- cross-posted to:
- economics@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- economics@lemmy.ml
Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system
The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.
The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
You must log in or # to comment.
Last paragraph basically says it all:
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
At this point, Chinas goverment may be no more authoritarian than the US government. And China has a lot more social welfare programs than the US. Honestly, when I was in China i felt substantially more free than I did in the US. Far less policed. Far less restricted. Maybe that jsut my experience, but the feeling was real.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government
Dizzying to see what constitutes “authoritarian” in Evil Foreign Country relative to what is “sensible national security policy” at home.
Almost feels like the complaint isn’t with the policies themselves, but who authors and enforces them.
authoritarian when you refuse to sell out to world bank and IMF and refuse to give up your resources for foreign corporations to exploit.
I like how fast they build infrastructure. I’m still waiting on a subway that was planned to be built 40 years ago
I like how fast they build infrastructure
You mean collapsing within a few years? Three of their largest bridges recently built just collapsed. And a lot of structures over there collapse within a few to several years.
Maybe, but when they collapse, it’s cheap and quick to put up a replacement!
Cope harder. China has the most vast high speed rail network in the planet and it works, for all intents and purposes, flawlessly, as do the immense metro rail systems in big cities.
886 gigawatts of solar too, adding about 250GW a year lately. They’re building solar at a rate that outpaces most countries entire capacities
US has about 200GW (estimated, no official number) and until 2020 was adding about 20GW a year. This number increased significantly and about 120-130GW was added between 2020-2024. This was record growth for the US mainly due to economic policy (which came to a screeching halt in 2024, surprise). But even before 2024s return to coal times China was outpacing us by 2x the growth we saw in a 4 year period in a single year
This does not cover most of the other key quality of life metrics people complain about in America that China has made strides on: poverty and wealth inequality (which the article is obviously about), housing access, healthcare reforms, as you’ve mentioned significant public transit investment. Are these things perfect? No, but considering where China was in 1990 or even 2005 they’ve made significant strides because of active investment in their populace and infrastructure.
In that same time America has spent basically 0 time and money on its populace or land. Income inequality has worsened by 2-4x, our infrastructure crumbles, our healthcare system is failing while mortality rates and prices climb, etc
But point this objectively true data out and you’re a “tankie”. Just let the neolibs handle it, they’ll do the same thing they’ve been doing since 1992: taking bribes from corporations, insider trading, and convincing fucking dummies that they’ll fix it in a few more years if just a few more people vote, because it’s the voters fault you see. Don’t google the increase in my net worth since I took office 5 years ago please!
Regarding solar, you’re forgetting one thing: not only is China the highest installer of solar power, they manufacture 93% of the total world production of photovoltaic panels. Every solar power installation in the west relies on Chinese solar panels.
The USA had every opportunity to be the manufacturer of panels here as well. Funny you mention this. This is one industry that made tons of sense for the US to keep within America as the green energy boom was starting to take hold. The first solar cell was made here. It is a labor light industry, overall.
But starting in the 1990s as it was becoming clear this was necessary what was our response? To mock green energy, political gridlock, and to push the concern to private industry who mostly ignored it in favor of chasing fossil fuels a bit longer. Then US did what it does best and offshored production of panels it did make, weakening manufacturing capability even further (while strengthening China by starting to develop their supply chains, which they later invested billions in)
I feel you. I’m a Spaniard, and for 10ish critical years in the 2000s-2010s, we had a so-called “sun tax” that made people pay taxes for solar energy their home installations output to the electric grid. This essentially killed the solar industry in the largest country in the super sunny southern Europe. We have no fossil fuel deposits, no intention of opening up nuclear plants, and no geothermal energy possibilities, and we killed our best chance at solar.
Goes to show how China’s socialist government model blows anything in Europe and America out of the water.
What am I coping with exactly? I don’t live in the US and I’m not a US citizen.
You’re coping by lying about Chinese infrastructure
And how does that equate to me coping?
One of their largest bridges collapsed because of a weakness in the bridge’s foundation that I think involved a landslide. You know, landslides, which can be seldom predicted ahead of time given climate change changing rainfall patterns that challenge engineers’ “100-year records”.
The Chinese also figured out that the bridge was going to collapse ahead of time, so they evacuated all motorists. Don’t think there were any casualties.
When was the last bridge collapse in the US? IIRC, it was the one near NY/NJ where a tanker/barge ran into a foundation column. How can you predict that? And how many people died as a result?
These things happen. The difference between China and the US is how well both governments react to adversity.
I haven’t noticed any more shit quality building in China than Korea or Vietnam. Slightly less than Japan, but there’s a reason most buildings there get torn down in like 20 years.
China’s new 5 year plan says it all too. So does all their previous 5 year plans too. Publicly available too.
In USA affordable EVs from China are illegal. Other affordable green tech from China is made unaffordable.
Maybe it’s not the government that is the problem. Maybe the problem is the people in charge of running the government. And those people’s plan.
Project 2025 is public too. That’s USA’s plan or at least the Republicans plan.
deleted by creator
You need a left first.
deleted by creator
This right here. So much this.
Leaders are the ones the feds go after first.
Yeah it would really help to have a plan like “tax rich people” “decommodify housing” “trade deals that punish outsourcing” “ban medical debt.” “College that is so cheap it doesn’t need loans” “Corporations posting profits after job cuts and layoffs will have higher taxes” “discourage corporations from selling products in multiple markets” “reduce corporate price fixing through third parties” “force corporations to compete in markets” “disallow investors to buy companies when they hold substantial investment in a corporation that produces any competing product”
One final edit: “Break up regional monopolies”
Any government that relies on individuals to uncorruptly weild concentrated power… is the problem. Society and human nature will see it abused every time.
If your system relies on being run by exceptional people. Success itself is the exception.
Any government that relies on individuals to uncorruptly weild concentrated power…
All governments rely on uncorruptible civil servants to some degree. Nobody seems to know what the threshold for “concentrated power” actually is.
But the Chinese system has this pernacious habit of benefiting domestic Chinese residents. That’s the “corruption” westerners can’t stand. That’s the concentration of authority they object to.
If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn’t hear any complaints
All governments rely on uncorruptible civil servants to some degree.
This is flat-out false. Systems like anarchism explicitly expect it,and structured accordingly.
But the Chinese system has this pernacious habit of benefiting domestic Chinese residents.
Tanky say what?! Go ask the Uyghurs or the Tibetans or the Hong Kongers or any non-han ethnic group. It’s not an east west thing. It’s a “western nations did identical things to my family that China is doing over there. And I’m not an immature ideology blinded campist” thing. It’s a don’t be a hypocrite thing. But name a more iconic strawman for an ML than not just bigotedly lumping an entire ethnic group, but vast diverse groups as one. Just because they loosely share geopolitical ties.
If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn’t hear any complaints.
You’re literally projecting. Because I’m here to tell you that’s just as bad. Fuck that shit whoever is doing it. Grow up and stop being an enabling hypocrite.
Systems like anarchism explicitly expect it,and structured accordingly.
Speak specifically. Which anarchist government are you referring to?
Because I can point to plenty of anarchist communities - from Chaz in Seattle to the 1930s Spanish Anarchists - who were as plagued with corruption and abuse of authority.
Never even mind the Anarcho-Capitalists that have been central to the modern era of human trafficking, war profiteering, and environmental pillaging.
Tanky say what?!
Go ask the Uyghurs or the Tibetans or the Hong Kongers or any non-han ethnic group.
Something of a joke over the last few years that the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the civil war in South Sudan has eclipsed the UN’s attention, in large part because the “anti-genocide” voices on China have had to rapidly pivot to being genocide-denialist across North Africa and the Middle East.
If you can find me the equivalent of hospitals being bombed, populations starved into submission, and children with brains blown out by sniper fire as they were carried by terrified parents, I’d be genuinely curious to see it.
Because I’m here to tell you that’s just as bad.
That’s always the game isn’t it? “How dare you defy my political orthodoxy! You’re the real criminal here!”
You can’t stomach the most tepid opposition. The slightest whisper of defiance to the fascist narrative sends you into spirals of invective. When you’re presented with a simple request for clarification, all you can do is scream Red Scare tropes and pound the downvote button.
I never said it eliminated it. Just that it accounted for it. Keeping governance flat and small. So it doesn’t produce corruption on a national level. Or export it.
And in the end, what does it matter. Every ML government has been corrupted and pushed it’s corruption at a much larger scale. That’s the point. The scale and mass of those
And as to your linked investigation, that’s not particularly convincing one way or the other. If China was good as you pretend, they would have a free press. Instead they repress. Foreign press have where they can go severely restricted often accompanied by minders to make sure they don’t get close to what they’re looking for. And finally, it’s very common for those that are abused to deny their abuse as long as they are vulnerable to their abuser. Here’s a link to an interview. Where at one point family and activists confront a CCP rep about the disappearance of their friends and family. Where he convincingly screeches “OnE cHiNa!!!” In response to not having the power to disappear. I know you deny these peoples existence. I bet you’ll even resort to old trusty. CIA or NATO conspiracy!
But the fact is secrecy and suppression is not the hallmark of the innocent.The leaders of ML governments are human just like everyone else. They aren’t divine or infallible. No matter how much ideology blinded campists like yourself, claim otherwise.
Sounds like we shouldn’t have a government then.
Well, anarchism isn’t the absence of governance. It’s the answerability of governance. We need to abolish unanswerable calcified institutions of power. We can still have governments as long as they are smaller and answerable to the individual’s they govern.
If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn’t hear any complaints
Western markets would still be overrun by cheap products (partly because of subsidies and partly because forced labour), Chinese residents would still be supressed by heavy surveillance, Taiwan would still be threatened, Russia would still be supplied with technology to invade Ukraine.
Until 15 years ago China wasn’t considered a hostile state, just an increasingly powerful competitor. All nations benefit their fomestic residents, or at least their domestic corporations.
The real situation in which there wouldn’t be complaints would be when the Chinese benefitted their residents while at the same time didn’t do anything the west didn’t like. But since they’ve become pwerful, they can now do whatever they want (just like other powerful countries) - and some of the stuff they want, is bad for the west.
Until 15 years ago China wasn’t considered a hostile state
The War on Terror set our efforts to crank up hostility against China back by a decade.
The real situation in which there wouldn’t be complaints would be when the Chinese benefitted their residents while at the same time didn’t do anything the west didn’t like.
American politicians made a big show of hating Japan during the 90s for “stealing our jobs” during their economic boom. Being a lapdog of the West didn’t save them from sanctions or racial animus or unfounded accusations of market manipulation.
Repression of minorities? Seriously, can anyone in the west even judge any country like that? Why, because you’re the experts in oppressing and repressing minorities?
Bro China has autonomous regions with self-governance for all major minorities. And they still spend a lot of federal funds to develop their regions, building schools, hospitals, power plants, roads, trains etc.
The federal government built one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world in the Dai autonomous region, for the Dai people. They sponsor cultural and religious festivals, spending federal funds to promote minority culture. All minority languages are taught in school in their respective home regions.
When has the US, Canada, Europe ever done anything like that? Japan doesn’t recognize its minorities at all, Sami are repressed in the nordics, and don’t even get me started on native peoples in the US and Canada.
Seriously this is all pure propaganda. It’s literally the meme “China lifts hundreds of millions out of poverty. But at what cost?! 😱”.
seriously, look at what ICE and trump are doing before you start throwing stones in your glass house.
Yes, this current admin is fucked up, but to put things into perspecrive, people during the Wong Kim Ark era faced even worse shit than anything I ever had to face. Migration always results in discrimination and sometimes persecution. Claiming this is the same as before is a huge disrespect to the actual stuggles to my compatriots from those eras in the past had to face.
Regardless of what happened in the past, and regardless of what other countries are doing currently, all forms of repressing minorities are a problem. Though I can agree that it is sometimes frustrating to hear about such concerns from oblivious Americans.
It’s just that I am inclined to not believe the white supremacist colonizers on what counts as “repressing minorities”.
Real criticism based on reality, yes. Empty claims based on propaganda, no.
All minority languages are taught in school in their respective home regions.
Bro they’re slowly killing off the Cantonese Language 💀
Not only they’re not teaching it, they are banning the use of Cantonese in schools. Fucking beijing.
It’s not banned, but it’s not forced. Only mandarin is forced (all other languages are optional to the school), and teachers are forced to pass mandarin exams to teach. And even in Guangzhou most people speak mandarin in a business setting, so parents make their children focus on mandarin even if they are native Cantonese speakers themselves.
But dude, it’s like a much milder version of language consolidation than what happened in France, Spain, Germany or Italy. They literally killed people for speaking the wrong language.
Exactly. Authoritarianism sucks. I wouldn’t want to live in China. But the US (and Canada) can do a fuckload better. In Canada they are also dismantling and privatizing everything and it sucks. Basically paying a lot more to get a lot less.
when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
I like that it uses “wouldn’t” rather than”couldn’t”. So relevant to today’s politics
Not surprised at all. American has done a fantastic job at propagandizing the populace against China.
Does China have major issues? Yes. Does China care more about its own sucess as a whole? Also yes. America invested in individuals, Chain invested in their people. This is the natural outcome.
Those individuals being exxon, Raytheon, and for-profit prison companies.
Eh…
I’m glad my homeland is doing a lot better these days, but still, for my family, we end up doing better in the US (we moved around 2010 for context, way before this admin), the first few years in the US was a struggle, the similar stuggle as before in Guangzhou, but eventually we have a house and then we started saving up and we have a small bussiness and some investments here in the US. So it really depends on personal circumstances…
In China, everyone has an ancestral house, but that is in your village; in the city, unless you are from the city, you probably won’t have housing. Jobs were in cities, so people migrate there, migrant workers… most of them have to rent a small apartment unit, probably in some slum. There are handweitten “for rent” posters everywhere. My family didn’t have to rent, they “bought” an apartment in Guangzhou (bought in quotes because the 70 year lease thing… which we still don’t know how it works… 70 years have not passed), its a very shitty one, in a slum neighborhood, but that was all they could afford. Most had to rent.
Prior to the Opening Up and Reforms, people weren’t allowed to move around, so you’d just get stuck on your farm… and farming manually… which really sucks.
After the Opening Up and Reforms, the relaxed the restriction on movements. But the Hukou still had restrictions.
I was born in Guangzhou, but wasn’t allowed into their public schools, no Guangzhou Hukou, my hukou was Taishan, my mom had to pay for a privately-run one that she said was inferior to the public school. Some migrant workers just left their kids beind in their village to attend school there. So those kids rarely get to see their parents. I did see them because I was going to school in Guangzhou so we didn’t really get separated like those kids did, but usually we didn’t get to see out parents for most of the day, so either grandmother was home to watch me and my brother, or sometimes we just get left at home alone.
I think most of the kids in that school I went to were all kida of migrant parents… because a Guangzhou kids would just go to public school.
Someone with Taishan Hukou also can’t like get any healthcare benefits of Guangzhou.
It’s like a internal passport system. Countries withing countries…
Then there was another issue with me essentially being an “illegal child” since my mother violated the 1 child policy, as I was the 2nd to be born, so my parents had to pay a huge fine before I can even get registered in Hukou and legally exist and have identity documents.
Converting to Guangzhou Hukou was practically impossible. Somehow, getting US citizenship was easier… 🤷♂️
Maybe one day this stupid Hukou thing goes away, because it is stupid af.
Believe it or not, there are plans to “overhaul” the Hukou system.
https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/china-unveils-ambitious-5-year-plan-to-overhaul-the-hukou-system/
Recently I think they make it so couples can register their marriage in any jurisdiction. And not have to go to one of the couple’s birth town.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333785.shtml
I couldn’t fully understand whether or not their children’s Hukou will now be in the location of their marriage registration. But it’s a good step forward and they saw a brief spike in marriage registration overall.
It’s so weird that they’ve been so stubborn about it for so long, even as their cities expand to accommodate migrants and the population growth is slowed.
Excuse me, have you heard of the K shaped economy? It’s the everyday hellscape we now live in, where the rich can’t buy enough, and the poor can’t buy anything. Plane ticket sales down, first & business class have no inventory. Less people than ever can afford a house, and mega mansion sales are booming. We can’t afford groceries, but 5* restaurants have no reservations.
At some point, this shit comes to ahead. My pessimism suggests the rich want to figure out AI / robot security, so they can stop relying on any people at all.
Oh yeah, add in some sycophantic computers telling everyone they are perfect and every solution we have is paradigm breaking or revolutionary. Nothing will go wrong at all.
My pessimism suggests the rich want to figure out AI / robot security, so they can stop relying on any people at all.
Look at the plans to tech-ify Gaza. This is exactly what is planned
Over 90% of Chinese households would be below the US poverty line. Their GDP per capita is only $13k.
Nobody should use GDP to measure the health of a region…all it really measures is how many rich people are present.
Also…how can you compare apples to oranges like that? Income is half of the equation. Are you aware of the corresponding cost of living/spending power over there? You have to know it’s significantly more affordable.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
PPP also isn’t an appropriate measure because it partially assumes capitlaism.
You are going to have to explain why PPP isn’t appropriate for non-capitalist countries. Besides, what country isn’t capitalist in this analysis? A country calling itself communist does not make it so.
The first word in PPP is “purchasing”. It should be self-evident.
My comment wasn’t intended to be zero sum. Both countries have elements of socialism and capitalism…but one certainly “leans” more in the capitalist direction.
Are you telling me that socialists don’t purchase? Even intragovernmental transactions count as purchases.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. GDP per capita is not really a good measure of quality of life on its own.
Historically the USA has brought a lot of people (most?) out of poverty by the world standard. Recent policy seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Quality of life has been declining for a long time, IMO mostly with our sense of community, the completely broken healthcare system, media consolidation, absurd levels of car dependency, high cost of having children, and a whole bunch of other location-specific factors (like cost of living in metro areas)
I think immigrant desire for relocation speaks volumes of where the greatest opportunity exists. The migration patterns vastly favor the US as being the place for the greater hope for the global poor, as evidenced by their footprints.
The US isn’t even in the top 10 most desirable counties for migrants (as a proportion of their population).
That’s an odd measure. The population of the country being immigrated to doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with which country an immigrant will want to go to. Immigrants want to go to the place that’ll give them the best opportunity. By all measures, the US, Canada, and western Europe are the places people want to go. China isn’t.
it’s an appropriate measure.
You can’t compare a large country with low population density to a small one with high density, for example.
No, not “all measures”…by your words - you appear to be making an American exceptionalism argument. Canada is in the top 10, the USA isn’t. I agree that China isn’t.
Check out this chart. Tell me how migration numbers correlate with density.
No, thank you. I’m not interested in some random chart with no sourcing.
They have also put millions into poverty.
Citation?
China recently lowered the earning amount for poverty to just below what most Chinese people make, thereby “reducing” poverty.
China recently lowered the earning amount for poverty
You want to cite what you’re talking about here?
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202509/1343992.shtml
According to the latest announcement from the State Council Information Office, as of 2024, the average life expectancy in China has risen to 79 years. That’s not an abstract figure - it represents the standard of living and the health of ordinary people across the country.
Now, let’s rewind 20 years. In 2005, the average life expectancy in China was about 72.1 years, while it was 77.6 in the US. That’s a difference of more than five years.
At that time, China was rapidly moving from being an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse, but the healthcare system was still playing catch-up. Many older adults in rural areas had to walk several miles to see a doctor, and even hospitals in big cities could be cramped and under-equipped.
Fast forward two decades, and China’s life expectancy has surged by almost seven years, from 72.3 to 79.
You want to cite what you’re talking about here?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56194622
I guess that was 4 years ago, but I remember it as more recently.
while it was 77.6 in the US
I don’t live in the USA. I consider the USA a 3rd world country cosplaying as a 1st world one. Healthcare in the USA is one of the most broken and predatory in the world. So it’s not a meaningful comparison IMO.
I guess that was 4 years ago
Ah yes, the time China invested enormous sums in it’s infrastructure to improve the economy and quality of life of it’s poorest residents.
I guess if your devalue that investment, you can claim China cheated
I never said China didn’t invest into their national programs. I said their definitions of “poverty” are in question.
Just to clarify something. People tend to confuse the terms of “absolute poverty” and “poverty”.
The claim of “completely eliminating absolute poverty” (which is a claim the CCP makes) is almost true. Supposedly the number of people in absolute poverty in China is now 0.7%.
However, this is often reported as China “eliminating all poverty”, which isn’t true. The World Bank puts people still living in poverty in China at 13% (exact numbers are hard because of the CCPs information control), which is higher than what China self claims. Because China doesn’t use the World Bank’s definition for poverty.
I’ve been to China and have family from there. Don’t try to make this about some nationalistic nonsense. It would be amazing if people in China had as much access to the things in life everyone deserves, but the CCP isn’t exactly known for being honest.
I’ve been to China and have family from there
I’ve also been to China and I also have family from there.
Taking the train from Nanjing to Wuhan is a fundamentally different experience than driving from Houston to Denver. If you simply refuse to acknowledge the scope of public works and economic development, then dismiss these radical changes by citing the exchange rate between the USD and the Yuan as proof extreme poverty still exists, you’re lying to yourself and to everyone around you.
China has pushed huge numbers of people into poverty in different ways over the decades — the Great Leap Forward basically wrecked agriculture and caused a massive famine, the Cultural Revolution tore apart schools and workplaces and left tons of families with nothing, and long-term policies like the hukou system kept rural migrants stuck in low-income situations even as cities got richer. On top of that, big relocation projects for dams or new city districts have displaced whole communities with compensation that often didn’t match what they lost, and pollution from rapid industrialization has hit farmers and fishers hard. Outside China, some Belt and Road projects have piled unsustainable debt onto poorer countries, aggressive fishing in disputed waters has squeezed local fishers in Southeast Asia, sudden trade restrictions have hurt industries in neighboring economies, and resource extraction deals abroad have pushed aside local communities.
References (searchable titles):
- The Great Famine: China’s Great Leap Forward, 1958–1962 – Frank Dikötter
- The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History – Frank Dikötter
- China’s Hukou System and Migrant Workers – China Labor Bulletin
- Dam Displacement in China – Human Rights Watch
- Pollution and Poverty in Rural China – World Bank reports
- Belt and Road Initiative Debt Sustainability Analysis – Center for Global Development
- South China Sea Fisheries and Regional Livelihoods – Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative
- China’s Trade Retaliation Effects – Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Chinese Overseas Resource Projects and Local Impacts – Global Witness
Your sources do be like:
-Freedom Eagle Burger Institute report on China Badness 1990
-Austrian Painter Legacy Institution report 1984
-Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America, Propaganda Department report 2024
-Victims of Communism Memorial Association compilation of Top 10 China Bad arguments
This is basically everything that’s happened in the US the past 100 years. They just did it much faster and rose more people out of poverty by the end.
Still plenty of bad, but it does have me wondering how many nations have industrialized without harming the poorest of society
This is largely Cold War propaganda which neglects the atrocities of the Second World War and subsequent ecological impacts on the population and infrastructure.
You’re displacing the deaths of millions of victims of Japanese genocide onto the next generation, via misinformation published through the John Birch Society and other well known reactionary media institutions.
OK, provide some citations that argue against those, or… Don’t respond
So you fail to make any other argument than calling me a racist? Well, I’ll accept the win and remember this for the future.
Seattle alone has spent billions specifically on poverty and yet there is a very large homeless population.
Probably has to do more with the fact that the U.S. can’t force people out of poverty and sugar coat their numbers because there are a lot of checks and balances unlike a communist ran nation.
Apparently some users have misplaced the definition of communism or maybe are having brain farts from huffing too much copium, holy shit…
I would agree with you on the information control that China has, however I would not call them Communists. They are definitely capitalists. It’s just capitalism without the perceived freedom lol
It is officially a “people’s democratic dictatorship” and a unitary state, where the CCP has a monopoly on political power.
Wtf do you mean “I would not call them communists”?
Do you call cats puppies too while you are at it?
People here really are out of touch with reality, holy shit…
It is officially a “people’s democratic dictatorship” and a unitary state, where the CCP has a monopoly on political power.
That just defines an authoritarian regime, not a communist society. We’re not out of touch of reality, we just know our definitions.
You can say we are out of touch with reality but that does not make your reality actual reality. To be a communist country you cannot have billionaires. If you have billionaires then not everyone is equal. That is the end of the conversation
Communism mandates a single-party government, which inevitably becomes a corrupt dictatorship that does not follow the idealized plan. But that’s the problem: the plan is too idealistic and doesn’t account for human psychology. So, you can’t just say, “oh, that society isn’t communist because the outcomes aren’t right. Name one example of a communist country that actually produces the results you expect to see.
Communism doesn’t mandate a single-party government though. Single-party government is just authoritarianism. That’s why there are, and have been, communist parties in democratic countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
“Communism (from Latin communis ‘common, universal’) is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state. Communism is a part of the broader socialist movement.”
By this definition, PRC is decidedly not communist as the common people do not own the means of production; products in society are not solely allocated based on need; private property exists; social classes exist; and money exists.
Whose definition of communism are you relying upon?
Basically Marxism says that to reach Communism one must first have to go through the Revolution Of The Proletariat where amongst other things they Sieze The Means Of Production.
Whilst Communism itself needs not be authoritarian, no nation has actually ever been Communist and all nations over the years claiming to be “Communist” were just nation that took the Marxists path to Communism and never went the authoritarian stage of the Marxist path to Communism.
This generates a lot of confusion in those who learned about Communism mainly from Propaganda (from either side: that in places like China is no more honest than that in places like the US, just with a different spin).
Not everything inevitably becomes corrupt. I agree that it is very idealistic for humanity. Greed is far too Irresistible.
Just because there have been no successful forms of pure communism, Doesn’t mean we can start calling China actual communism. That’s changing where the bar is.
China is SINO or, CINO I suppose in this context.
No, see, what you’re doing is making a No True Scotsman argument. Nothing is communism to you unless it achieves the pristine results dictated by the ideal, so any actual attempt that fails, you dismiss as “not communism,” rather than admit that communism is a flawed system that has always produced bad results at scale.
Wtf do you mean “I would not call them communists”?
They have “communist” in their name “Chinese Communist Party”, but they aren’t communist by definition.
Communism is when the state gives you a home and this is a bad thing
Okay bud
Communism is when the state gives you a home
That’s a Cliff’s Notes, high-level, distilled to one sentence version of the definition. The reality of what communism entails is much larger than that.
And the Chinese CCP is as much a communist government as the United States government is a democracy.
Whoosh
As torn said. ML aren’t communist. They’re authoritarian and generally capitalistic. Also the US brought millions out of poverty as well. But that doesn’t play well with biased authors and readers. See social security.
Bringing X numbers out of poverty however doesn’t justify or excuse either of their genocide and oppression. Not to mention since China speed ran the 20th century. They are already seen burgeoning inequality and returns to poverty. But campus have to camp and distort.
Which country would you expect to solve wealth inequality first?
