Wyatt earp
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2012
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- #21
We all know America is moving more and more to socialism, while China ... moves away from communism and socialism ..
That statement reflects either an immense degree of ignorance about capitalism, communism/socialism, and the history and thought pertaining to all three, or a boorish will to spew inflammatory rhetoric. Moreover, while I don't know if you have, your having written that statement and shared it publicly, strongly suggests you've spent no meaningful period of time in China's capitalist zones such as Shenzhen or Dalian. Having served clients and been in Shenzhen at least bi-weekly (save for holidays and vacations) for the past decade, socialism/communism and capitalism are alive and well there. (See also: China's Economy Dances Between Communism and Capitalism) Indeed, those parts of China are more capitalist than any party of the U.S., particularly insofar as once one gets the government's imprimatur to go into business, it's pretty damn near laissez faire capitalism all the way.
- The Chinese like capitalism more than Americans
- Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com
- America’s Economy Is Now More Communist Than China - HNN - Higgins News Network
- Policy Report: How China Became Capitalist
- Paradoxes of China’s Economic Boom
- How China Became Capitalist
- The Political Economy of Chinese State Capitalism
- On the Cultural Revolution
- China's Modern Authoritarianism
- How long can the Communist party survive in China? - FT.com
- China’s government may be communist, but its people embrace capitalism
- China Is a Communist Success Story. Kinda.
- How communist is China, anyway?
What does one find after reading/watching the content listed above? One finds:
- China is both communist and capitalist.
- China has shown that democracy and capitalism are not at all synonymous or inextricably linked, that is, capitalism does not necessarily imply democracy or anything resembling it. Thus, observations about communism can no longer be viewed as attestations about capitalism, nor vice versa.
- China is clearly in a "tug of war" with itself about whether it will continue to successfully blend communism and capitalism or whether it will irrevocably discard communism and adopt some other political model.
Now by the preceding and what follows, do I assert any predilection or preference of my own for or against socialism/communism? Of course not. That would be nuts. I'm merely highlighting the absurdity given the ample evidence we've gained in the past score or so years of conflating ideas about China, communism/socialism and democracy and capitalism. Each one has it's pros and cons, and of the various systems just noted, the only one that isn't a political system is capitalism. It is purely and economic framework, which, IMO, is why it can be integrated effectively with a variety of political paradigms, although not pure (utopian, if you will) communism, but then that's never be extant on the scale of the U.S., China or any other nation with an enormous and diverse population. In my household, for example, communism works just fine; I control who does what, when they do it and how. (Call that a dictatorship if you want, but what is communism but group -- government leaders -- dictatorship that does the same thing with regard to millions upon millions?) That works just fine. It wouldn't work at all on the scale of even the D.C. Metro area.
As goes my personal preference, far and away laissez faire capitalism -- no matter the political framework within which it's implemented -- is my preference. Why? Because I've managed to be highly successful under capitalism and there's nothing suggesting I wouldn't be similarly successful within capitalist-socialism. I'm not unique in that way, but neither have I false modestly about my own blessings that would place me in good stead in any society.
Thoughts on capitalism and socialism:
In the early stage of the socialist movement in the 19th century, there was wide agreement that socialism would be a radically different type of society from capitalism. This understanding of socialism was held not just by revolutionary Marxist socialists, but also by evolutionary socialists, Christian socialists, and even anarchists. At that time, there was also wide agreement about the basic institutions of the future socialist system: public ownership instead of private ownership of the means of production, economic planning instead of market forces, production for use instead of production for profit, and a state that represented the working class. Socialism would be a system in which people cooperatively planned their economic and social development, instead of one in which the profit motive and competition determined economic and social development.
While economic growth would be needed for some time to eliminate poverty in the world and achieve a comfortable living standard for all, under socialism economic growth would be a social choice rather than an economic compulsion as it is under capitalism. Poverty thus abated in the world, the aim of increasing production might well lose its rationale. Instead, society might aim for a sustainable relationship with the natural environment, the development of human capabilities, the promotion of satisfying social relationships, and/or other alternative social goals for economic activity. This is the vision of a new and superior socioeconomic system that inspired the building of a socialist movement and the twentieth century revolutions aimed at building socialism.
Today it is common to encounter the view that socialism and capitalism are not two distinct socioeconomic systems. According to this view, socialism and capitalism are elements of most modern socioeconomic systems, with some countries "more capitalist" and others "more socialist." This view has long been found among supporters of capitalism, who worry that adoption of such allegedly "socialist" schemes as public provision of health care or retirement pensions damage a capitalist economy by mixing socialism with capitalism. In recent decades this view of socialism and capitalism has become common among supporters of socialism.
Such a view arose in Moscow toward the end of the Soviet period. During the late 1980s, many Soviet intellectuals began to argue that socialism is not after all a distinct system from capitalism. It became common to hear that modern capitalism has many features of socialism. Some even argued that modern capitalism was more "socialist" than the Soviet system.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s in the West a new literature on market socialism arose which views socialism as not qualitatively different from contemporary capitalism. This literature advocates a market socialist system in which private enterprises would pursue maximum profits in competitive markets. A strong state would regulate and supplement the market, as in contemporary capitalism. The only difference from capitalism is that enterprises would be owned either by workers, or by outside shareholders with institutions designed to prevent a distinct class of wealthy owners of capital from emerging. The substantive advantages over capitalism claimed by these models are a more equal distribution of income and a more genuine political democracy. However, if one imagined being parachuted into such an imaginary system, it would be difficult to see the differences from welfare-state capitalism.
The twentieth century attempts to build socialism were only the first attempts to do so. Since these attempts have largely passed away, capitalism has changed, moving backward toward a much harsher form in the contemporary neoliberal era. None of the major problems facing humankind today seems solvable within the framework of capitalism. Foremost among these is achieving a decent and secure living standard for all, in a manner that is environmentally sustainable over the long run.
Since capitalism now stands as an obstacle to human progress, and even human survival, it seems certain that further attempts will by made to supercede capitalism in the future. Recent developments in several South American countries suggest that a new period of socialist experiments may have already started in the twenty-first century. New socialist experiments have the advantage of being able to learn both the positive and negative lessons of the first socialist experiments in the twentieth century. Hopefully the next wave of socialist attempts will be able to avoid the pitfalls of the first wave and finally build a socialism that lives up to the original vision
Other useful references:
All that try to disprove china is not moving away from communism /socialism?
All you have to do is look at china today compared to china under Mao. China would look like North Korea today if that fuck head was still alive.
