Yeah ukraine probably was but i still dont understand what kind of brain rot happened in hungary. The ussr (almost) always went easy on us but they decided that a country with excellent agriculture and absolutely no ores and heavy industry should prioritise the latter.

Removed by mod

Transport and a personal vehicle are two different things, go to any country outside the US, car ownership is reserved for the upper classes globally.

And access to transport was widely available to the overwhelming majority of the population through trains, trams, buses and trolleybuses. Even if your American mind can’t comprehend this fact, owning a car isn’t the ultimate form of mobility, there are alternatives that are arguably better. City design was centered around walkability, density and public transit; metro systems were luxurious and a predicament all out of themselves, and housing being generally obtained through the worker’s union implied that workers usually lived in relative proximity to their workplaces.

The soviet economy was a developing, centrally planned economy, not running under the premise of overproduction and surplus but running under the premise of 5-year plans of production. There was full employment, and almost complete usage of the raw materials extracted and industrial goods produced. Making twice as many cars, implied removing all of that labor and those resources from another sector of the economy. When the premise isn’t to “make money selling cars to rich people”, but to “grant adequate material conditions and welfare to every citizen”, you have to make decisions like that. More cars could have implied, for example, fewer hospital beds or fewer trams, but my point is that making more private cars would have NECESSARILY meant making less of something else of which there’s also no surplus (because the premise of the USSR was the non-existence of surplus). It’s very easy to have surpluses in a capitalist economy when you don’t care about 80% of the population not having access to the goods and services available, when you want everyone to have access it’s a different story.

Nope.

You wouldn’t be here without us

At least they’re slightly better than Truth Social. Apparently that’s literally a completely defederated Mastodon instance.

Eh, that’s a bit much. Let’s remember that they created Lemmy in the first place, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

That’s easy mode, since Rule 2 is basically “don’t write a fact about China.”

“Everyone keeps banning me, I’m surrounded by assholes”

Hmm…

It’s okay man, it takes me a few seconds to scroll through all my bans. It’s funny because all these pro China dweebs are living in the USA. Can’t even commit to the bit and just sit there all day posting anti USA or western stuff. They are obnoxious.

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/consumer-confidence https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-august-2024-economy-record-export-growth-amid-domestic-challenges/ https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/09/09/europes-luxury-goods-market-set-to-feel-the-pinch-as-china-growth-weakens https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/analysis-chinas-monetary-volleys-miss-key-threat-to-economic-growth/ar-AA1r9V9Q

Plus anecdotal stories from people I know that traveled to China in the past few months.

Basically, the post-COVID recovery was already slower than expected. Then the property sector all but halted. People are stuck with gig work and temporary contracts.

Why do you imagine the government is doling out money for the first time if everything is peachy?

EU countries are filling up with war and climate refugees. And… 2008 is one hell of a year to pick as your benchmark.

The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration that they can adjust at will. On the other hand, China’s leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.

This is the new normal for highly developed economies. The best they can hope for is a 1 to 1 replacement of their population. We’re not likely to see another baby boom occur.

We’re not going to see a typical population pyramid any more. Because that means a large infant death rate and either war, disasters or a massive suicide epidemic cutting away the young adult population to get the pyramid shape.

it just won’t be as bad.

glances at Ferguson

glances at Columbia

glances at the NYC subway

How bad are we talking?

Basically, yes. The sides are nearly parallel, which is great. Compare with China’s, which forms a steep V. Once GenX hits retirement age they are completely screwed. The CCP’s recent push for “traditional family values” and increased birth rates is no coincidence.

996 = working from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, work schedule practices in many companies in China

7-10-7 = I’m guessing 7am to 10pm, 7 days a week because of worker shortage?

996 is a term the Chinese use to describe working 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week.

My favorite is how they claim that PRC doesn’t invade anyone, ignorant of their attempts in Korea (Korean War) and Vietnam (after the Americans left).

Sorry, I read it too quickly and didn’t notice that it was sarcasm.

Might be a few left in a small part of India.

If by definition but not by name, a lot of advocates for direct democracy, public goods and services, and nationalized industry still exist all over the world. They just don’t refer to themselves with the same moniker as Mao “History’s Greatest Killer” Zedong.

I’m not myself trying to make the assertion that china is communism or that it will achieve communism, I’m saying that what you consider “ludicrous”, has been a hotly debated topic for the past 100 years with many proponents on both sides, many of them with much more knowledge of socialism and revolutions than you or I possess.

there’s already a term for socialists who tolerate capitalism, it’s social democrats

Social Democrats don’t want a transition to communism, not even ideologically. Dengists and Mensheviks do, at least ideologically. Whether you believe that or not is a different debate, but equating socialdemocrats with mensheviks is dumb, not a dunk.

why did they implement, and I quote Lenin, state capitalism

Look, I’m not here to argue for Marxism-Leninism against you because you’re obviously trying to be smug, not trying to have a civilized discussion. If you actually want some good (in my opinion) analysis of actually-existing socialism, there are plenty of Michael Parenti videos online, or you can pick up his book “Blackshirts and Reds”. But I suspect you’re just here to punch to those communists that are further left than you are. If you do want to have this discussion let me know.

The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn’t significantly change this. It doesn’t matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.

Can you explain this? The PRC practices Whole Process People’s Democracy, which certainly isn’t Liberal Democracy, but is democratic. Xi is elected according to this process, and the PRC enjoys 90%+ approval ratings even in peacetime. Does the fact that China has a government at all mean, in your eyes, that it isn’t a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or do you have meaningful suggestions for how they may improve in your eyes?

What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.

The near totality of the energy, shipping, railways, mining, banking, and construction sectors are state owned, operated, and planned. 17 of the 20 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. 70% of the 200 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. The idea that the PRC is a largely state owned and managed “hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape” with 90%+ approval rates is dizzyingly contradictory. The fact that China has private sectors and heavy international trade with Capitalist countries does not mean it isn’t Socialist. Rather, they learned what happens if you don’t integrate with the global economy by watching the dissolution of the USSR.

That’s legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.

I don’t think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.

The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.

The USSR didn’t collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.

Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60’s.

Russia didn’t want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn’t track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.

This doesn’t really follow. I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical. Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?

But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers’ councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.

Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.

This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.

I’m sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to “drown in a bathtub”. 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.

I said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC. There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.

Yes, and now let’s look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We’ve gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.

Okay.

What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn’t productive enough to make that particular leap…who the hell can?

It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.

As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership…modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.

Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.

Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I’m grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn’t coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?

It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.

Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who’s disciples were Jews.

You can’t be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.

Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.