Capitalism is killing us

Calling China communist is a stretch. More like planned authoritarian capitalism tempered with socialism. China has 607 billionaires, communism would have 0.

Also, Japan is very capitalistic and they have amazing trains.
- look I don't care who's communist and who's capitalist, we need them trains
It's not a stretch, it's outright false to call it communism or socialism, systems which necessitate the abolishment of capitalist mode of production (commodity production, private ownership, markets) and money. China, meanwhile, literally has billionaires, still produces things under capitalist mode of production and the only oddity it has compared to other Capitalist countries is partially nationalized economy (which Mussolini has also done, it's not socialism by itself).
It's just a social democracy.
- Isn’t there only one political party in China? How is that democracy? Not being hostile, genuinely curious how that would work
- democracy is a far stretch though, isnt it? And capitalist is also not entirely true, when entire industry branches are nationalized, planned and not privatized
- Socialism does not necessitate the abolishment of commodity production in totality to be considered Socialist, just that the society we are analyzing is working towards abolishing it in the future, which is further cemented by running an economy where the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are in the public sector and thus have leverage over the rest of the economy.
  This is because no system is static. Whoever controls the Means of Production controls their development, and in which direction. As production improves, centralization increases, and state management becomes more feasible and more fundamentally necessary. This propels further socialization of the economy, as long as there is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the development of the productive forces drives the development to higher and more developed stages of Socialism, eventually giving way to the establishment of Communism.
  Further, to compare China to fascist Mussolini is just absurd. Mussolini had minor nationalizations, in order to support the Capitalist state. In China, it's fundamentally the opposite. Engels went over the difference in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
  But the modern state, too, is only the organization with which bourgeois society provides itself in order to maintain the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against encroachments either by the workers or by individual capitalists. The modern state, whatever its form, is an essentially capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal aggregate capitalist. The more productive forces it takes over into its possession, the more it becomes a real aggregate capitalist, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-workers, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished, rather it is pushed to the limit. But at this limit it changes into its opposite. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it contains within itself the formal means, the handle to the solution.
  Engels is specifically speaking about economies where the state is thoroughly bourgeois, and thus the character of the state ownership is to support Capitalism. This is not the case for China, however, which has gradually been seeing large gains for the working class and the Capitalists within China thoroughly submissive to the proletarian state. China has already had its revolution, it did not abandon it, neither did Cuba, Vietnam, etc. This is supported by what Engels says later:
  The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
  Production is gradually transformed into public property as it develops and is more capable of being publicly owned and planned.
  But you've already been explained this before, repeatedly. Your stance is that there can be no such thing as Socialism until commodity production, markets, and money all cease to exist, when in all likelihood vestigial elements of each may continue to exist even in the earliest stages of Communism, if we agree with Marx. Your stance is the "One Drop Rule," which eliminates the entirety of Dialectics and treats Socialism as a unique mode of production defined by purity, while Capitalism, Feudalism, and so forth were all defined by which element was the principle aspect, as no system has ever truly been "pure." This is plainly a wrong stance to take.
Lets call it state capitalist, as thats the proper term
- It's not even that, given how there's a decent chunk of their economy owned by private individuals
The term state capitalism cover a lot of the basics of the Chinese system.
- Thank you. Was looking for a better term.
I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn't really exist in Communism, but China hasn't managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml how does it work in China, again?
- The PRC is a Socialist economy. The overwhelming majority of the economy is in the publiv sector, and is subject to government planning and outside of the hands of Capitalists. There's a decent chunk of the economy in the cooperative sector that needs to be developed more in order to fold it into the public sector, usually in agriculture. There's also a good deal of private property, which is handy for rapid development but of course creates contradictions, which requires a state that will resolve contradictions in favor of the working class.
  The difference between social democracy and the PRC's economy is where the principle aspect of the economy lies, the private sector or the public. The reason the principle aspect is important is because it determines to a good degree the balance of class power. Countries like Norway have broad safety nets, but largely fund them from exploitation of the Global South, and have an economy dominated by private interests.
  The principle aspect, in short, is whichever form of property holds the large firms and key industries, as well as the state. In China, this is overwhelmingly the public sector.
  China has a numver of contradictions it will have to solve over time. Cooperative property, like Huawei, as well as Private Property, will have to all be folded into the public sector. Commodity production will need to be abolished. Wealth disparity will need to be reigned in far more. However, these are problems to overcome, not proof of China being Capitalist.
China is sentencing billionaires to death. You’re just Sinophobic.
to be fair, in communism corruption and favoritism have always been creating rich people as well, similar to capitalism, but usually not in the same scale. greed is a problem that has to be addressed.
- Then that system is not communist regardless of what they call themselves or what their political opponent calls them! If they are in a fundamental opposition to the work of Marx then they are not communist

muricans calling everything communism that isn't gop cock sucking is getting old

Whos trains are those ¯(ツ)/¯ the world may never know
- Are they belong to a stateless moneyless society? It would be very embarrassing for you if they aren't.
Did you have a stroke writing that? It makes zero sense
Attributing the achievements of Socialist economies governed by Communist Parties to the ideology driving the decision-making of the government is very different from a random republican calling the Post Office "Communist."
- Believing that capitalist autocracy is socialist or communist, however, is absolutely the same as republicans calling everything communist.

China is as communist as I am a french male model. That said, it is indeed a mistake to allow the "free market" to determine the nation's critical infrastructure. American rail is an absolute joke.

- I… I already told you.
I answered over here, China is a Socialist economy trying to build up to Communism. Billionaires wouldn't really exist in Communism, but China hasn't managed to abolish the commodity form in general yet, it takes time and most importantly development of the productive forces.
- The downvoting shitlibs cant handle reality. They see what China has done for its citizens while dreaming that the capitalists they hold dear will let them occasionally have fresh table scraps

Close. Put the capitalist train on its side, spilling hazardous waste into a community water source.

yeah we almost got a high speed rail system but some dipshit from south africa decided to build a shitty tunnel instead

Communism is when trains run on time

’Communism is when communal efforts produce results.’
Accidentally correct, you dolt.
- Well, America is so communist then, it's not even close. None of their results were the result of any individual, it's always a communal effort.
  The only non-communism is a small personal garden, as long as there are more than two people working on something, it's communism because community.
  Either that, or the word communism means something very different, you dolt
Likening a Socialist country to a fascist party just because both have trains is the epitome of western anti-communist "Marxism." There's no materialism here, and you're upvoted because the only Marxism approved within liberal spaces is the anti-communist kind. Michael Parenti, in Blackshirts and Reds, quite clearly sums up the role of western "Left" anticommunists:
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
- Funny how Parenti himself recognizes China as capitalist:
  While the Chinese government continues under a nominally communist leadership, the process of private capital penetration goes on more or less unhindered.
- Relax, it's just a joke given how the image essentially is "communist is when many trains, capitalism is when one bad train". Making a reference to Mussolini, one of the most famous liberals of all time is always gonna be funny

Capitalism (good) Vs Capitalism (bad)

FTFY

Capitalism with literal slave labor vs capitalism that outsources the literal slave labor or calls them prisoners with jobs
- and I wouldn't want to live in neither the US nor China
- Capitalism with literal slave labor
  You're talking about the US prison population, right?
Capitalism (with speedy trains) vs capitalism (with slow trains)
FTFY

until you live in an actual communist state. Ever tried that?

You mean the communist and socialist regimes the capitalists used military force to destabilize for wanting to be societies instead of a bunch of rugged individuals at each other's throats for scraps in order to keep their resource markets open to our capitalist's exploitation?
- Nah, once one try fails you're not allowed to do it again, that's why we all live in absolute monarchies (while ignoring the failures of other absolute monarchies)