Chinese commenter on how to use material conditions to change women's rights in Afghanistan

Are you sure? Just because it didnt work the last 20 times doesnt mean we couldnt try again to see if it works
- 99% of ~~gamblers~~ imperialists quit right before they win big.
- Saw a video of a drunk dude fight a bee hive and then the aftermath and I was like "wow imperialism bees edition!"

I get the point. Now, all my aprons come from Pakistan, how are women's rights doing there? Or India? Or Bangladesh?

"Better than before women were employed in factories", OK fine. But this comment should be indistinguishable from r/neoliberal if that place weren't nazis in denial

Its good to be sceptical, but just because one person tells a lie, doesn't make that statement universally a lie.
Nazi neolibs are not speaking in good faith.
India's doing fine thankyouverymuch
- It's under the BJP so obviously not lmao
But think of the productive forces

women were involved in the industrial workforce in the west from the beginning, and three waves of feminism were still needed - the work not even over after that. So I don't really know if i agree with this take.

Did a single women's liberatory movement succeed before development of the industrial capacity and the incentive capital provides to the national bourgeoisie to see things change?
We must prioritise the prerequisites. Certain material conditions are a necessity to meet before those movements can see success.
EDIT: The phrasing is a bit racist in this part of the manifesto but still relevant:
The rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.
- Did a single women's liberatory movement succeed before development of the industrial capacity and the incentive capital provides to the national bourgeoisie to see things change?
  I finished Graeber's "History of Everything" not too long ago, and want to say this gets touched on, and the answer is 'yes.'
  That said, I gave my copy to my dad and would need to go page through it to cite that, so I very well may be wrong. Plus, it would have been centuries ago anyways, so not sure it's really relevant to your initial question.
- even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.
  counterpoint: its not racist if you call the imperialist nations the barbaric ones
- I'm not arguing against what the poster in the image is suggesting doing, I just think they're too hopeful. I'm making the point that the process they describe will not in and of itself result in "women's liberation" in Afghanistan.
That feels like saying "yeah, but unions existed in 1920, so I don't think I agree that unions were able to win any labor rights." The poster is proposing a process that will initiate gains in womens rights that can't be as easily reversed as gains from an external military imposition, not automatic guarantee of immediate equality.
- unions are involved with actively fighting for workers' rights so I don't really think that's a fair comparison. A more apt comparison would be saying a labor shortage will result in increased workers' rights. The labor shortage in and of itself is not what will give the workers permanent gains, but it puts the workers and unions on the footing necessary to force those concessions from the capitalists.
  Similar here, the process the poster is describing will only result in more women in the workforce, but not in and of itself result in "women's liberation" in Afghanistan - that involves a political struggle.

I much prefer the western strategy where we bomb the shit out of them until they realize how superior our western values^tm are.

MY favorite western strategy to instill Western Values™ is to intentionally seek out the most right-wing weirdos in the country, go out of our way to convince them that women's rights is a Communist plot to lead them to Satan, and supply them with stinger missiles
Women's computer camp in the wealthiest corner of the capital.
Western armed warlords across the rural bulk of the nation.
Wagging my finger at the Taliban for hating women because my warlords are losing.
- For a sec I thought you were just talking about the US with the first two lines lol.

I don't consider it a coincidence in the slightest that women's liberation kicked into high gear with women's employment and education opportunities. Anything else strikes me as cart before the horse.

"Cart before the horse", Christ English is so stupidly polite. I need more vulgarity in phrases, how about "od dupy strony"? "From the ass' side". There you go! Seriously Polish needs to spread it's flexible vulgarity all over the world for a better change.
- in finnish we say: "Perse edellä puuhun." which translates to "Climbing a tree ass first." i do enjoy the vulgarity too, fucking english is too puritan for it's own good smdh
Education, social/economic independence, and industrial labor demands definitely produced the conditions for a feminist movement.
But mass media, mass surveillance, and the industrialization of policing also inhibited and restrained women's movements.
So...

when youre turnt up on dialectical materialism

When you hit 200 hours in Victoria 3.

I don’t know about that. The short-lived communist government of Afghanistan already gave women the rights to enroll in formal education and hold professional jobs, until it was couped by US-backed conservative forces in the name of anti-Soviet communism.

This kind of argument actually sounds more like what a capitalist would say lol. See we are letting women into the workforce to double the labor force and double our profit! That’s progress!

I don’t know about that. The short-lived communist government of Afghanistan already gave women the rights to enroll in formal education and hold professional jobs, until it was couped by US-backed conservative forces in the name of anti-Soviet communism.
Yeah but... That failed.
Not entirely because of women's liberation obviously.. But what do you think will happen if China goes and militarily props up some communists to run Afghanistan? Exactly the same thing that happened with the USSR. Afghanistan doesn't exist in a vacuum and exterior forces will use all of these things as weapons to overthrow the communists. They would absolutely prop up right wing extremists to kick out communists if that is what China installed. It's how we got to where we are today in fact. The method needs to be more durable.
I don't think doing what failed previously will produce different results. The US would back the fucking Taliban if it meant fucking with China via proxy war.
- Chinese-backed Taliban vs US-backed Afghan Maoists let's gooooooooo!
See the thing is the communist govt of Afghanistan did an idealism by saying "the women are free now"
This is doing a materialism because it is first changing the economic conditions underlying society so that the influential bourgeoisie who need more workers are incentivized to push for the ability of women to work. Women being able to work means women having income independent of men or their families.
It's
time

Idk if Bangladeshi women are very liberated. (obviously better than Afghanistan but still)

there still needs to be a transition from capitalism.

He put it very vulgarly but that's more or less a point I've read from other marxists, that proletarianization MAY bring about mass politics

Turn 👏 feudal serf👏 women 👏 into 👏 sweatshop 👏 workers

Yes, that's what China did. They also used media control to blanket the nation in antisexist messages from the moment the PRC was established, but chattel marriage customs only really began to break down in areas where factory work was available - the wage work allowed women to be financially independent from their clans for the first time. Even establishing dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't mean immediate freedom from the harsh contradictions of being a developing country.
- no that's not what China did. simply putting women in textile mills is what the british did, and it took a fucking century to get the vote.

SMH at the anti-dengism ITT.

Amazing emoji potential
Muzzling demons to ride them into heaven

This is like accelerationism but for creating capitalism

I could imagine China using policy demands (similar to what the IMF does, but not evil) in exchange for financing, economic development, but IDK if turning Afghanistan into 18th century England will do much good.

I could imagine China using policy demands, similar to what the IMF does, still evil. That's basically what the Belt and Road initiative is.
- OH NO THE EVIL BBELT N ROAD THEY'RE BUILDING EVIL INFRASTRUCTURE WITH EVIL LOANS
  China literally straight up forgives entire nation's debts and has done so multiple times. Weird form of debt slavery, freeing your debt slaves, and not something the IMF has ever done.
  The IMF doesn't stop until it has complete influence over monetary policy and has forced neoliberal doctrine on a country, how the fuck you could ever think that's similar to the belt and road is beyond me. Absolutely brainwashed
- Comments like this is why we need a downvote button sometimes.

Mixed feelings on foreign capital investment. I'd want to see the economic proposals laid out first before coming to any conclusions.

So much better than that whole The cowardly Afghani thing from that thread in the dunk tank

I bet that same goober smugly calls it the graveyard of empires the next day without an ounce of self-reflection.

This is essentially true even if they didn't explicitly spell out political struggle that women would have to engage in. Actually existing feudalism hasn't existed anywhere for decades. All that shit about Afghani tribes living in a premodern society is just racism. Afghanistan, like most of the world, has a capitalist economy even if you want to nitpick that the superstructure still has feudal remnants. I mean, the UK still has feudal remnants in its superstructure through their inbred German royals, but no one calls the UK some quaint society that hasn't fully embraced modernity.

And in a capitalist economy, it shouldn't be controversial to say that the prerequisite for workers obtaining political power is for them to join the formal economy, where they can then withhold their labor as workers through worker strikes. Stuff like elevating the lumpenproletariat as the key revolutionary subject makes more sense if we're talking about internal colonies/fourth world where the internally colonized are forcefully denied employment within the formal economy or a (neo)colonial situation where most workers of the formal economy are clerical workers working with the (neo)colonial government in sucking the country dry, but this obviously isn't the case for Afghanistan. Worker strikes imply workers who are part of the formal economy. It's one more tool Afghani women can use to fight for women's rights and dismantle the patriarchy. I'm not sure what's wrong with this or how this is "un-Marxist."

no one calls the UK some quaint society that hasn't fully embraced modernity.

Actually no, China needs to wage holy war on the Taliban and force them all the adopt the version of Islam that Hui people have. Then they'll have female imams and from there powerful female imams will lead the revolutionary vanguard for women's rights.

Not 100% sure but I think the context for this comment is a very cool video of a Chinese solar panel plant in Afghanistan.

Marxist-Leninists performing bourgeois revolutions better than any bourgeois party ever could

Correction: Marxist Leninists performing the only revolutions better than anyone else could
- It’s true. They just love all of the revolutions so much

Appreciation of socialism will follow China's assistance, so that might make things easier for people

The conclusion anyone who has played Victoria 3 would come to, once you have enough factories that all your peasants are employed you can't keep building more, but you gotta get landowner clout low enough that the dang aristocrats can't stop you from passing Propertied Women

Just build all your arms factories and barracks in your capital and demolish all your barracks everywhere else, then provoke a civil war, smh not that hard.

...yes and no. On one hand, China could do more -- they could aid local communists, or at least local groups who are trying to improve women's rights specifically. On the other hand, much of the last century is riddled with examples of when even the good kind of more direct intervention backfires, especially in the context of an enemy in the U.S. who will seek to use anything and everything against China.
Take the "China should do more" idea to the extreme: China invades and installs a communist government. We should all see a million reasons why that would turn out badly.

this thread is like the dengist version of reform or revolution

"howdy, what's going on in this thread?"

come on

Women employed by a Taliban led government doesn't sound especially liberatory

Compared to what? Compared to a western country, or compared to the existing conditions where women and daughters are not employed and regarded as property to be sold to feed the remainder of the family during the recent famine?
There are a number of very very good things you achieve by getting them into work. The entire systemic structure shifts and the role of women as property becomes significantly weakened, this opens up elimination of many bad things, and economically empowers working women with the means to start organising that they may not have had previously in their role as property economically dominated by the patriarch stuck at home.
- So, I'm going to preface this by saying I know far less about the actual conditions in Afghanistan and the political structure of the Taliban than I should, other than far right wing and fascistic. Embarrassingly so.
  If women are considered property under their rule, if there were a massive labor shortage leading to the economic need to employ women in the workforce, would it not be a less extreme change to their status quo to enslave women to work in their factories, paying them nothing, or only paying their male family members (fathers, husbands), than it would be to employ the women, pay them directly, and risk women having some level of agency?
  I don't know if Islam has rules surrounding slavery, but it seems that even if it is outlawed in their holy book, if it is, the Taliban is really only using Islam as a cover for extremism. They're not exactly a spiritual movement, they're a a far right political movement using the trappings of religion to get the state they want. And if it isn't outlawed, if it has conditions for the treatment of slaves, the way the Bible does, then that would make it even easier, i would think.
  Again, may be talking out of my ass. I don't know much about the actual workings of the Taliban, or the material conditions of women in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is preparing to counter another insurrection by “ISIS”. If they’re willing to recruit a bunch of men to fight while not training women to run the country when they’re out or dead, I’m not sure if the solution is as simple as “more consumerism”. Though more jobs may be helpful in combatting the allure of extremism for the mean time, but the liberation of anyone won’t happen from simply having high demand for production.

"Come with plows, tractors, and fertilizer..."

This is indistinguishable from an IMF policy document, or a tweet from some of the 🌐 nerds, yikes