- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- MemesOfProduction@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- MemesOfProduction@lemmy.ml
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My identity is directly linked to how much money I theoretically could have ☝️🤓
Communism critics are criticising “vanguard party” state capitalism without realising it. Soviet Union strayed pretty far from what Marx described, and modern day China is even further.
Soviet Union strayed pretty far from what Marx described
Marx did a great job of predicting the historical arc of capitalism but a miserable job of predicting the historical arc of communism. He assumed socialist theories would take root and blossom in major industrial urban centers, where high population density and major capital improvements offered the working class enormous leverage. He never suspected the two leading Communist states would be rural backwaters - Russia and China, respectively - or that communist upheaval would be most common in the Global South, where colonial depredations would create fertile soil for a European social theory.
What Marx did get right (or, at least, what Leninists and Maoists and Castroists would apply from Marxist theory) was the transitional states of history. The 20th century socialists rapidly accelerated their countries out of agricultural economies, through industrial economies, and on to a heavily bureaucratic form of authoritarian socialism. When this rapidly improved quality of life in the nascent soviet territories and post-colonial communist enclaves, the left-wing parties were able to entrench political control in the face of reactionary forces both foreign and domestic. When quality of life stalled and the temptation of the foreign market economies corrupted domestic bureaucracies, the leftist parties fractured and crumbled.
modern day China is even further
Modern day China is a mash-up of European Marxism and Chinese Confucianism, yielding a socio-economic force that has no peer on Earth. They’ve been conducting the socialist experiment for over a century, of course their views have evolved with changing material conditions.
But to say modern China isn’t applying Marxist philosophy? That’s like insisting modern day Americans aren’t “Real Capitalists”, because they’ve figured out how to smooth over recessions with credit expansion and state insurance programs.
Modern China is owned and operated by native born and class conscious Chinese bureaucrats. It is no longer a colonial territory of Europe. Nor is it an economy driven by short-term profit motives or fractured coalitions of oligarchs. It is a fully planned state-managed economy, well into the post-capitalist phase of Marxist-predicted social development.
post-capitalist phase
Oh this is hilarious. China is the most-capitalist of any country outside the US. An entire class of low paid factory workers prop up the billionaire elite class while they live in their mansions. Meanwhile social services and liberties fall far behind what non-US Western nations offer.
The US isn’t capitalist, there’s inheritance and children from wealthy families have an advantage from those from poor families.
A capitalist society should have everyone start with nothing and the only way to get ahead is to work more hours than someone else.
The US isn’t capitalist
A thing is what it does. You don’t get to textbook definition your way out of capitalism, simply because the textbook you’re referencing describes a thing that only works in a perfectly spherical vacuum economy.
The American/UK/(Dutch) economy is the Ur-Capitalist economy. It is the thing in practice. Private property transferable through a network of auction markets, used to produce surplus commodities and host the provision of professional services.
A capitalist society should have everyone start with nothing
Nothing in the capitalist economic framework demands this. The primary distinction between feudal economies and capitalist economies is that a real estate market exists at all. Not that property has to be purchased.
Prior to capitalist economic models, the aristocratic ownership of lands was strictly nontransferable. Land title originated through land barony. Barons pledged fealty in mutual defense pacts of a purely military nature. The violence of land ownership was purely explicit.
Now you can exchange property via title, rather than staking out territory through a network of forts and raiding the countryside to collect tributary rents. Capitalism is how you get inheritances to begin with. Absent a real estate market, there is no mechanism to inherit land other than the commission of military rank.
Only “individuality” capitalism approves of is uninhibited consumerism.
I still remember when my last job at a grocery store was in its last weeks of operation which left the shelves empty, a regular came in and complained that this is what that commie Mamdani wants for NY and everyone else so he better not win (I live in Missouri).
