Utilizing market mechanisms and private capital as a means of developing productive forces, under the premise that the proletariat holds state power, is the most efficient strategy at the current stage while also protecting revolutionary gains by avoiding the creation of large black markets of small and medium producers. The emergence of billionaires is an unfortunate byproduct of this secondary form of private property (like all forms of private property) and market distribution mechanism at a specific stage of development.

To an extent, I can see the case for this. But why doesn’t China implement some sort of tax system that prevents that level of private wealth accumulation? Surely this could still work while forcing people to stay multimillionaires rather than billionaires, and redirect that money into more welfare and better worker’s rights (why are unions and independent organizing banned in a “communist” country anyways?)

China upholds the dominant position of public ownership, with the state firmly controlling economic lifelines such as finance, energy, land, and communications.

My point here is, who is in control of the state and these state-owned industries? Is it really the proletariat or just some powerful CPC members?

Regarding the mixed economy direction you mentioned, Marx already clarified in Critique of the Gotha Programme that a society newly emerging from capitalism still bears the traces of the old society from which it emerged. Socialism itself is a transitional period full of contradictions.

See first paragraph

There seems to be a concerning rise in ethno-nationalistic and right-leaning sentiments in China from what I’ve heard (policy called “Glorious Revival of the Chinese Race” or something like that?) along with:

• communist students who were trying to organize factory workers getting arrested by the CPC (“Jasic incident” iirc)
• ACFTU not really doing much to improve worker’s rights

TBH I don’t know much about Haiti but I’m pretty sure that the revolution let former Haitian slaves be better off, even if only for a little. It also demonstrated that it was indeed possible for slaves to revolt successfully against their masters.

Violence is the cause, not really the solution.

Well, it was both the cause and the solution, wasn’t it? WW2 did end Fascism in Europe, at least till the conditions that caused Fascism started reappearing around the world.

The reason I bring up the French Revolution is because it signifies the downfall of the aristocracy and the progress out of monarchism into capitalism. Not saying that France became a utopia afterwards, but it did represent societal progress in a way. What exactly do you mean by me viewing human rights as a progressive force?

Okay this is getting beyond my level of knowledge so i’ll concede lol

because all the other countries are evil and don’t understand we’re trying to give them freedom /s

Do they though? They still let the housing bubble happen in the first place, even if they dealt a punishment for it

It is about survival, but it absolutely can also be about advancing human rights. What about the violence used by slaves to overthrow their masters in the Haitian Revolution? What about the violence used to end the Holocaust? What about the violence in the French and October revolutions, which resulted in the creations of completely new economic systems? All of these resulted in an advancement of human rights in some way or another.

Aren’t you forgetting about the Black Panthers and the “violent” side of the civil rights movement? Violence is just a tool, it can be used for good or evil. And as much as I’d prefer to see the world improve without violence, I think any movement that gets too powerful will be forced to adopt violent countermeasures as a response to violent attacks from the ruling class.

Patriot is a synonym for Nationalist -> Patriotic Socialism = National Socialism

Hmmmm…

We’d already have a revolution by now if the time anarchists and MLs spend strawmanning each other was put to good use

I know about their poverty alleviation programs, I just think that they need to be doing more to restrict the power of billionaires, and think that the CPC isn’t necessarily a dictatorship of the proletariat because it’s rather autocratic. I also like that their tech industry has restrictions, but that just means their government acts wisely

I’m aware of how well China has performed regarding poverty alleviation, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that there are still people in poverty at the same time as billionaires. That level of inequality allowed by a communist party is pretty suspicious, along with the special economic zones and other things that reek of class collaboration. I used the world bank numbers, which says China’s gini is 0.36, but that is from 2022. Did it really change that much in the last four years? I am really impressed by China’s growth in the past few decades, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like they’re headed towards a mixed economy direction rather than really caring about communism. I’ll check out your recommendation at some point but I’m too busy with classwork to do any heavy reading

what i fucking want is there to not be anymore poverty and widespread inequality in a country that is supposedly led by a communist party. do you have any rebuttals to the first part of my previous comment? if you send me an actual study or something disproving these points i’ll retract what i said, i have no idea where to start with reading xi’s speeches or whatever

And that’s good, but inequality has also risen dramatically

I mean, they have to be if the gini coefficient of china is almost as bad as the USA and there is still widespread poverty in the country at the same time as there are billionaires

edit: also, didn’t hu jintao make it so that capitalists can literally become CPC members? lol

Those are natural sciences there isn’t however a natural science. Similarly chemistry and biology aren’t sciences and physics isn’t really a thing anymore, it’s a older umbrella term that covered a bunch of stuff like mechanics and electromagnetism.

Whether it’s traditional capitalists or self-interested bureaucrats owning the state, the end result is the same. Doesn’t China have a Gini coefficient almost as high as the US’s? Why would any truly socialist state be allowing this level of inequality? I’m not so sure the top CPC members are really all that interested in working towards communism over preserving their careers and benefits. Even if they were, if everyone below them was corrupt or non-dedicated how would the CPC be able to properly work towards its goal while its members cant work together?

Because the entire party is centered around Marxist Leninist Mao Zedong thought, every generation will be more dedicated to communism.

This is a huge trust-me-bro.

Yeah but my point is the top CPC members are basically the new bourgeoisie

They both have zero ads for me ;)

This is cool and all but just because the CPC is harder on the bourgeoisie than other countries’ governments doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have vast amounts of private ownership, worker exploitation, etc., or that the proletariat are really in power and not just CPC bureaucrats. I still don’t see how they’re not just a different kind of social democracy

I’ve read Principles of Communism already but I’m not sure how it connects to the topic of commodity production specifically, perhaps I need to give it a reread. I’ll check out Dialogue with Stalin at some point, since my only knowledge of commodity production in Socialism comes from this short Hakim video. At around 8 minutes he starts talking about how the material conditions of past revolutions influenced their economic strategy and why they had to engage in commodity production as the most viable option, although he does dismiss international revolution as unrealistic without really going into why. Overall, I feel like the argument the video makes is cohesive though, so would you have any arguments against it?