They could have flipped either bit, but they chose that one.
“But, but… they told us they were communist. It’s in the name.” – Those who learned nothing from Orwell, and probably still think the Nazis are “National Socialists”.
China is not at all socialist
One thing they do have going for them is that in China capital is subservient to the state, and the state still operates ostensibly for the good of society. Chinese capitalists don’t hold sway over the state the way western ones do. For now at least. So if the state decides that this or that part of the economy needs to do this or that, they can make capitalists do it. That’s good. But it’s not enough and the anti-democratic structures are extremely concerning about the future. The capitalists after all only need to capture such a powerful state once.
in what way is the Chinese state operating “for the good of society”? what is the meaningful difference between powerful people running things in China vs in other places?
I’d be more convinced that China is a state capitalist society than anything resembling socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
I wrote “ostensibly”.
I think the difference in China vs elsewhere is that the powerful people are state/party functionaries, not a bunch of rich guys. Not that they don’t become rich via the state, but they don’t claim the state power because they are rich. If I may be allowed a diversion, this is similar to the difference between the Imperial Medieval Roman Bureaucracy (in Constantinople) vs the feudal European Monarchies in the west. Byzantium actually has been described as functionally very close to a one party state.
