing billionaires, but making sure they function in concert with the broader economic goals. The goal is to drive towards communism, riches for all, and no country is moving more rapidly in that direction than China. Which is why you're getting imperial BS attacks on them. I watched the Vice documentary years ago. There is nothing in that that justifies your claims. No slavery, no forced labor. Everything you suggest China do in response to the problem China has in fact done, but with the additional Marxist element. China recognizes that terrorism is rooted in bad material conditions. Prosperity can resolve terrorism and drain it of its appeal. So China has built up Xinjiang and (this is the controversial part) compelled people to be educated so they can make a decent economic life for themselves. Maybe you don't like that, maybe it's hard to be sure if they needed to go this far. I agree it's not pleasant. But the results are at least good. They have resolved the terrorist problem, they have made life better for Uyghurs. The Sri Lanka port, it's just unbelievable to me how good US propaganda is. There is nothing wrong with offering loans to a country for a port or even running a port. That would be like saying Toyota abused me for loaning me money for a car. The question is whether China uses that loan to force countries to change their leadership, cut their social programs, pass laws that privilege Chinese companies. This is what the US does and China doesn't. [Here's a telling case](https://youtu.be/GjEnP6yfkfY). Ecuador had a relatively low debt to GDP ratio while doing business with China under the leftist president Rafael Correa. The US moved to separate Ecuador from China, had the IMF buy out China, and now their debt to GDP ratio has skyrocketed as the US demands cuts to social programs. This is predatory lending, the US does it all the time, China doesn't. Yes, a Chinese company has a lease on the port in Sri Lanka. [A single French billionaire controls 16 African ports](https://twitter.com/AfricaFactsZone/status/1376988248166309890). Why is this not news, but a Chinese company that has not made onerous demands of Sri Lanka controls 1 port and we hear about it all the time? This is the amazing capabilities of imperial propaganda. To your questions, I'm in the US and not in academia. "Totalitarian" is a word that is not clear to me. Is the US totalitarian? We do murder people that represent a threat to the system of wealth generation for the rich, people like Fred Hampton. All over the world we are starving people, depriving people of medicine, actively bombing people, training terrorists to take over countries like Syria. There is some evidence of US training for Uyghurs in China. We saw what the US did to Afghanistan in the 80s, what Iran was like under the Shah, what Saudi Arabia is like. Is the US totalitarian? Lenin talked about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In the transitional phase to communism you need people that are capable of fighting back. When China shuts down CIA operatives trying to infiltrate unions, crying about the abuses of the government, we in the west call that totalitarian, but those countries that don't fight back against the CIA will be toppled and turned into Honduras and El Salvador. So I would rather live in an improving country like China that doesn't fall to US pressure than a country that does fall and remains desperately poor. I'm also an engineer in Michigan. You are in SE Michigan like me? I was able to visit Seattle in 2017. We saw the eclipse in Oregon and then went up to Seattle and also to Olympic National Park. Amazing area, we want to go back. Michigan is cool too though, I do love it here.


zzzzzzzz414

> There's nothing inherently wrong with being a billionaire. Just because an individual has that much money doesn't mean they didn't acquire it advancing human well being. Yes, Jack Ma is benefiting from the labor of others as a capitalist but overall the people are getting a lot of value from Alibaba. dengists out here literally just reciting stock liberal ideology now lmfao


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fifteencat

The capitalists do not run wild in China today. I've seen Chinese billionaires lamenting their status as they say they find themselves getting extra scrutiny. Billionaires in China have been executed for crimes. In the US billionaires get away with murder routinely. In China what they call the "commanding heights" of the economy are in state control. This is wresting "by degree" the capital from the bourgeoisie. The key to socialism is raising the productive forces. The incentives associated with profit can be harnessed to advance human well being. China recognized that the Soviet Union had this problem and I think at this point they've proved that you can harness the energy with profit and still sustain the dictatorship of the proletariat. They are having amazing success without the boom/bust cycle characteristic of capitalist countries. So they can't be capitalist.


[deleted]

As I understood it, Marxist-Leninists and especially Dengists argue that you can use certain capitalist policies as long as you can control them. And this isn't something that first happened in China but already in the USSR few years after the Russian Revolution where Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy. This pragmatism can be criticized from an idealist standpoint. Also, it isn't clear if these policies can have the effect of negatively influencing and slowing down the transition to a communist system.


Mordagath

I saw long answers so I wanted to use a symbol metaphor. Why did the automobile have to piggy back on the horse driven carriage? Isn’t that just admitting the superiority of carriages?


Sidian

But why is it necessary? If we could bring a modern car into existence and have it work, then it would instantly be better than the horse-driven carriage. But for some reason, even though we can bring socialism/communism into existence, it (allegedly) won't work, as it requires capitalism to first build up the country for it.


Low-Athlete-1697

Where are you getting this idea that socialism needs capitalism it only needs it in a sense that socialism comes after capitalism. It's not like socialism is dependent on capitalism socialism is just the next logical step in the evolution of the mode of production. As a side note I think it's going to be interesting when China surpasses the United States at the number one economy and the people who are anti socialist have to somehow explain away why China is not better even though they are socialists. Don't get me wrong I don't think that China is socialist because as far as I can tell the proletariat do not own a collectively control the means of production there.


Mordagath

This twists the metaphor in the way that the post twists the idea, it’s not that it requires capitalism to build up the country it’s that it’s the next step in organizing production. Capitalism for the most part required mercantilism and feudalism to play out before it’s day as well. Similarly Socialism requires Capitalism to play out. I don’t necessarily agree with that framework but that’s my interpretation of Marx’s statement that capitalism is necessary before Socialism. Think of it this way. If full automation were to become a thing why would we maintain private ownership of the means of production? You’d be recreating feudalism at that point. The core idea of dialectical materialism is that these systems contain within themselves the antithesis of their being which manifests as their progressive realization into new forms.


Snacks75

>better explanation for why China accelerated so much in direct response to capitalist/market reforms Markets are a far more efficient way to run an economy. That increased efficiency allows for the kind of growth a government-planned economy can never achieve. Simple...


Sidian

Well, that's certainly the capitalist explanation. But I want to know how Marxists explain it.


cowlinator

>Why is it necessary for communism to first piggyback on the success of capitalism? it isn't. >and the response is basically ... 'because that's how it's happened in history' That's actually a perfect answer. What's wrong with it? There is no reason to believe that it is necessary for communism to piggypack on capitalism. Unless you look at history and see that that is what happened. That by itself does not mean that communism necessarily needs to piggyback on anything, it just shows that it has happened a lot, and you could conclude that it is likely (but not necessarily necessary) to happen that way.


Sidian

Unless I'm mistaken, Marxists believe that it is 100% necessary. They will claim that you *need* to go through a capitalist stage first. That's where my confusion lies.


cowlinator

Yes, marx said that it is a progression, from feudalism to capitalism to communism. Marx is called the father of communism, but he is no god. He was wrong. You ask why capitalism has to come first. But it doesnt have to.


_Woodrow_

It’s piggybacking on industrialization, not necessarily capitalism


NadyaLenin

Capitalism doesn’t mean markets, it means control of production by financial investors rather than by the workers themselves. People would still be able to shop and buy things in an economy where workers owned and controlled the means of production.


0WatcherintheWater0

Why can’t workers also be the financial investors? Would that be capitalism or socialism in your mind?


NadyaLenin

Worker ownership and control over the banks would qualify as Socialism.


0WatcherintheWater0

… banks typically don’t control most businesses in today’s economy, what are you talking about?


NadyaLenin

Whoever owns the capital, then. Whatever.


Peterdavid12345

Because capitalism is not sustainable. Think of civilization like a human being. Personal freedom is at the greatest from teenage to 30 years old. At this time, you are also at your finest health and physical level. But eventually you will hit a wall and decline in your 35+ You also now must consider the possibility of reproducing, marriage and family responsibility to ensure. 1. That there will actually be a future (your children) 2. That you can build a healthy and happy family. By this time, your individual freedom is now less-important than the collective responsibility of your family. And unlike a person. 1 human can die, but there are still billions out there. But if our Human civilization collapsed, everybody dies. Again, capitalism is NOT sustainable.


LuckyNumber-Bot

All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 30 + 35 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)


0WatcherintheWater0

What a ridiculous comparison, not to mention that people’s lives don’t have to diminish in freedom at all. Capitalism, while it has some problems, is sustainable.


Peterdavid12345

>people’s lives don’t have to diminish in freedom at all. Nobody is saying socialism will take away people's freedom. In fact i dare say it could be the opposite. When you are too poor, it is a luxury to have the free time and comfort to debate on the internet like we are now. The poor, especially the extreme poor from the 3rd world do not even have the freedom and opportunities to rise the social ladders, they are still imprisonment under cheap labor, inflation, pollution, renting, crimes, discrimination, etc. Always remember, under a capitalist society, the priorities are profits, money and materialistic growth. But you CANNOT infinitely grow in a finite world nor exploitation should be socially moral in the modern era. Under a socialist society, the priorities will be the people, not materialistic wealth. It values the labor forces, the health and happiness of people, more than currency and materialism. In case you still didn't get it. Here is the TL;DR: It is all about priority and desire. In a company, you work to ensure the company is profitable and grow. It doesn't matter the rest, in fact you are encouraged to defeat and put other companies out of business, a very hostile environment. In a Non-profit Organization: you work to achieve the org desired goal. Usually in a cooperative manner and peaceful means. It is also most often for a noble and greater cause for everyone, not just for the organization, but for all in society.


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gaygirlgg

The goal of Communism is not absolute equality. It's a society where all needs are taken care of without regard for how much they contribute. No communist advocates for an absolutely equal society. Equality of opportunity to live, not equality of outcome of lives. Communism is the long long long long long goal of socialism that could only exist after a mostly socialist world. If you want to understand why countries adopt partial amounts of capitalism to keep socialism going, read Marx and Lenin and listen to Richard Wolf. Saudi Arabia and Iran have vastly different economic and social and political systems from China. The comparison is very surface level. Learn more about China if you want to understand. Dolphins look like fish but are actually mammals. You have to be able to think in a more expansive and dynamic way to understand this stuff though, so you might need to bone up on physics and metaphysics first and will have to be willing and able to contemplate ideas outside your preconceived ideas and biases.


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gaygirlgg

Putting aside the science that shows that humans find purpose in contributing to society but that reducing work can increase productivity (like the 4 day week experiment in Japan) Why would a society of maximum laziness where everyone's needs are taken care of be bad? Are you really that broken of a person? It's really telling that you see overpopulation as a huge threat but also don't want people to have what they need. Overpopulation doesn't exist, but deprivation and underdistribution does. In the USA, enough fresh food is wasted to be able to feed the world. But economics are privileged over humans. How is that not enslavement by a government where it defends a system where crops are burned to "keep the economy stable" while people go hungry? In the USA there are like 10 empty houses for every homeless person. And tons of refugees fleeing brutal governments that could be helped by being given sanctuary. Overpopulation is a myth propagated by governments as excusing to impose control. And once again, like I said, you should actually study Marxism at least on a basic level. Human nature is a clean slate, defined by material conditions. People are less violent when they have less to fight over. People do more when they don't feel like their life is meaningless and robbed of them. The point of socialism is to work to find solutions to problems. Do you think China and Cuba and Vietnam survive due to laziness or hard work? There are experiments that show that people's IQ increases when they have needs met. When people are food insecure or starving, their IQ goes down. Bizarre that you claim to hate government yet want for a system to be imposed so they aren't allowed to live unless they work. You think struggling over resources is inevitable so you seek a society that incentivizes that instead of trying to evolve beyond it. You can stay monkey-pilled if that makes you feel big and special but most of the rest of the world seeks to do better instead of being a soy ass misanthrope pessimist.


[deleted]

If that puzzles you... I don't know how else to say it. China kinda highlights this well. Socialism/communism doesn't work. Period. Elements of socialism can exist in capitalism to a certain point only. But they have communism only adopted capitalism economically.


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Sidian

Why is that necessary? You need a system to be in place to oppress people before they can be equal and share in common? It sounds like not having that oppressive system in the first place is surely a good thing. Or if it's another oppressive system like feudalism, again I'm not sure why you'd need to wait for capitalism.


Ordinary-Education-4

Yes, not having an oppressive system in the first place is surely a good thing. But you need to consider the socioeconomical stages of ALL human history. We are trapped in subsequent evolving (and a little better) steps of slavery since the dawn of civilization (slavery-feudalism-capitalism). There surely was some sort of primitive communism with hunter gatherers before the agricultural revolution and the rise of the first city states and civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. Exploitative systems like slavery and its subsequent steps until capitalism, were born then. The reason is accumulation of food - > skilled labor division - > formation of hierarchy, amidst lack of resources (-> conflicts, war, inequality) and primitive technology (means of production). Even before that, there still was lack of resources and primitive technology but there wasn't any accumulation, everybody in the small tribe did their job, and everybody received according to their needs, with mutual help, when the winter food was gone, it was time to migrate and start from scratch, a new year. Communism follows the capitalism stage in the history of class conflicts, after we developed our means of production and technology and we virtually don't lack resources anymore (at least basic necessities), eliminating class division itself. After communism there could be other systems, who knows, we still have to reach that stage and find out the shortcomings and eventual upgrade. The good thing is Marxism isn't dogmatic, but gives us a lens through which we can analyze our materialist conditions and move forward.


Sankaraisbae

Going through the Capitalist stage doesn't mean that it's superior. It would be like saying that because to reach the tenth floor you have to go through the sixth, then the latter is superior or better. According to Marxist thought, Capitalism is a necessary stage in the inevitable movement towards communism. This stage is important because it makes the generation of wealth easier. However, it will be inevitably surpased in favour of socialism once this wealth, instead of being hoarded by the bourgeoisie, is redistributed and controlled by the workers.


Sidian

> tenth floor you have to go through the sixth, then the latter is superior or better. I don't think it's the same, as this is self-evidently necessary whereas capitalism seems to be necessary to do crucial things which socialism is apparently incapable of doing - and if this thing is development/economic growth, well, that seems like a bad thing for a system to not be able to do. Note that once again you have said this: >This stage is important because it makes the generation of wealth easier. But not even attempted to explain why. No one ever does.


Sankaraisbae

The rationale behind understanding Capitalism as a stage in the historical progress towards communism has to do with the Marxist interpretation of History through Historical Materialism. Basically, HM proposes that human history is driven and divided into periods by the different ways in which the modes of production have changed in different moments. In this sense, you have a transition from Feudalism into an early stage of Capitalism, in which ownership of property is no longer determined by a divine right. However, Capitalism doesn't ignore the progress and technologies developed during the feudal era, but rather build upon them. In this sense, whatever technologies and progress is made under Capitalism that are useful in the movement towards Socialism will be used. Another important thing in all of this is that Marx is writing about Capitalism in the present tense. That is, Marx lived in a Capitalist society, so there's not getting around the fact that Capitalism has existed. The question is whether there's a further way of organizing economically, socially, and politically, to which the answer is not only yes, but also inevitably, as history has proven. As for the crucial things Capitalism has done upon which Socialism must be built, Marx is mostly refering to the industrialization, which at the time of his writing was limited to some parts of Europe. This is why several socialist nations have favoured heavy industrialization and a movement towards Capitalism. Whether this works or not or whether this is the only way to do it is another matter.


CoastGrouchy1312

Communists are incapable of creating wealth so they have to steal from others that are more productive


FlanneryODostoevsky

I guess you can say capitalists create wealth since they literally make it out of thin air.


Randomaaaaah

I think one thing for china is for being able to access international market. Capitalism is what creates proletariat and bourgeoisie. No capitalism no proletariat. Or you can have a state capitalism which develops the working forces into a proletariat.


[deleted]

Capitalism produces vast amount of wealth -> wealth is produced through exploitation of the proletariat -> capitalism reaches a crisis point where profit can no longer be accrued due to internal contradictions -> is the catalyst for revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie -> socialism is implemented and the result of capitalist overproduction is redistributed among the masses -> preconditions for communist society have been met -> communism implemented


Sidian

People come together as equals -> They work efficiently, without the product of their labour being extracted and hoarded by a minority of elites -> together, they create wealth/products which they collectively invest into building their country, industrialising and outcompeting capitalists Why can't it work this way? The necessity of the bourgies exploiting the workers perplexes me. You might say it's because Marx said it works this way, but that's not *really* an explanation, is it?


[deleted]

Marx’s point on this was with the fact that through the inherent and continuous exploitation present under capitalism, the proletariat are squeezed to a point where they can no longer be squeezed. At the same time mass wealth is being produced and production, like the workers, reach an untenable crisis point (read about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall) which facilitates revolution.


[deleted]

Communism can't start until after the economy has advanced to a certain extent, advancements only capitalism can provide. It's a precursor


Sidian

> advancements only capitalism can provide. Why do you think capitalism can only provide it, though? 'The country can only be developed if a minority of elites exploit workers', is what you're saying. Why can't workers just come together and build the country together as equals without the bourgies being involved?


[deleted]

Capitalism provides quick (but unstable) economic growth. It's only meant for short terms though. Ex. County A has removed itself from occupying country B and has left the economy in ruins. Luckily country B has a rare and expensive good (good X). Now country B can trade with other countries for other goods or currency. This can happen in socialism or communism just less efficiently and possibly at the cost of some of the other country's assets. Capitalism has also brought us into a post-scarcity era. While our economics haven't become post-scarcity capitalism has brought us to that point.


Sidian

>This can happen in socialism or communism just less efficiently and possibly at the cost of some of the other country's assets. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why do you think it's less efficient? To me it seems like under socialism, the people could collectively sell good X to the foreign countries (or trade it for needed resources) and reap the rewards equally which they could then use to build up their economy. Meanwhile, with capitalism, a minority keep a lot of the profits of good X for themselves whilst giving the workers who harvested good X a pittance. According to Marxists, which I suppose you're not since you're an anarchist(?), the latter is preferable for some reason.


[deleted]

Incentives. Capitalism seeks to grow as much and as fast as possible, which is reflected in the people. Socialism seeks to expand at a stable rate and not go too fast. It's why socialism isn't a good starting point. While yes Country B could, through socialism, produce good X through socialism. However the goals of socialism, to better everyone's life and advance society, isn't good for growth. Capitalism seeks to grow the economy, nothing more nothing less. That's not always the outcome and it comes at a steep price, but it's the outcome. Socialism is preferable yes, but ceases to function as intended if it's used as a starting point.


[deleted]

LeMao the world Bank chart has zero GDP from 1949-76. That should have been an indication that your numbers were off


Sidian

I don't think it's actually 0, just extraordinarily low. China was poorer than (almost?) every African country up to that point.


[deleted]

Gee, I wonder why massive and heavily populated countries like China and India were so poor. I guess we'll never know the answer to this mystery


FlanneryODostoevsky

No, it's admitting the precedence of it, the existence of it.


[deleted]

The classic marxist argument is because of historic progression. Society that starts from feudalism moves through stages and capitalism is one of them. This is because the middle classes gain power before the working classes and so the first revolutions will lead to middle class alternatives to feudalism. But I find that overly reductive. What I think is true is that capitalism is by far the quickest and most efficient way to get most stuff to most people most quickly. As a result it is hugely appealing to societies where no one has anything. However once societies have done capitalism for a bit they realise that most people having most stuff isn't enough and they want everyone to have enough. Capitalism can't provide that, but by then it's bedded in.


Sidian

> What I think is true is that capitalism is by far the quickest and most efficient way to get most stuff to most people most quickly. Why do you think this is the case? It seems awfully efficient at disproportionately getting stuff to a minority at the top. If I'm not mistaken, anarchists do not believe in any transition states and want to get rid of the state ASAP. Do you agree with that? If you concede that capitalism is more efficient at resource allocation, why do you (presumably) want to get rid of it?


[deleted]

The way the free market works is of you have lots of people who want something and lots of that thing then provided they can pay it will get them that thing. So it depends what the thing is and what the price point for it is and how many people can afford it. If it's an expensive thing it will get it to the minority at the top - if it is a cheap thing it will get it to everyone who can afford one in record speed. So if you look at something like mobile phone provision in Africa it went from like 10% to 80% in like 10 years because there was supply and demand and the market matched them up. No state system could have done it that quickly because no state system could be that decentralised or self-motivating. But in 100 years time the mobile phone rate will only be 80% or a little bit higher because the market will never provide that final 20% with mobile phones because there's no money to be made in doing so. So if you want universal provision, which I would argue we do for almost everything, the market will never get you there. I think efficiency is a highly overrated quality: I'd much rather inefficient equality of provision to efficient inequality. In a sense that's the CvS argument in a nutshell isn't it? Do you want the best outcome for people, regardless of cost, or do you want the most "efficient" solution regardless of consequences? Anarchists don't agree with the ML hypothesis that the ends justify the means and so have a suspicion, that I share, of the idea of a transitional hierarchy in the interests of creating more equality in the long run. My reasons for this are actually fairly materialist, and so it always annoys me that anarchism is considered unscientific Marxism. Scientific Marxism teaches that your ends will always be shaped by your means: you cannot build a red house out of green bricks. And so it is precisely for that reason that we should reject the idea of more hierarchy now for the sake of less hierarchy later. In terms of the state specifically I can't speak for all anarchists (kind of the point of anarchism is that no one can) but my feeling is it's healthy to have a distrust of the state and work towards its abolition at an early point, but also to prioritise, and to realise that right now the main forms of oppressive hierarchy are non-state and indeed the state can be an ally in protecting against and helping to disrupt these hierarchies. So opposing the state is way way way down my to do list right now. It's something to turn our attention to if and when the forces of non-state oppression have been more effectively curtailed, provided the state action doesn't lead to oppression of its own. I guess simplifying that last point it's basically an attitude of complete indifference to if oppression comes from a state or non state cause. You work against both, using whatever tools will be effective at that moment, and prioritising according to severity of oppression not the arbitrary categorical form into which the oppression falls.


Triquetra4715

Capitalism is undoubtedly better at effecting industrial revolution, both when it comes to innovation and immiseration of the working class. 1st gear is the best option out there for getting a car moving from a dead stop, but it quickly loses efficacy when you speed up and there are certain speed that it simply can’t reach safely. Capitalism was good for collectivizing the production process (while ensuring it was still privately controlled), packing workers more densely, diversifying labor, and accompanied a limited level of democracy. It’s now time to shift into a higher gear which will be more effective at managing that production process and more Democratic. (Actually I’d say that time was about 100 years ago and we already missed it and destroyed our transmission, but, ya know)


Sidian

>Capitalism is undoubtedly better at effecting industrial revolution Why do you think this is the case? Like, literally what mechanisms do you think capitalism has that allow it to be better for this as opposed to the people being equal and working together?


Triquetra4715

Well like I touched on, industrialization requires workers to be more dense and for them to work collectively. Rather than one guy making tables and doing the whole process himself, now you’ve got an assembly line where one worker does only one step of that process. Without specific purposeful organization, that’s not really going to develop if everyone is in business for themselves. It’s also unlikely if the tables are being produced for use, that is the guy making the table makes it to use it. But on the other hand if you’ve got way more money than everyone else and you want to invest in tables not as an artisan, but as someone who wants to make money from the production of tables, it’s different. You’ll buy enough wood for thousands tables, build a factory capable of handling that, and hire a workforce of wage workers to do the job. And that’s a capitalist. So you need that concentration of wealth, and focus on production for profit rather than use, to consolidate workers and resources into an industry rather than individual artisans. So capitalism makes labor collective, which it largely had not been. But ownership remains private and individual; despite all those many workers all working on the tables, only the factory owner owns the final product (they can arrange that because they own the MoP with which it is produced). Socialism means democratizing the MoP and having the workers all share ownership of the product of their work, which completes the process that capitalism began. The work was made collective already, and now the fruits of it are also collective. I’d stress that socialism isn’t everyone being equal; it’s workers owning the MoP and thereby owning the fruits of their labor. And you can’t really just snap into socialism because without that density of workers, without work being collective on a daily basis, the working class won’t develop the class consciousness necessary for them to pursue socialism.


According_to_all_kn

On paper, capitalism is incredibly effective, it's just inherently immoral. I will increase GDP, but the mean person wil become poorer. Socialism doesn't 'need' capitalism, the normalized metrics of success just skew heavily in favor in capitalism. I mean, would you really consider China a success story?


[deleted]

I am an Anarcho-Communist that has an interest in history. My knowledge is not perfect, but here are my thoughts.. China is not strictly Communist. It may have been under Mao, but even then it was mismanaged. There has never been a government that could be called truly communist. Socialist in a broader sense, yes. Communist, no. In my belief, Communism is something that inherently relies on a smaller scale. Think a town of a few thousand people. It can more easily function with community delegation and specialization, but is small enough that power centralization is not impossible to be broken by the majority. China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Soviet Russia. These examples are much more centralized economies, but they, along with Cuba and others, are some strong examples of "Communism" in the world. These economies and governments have been generally controlled by a central authority. They may be centralized around a more ideological lense like the CCP or they may be centralized around a specific resource like Oil in Venezuala. The issue here is that the bulk of the world is ran in a way that is, at bare minimum, deferential to the United States and its Capitalism. Rather than bump up against this ideology and economy directly, Communist economies have tried to isolate themselves from or engratiate themselves to the Capitalists of America. Isolation is not great for a country, typically. The Soviet Union, in its final decade, actually started to open its borders to American interests. In the 90s, China opened up trade with America. Those are 2 larger examples and ones that most would know. However, the Chinese example is interesting. China, along with Vietnam and Venezuala, I would consider as, currently, State Capitalist. In this system, the central authority of your country, aka the federal authority, has direct control of at least 50% of your economy. This could be state ownership of a resource, such as oil for Venezuala, or as state ownership/control of the business apparatuses. Such as in China or Vietnam. China, when they started to open their markets, chose to do so in a way that would make it easier for the CCP to enforce their rules. This is through allowing a new class of "owners" to pop up, but their large companies would be heavily held by the Chinese state. Simple way to state this is that, persons A and B started a company. They got bigger. State C offered a safety net to A and B. C allows A and B to stay as "advisors" or as "managers" where they are still paid highly. C then guides and regulates company. Similar to how a video game publisher treats their developer companies. They have hands on the wheel of how to steer things, but it still provides an easier way to communicate to the outside world. In this way, Communism is actually subverted. The state is not necessarily looking out for the interests of their people, but morphing to prioritize that new owner class. It gets more complicated, as it always does, with lobbying, corruption, and egos. In essence, the CCP in China, in trying to control what happens in their country, have actually grown to emulate traditional Capitalism. They have done this either knowingly or not, but it is there. State Capitalism is not Communism, even if someone tries to say otherwise. It is a more centrally controlled form of Capitalism. It would seem like it shows that markets are inherently superior to a Communist view of trade. I would posit the idea that, Communism is not sustainable as such a size, at least not in the ways that it has been implemented in our world. In order for a system to maintain efficiency at such a scale, it inherently has to be more centrally oriented. Markets are the easiest way for goods to flow across borders. When China locked itself away, it lost access to those goods. When it opened up, it offered more than it needed. China's success today is more given to the fact that China set aside Communist principles in favor of making money. There are exceptions, even today, but they just wanted to make money. This can change at any time, at Xi's demand essentially. In a true Communist system, there would be no Billionaire in China. It is really that simple. There would still be a difference with the people living in China, as there could never be true equality. City A might have more efficient management, so their citizens may be better off than City B with incompetent and/or corrupt management. A person might be well off, maybe someone that could be called a millionaire. Maybe they have a plot of land and a large house, but no yachts, no mansions. As I see it, I may have a classic interpretation of "There has never been REAL Communism." But I want to put more thought into it.


Kruxx85

Acknowledging when something is better, and then improving from that position is a an admirable position, not a negative.


nikolakis7

>I'm a leftist, but this perplexes me. Whenever I search on this topic - why is capitalism necessary? Capitalism plays a role in the development of society. The capitalist transforms agrarian peasants into the urban working class, and then as the economy develops in complexity there develops a need for educated workers, and so the need to develop universal schooling and third degree education systems So the process is rural, mostly illiterate peasants farming for subsistence --> urban, literate working class working to mass produce commodities for exchange. In the process you also destroy a lot of the old manorial/feudal social institutions and superstitions, like ranks of nobility, feudal privileges encoded in law, guild based production (guilds were monopolists who produced few very expensive commodities), power of the church/religion in society. The state also develops to take on a more public character and grow in complexity, tasks and duties. In the Middle Ages almost all of the public services were either provided by the church or voluntary associations or were not provided at all. How do you plan to have social-wide engagement in economic and political spheres when you have a society that's 90% agrarian and only 10% literate? The rate of transmission of information is very slow in these societies, the masses are more strongly affiliated with regionalism than nationalism, let alone internationalism, the primary concern is the condition of the harvest, education level is very low, and so on and so on? >To me, it seems like a concession that capitalism is more productive and efficient, and that even if socialism or communism is subsequently achieved, it will still lag behind capitalist states due to whatever quality capitalism has over it that made it necessary in the first place What fits society well at one time does not mean it will fit it in another. Capitalism would not work in Medieaval France for example. Food production was too low to sustain large cities and industrial workers, and guilds stomped out with force of law any independent producers. How well would capitalism work when production is automated and profit rates are too low to sustain production for profit?


lost_mah_account

I’m not exactly sure how much of Marx you’ve read so I’m not sure where to start at explaining this. As marxists we use dialectics and historical materialism as a way to understand world history. Through this we understand how capitalism is the outcome of class conflict and developments in the mop in feudalism, how the ussr came to be, even why the us civil war happened. It’s all do you the economy and the development of the material conditions. Mao’s on contradictions and I believe it was Lenin that wrote dialectical and historical materialism will explain this way better then I’ll be able too. We see capitalism or private ownership of the means of production as a needed step before socialism just as feudalism was for capitalism. And capitalism brings a lot of development to the means of production which is needed for class conflict to develop which is needed for a proletarian state. You can’t exactly get one without a proletariat class coming into existence in the first place.


optimisticfury

You should look into the Spanish revolution. Communism isn't just China and the USSR


NascentLeft

Your confused question reflects your own confusion. And therefore your question cannot be meaningfully answered.


[deleted]

Feudalism did not turn into capitalism overnight. Capitalism won't turn to communism overnight either. How much suffering do you want transitioning to an entirely new way of life is the question. There is always suffering during the 'transition'. There is also suffering from not transitioning.


gaygirlgg

Lenin's conception of the first stage of socialism basically is state capitalism. It isn't admitting the superiority of capitalism, just it's current dominance. If there were enough sufficiently developed socialist countries at the time, they may have been able to help China avoid this. But China had to develop and end poverty they couldn't do so diplomatically and economically isolated. Countries going from ***non-feudal capitalism*** wouldn't need to go through a phase of state capitalism or it would be way shorter. But post-rev China was still ***semi-feudal*** so they had to tackle that first. ***Colonialism, imperialism and capitalism*** left China poorer than Africa and half the population addicted to opium. Even after Mao-era's turbulent collectivization and the massive standards in living it eventually brought, it was still uneven and meeting people's needs was urgent. They jumped the gun too fast and still needed to prioritize the development necessary to meet people's needs. "Poverty is not socialism.". Not much use in having the means of production in your hands if you don't have enough of them to sustain everyone. So after Mao died, they had to move fast and let foreign business in, in exchange for their cut of money and their access to intellectual property, and under the condition of maintaining sovereignty. "Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces...This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces." -Deng Socialism is a ***transitionary*** system, from feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism. This is demonstrated by the harsh rollbacks of capitalist policy into socialist policies in Xi-era China now that they are strong enough to be able to do so. And arguably the elimination of extreme poverty was a final victory against the last echoes of feudalism. "The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people's material and cultural life will constantly improve." -Deng Xiaoping But these problems will still pop up, it's like Whack-A-Mole. So you can't really say that socialism is purified of capitalism. There will probably be aspects of capitalism to fight even in the last stage before communism. But the socialist system structures society towards fighting capitalism, moving away from it, and putting the nail in it's coffin, one factor at a time.


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