Are you saying that in China, the oligarchs are socialist, while in the West, they are capitalist?
No, Comrade—I am referring to the kind of socialism you are talking about: the kind of socialism that can coexist with capital.
I already gave you my answer in the previous post—having already realized you were from China, based on the characters in your username. You should understand what I meant.
Sorry, I’m getting confused here. To me—based on what I’ve read here—the concept of Western socialism looks more like reformed capitalism than socialism.
Wow, you’re a member of the CPC. I envy you, Comrade… )))
I am incredibly impressed by how much China has flourished economically over the last couple of decades.
But how has this impacted the lives of the Chinese proletariat?
It seems to me that the life of a worker in Shanghai is no different from the life of a worker in, say, Moscow. As the saying goes: spot the three differences.
Do you know what Lenin was the first to promise the workers in order to get them to join him in the uprising? Do you know what issue sparked the world’s first workers’ strike—held on May 1st—in the USA?
That’s right, Comrade: the eight-hour workday.
And you, as a true Chinese communist, must surely know that every single Western socialist regards China as the gold standard of socialism—the belief that China took the correct path, having learned from the mistakes of the USSR, whose system proved unviable… indeed, fundamentally flawed from the very start.
Let me guess: you think so, too.
In your view, how does a Chinese socialist differ from a Western socialist? I’m not talking about pseudo-socialists here; I’m talking about true socialists—those who actually read Marx. What was your reason for drawing such a sharp dividing line in your post?
Capitalism is defined by private ownership of businesses.
A socialist business isn’t controlled by a private owner (or major shareholders), it’s controlled by its workers or by the government (or a mix of both). No one sits at the top and gets to award themself a massive chunk of the revenue just because their name is on the deed, so to speak. That’s the difference.
You cannot simply slice up elements of an economy and designate them to be capitalist or socialist in a vacuum, what matters is the nature of the society itself, the class character of the state and the principal form of ownership. That’s why nationalizing industry in capitalism is not necessarily an advancement towards socialism, and privatization in socialism is not necessarily an advancement towards capitalism.
I’m new to lemmy .ml and unfamiliar with Sedan so I thought they were equating social democracy with socialism
I always shy away from making both points at once – “social democracy is not socialism, but also, socialist states do engage with capitalism to avoid embargo and build their economies” – because it tends to segue to China, which is exhausting to talk about with western socdems but you lose credibility if you’re not willing to go the distance
…but I guess my oversimplified version still implicitly comments on AES states so it could use some work
No worries! Sedan seems new too, a week old account. I think it’s helpful to identify capitalism and socialism as systems, and this helps us identify the essence of that system.
Capitalism is defined by private ownership of businesses.
There is another name for this: private ownership of the means of production.
The means of production constitute the aggregate of all material resources used to create goods and services. They comprise two main components: the instruments of labor (the tools and machinery used to work) and the subjects of labor (the raw materials and inputs worked upon).
This concept also encompasses wage labor. Under socialism, a private individual is not permitted to hire another person for employment.
However, during the Stalin era, private enterprise did, in fact, exist. These took the form of artels—small workshops, typically employing up to ten people, that manufactured light industrial goods. There were tens of thousands of such artels across the USSR. Yet, within these artels, both the workers and the managers participated on equal terms; specifically, the director of the artel was re-elected annually by the collective membership. Artels in the USSR produced items such as radio receivers, televisions, children’s toys, and similar goods.
In a capitalist society, this is impossible to implement. The government is lobbied by capitalists whose goal is their own profit.
The government is those very oligarchs.
Obviously but I wasn’t talking about capitalist society.
Are you saying that in China, the oligarchs are socialist, while in the West, they are capitalist?
No, Comrade—I am referring to the kind of socialism you are talking about: the kind of socialism that can coexist with capital.
I already gave you my answer in the previous post—having already realized you were from China, based on the characters in your username. You should understand what I meant.
looks at the comunity name Mmh socialism…
Sorry, I’m getting confused here. To me—based on what I’ve read here—the concept of Western socialism looks more like reformed capitalism than socialism.
Good thing I’m a Chinese communist and not a western socialist.
Wow, you’re a member of the CPC. I envy you, Comrade… )))
I am incredibly impressed by how much China has flourished economically over the last couple of decades.
But how has this impacted the lives of the Chinese proletariat?
It seems to me that the life of a worker in Shanghai is no different from the life of a worker in, say, Moscow. As the saying goes: spot the three differences.
Do you know what Lenin was the first to promise the workers in order to get them to join him in the uprising? Do you know what issue sparked the world’s first workers’ strike—held on May 1st—in the USA?
That’s right, Comrade: the eight-hour workday.
And you, as a true Chinese communist, must surely know that every single Western socialist regards China as the gold standard of socialism—the belief that China took the correct path, having learned from the mistakes of the USSR, whose system proved unviable… indeed, fundamentally flawed from the very start.
Let me guess: you think so, too.
In your view, how does a Chinese socialist differ from a Western socialist? I’m not talking about pseudo-socialists here; I’m talking about true socialists—those who actually read Marx. What was your reason for drawing such a sharp dividing line in your post?
Reformed capitalism is, in fact, not socialism, you are probably thinking of social democracy
Reformed Capitalism, Social Democracy, Western Communism, Eurocommunism… Same fucking bad shit. There are nuances, all fluff.
Either go Communism or go home. The West is a failure.
No, Comrade, I am speaking of the Western understanding of Marx.
Capitalism is defined by private ownership of businesses.
A socialist business isn’t controlled by a private owner (or major shareholders), it’s controlled by its workers or by the government (or a mix of both). No one sits at the top and gets to award themself a massive chunk of the revenue just because their name is on the deed, so to speak. That’s the difference.
You cannot simply slice up elements of an economy and designate them to be capitalist or socialist in a vacuum, what matters is the nature of the society itself, the class character of the state and the principal form of ownership. That’s why nationalizing industry in capitalism is not necessarily an advancement towards socialism, and privatization in socialism is not necessarily an advancement towards capitalism.
I’m new to lemmy .ml and unfamiliar with Sedan so I thought they were equating social democracy with socialism
I always shy away from making both points at once – “social democracy is not socialism, but also, socialist states do engage with capitalism to avoid embargo and build their economies” – because it tends to segue to China, which is exhausting to talk about with western socdems but you lose credibility if you’re not willing to go the distance
…but I guess my oversimplified version still implicitly comments on AES states so it could use some work
No worries! Sedan seems new too, a week old account. I think it’s helpful to identify capitalism and socialism as systems, and this helps us identify the essence of that system.
There is another name for this: private ownership of the means of production.
The means of production constitute the aggregate of all material resources used to create goods and services. They comprise two main components: the instruments of labor (the tools and machinery used to work) and the subjects of labor (the raw materials and inputs worked upon).
This concept also encompasses wage labor. Under socialism, a private individual is not permitted to hire another person for employment.
However, during the Stalin era, private enterprise did, in fact, exist. These took the form of artels—small workshops, typically employing up to ten people, that manufactured light industrial goods. There were tens of thousands of such artels across the USSR. Yet, within these artels, both the workers and the managers participated on equal terms; specifically, the director of the artel was re-elected annually by the collective membership. Artels in the USSR produced items such as radio receivers, televisions, children’s toys, and similar goods.