Do you know what “neoliberalism” is or even what the “global south” refers to? Because none of this makes any sense.
China famously rejected neoliberal economics when carrying out market reform. That’s why their economy skyrocketed instead of collapsing like many Eastern European countries. They are also considered part of the global south and are still a developing country in many respects.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
China being socialist has nothing to do with the name of the party in control, and everything to do with the mode of production and distribution in China. Rather than a neoliberal paradise, it’s closer to a nightmare for neoliberals. %This editorial from The Guardian explains it quite well, actually](theguardian.com/…/china-business-xi-jinping-commu…):
How then, does China’s economy work? Public ownership is the principal aspect of China’s economy. This means that public ownership governs the large firms and key industries, and is what is rising in China, as private ownership is kept to small and medium non-essential industries. No system is static, meaning identifying the nature of a system depends on identifying what is rising and what is dying away. Cpitalists are held on a tight leash, and are prevented from gaining political power as a class. The reason private ownership is allowed at all is because China has very uneven development due to their rapid industrialization, and private ownership does help with filling in gaps left by the primary aspects of the economy like SOEs.
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:
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The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China does have billionaires, as you might then protest. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principal aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes and the state, run along the lines of a common plan, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:
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The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn’t been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.
Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized.
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Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.
To call China “imperialist” or “capitalist” is to either invent a fantasy of China or to not understand imperialism, capitalism, or socialism. China isn’t a utopia, it’s a real socialist country.
Jmdatcs@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You can copy paste all the charts and quotes you want. None of that means anything next to the reality on the ground.
China is great, it’s one of my favorite places to visit. But that’s because I have the money to enjoy it. As soon as you travel a little way away from the glitz of the major cities, leave behind the Michelin starred restaurants, five star hotels, and bullet trains, the poverty is crushing. More so than many other neolib places where you can go to a more rural area to chill. But that’s mostly due to time. Give China a little more time and they’ll continue to make their welfare state more robust through progressive transaction (as is the hallmark of neoliberalism), and it seems like they’ll cleave close to the social democracy side of things, at least for now.
Anyone who looks at the crushing poverty a large percentage of Chinese live in and the rate they are minting new billionaires and then tries to say their system is in the same universe as socialism is delusional at best and cynically promoting lies to advance an agenda at worst.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The charts represent what’s actually happening on the ground. The urban/rural divide is one of the biggest problems for China, this is correct. The origin of the issue is in China’s rapid development, which left the countryside lagging behind. However, thanks to their socialist system, they’ve already taken concrete steps towards addressing this.
Purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. The gap between rural and urban development has long been acknowledged and is already something worked on. The famous poverty eraducation campaign, which lifted 800 million people out of absolute poverty, was focused on just that. Read The Metamorphosis of Yuangudui to see what that looks like in practice.
What separates social democracy from socialism? In social democracy, private ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and capitalists control the state. In socialism, it’s public ownership that is principal, and the working classes that control the state. I won’t retread old ground here, other than to remind you that China’s economy is overwhelmingly state-driven:
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China does indeed have billionaires, because they still have private property for the small and medium secondary industries. This, however, is not a permanent fixture of the economy, as no economy is static and unmoving. As these firms grow, they are folded into the public sector, advancing socialization of the economy. What do you believe socialism to look like? How can a neoliberal ecomomy be dominated by public ownership, the working classes, and central planning?
Jmdatcs@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No, what I, and everyone what that has actually been to factories and rural areas of China, has seen is what’s actually happening on the ground. You’re nothing more than a neolib apologist with an Eastern fetish.