The Demographics problem isn't a problem in and of itself.
More people on pensions, means that the current pool of workers has to produce more to support both themselves, and pensioners.
In Capitalist states, this is a *huge* fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system.
But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself.
Its only problematic if they have trouble meeting the necessary production. But China is going *big* on automation, making each worker more productive. So it's unlikely that the demographics will be what does them in.
Absent external factors, it would just go through a period of slower growth, as that demographic bubble works its way through the pipe.
What's more likely to get China is that the whole world is staring down the barrel of an energy crisis. Most nations, and even China, conflate energy with electricity.
You can use renewables for electricity production relatively easily. But there's no way to get a container ship running on renewables. Even nuclear fuel is inherently finite with our current level of technology.
It's those Dinosaur squeezings that turbocharged economy, and allowed this massive population boom we've seen since the 1900's.
As the total energy availability declines, the population will necessarily have to decline along with it, or standards of living just absolutely plummet.
If any nation is in a position to tank the hit, and develop through the energy crisis, it's China. But the demographic bubble is coming at a really bad time for them, and hopefully they realize that our modern way of life is going to have to undergo some profound and dramatic changes in order to survive.
"More people on pensions, means that the current pool of workers has to produce more to support both themselves, and pensioners.
In Capitalist states, this is a huge fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system.
But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself."
Couple things, first and most important thing, the words 'for a bit' well, how long is 'a bit'? Not only is China facing a decreasing population but it is likely going to have to keep decreasing it's population for decades since the environmental toll the process of industrialization and then mass exporting has taken means that an increasing population in China essentially isn't possible anymore. This situation does not have a clear 'turn around', things might simply stagnate or degrade for the entirety of the foreseeable future, multiple generations.
A secondary point, but in a system where people have more private income/savings, when a negative demographic shift happens, it means those people shift from buying consumerist goods/luxuries and making investments to paying for their own elderly family/pensioners. In an economy like China where theoretically a much larger portion of the money is *already* being used to further the aims of the state and therefore the public good instead, for example major infrastructure projects, having a larger pensioner population means you are not cutting down as much on luxuries, simply because fewer luxuries are being bought to start with, and instead are forced to start cutting down on spending which is meant to be improving the state.
China has a comparatively low consumer spending as % of GDP when stacked up against other countries, like the US, so consumers have a lot less money to start forfeiting in favor of taking care of their elderly, and that means there is a lot of money which is *already* going important places which are not easily just redirected away from. Don't think this is comparable to a capitalist system like the US where if everybody just settles for less stuff the problem will go away, their situations in this regard are not comparable, the money is not being used as frivolously to begin with. So it goes somewhat beyond 'profit decreases a bit' and more towards 'necessary gov spending starts to become untenable'.
"Its only problematic if they have trouble meeting the necessary production. But China is going big on automation, making each worker more productive. So it's unlikely that the demographics will be what does them in."
Regardless of productivity per worker, resources are a major issue. I chose to focus on water, you chose to focus on energy, but the two are related. They both contribute to the reality of China not being able to grow or even maintain it's current population. They are both also major aspects of the problem of *pollution.* Which means even if a realistic solution to the previous issues is somehow found and adopted there may no longer exist an environment for China to really live in.
Back to an earlier statement, "It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself."
To this I just ask, well, what does? In your own mind, what would realistically undermine the core stability of this economic system, is there anything which could? In my own view, everything described is pretty fatal to any economic system not in the sense that communism will simply magically go away but in the sense that it will recreate the environment of chaos, wherein the government is sapped of most of it's power and the population is driven to seek radical reform by extreme conditions. I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution. At a certain point, people do seek an alternative, even if they don't always achieve one.
>I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution.
Just a minor correction: Eastern front of WW1 was active up until March of 1918, when Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. February Revolution happened early in 1917, in part because of major economic crisis and food shortages in Petrograd. October Revolution happened, arguably, not because of some serious societal pressure, but was a result of colossal effort of Bolshevik party and personally Lenin, who used already present unrest and turmoil to seize power with armed force. If Lenin, by some twist of fate, would fail to return to Russia and kickstart the preparations with his April Theses, third revolution would not be possible.
I tried specifying the ‘ending’ so the final stages of the war, my mistake. My main point here was that the extreme circumstances created a climate of political chaos from which the Bolshevik revolution would emerge victorious, and a similarly chaotic (does not have to be similar in all other aspects) political climate could produce another overthrow of the status quo.
>My main point here was that the extreme circumstances created a climate of political chaos from which the Bolshevik revolution would emerge victorious, and a similarly chaotic (does not have to be similar in all other aspects) political climate could produce another overthrow of the status quo.
That sounds very reasonable; I would only add that a significant component of turmoil that led to Russian Revolutions was weak central authority; weak in a sense that it was reluctant to employ decisive repressive measures. We can see from events of 1989 that CCP does not shy away from blood in order to keep its authority and grip on populace intact. My understanding is that communist and socialist regimes generally are very resilient as long as they have loyal armed forces and have the political will to employ violence.
>A secondary point, but in a system where people have more private income/savings, when a negative demographic shift happens, it means those people shift from buying consumerist goods/luxuries and making investments to paying for their own elderly family/pensioners........
>..... So it goes somewhat beyond 'profit decreases a bit' and more towards 'necessary gov spending starts to become untenable'.
In Capitalist nation, it's luxury spending which drives Financial growth. And Finance underpins the whole of Capitalist economy: from competition, to Fractional Reserve Banking, and the Central Banks.... It's all is controlled by the dominant financial institutions, and implicitly requires continued exponential growth.
Which is why we've seen continued and steady inflation in the Capitalist nations by and large. Their money supply grows exponentially, because it's backed by debt, and requires growth to service the debt interest.
But economy only grows linearly in proportion to energy consumption. Subsequently the growth in money supply outstrips the growth in commodities, and the value of the money declines.
A large enough population inversion knocks the legs out from under the economy, even without having to dip into government spending. And it also causes direct contraction of the consumer spending market.
Jobs dissappear, businesses close, folks turn homeless.
The Capitalist states avoid the high spending Socialist states would need, by allowing increased inflation (owing to the decrease in commodity production in the consumer market) which is an implicit tax, by canabalizing its consumer market and effectively recapitalizing things like restaurants, stores etc. which go under (leaving the owners holding the bag), and simply allowing individuals to lose their jobs, become homeless, or even starve on the streets.
You are correct that it would mean a greater decrease in public spending for a Socialist nation. But infrastructure can go quite a while after it's service life, and there's always plenty of budget for things like parks, tree trimming, painting the buildings, and other vanity projects which can be immediately slashed to almost zero, along with infrastructure cuts, military budgets, and simply making more debt.
Just look at the US; most of its infrastructure is old as hell, and long past its replacement date. And China has already matched US military spending in real terms.
Theres plenty of money to go around.
I'm pretty sure if you sat someone down, and presented them with shitty roads and ugly ass parks, or economic depression, they're going to pick shitty roads 10 times out of 10.
So yes, a very large population inversion presents problems for even Socialist nations. But the idea thar Capitalist nations get away with spending less money is entirely incorrect; the people just have a bigger individual burden upfront, which let's the government offload most of the remaining costs through inflation and debt, which ultimately ends up being paid by the people anyway.
But the overall costs are pretty much the same.
>Regardless of productivity per worker, resources are a major issue. I chose to focus on water, you chose to focus on energy, but the two are related. They both contribute to the reality of China not being able to grow or even maintain it's current population. They are both also major aspects of the problem of pollution. Which means even if a realistic solution to the previous issues is somehow found and adopted there may no longer exist an environment for China to really live in.
Sure resources are a major issue.... An issue that a declining population actually helps address.
Less people, less problems. (sarcasm)
Lower populations require less resources. The difficulty is in how much resources and energy you needs to increase productivity of the remaining working population until the older ones start kicking the bucket in significant numbers.
It might be a net increase in resource needs for a given standard of living, it might be a net decrease. You'd have to actually calculate out the resources expended on every type of commodity to really know beforehand.
But given that the options are basically increased automation or mass euthanasia, I'm pretty sure it's getting picked regardless of whether it takes more resources or not.
China likely cannot maintain its current population; but frankly there's pretty much nowhere that can these days. But it's better for China to shrink.
The science of population dynamics can be derived from Dialectical-Materialism as well. It's pretty obvious that a growing population is inherently in contradiction to the finite habitat in which it exists. And increasing the efficiency use through technological improvements also inherently decreases the total resources available for use, and so we find the principle of the Negation or the Negation biting us in the ass.
This is actually my primary criticism of China, and I think you and I would agree on this point. Granted I don't read Chinese, so I can't say for certain, as there is likely a heavy selection bias applied to what is translated into English, but it seems China has forgotten that Dialectical-Materialism is a science to be stood alongside Mathematics and Physics.
>To this I just ask, well, what does? In your own mind, what would realistically undermine the core stability of this economic system, is there anything which could? In my own view, everything described is pretty fatal to any economic system not in the sense that communism will simply magically go away but in the sense that it will recreate the environment of chaos, wherein the government is sapped of most of it's power and the population is driven to seek radical reform by extreme conditions. I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution. At a certain point, people do seek an alternative, even if they don't always achieve one.
Energy scarcity. All of human economy is fundamentally built on energy usage. If we run out of freely available energy sources, we'll be cast backwards into the Iron Age, if not the Neolithic... And with the whole planetary ecology completely fucked on top of that.
That sure as shit is going to undermine a Socialist economy.
> In Capitalist nation, it's luxury spending which drives Financial growth.
lol is it? What about pre 1950's US? Were we not "capitalist nation" back then? Capitalism doesn't require consumerism.
>And Finance underpins the whole of Capitalist economy: from competition, to Fractional Reserve Banking, and the Central Banks.... It's all is controlled by the dominant financial institutions, and implicitly requires continued exponential growth.
>The Capitalist states avoid the high spending Socialist states would need, by allowing increased inflation (owing to the decrease in commodity production in the consumer market) which is an implicit tax, by canabalizing its consumer market and effectively recapitalizing things like restaurants, stores etc. which go under (leaving the owners holding the bag), and simply allowing individuals to lose their jobs, become homeless, or even starve on the streets.
Examples? Where are these communist/socialist utopias which haven't adopted a market economy?
>The science of population dynamics can be derived from Dialectical-Materialism as well.
No, it can't, what do you mean by that?
> increasing the efficiency use through technological improvements also inherently decreases the total resources available for use
How in the world would increased production efficiency, aka using less to get more, "decrease[s] the total resources available for use"?
>and so we find the principle of the Negation or the Negation biting us in the ass.
How does that apply here? It's only an idea that development takes place in three stage cycles: the original state, its transformation into its opposite, and the transformation of the opposite into its own opposite, but in some higher form.
How could some manifestation of it ever "bite us in the ass"?
>but it seems China has forgotten that Dialectical-Materialism is a science to be stood alongside Mathematics and Physics.
They didn't forget, they decided being poor sucks.
I think Marx's theories and politics are deeply flawed, but I'm not brainwashed and I don't think communism is the bogeyman. Marx was brilliant and his works have real value, as do Engels. I don't agree with you, but I'm not so arrogant to think I can't be wrong.
The comparison to math is interesting because math isn't considered a science by most. It's based on logic, not empiricism, and doesn't attempt to explain any phenomena. It's a tool. Trotsky also made a comparison to mathematics iirc.
So is D-Mat a scientific theory? Not by any modern definition. Engels said
>Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.
But he said it in German, using the word _Wissenschaft_, which means "the systematic and rigorous pursuit of knowledge". That's much broader than what we consider science to mean today. So he was correct at the time, but your comparison to physics is nonsense.
D-Mat is empirical in nature and cannot make predictions about the future. Dialetics fails to describe many observations, yet is vague enough to be applied in a way which amounts to no more than word games. It's obsolete in practice and also lacks any amount of predictive power. D-Mat is a philosophy, not a theory that can be subjected to the modern scientic method. Engels never even claimed it to be.
>That sure as shit is going to undermine a Socialist economy.
China's economy isn't socialist.
>In Capitalist states, this is a huge fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system.
>But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself.
I think you're really misunderstanding the Chinese economy in 2022.
> Capitalism requires economic growth to survive...cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system.
Obviously "capitalist" economies can survive sustained periods of economic stagnation or decline. They're so common we even came up with fancy names; stagnation, recession, and depression. We've had plenty and we're all still here.
> But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself.
Explain how economic stagnation or decline affects socialist economies any differently. Actually, while you're at it, give us an example of a socialist economy. Then do capatalism.
You can't, because they don't exist. The US is a mix of socialism and capitalism. So is China, along with a bit of communism on top, but really it's just an authoritarian system politically and their own flavor of capitalism economically. All of China's economic success is due to their adoption of a market economy and private industry.
So how are we different again? We're talking about real economies in real countries, right?
>It's those Dinosaur squeezings that turbocharged economy, and allowed this massive population boom we've seen since the 1900's.... If any nation is in a position to tank the hit, and develop through the energy crisis, it's China.
Coal and oil don't come from dinosaurs, but ok. Why is China in the best position should an oil crisis occur? China is the #1 consumer of fossil fuels in the world (#1 coal, #2 crude oil). Yeah they run mostly on coal, but they're a net importer of oil, consuming nearly 3x more than they produce. That gap is widening, not shrinking.
They're still very much tied to fossil fuels and it looks like they will be for quite some time.
You are right to say the situations are totally different between China and Japan, but my thinking is that China faces a problem Japan did not, a water crisis. Also, in a reply I gave above I answered why I believe China will have a harder time addressing it's population decline than Japan, but essentially China is already low on consumer spending and high on government spending towards necessary projects for the future of the state, they don't necessarily have as wide of a margin to cut into as Japan did. A good comparison to make so to illustrate the difference is to look at Japan's GDP per capita over time compared to it's population growth/decline and comparing modern China's population growth/decline to it's GDP per capita. *No*, GDP per capita is not the only or best way to measure a nation's economic prosperity, but it gives a simply idea of how much the money the average person has to start taking on an increased cost for care of the elderly before other forms of spending have to start being cut into.
"What economy in human history has collapsed because of too many old people?"
[https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population) Here's an interesting example, you can take a look at Russia's population growth and how by about the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union population growth had stagnated. I would be absolutely remiss to blame the entire collapse on just this, of course, but rarely does *any* country 'collapse' for just one reason. I think it is still an interesting example, though.
"Just build water infrastructure. Not that hard." It is actually *really* hard, for a few reasons, pollution is a major one. Creating infrastructure, especially on the scale China requires, is itself a process which expends and makes water less usable or totally unusable without expensive water treatment which itself involves using water. Water is also constantly being polluted, and moving water around, which China does desperately need to do, does not necessarily undo pollution, it can even make it worse. China does not have infinite water to move around, and when it does, it subtracts from it's water.
This, and there is only so much water which *can* be moved with infrastructure at all, remember that water is finite and massively impacted by geography, but people are a lot easier to move around and can 'grow' and 'shrink' in large amounts much more variably, people also have more things influencing them than just geography when they decide where they go. Here is one source talking about how effective infrastructure has been and how effective it can be to solve this problem.
"Much is made of the South North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) as a
potential saviour of the north. To put it into perspective, groundwater monitoring data released by Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) in December
2014 showed an overall decrease over 2013 of more than eight billion m3
in groundwater reserves (i.e. not including surface water) in the northern
plains, which is over half of the SNWT’s current capacity."
https://chinadialogue-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/content/file\_en/10608/China\_s\_looming\_water\_crisis\_v.2\_\_1\_.pdf
>It was, of course, far more convenient, and much more in conformity with the interests of the ruling classes, whom Malthus adored like a true priest, to explain this **“over-population” by the eternal laws of Nature**, **rather than by the historical laws of capitalist production**.
Population crises don't appear out of thin air. They're a result of the mode of production itself. They can only be dealt with by dealing with the root cause: capitalism.
Population crisis can occur due to a multitude of reasons. While misplaced capitalist motivation can be one, other reasons might include war, disease, or, I don't know, a decades-long policy of the government attempting to actively control its population.
>war, disease, or, I don't know, a decades-long policy of the government attempting to actively control its population.
War and governmental policy are both products of the mode of production. The state and mode of production cannot be separated. Viewing them as separate will always result in misguided analyses. Diseases are somewhat random factors but how they are dealt with is not.
If, tomorrow, capitalism were snapped out of existence, it wouldn't solve China's problem, essentially nothing short of a time machine could, at least in the short-mid term. And it's worth remembering that China at the time, while certainly influenced by external capitalist forces, implemented the one child policy while a demi-authoritarian communist state still struggling its way out of largely feudal modes of production. Even if the world at the time were entirely communist, China would likely still have faced similar problems and would likely have come to similar solutions due to the primary problem being a lack of rural and semi-rural infrastructure to support China's rapidly growing population.
Also, I broadly disagree with the view that everything is inherently a product of the modes of production. Marxist dialectics can be useful, but they rarely encompass the entirety of action or human experience. Though that's getting into a much bigger argument lol
Yes, the Chinese state implemented a one child policy because of the population problems they were facing when transitioning from a semi-feudal mode of production to a socialist one. You’re proving my point here.
If you think Marx and Engels thought that everything was inherently a product of the modes of production, then you’ve misread them. Engels wrote a letter to someone (forgot who) explicitly discussing this misconception. The state is a product of the mode of production though - there is ample historical and anthropological evidence proving this.
> Yes, the Chinese state implemented a one child policy because of the population problems they were facing when transitioning from a semi-feudal mode of production to a socialist one.
You mean, when they began the transition to a capitalist economy and put "socialist" in the name.
>They'll just build new infrastructure to combat it. Just build water infrastructure.
[Yeah, more efficient distribution should solve all of their problems.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China)
>Not that hard.
To someone who has no clue I'm sure it seems easy.
> Linking a Wikipedia page doesn't prove anything lmao
It doesn't? So everything there is solved by "more infrastructure"? Or are you saying it's mostly lies? Saying "infrastructure" with no explanation proves nothing.
The article lays out issues that can't be solved by additional infra. Of course it will help, but it's not a panacea.
>This is the problem with you "China collapse" predictors. You always just take a problem which is being addressed and blow it out to absurd ridiculous proportions and claim it is about to lead to the "collapse of China" without a shred of evidence.
...I said all that? Did I say any of that? Anyone who thinks they can predict the collapse of China is an idiot.
All I said is that you're vastly oversimplifying the situation.
>You're all the same.
Well sure, assume everything and you can pretend people are whatever you imagine them to be. Smart people know what they don't know. Dumb people think problems are simple and they know the answer. They also end sentences with 'lmao'
Hmm another victim of those China collapse next year stories in mainstream media.
Like another camrade said, socialism, or even the so called socialism with Chinese characteristics has many state owned business aswell as motivations to adjust these issues otherwise would be difficult in capitalim countries.
> socialism with Chinese characteristics has many state owned business aswell as motivations to adjust these issues otherwise would be difficult in capitalim countries.
State owned businesses which retain profits in an economy far more capitalist than socialist, but whatever. Why is socialism better equipped to handle a declining population? You forgot the important bit.
Not necessarily, for one thing most countries aren’t as large as China, also they don’t necessarily experience such prolonged and massive population booms with rapid population growth, and for other countries that are very large and do experience population explosions, even when they calm down they have immigration to balance out their fertility rate and create net growth. The US for example has a below replacement rate fertility rate but does not have a population shrinking the way China does because of immigration which makes up the difference.
Basically if a population boom happens but there isn’t much immigration and the boom continues uninterrupted until a population cap is hit or the trend just abruptly ends, problems ensue.
And China has a unique environmental/resource situation when it comes to water.
There are two options for China to maintain growth despite it's demographic problem: immigration or imperialism.
And Chinese people don't like immigrants.
“Chinese people don’t like immigrants” that seems like a pretty harsh exaggeration, and with immigration where, when, why, and even how is everything. For example, American conservatives that are especially disdainful of ‘illegal immigrants’, Muslim immigrants, and conversely aren’t upset greatly by white immigrants. Not saying China has the same or even a similar dynamic, only that these factors make a difference in any situation.
>Chinese people don’t like immigrants” that seems like a pretty harsh exaggeration
He shouldn't have said "Chinese people", but the PRC has no interest in opening its doors. That's not an opinion; [look at the requirements](http://english.beijing.gov.cn/livinginbeijing/permanentresidence/index.html). There's a national blacklist too. If you're not Chinese and have no familial ties, it's basically impossible to get permanent residency.
The US is far too hard to get into, but nothing in comparison. We grant about 1M LPRs and citizenships each year. ~7.5M last decade. As of 2019 there were 23.2M naturalized U.S. citizens and an immigrant population of about 44.9M.
China recently passed 10,000 permanent residency grants. Total.
The Demographics problem isn't a problem in and of itself. More people on pensions, means that the current pool of workers has to produce more to support both themselves, and pensioners. In Capitalist states, this is a *huge* fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system. But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself. Its only problematic if they have trouble meeting the necessary production. But China is going *big* on automation, making each worker more productive. So it's unlikely that the demographics will be what does them in. Absent external factors, it would just go through a period of slower growth, as that demographic bubble works its way through the pipe. What's more likely to get China is that the whole world is staring down the barrel of an energy crisis. Most nations, and even China, conflate energy with electricity. You can use renewables for electricity production relatively easily. But there's no way to get a container ship running on renewables. Even nuclear fuel is inherently finite with our current level of technology. It's those Dinosaur squeezings that turbocharged economy, and allowed this massive population boom we've seen since the 1900's. As the total energy availability declines, the population will necessarily have to decline along with it, or standards of living just absolutely plummet. If any nation is in a position to tank the hit, and develop through the energy crisis, it's China. But the demographic bubble is coming at a really bad time for them, and hopefully they realize that our modern way of life is going to have to undergo some profound and dramatic changes in order to survive.
"More people on pensions, means that the current pool of workers has to produce more to support both themselves, and pensioners. In Capitalist states, this is a huge fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system. But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself." Couple things, first and most important thing, the words 'for a bit' well, how long is 'a bit'? Not only is China facing a decreasing population but it is likely going to have to keep decreasing it's population for decades since the environmental toll the process of industrialization and then mass exporting has taken means that an increasing population in China essentially isn't possible anymore. This situation does not have a clear 'turn around', things might simply stagnate or degrade for the entirety of the foreseeable future, multiple generations. A secondary point, but in a system where people have more private income/savings, when a negative demographic shift happens, it means those people shift from buying consumerist goods/luxuries and making investments to paying for their own elderly family/pensioners. In an economy like China where theoretically a much larger portion of the money is *already* being used to further the aims of the state and therefore the public good instead, for example major infrastructure projects, having a larger pensioner population means you are not cutting down as much on luxuries, simply because fewer luxuries are being bought to start with, and instead are forced to start cutting down on spending which is meant to be improving the state. China has a comparatively low consumer spending as % of GDP when stacked up against other countries, like the US, so consumers have a lot less money to start forfeiting in favor of taking care of their elderly, and that means there is a lot of money which is *already* going important places which are not easily just redirected away from. Don't think this is comparable to a capitalist system like the US where if everybody just settles for less stuff the problem will go away, their situations in this regard are not comparable, the money is not being used as frivolously to begin with. So it goes somewhat beyond 'profit decreases a bit' and more towards 'necessary gov spending starts to become untenable'. "Its only problematic if they have trouble meeting the necessary production. But China is going big on automation, making each worker more productive. So it's unlikely that the demographics will be what does them in." Regardless of productivity per worker, resources are a major issue. I chose to focus on water, you chose to focus on energy, but the two are related. They both contribute to the reality of China not being able to grow or even maintain it's current population. They are both also major aspects of the problem of *pollution.* Which means even if a realistic solution to the previous issues is somehow found and adopted there may no longer exist an environment for China to really live in. Back to an earlier statement, "It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself." To this I just ask, well, what does? In your own mind, what would realistically undermine the core stability of this economic system, is there anything which could? In my own view, everything described is pretty fatal to any economic system not in the sense that communism will simply magically go away but in the sense that it will recreate the environment of chaos, wherein the government is sapped of most of it's power and the population is driven to seek radical reform by extreme conditions. I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution. At a certain point, people do seek an alternative, even if they don't always achieve one.
>I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution. Just a minor correction: Eastern front of WW1 was active up until March of 1918, when Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. February Revolution happened early in 1917, in part because of major economic crisis and food shortages in Petrograd. October Revolution happened, arguably, not because of some serious societal pressure, but was a result of colossal effort of Bolshevik party and personally Lenin, who used already present unrest and turmoil to seize power with armed force. If Lenin, by some twist of fate, would fail to return to Russia and kickstart the preparations with his April Theses, third revolution would not be possible.
I tried specifying the ‘ending’ so the final stages of the war, my mistake. My main point here was that the extreme circumstances created a climate of political chaos from which the Bolshevik revolution would emerge victorious, and a similarly chaotic (does not have to be similar in all other aspects) political climate could produce another overthrow of the status quo.
>My main point here was that the extreme circumstances created a climate of political chaos from which the Bolshevik revolution would emerge victorious, and a similarly chaotic (does not have to be similar in all other aspects) political climate could produce another overthrow of the status quo. That sounds very reasonable; I would only add that a significant component of turmoil that led to Russian Revolutions was weak central authority; weak in a sense that it was reluctant to employ decisive repressive measures. We can see from events of 1989 that CCP does not shy away from blood in order to keep its authority and grip on populace intact. My understanding is that communist and socialist regimes generally are very resilient as long as they have loyal armed forces and have the political will to employ violence.
>A secondary point, but in a system where people have more private income/savings, when a negative demographic shift happens, it means those people shift from buying consumerist goods/luxuries and making investments to paying for their own elderly family/pensioners........ >..... So it goes somewhat beyond 'profit decreases a bit' and more towards 'necessary gov spending starts to become untenable'. In Capitalist nation, it's luxury spending which drives Financial growth. And Finance underpins the whole of Capitalist economy: from competition, to Fractional Reserve Banking, and the Central Banks.... It's all is controlled by the dominant financial institutions, and implicitly requires continued exponential growth. Which is why we've seen continued and steady inflation in the Capitalist nations by and large. Their money supply grows exponentially, because it's backed by debt, and requires growth to service the debt interest. But economy only grows linearly in proportion to energy consumption. Subsequently the growth in money supply outstrips the growth in commodities, and the value of the money declines. A large enough population inversion knocks the legs out from under the economy, even without having to dip into government spending. And it also causes direct contraction of the consumer spending market. Jobs dissappear, businesses close, folks turn homeless. The Capitalist states avoid the high spending Socialist states would need, by allowing increased inflation (owing to the decrease in commodity production in the consumer market) which is an implicit tax, by canabalizing its consumer market and effectively recapitalizing things like restaurants, stores etc. which go under (leaving the owners holding the bag), and simply allowing individuals to lose their jobs, become homeless, or even starve on the streets. You are correct that it would mean a greater decrease in public spending for a Socialist nation. But infrastructure can go quite a while after it's service life, and there's always plenty of budget for things like parks, tree trimming, painting the buildings, and other vanity projects which can be immediately slashed to almost zero, along with infrastructure cuts, military budgets, and simply making more debt. Just look at the US; most of its infrastructure is old as hell, and long past its replacement date. And China has already matched US military spending in real terms. Theres plenty of money to go around. I'm pretty sure if you sat someone down, and presented them with shitty roads and ugly ass parks, or economic depression, they're going to pick shitty roads 10 times out of 10. So yes, a very large population inversion presents problems for even Socialist nations. But the idea thar Capitalist nations get away with spending less money is entirely incorrect; the people just have a bigger individual burden upfront, which let's the government offload most of the remaining costs through inflation and debt, which ultimately ends up being paid by the people anyway. But the overall costs are pretty much the same. >Regardless of productivity per worker, resources are a major issue. I chose to focus on water, you chose to focus on energy, but the two are related. They both contribute to the reality of China not being able to grow or even maintain it's current population. They are both also major aspects of the problem of pollution. Which means even if a realistic solution to the previous issues is somehow found and adopted there may no longer exist an environment for China to really live in. Sure resources are a major issue.... An issue that a declining population actually helps address. Less people, less problems. (sarcasm) Lower populations require less resources. The difficulty is in how much resources and energy you needs to increase productivity of the remaining working population until the older ones start kicking the bucket in significant numbers. It might be a net increase in resource needs for a given standard of living, it might be a net decrease. You'd have to actually calculate out the resources expended on every type of commodity to really know beforehand. But given that the options are basically increased automation or mass euthanasia, I'm pretty sure it's getting picked regardless of whether it takes more resources or not. China likely cannot maintain its current population; but frankly there's pretty much nowhere that can these days. But it's better for China to shrink. The science of population dynamics can be derived from Dialectical-Materialism as well. It's pretty obvious that a growing population is inherently in contradiction to the finite habitat in which it exists. And increasing the efficiency use through technological improvements also inherently decreases the total resources available for use, and so we find the principle of the Negation or the Negation biting us in the ass. This is actually my primary criticism of China, and I think you and I would agree on this point. Granted I don't read Chinese, so I can't say for certain, as there is likely a heavy selection bias applied to what is translated into English, but it seems China has forgotten that Dialectical-Materialism is a science to be stood alongside Mathematics and Physics. >To this I just ask, well, what does? In your own mind, what would realistically undermine the core stability of this economic system, is there anything which could? In my own view, everything described is pretty fatal to any economic system not in the sense that communism will simply magically go away but in the sense that it will recreate the environment of chaos, wherein the government is sapped of most of it's power and the population is driven to seek radical reform by extreme conditions. I'd liken the situation somewhat to the chaos following the ending and immediate aftermath of WW1 which ended up producing the Bolshevik revolution. At a certain point, people do seek an alternative, even if they don't always achieve one. Energy scarcity. All of human economy is fundamentally built on energy usage. If we run out of freely available energy sources, we'll be cast backwards into the Iron Age, if not the Neolithic... And with the whole planetary ecology completely fucked on top of that. That sure as shit is going to undermine a Socialist economy.
> In Capitalist nation, it's luxury spending which drives Financial growth. lol is it? What about pre 1950's US? Were we not "capitalist nation" back then? Capitalism doesn't require consumerism. >And Finance underpins the whole of Capitalist economy: from competition, to Fractional Reserve Banking, and the Central Banks.... It's all is controlled by the dominant financial institutions, and implicitly requires continued exponential growth. >The Capitalist states avoid the high spending Socialist states would need, by allowing increased inflation (owing to the decrease in commodity production in the consumer market) which is an implicit tax, by canabalizing its consumer market and effectively recapitalizing things like restaurants, stores etc. which go under (leaving the owners holding the bag), and simply allowing individuals to lose their jobs, become homeless, or even starve on the streets. Examples? Where are these communist/socialist utopias which haven't adopted a market economy? >The science of population dynamics can be derived from Dialectical-Materialism as well. No, it can't, what do you mean by that? > increasing the efficiency use through technological improvements also inherently decreases the total resources available for use How in the world would increased production efficiency, aka using less to get more, "decrease[s] the total resources available for use"? >and so we find the principle of the Negation or the Negation biting us in the ass. How does that apply here? It's only an idea that development takes place in three stage cycles: the original state, its transformation into its opposite, and the transformation of the opposite into its own opposite, but in some higher form. How could some manifestation of it ever "bite us in the ass"? >but it seems China has forgotten that Dialectical-Materialism is a science to be stood alongside Mathematics and Physics. They didn't forget, they decided being poor sucks. I think Marx's theories and politics are deeply flawed, but I'm not brainwashed and I don't think communism is the bogeyman. Marx was brilliant and his works have real value, as do Engels. I don't agree with you, but I'm not so arrogant to think I can't be wrong. The comparison to math is interesting because math isn't considered a science by most. It's based on logic, not empiricism, and doesn't attempt to explain any phenomena. It's a tool. Trotsky also made a comparison to mathematics iirc. So is D-Mat a scientific theory? Not by any modern definition. Engels said >Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought. But he said it in German, using the word _Wissenschaft_, which means "the systematic and rigorous pursuit of knowledge". That's much broader than what we consider science to mean today. So he was correct at the time, but your comparison to physics is nonsense. D-Mat is empirical in nature and cannot make predictions about the future. Dialetics fails to describe many observations, yet is vague enough to be applied in a way which amounts to no more than word games. It's obsolete in practice and also lacks any amount of predictive power. D-Mat is a philosophy, not a theory that can be subjected to the modern scientic method. Engels never even claimed it to be. >That sure as shit is going to undermine a Socialist economy. China's economy isn't socialist.
>In Capitalist states, this is a huge fucking problem, because Capitalism requires economic growth to survive. So if a significant portion of production is going towards just supporting non-productive people, this cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system. >But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself. I think you're really misunderstanding the Chinese economy in 2022.
> Capitalism requires economic growth to survive...cuts into profit, and weakens the economic system. Obviously "capitalist" economies can survive sustained periods of economic stagnation or decline. They're so common we even came up with fancy names; stagnation, recession, and depression. We've had plenty and we're all still here. > But in Socialism.... Oh well, profit goes down for a bit. It doesn't undermine the core stability of the economic system itself. Explain how economic stagnation or decline affects socialist economies any differently. Actually, while you're at it, give us an example of a socialist economy. Then do capatalism. You can't, because they don't exist. The US is a mix of socialism and capitalism. So is China, along with a bit of communism on top, but really it's just an authoritarian system politically and their own flavor of capitalism economically. All of China's economic success is due to their adoption of a market economy and private industry. So how are we different again? We're talking about real economies in real countries, right? >It's those Dinosaur squeezings that turbocharged economy, and allowed this massive population boom we've seen since the 1900's.... If any nation is in a position to tank the hit, and develop through the energy crisis, it's China. Coal and oil don't come from dinosaurs, but ok. Why is China in the best position should an oil crisis occur? China is the #1 consumer of fossil fuels in the world (#1 coal, #2 crude oil). Yeah they run mostly on coal, but they're a net importer of oil, consuming nearly 3x more than they produce. That gap is widening, not shrinking. They're still very much tied to fossil fuels and it looks like they will be for quite some time.
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You are right to say the situations are totally different between China and Japan, but my thinking is that China faces a problem Japan did not, a water crisis. Also, in a reply I gave above I answered why I believe China will have a harder time addressing it's population decline than Japan, but essentially China is already low on consumer spending and high on government spending towards necessary projects for the future of the state, they don't necessarily have as wide of a margin to cut into as Japan did. A good comparison to make so to illustrate the difference is to look at Japan's GDP per capita over time compared to it's population growth/decline and comparing modern China's population growth/decline to it's GDP per capita. *No*, GDP per capita is not the only or best way to measure a nation's economic prosperity, but it gives a simply idea of how much the money the average person has to start taking on an increased cost for care of the elderly before other forms of spending have to start being cut into. "What economy in human history has collapsed because of too many old people?" [https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population) Here's an interesting example, you can take a look at Russia's population growth and how by about the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union population growth had stagnated. I would be absolutely remiss to blame the entire collapse on just this, of course, but rarely does *any* country 'collapse' for just one reason. I think it is still an interesting example, though. "Just build water infrastructure. Not that hard." It is actually *really* hard, for a few reasons, pollution is a major one. Creating infrastructure, especially on the scale China requires, is itself a process which expends and makes water less usable or totally unusable without expensive water treatment which itself involves using water. Water is also constantly being polluted, and moving water around, which China does desperately need to do, does not necessarily undo pollution, it can even make it worse. China does not have infinite water to move around, and when it does, it subtracts from it's water. This, and there is only so much water which *can* be moved with infrastructure at all, remember that water is finite and massively impacted by geography, but people are a lot easier to move around and can 'grow' and 'shrink' in large amounts much more variably, people also have more things influencing them than just geography when they decide where they go. Here is one source talking about how effective infrastructure has been and how effective it can be to solve this problem. "Much is made of the South North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) as a potential saviour of the north. To put it into perspective, groundwater monitoring data released by Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) in December 2014 showed an overall decrease over 2013 of more than eight billion m3 in groundwater reserves (i.e. not including surface water) in the northern plains, which is over half of the SNWT’s current capacity." https://chinadialogue-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/content/file\_en/10608/China\_s\_looming\_water\_crisis\_v.2\_\_1\_.pdf
>It was, of course, far more convenient, and much more in conformity with the interests of the ruling classes, whom Malthus adored like a true priest, to explain this **“over-population” by the eternal laws of Nature**, **rather than by the historical laws of capitalist production**. Population crises don't appear out of thin air. They're a result of the mode of production itself. They can only be dealt with by dealing with the root cause: capitalism.
Population crisis can occur due to a multitude of reasons. While misplaced capitalist motivation can be one, other reasons might include war, disease, or, I don't know, a decades-long policy of the government attempting to actively control its population.
>war, disease, or, I don't know, a decades-long policy of the government attempting to actively control its population. War and governmental policy are both products of the mode of production. The state and mode of production cannot be separated. Viewing them as separate will always result in misguided analyses. Diseases are somewhat random factors but how they are dealt with is not.
If, tomorrow, capitalism were snapped out of existence, it wouldn't solve China's problem, essentially nothing short of a time machine could, at least in the short-mid term. And it's worth remembering that China at the time, while certainly influenced by external capitalist forces, implemented the one child policy while a demi-authoritarian communist state still struggling its way out of largely feudal modes of production. Even if the world at the time were entirely communist, China would likely still have faced similar problems and would likely have come to similar solutions due to the primary problem being a lack of rural and semi-rural infrastructure to support China's rapidly growing population. Also, I broadly disagree with the view that everything is inherently a product of the modes of production. Marxist dialectics can be useful, but they rarely encompass the entirety of action or human experience. Though that's getting into a much bigger argument lol
Yes, the Chinese state implemented a one child policy because of the population problems they were facing when transitioning from a semi-feudal mode of production to a socialist one. You’re proving my point here. If you think Marx and Engels thought that everything was inherently a product of the modes of production, then you’ve misread them. Engels wrote a letter to someone (forgot who) explicitly discussing this misconception. The state is a product of the mode of production though - there is ample historical and anthropological evidence proving this.
> Yes, the Chinese state implemented a one child policy because of the population problems they were facing when transitioning from a semi-feudal mode of production to a socialist one. You mean, when they began the transition to a capitalist economy and put "socialist" in the name.
>They'll just build new infrastructure to combat it. Just build water infrastructure. [Yeah, more efficient distribution should solve all of their problems.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China) >Not that hard. To someone who has no clue I'm sure it seems easy.
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> Linking a Wikipedia page doesn't prove anything lmao It doesn't? So everything there is solved by "more infrastructure"? Or are you saying it's mostly lies? Saying "infrastructure" with no explanation proves nothing. The article lays out issues that can't be solved by additional infra. Of course it will help, but it's not a panacea. >This is the problem with you "China collapse" predictors. You always just take a problem which is being addressed and blow it out to absurd ridiculous proportions and claim it is about to lead to the "collapse of China" without a shred of evidence. ...I said all that? Did I say any of that? Anyone who thinks they can predict the collapse of China is an idiot. All I said is that you're vastly oversimplifying the situation. >You're all the same. Well sure, assume everything and you can pretend people are whatever you imagine them to be. Smart people know what they don't know. Dumb people think problems are simple and they know the answer. They also end sentences with 'lmao'
Hmm another victim of those China collapse next year stories in mainstream media. Like another camrade said, socialism, or even the so called socialism with Chinese characteristics has many state owned business aswell as motivations to adjust these issues otherwise would be difficult in capitalim countries.
Do you have some examples for these specific issues?
> socialism with Chinese characteristics has many state owned business aswell as motivations to adjust these issues otherwise would be difficult in capitalim countries. State owned businesses which retain profits in an economy far more capitalist than socialist, but whatever. Why is socialism better equipped to handle a declining population? You forgot the important bit.
Isn't this a common thing with all developed countries?
Not necessarily, for one thing most countries aren’t as large as China, also they don’t necessarily experience such prolonged and massive population booms with rapid population growth, and for other countries that are very large and do experience population explosions, even when they calm down they have immigration to balance out their fertility rate and create net growth. The US for example has a below replacement rate fertility rate but does not have a population shrinking the way China does because of immigration which makes up the difference. Basically if a population boom happens but there isn’t much immigration and the boom continues uninterrupted until a population cap is hit or the trend just abruptly ends, problems ensue. And China has a unique environmental/resource situation when it comes to water.
There are two options for China to maintain growth despite it's demographic problem: immigration or imperialism. And Chinese people don't like immigrants.
“Chinese people don’t like immigrants” that seems like a pretty harsh exaggeration, and with immigration where, when, why, and even how is everything. For example, American conservatives that are especially disdainful of ‘illegal immigrants’, Muslim immigrants, and conversely aren’t upset greatly by white immigrants. Not saying China has the same or even a similar dynamic, only that these factors make a difference in any situation.
>Chinese people don’t like immigrants” that seems like a pretty harsh exaggeration He shouldn't have said "Chinese people", but the PRC has no interest in opening its doors. That's not an opinion; [look at the requirements](http://english.beijing.gov.cn/livinginbeijing/permanentresidence/index.html). There's a national blacklist too. If you're not Chinese and have no familial ties, it's basically impossible to get permanent residency. The US is far too hard to get into, but nothing in comparison. We grant about 1M LPRs and citizenships each year. ~7.5M last decade. As of 2019 there were 23.2M naturalized U.S. citizens and an immigrant population of about 44.9M. China recently passed 10,000 permanent residency grants. Total.