Metal Cat posted:

Diet cokes taste awful and are as unhealthy as regular ones. Get the real deal.

Typo posted:

nothing wrong with that, under Mao China had no taxes because the state control means of production thus there's no need to tax what's already the state's own assets, it's simply a way of internally allocating resources. Tax cuts under capitalism is bad because they are obvious "looting of state" by bourgeois, tax decrease under Socialism is simply re-allocating resources to be used in a more efficient way to advance socialism, improve the productive forces of society, and benefit the Chinese proletariat.

Kobayashi posted:

What about 4:50, “and began construction of a pilot free trade zone in Hainan.” I don’t know poo poo about China so I appreciate the defensive takes, ironic or not.

Typo posted:

SEZs are a source of importation of foreign technology, China's relative backwardness in productive forces means that it needs to learn and steal from the west in order to advance socialism. It has succeed so much that now the people's revolution possess advanced Dong Feng (eastern wind for you laoweis) anti-carrier missile capable of striking down the foremost weapon of capitalist imperialism which are US aircraft carriers when the revolution liberates Taiwan. This barricade of missiles is analogous to barricades built during Paris Commune to fight return of capitalism where Socialist China is the Commune and America is leading the counter-revolutionaries.



It also provides foreign exchange reserve (3 trlllion!) that the People's government can use a monetary barricade to cushion against global economic shocks which are caused by international capitalism, once Chairman Xi dismantles the neoliberal international order it will no longer be needed

Fallen Hamprince posted:

i gave a flippant answer earlier but nobody has actually answered this so i'll try

orthodox marxist theory, starting with marx & engels himself, divide all of human history into a sequence of historical epochs defined by the dominant social class and the nature of the means of production: 'primitive communism' (hunter gatherers) -> antiquity (lots of slaves) -> feudalism -> capitalism (you are here) -> socialism -> communism. under the orthodox interpretation, a society proceeds from one stage to the next, with each change (up to socialism) being accompanied by the overthrow of the existing ruling class and the accession of a new one. marx expected that societies in late capitalism would suffer from crises that eventually lead to the downfall of capitalism in a working class revolution, which would abolish the exploitative class system (in socialism) and eventually property altogether (under communism).

ironically marx's ideas were most influential not in the developed capitalist western europe but in the 'backward', still semi-feudal Russian Empire. marxist theorists there were split on what to do about this. russia's economy was backward and undeveloped; in marxist terms, it's productive force was too weak to sustain a socialist society. orthodox theory would seem to dictate that after overthrowing the tsar, power would have to pass to a bourgoise democracy that would oversee the development of capitalism. lenin did not find this satisfactory; he wanted to 'skip' capitalism and take power immediately, so he devised an ideological framework, 'marxism-leninism', which allowed for the development of the productive forces under the first stage of socialism. under this stage, the state would direct the development of the economy up to the needed point, then eventually 'whither away' to produce stateless, egalitarian communism.

dengism, or more properly 'socialism with chinese characteristics', adopts the term 'initial stage of socialism', something mao used but never defined, to mean this development of productive forces. the ideology was developed in the early 80s, when it was clear that the existing chinese economic model was not working to 'develop the productive forces' as china was rapidly falling behind neighbouring capitalist states in terms of per-capita economic productivity. deng responded by implementing a massive shift in chinese economic policy justified by marxist thought, in which the communist party would use capitalist (ie market-based) economics to shepherd china through the initial stage of socialism, until china was wealthy enough to implement the socialist mode of production and begin moving towards stateless communism. china's political system would remain unchanged; no bourgoise democracy would be implemented, so from the Party's perspective at least the working class would remain the governing class.

in conclusion i'd like a big mac meal with a diet coke

Modest Mao posted:

Deng pretty much doomed China to being an authoritarian capitalist state until the next bloody civil war can overthrow it.

There was a brief period in the 80s where China was getting pretty good but he squashed it.

He also arbitrarily made his hometown, a large city but in the middle of nowhere, a first tier city with special economic status on par with Beijing and Shanghai lol

Typo posted:

LOL had the counter-revolutionaries/anti-party groups succeeded in the 1980s 1990s China would have being like 1990s Russia

Modest Mao posted:

90s russia happened because western economists were emboldened by the "polish miracle" and decided to heartlessly experiment with the livelihood of a hundred million people.

There were plenty of political thinkers in China asking for more worker control, freedom, and democracy (not meaning western liberal republic style government but rule by the people). They were not looking for social experiments or foreign experts.

Deng had every potential to set a path for a more democratic and free China but instead decided that the future was in the party's hands, not the nation or the people.

quote:

What do you think about Kronstadt?

qkkl posted:

Did Marx ever come up with a specific way to tell when an economy is strong enough to switch to full communism? It seems that modern-day communists are too eager to switch to full communism right now, when they instead should vote for Trump and let capitalism increase productivity further until the economy can easily afford to implement a high UBI, at which point the switch to full communism can be made safely.

tino posted:

You really don't need to go to Marx to explain Deng. Dengism = authoritarian politically + protected free market + minimize military budget to ally with US. There are plenty of examples from warring period and later dynasties.

Nothing Deng has said strike me he believe in grand theories.

Edit: also army required unconditional royalty to the party, not the state.

Modest Mao posted:

Gorbachev was right that socialism needed reform, and I think he was right to address the obvious problems and flaws the USSR had created.

He incredible misshandling of his reforms lead to his coup and I don't think you can say that 1980s china was in an identical position... if anything after the gang of four was removed China was for a moment open to a lot of possibilities and they also chose a regretful path.

sincx posted:

Is Typo still gimmick posting, or what?

Fallen Hamprince posted:

I'll note that Marx formulated this theory in the 19th century before environmentalism became a big thing; IMO it's more likely that industrial society collapses due to lack of resources or catastrophic environmental change than any intrinsic long-term trend in capitalist political economy.

Typo posted:

A really fascinating point of comparative politics is to contrast The August coup of 1991 vs Tienanmen Square of 1989, and why one regime collapsed while the other didn't and the consequences of each.

Modest Mao posted:

lol how are these anything alike other than Famous Foreign Event

sincx posted:

Is Typo still gimmick posting, or what?

Typo posted:

both are the direct consequences of trying to reform the Socialist states which were built up in the immediate post-war era

in both cases you had a reformist general secretary (Zhao Ziyang/Gorbachev) out of line with rest of the party besieged by hardliners

in both cases you had crowds gathered in the capital in support of radical reformers, and the hardliners sitting in the halls of power

on a more abstract level, in both cases it was the contradictions between Marxist-Leninism and recent policy reforms came to head literally in the public square and threaten the regime's existence. In one of the them the party ordered the tanks to open fire on the crowd to resolve that particular contradiction, in the other they waffled. Why and how the decisions were made to suppress/vs surrender to the crowd is rather informative. The consequences of those decisions is still felt to this day and will be for the next 50 years at least.

sincx posted:

Is Typo still gimmick posting, or what?

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

yes and it sucks real bad and im not sure why people got mad when i probated him for it

Chomskyan posted:

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

yes and it sucks real bad and im not sure why people got mad when i probated him for it

Fuligin posted:

his point (i think) is that the very attempt to reform precipitated a crisis of the old order. having now successfully contained or erased popular demand for reform, and witnessed the SU's spectacular collapse and russia's diminished state, i'm sure that most of the ccp think tiananmen square was crushed appropriately. xi's strange contortions between gung-ho savior of international trade (and the capitalist order it perpetuates) and maoist nostalgia and red values is a response to perceived constraints.he faces the problem of what to do with a capitalist sector that is important to enrich the country/increase national self-sufficiency but which simultaneously perpetuates inequality and erodes party authority and discipline. One party rule, with its opacity, factionalism, and sheer sprawl, is deeply vulnerable to corruption and crony capitalism
btw this is not a gimmick post
btw btw xi of course is a direct benefactor from the ccp's undemocratic and clubby nature so that doesnt help either lol


btw btw btw i assume these screengrabs are in reference to recent tax reform, which was actually well thought out and good for working people

Modest Mao posted:

Tiananmen square is also a "first as farce, then as tragedy" situation when Deng himself orchestrated a protest in the square 15 years prior to the more famous event, following the death of Zhou Enlai. People were questioning the direction of the government and asking for reforms. The precedent of protesting in the square and using the "Democracy Wall" to air grievances were, in 1989, well established, in fact Deng was placed on house arrest explicitly for supporting their use.

When Hu Yaobang died and several student movements met in the square, a completely organic protest of exactly the same type Deng had previously orchestrated against his enemies was squashed with martial force. Few (none?) were calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party's rule or a even change in leadership, just a change in the direction of the development of Chinese society.

Deng Xiaoping sucks and it's too bad a billion people are brainwashed into thinking he does not, in fact, suck

Chairman of Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping posted:

Comrade Xiannian is correct. The causes of this incident have to do with the global context. The Western world, especially the United States, has thrown its entire propaganda machine into agitation work and has given a lot of encouragement and assistance to the so-called democrats or opposition in China — people who are in fact are the scum of the Chinese nation. This is the root of the chaotic situation we face today.

When the West stirs up turmoil in other countries, in fact it is playing power politics — hegemonism — and is only trying to control those other countries, to pull into its power sphere countries that were previously beyond its control. Once we're clear on this point, it's easier to see the essential nature of this issue and to sum up certain lessons. This turmoil has taught us a lesson the hard way, but at least we now understand better than before that the sovereignty and security of the state must always be the top priority. Some Western countries use things like "human rights," or like saying the socialist system is irrational or illegal, to criticize us, but what they're really after is our sovereignty. ...

Two conditions are indispensable for our development goals: a stable environment at home and a peaceful environment abroad. We don't care what others say about us. The only thing we really care about is a good environment for developing ourselves. So long as history eventually proves the superiority of the Chinese socialist system, that's enough. We can't bother about the social systems of other countries.

Imagine for a moment what could happen if China falls into turmoil. If it happens now, it'd be far worse than the Cultural Revolution. Back then the prestige of leaders like Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou [Enlai] still loomed. We talked about "full-scale civil war," but actually no large-scale fighting took place, no true civil war ever happened.

Now it's different, though. If the turmoil keeps going, it could continue until Party and state authority are worn away. Then there would be civil war, one faction controlling parts of the army and another faction controlling others. If the so-called democracy fighters were in power, they'd fight among themselves. Once civil war got started, blood would flow like a river, and where would human rights be then? ...

On the topic of mistakes, we indeed have made them. I said two years ago that our biggest mistake was in education. we haven't educated our kids and students enough. A lot of thought work has been neglected, and a lot of things have not been made clear. Some people, like [former Chinese premier who visited the protests] Zhao Ziyang, have even joined the side of the turmoil, which makes it even more our own faults that people misunderstood.

We must cast a sober and critical eye upon ourselves, review the past while looking to the future, and try to learn from experience as we examine current problems. If we do this, it's possible a bad thing could turn into a good one. We could benefit from this incident.

A majority of the people will sober up, too. After we put down the turmoil, we'll have to work hard to make up all those missed lessons in education, and this won't be easy. It'll take years, not months, for the people who demonstrated and petitioned to change their minds. We can't blame the people who joined the hunger strike, demonstrated, or petitioned. We should target only those who had bad intentions or who took the lead in breaking the law. Education should be our main approach to the student, including the students who joined the hunger strike.

This principle must not change. We should set the majority of the students free from worry. We should be forgiving toward all the students who joined marches, demonstrations, or petitions and not hold them responsible. We will mete out precise and necessary punishments only to the minority of adventurers who attempted to subvert the People's Republic of China.

We cannot tolerate turmoil. We will impose martial law again if turmoil appears again. Our purpose is to maintain stability so that we can work on construction, and our logic is simple: with so many people and so few resources, China can accomplish nothing without peace and units in politics and a stable social order. Stability must take precedence over everything. ...

No one can keep China's reform and opening from going forward. Why is that? It's simple: without reform and opening our development stops and our economy slides downhill. Living standards decline if we turn back. The momentum of reform cannot be stopped. We must insist on this point at all times.

Some people say we allow only economic reform and not political reform, but that's not true. We do allow political reform, but one condition: that the Four Basic Principles [of Marxist ideology and Communist Party rule] are upheld.

We can't handle chaos while we're busy with contradiction. If today we have a big demonstration and tomorrow we have a great airing of views and a bunch of wall posts, we won't have any energy left to get anything done. That's why we have to insist on clearing the square.

tino posted:

Tiananmen played a direct role in the Eastern block countries folded so fast a couple years later because most people at power realized they had to commit to tank to continue the communist dictatorships. And people who still believe in Marxism couldn't bring themselves to do it.

Modest Mao posted:

Are you talking about the very Communist thing he did raising the tax rate on the wealthy from 25% to 45% overnight. Or the funny thing that china has an essentially flat tax for anyone living in a city so everyone got hosed really hard.

tino posted:

Neither Cixi nor Deng ever had political legitimacy.

Typo posted:

Deng had enormous political legitimacy with the exception of the years 1989-1993

tino posted:

He was "retired" before that. Also he built the central polibureau system to prevent Mao style dictator. The system kinda lasted 20+ years.

Typo posted:

False: Eastern Bloc countries folded in the same year as TMN, the wobbling of eastern bloc countries that year directly played into the decision to use force at TMN

Ceausescu tried to use force and it failed