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i used to feel badly blocking accounts
If you're that shook just from somebody mentioning the commies I don't think you're gonna provide much in the way of productive discussion anyway, so, by all means.
what XJP/beijing does is authoritarianism under the guise of communism. Lemmy of all places would be fine with actual communism but authoritarian regimes are a no go.
Pasting my comment from earlier:
Any "leftist" that thinks the fact that China has billionaires means it therefore isn't actually Socialist needs to read Marx and Engels. There are many such liberals here in these comments. Marx predicted Socialism to be the next mode of production because markets centralize and create intricate methods of planning. As such, he stated that folding private into the public would be gradual, and by the degree to which industry would develop. From the Manifesto:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
In even simpler terms, from Engels in Principles of Communism:
Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
That doesn't mean billionaires are good to have, necessarily, either. It remains a contradiction, but not an uncalculated one. I highly recommend anyone here read China has Billionaires. As much as Marxists want to lower wealth inequality eventually as much as possible (insofar as thr principle "from each according to ability, to each according to needs applies, Marx was no "equalitarian" and railed against them), in the stage of developmemt the PRC is at this would get in the way of development, and could cause Capital Flight and brain drain. Moreover, billionaires provide an easy scapegoat that the USSR didn't have, and thus all problems of society were directed at the state. It's important to consider why a Marxist country does what it does, and not immediately assume you know better. The CPC has an over 95% approval rate, you can't just assume you know what's best.
The phrase "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is meant to depict higher stage Communism. Until that is possible, the answer becomes "to each according to his work," because as Marx said in Critique of the Gotha Programme:
these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
At least take a consistent stance, if you believe the PRC to not be Socialist simply because it has billionaires either you disagree with Marx or you have flawed analysis. There are genuine Marxist critiques of the PRC that don't rely on nonsense. If you consider yourself a Marxist, correct your study. I have an introductory Marxist reading list if you need one.
At least take a consistent stance, if you believe the PRC to not be Socialist simply because it has billionaires either you disagree with Marx or you have flawed analysis.
The PRC is not socialist because, it produces commodities (the commodity form), Has A Dictatorship of The Bourgeoisie, The Wage System, and an employer-employee distinction.
Which um, is in the passage you quoted:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour.
Socialism is a transitional status from Capitalism to Communism. There can be no immediate jump from one to the other, this jump must be gradual. Moreover, you cannot eliminate Wage Labor without eliminating Private Property, and you cannot eliminate Private Property overnight, but gradually, and by the degree to its development. Socialism is about which is primary, Public Ownership and Central Planning, or Private Property and Markets, not the mere existence of one in purity or the other. Such a stance is anti-dialectical and erases Marx's analysis of Capitalism and Communism.
Furthermore, even Communism will have an "employer-employee" relationship, insofar as it still retains labor for labor vouchers. Communism is about Central Planning and Public Ownership, not horizontalism. The passage you reference is indeed the essential condition for the existance of the bourgeoisie, and its eventual elimination, but not the existence of Socialism.
Finally, the PRC has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. You can't simply assert the opposite when it's very clear that in the PRC the State is absolute over the Bourgeoisie.
All of these misconceptions of yours betray a deeply "Wikipedia-educated" notion of Marxism. If you want, you can start reading with my introductory Marxist reading list.
Socialism is a transitional status from Capitalism to Communism. There can be no immediate jump from one to the other, this jump must be gradual.
Agreed. As in, Capitalism is also a transitional stage to Communism. China is a decidedly capitalist society, as evidenced by their production of commodities.
Furthermore, even Communism will have an “employer-employee” relationship, insofar as it still retains labor for labor vouchers.
There will be no "employer" class under communism. A communist society is classless. China does not use labor vouchers even, it has a system of money.
Finally, the PRC has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. You can’t simply assert the opposite when it’s very clear that in the PRC the State is absolute over the Bourgeoisie.
The state is the Bourgeoisie in centrally planned economies. They extract surplus value from the Proletariat just like in a private market economy. The difference between the State Bourgeoisie and the Private Bourgeoisie, in China, is just aristocratic rank.
I am sorry, but none of what you have said makes any sense from a Marxist perspective.
- The presense of Commodity production does not mean the system is Capitalist. To that extent, if you have a 99% publicly owned and centrally planned economy, it must be Capitalist, and once that final 1% is absorbed, it becomes Communist. There is no Socialism by this definition, it's a straight jump from Capitalism to Communism. Even in the PRC, the majority of the economy is Publicly Owned and Centrally Planned. Engels disagrees with your stance:
Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
You kill the Scientific and Dialectical aspects of Marxism and deny the existence of Socialism.
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This is really 2 points in 1. "Employer" is not a class. Classes are not jobs, but relations to production. Communism will have managers, planners, and so forth to assist with economic production. The other point, on the PRC not using labor vouchers, that's for when China reaches Communism, when they are currently Socialist.
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This is entirely anti-Marxist. The State is an extension of the class in power. In a fully centrally planned economy with full public ownership, there is no state. The bourgeoisie is focused on competition and accumulation, it isn't a "power dynamic" but a social relation to production. From Engels:
When ultimately it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no social class to be held in subjection any longer, as soon as class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy of production existing up to now are eliminated together with the collisions and excesses arising from them, there is nothing more to repress, nothing necessitating a special repressive force, a state. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Bolded the most relevant bits. The state ceases to exist when classes cease to exist, because when all property is public there are no classes. However, production remains administrated and directed! I think it's quite obvious from reading the source material that Marx was no Anarchist, nor did he believe that Socialism was devoid of private property, nor could it be. This is a gradual process for Marx, one we call Socialism, as it works towards a fully Publicly Owned and Centrally Planned Economy, Communism. The government does not "extract surplus value" in a profit accumulating manner, but to pay for public services and infrastructure, directly spelled out by Marx in Critique of the Gotha Programme. The State is an extension of the dominant class, and the class which is dominant can be found through real analyzing of the trends and conditions of an economy. In the PRC, those trends are towards uplifiting the working class and continuing to fold Private Property into the Public Sector.
The presense of Commodity production does not mean the system is Capitalist.
The first sentence of Capital:
The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”1 its unit being a single commodity.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
Yes, Capitalism is dominated by such a Mode of Production. It is not defined by it being present even in the microscopic. Answer, why do you think Marx and Engels wrong in the context of my quotations? This is a very "wikipedia" understanding of Marx. Do you think Marx believed Capitalism to not be dominant because feudalism was still apparent? This is silly.
It is not defined by it being present even in the microscopic.
Yeah, China does not have a 'microscopic' amount of commodity production, it is infact, dominated by commodity production.
Answer, why do you think Marx and Engels wrong in the context of my quotations?
They aren't in that a certain level of productive forces are required to be present before the early stages of communism (socialism) can begin. No nation state has ever reached Socialism, in fact, it is impossible for a "Nation State" to really be socialist, from Engels principles of communism:
Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?
No.
China is a bourgeoisie nation state, with a DoTB like every other nation state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
This system would NOT be possible in a DoTP.