Squalid posted:

In the context of traditional Marxist and most socialist theory, compensating someone for use of real estate, especially real estate that is not currently directly used by the person, is inherently unfair for the rest of society. Private ownership of land or factories or mines or etc. is inherently unjust, and constitutes a theft from society. In that framework compensating persons for the acquisition of that property is a bit quizzical, as it's the equivalent of buying the diamonds back from a jewel thief.

You can see this attitude displayed today when self professed socialists mock liberals for excessive emphasis on the importance of property rights, and in the "invasion" of vacant properties by leftist groups that sometimes happen in Europe and Latin America. It is also evident in the redistribution of white agricultural land in Zimbabwe after 2000. In all cases there is the assumption that the presumption that there need be compensation is itself a product of an unfair system of economic relations.

tino posted:

What happened to the Chinese billionaires who said he will build giant glass factory in the US, did he cancel this plan?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

The Sparrows had it coming.

In other news, there's a documentary out on Netflix that looks interesting:


I'm sure wacky hijinks will ensue.

beep-beep car is go posted:

The second the ink was dry and the checks cleared.

Megillah Gorilla posted:

Pretty sure this was a Tom Hanks movie in the 80s, but with Japan and an auto manufacturer.

Devils Affricate posted:

Geisladisk posted:

The "Kill All Sparrows" thing is a really good example for why dictatorships are a really bad idea.

So Mao has this idea to kill all the sparrows, because sparrows eat the crops, and we'd rather that people eat the crops, right?

On it's face, to a completely uneducated layman, it's not actually a bad idea. We want more food, rights? And those loving sparrows are eating our food. So gently caress 'em. It makes intuitive sense.

Except that if they'd have consulted even one ecologist, he'd have turned pale and went "oh my god please don't do that", and that'd have been the end of that.

But they didn't, because Mao was in charge, and what he says goes. And disagreeing with him would probably have gotten you killed.

In any country where power was more distributed and more than one person had to give the ok to do something like that, it would never happened.

Fallen Hamprince posted:

Along the same lines, during the Great Leap Forward Mao had the communes build backyard furnaces in order to melt down iron ore (and, when that wasn't available, literally anything else made of iron) to produce girder steel. It turns out that steel production is more complicated than that, and that when commune dwellers with no knowledge of metalworking were told to produce steel the result was instead worthless pig iron.

punk rebel ecks posted:

What was life like under China during Mao's reign anyway? We're there just a series of communes everywhere, or was just every store and industry nationalized?

Grape posted:

You had to have Mao represented in every home, so part of the party apparatus was training lots of Mao lookalikes to go around and share living spaces with families.
You'd have people continuing a lot of their normal everyday life. Like cooking meals, tilling the field, doing laundry. But part of the day would revolve around "tending your Mao", giving the lookalike attention and asking him stuff about Mao Zedong thought.
The Maos would spend the day with the families, and at night they'd join together in a big tent on the outskirts of the village or city and bunk together for the night.

The party itself would check in on the scenario every once in awhile. If a village had a sick Mao, the whole province might be punished. But if the Maos looked happy and well fed, you could get a huge subsidy from Beijing.

Squalid posted:

is there a book or something that can explain how the Chinese government works because i really don't understand it or Chinese politics

Tupperwarez posted:

Now I'm picturing a futuristic version of this with android duplicates of Xi.

Squalid posted:

is there a book or something that can explain how the Chinese government works because i really don't understand it or Chinese politics

Grape posted:

You had to have Mao represented in every home, so part of the party apparatus was training lots of Mao lookalikes to go around and share living spaces with families.
You'd have people continuing a lot of their normal everyday life. Like cooking meals, tilling the field, doing laundry. But part of the day would revolve around "tending your Mao", giving the lookalike attention and asking him stuff about Mao Zedong thought.
The Maos would spend the day with the families, and at night they'd join together in a big tent on the outskirts of the village or city and bunk together for the night.

The party itself would check in on the scenario every once in awhile. If a village had a sick Mao, the whole province might be punished. But if the Maos looked happy and well fed, you could get a huge subsidy from Beijing.

punk rebel ecks posted:

This sounds like a terrible sitcom.

Zohar posted:

I recommend chinese politics in the era of xi jinping by willy wo-lap lam, lam is very lib but is right more often than most "China watchers" and has a better sense of intra-elite stuff since he's followed it for 30+ years

e: oh it's also kind of out of date now because it was written in 2015 (iirc) but there isn't anything much better that's come out since

Zohar posted:

I recommend chinese politics in the era of xi jinping by willy wo-lap lam, lam is very lib but is right more often than most "China watchers" and has a better sense of intra-elite stuff since he's followed it for 30+ years

e: oh it's also kind of out of date now because it was written in 2015 (iirc) but there isn't anything much better that's come out since

BrokenGameboy posted:

Any recommendations for the Mao era? Also, if it's not too much trouble, any about Chinese history in general?

BrokenGameboy posted:

Any recommendations for the Mao era? Also, if it's not too much trouble, any about Chinese history in general?

BrokenGameboy posted:

Any recommendations for the Mao era? Also, if it's not too much trouble, any about Chinese history in general?

punk rebel ecks posted:

Nobody is an expert on everything.

Kaiju Cage Match posted:

A Tamagotchi game but you're tending a Mao Zedong lookalike

bonelessdongs posted:

Maybe you aren't

BrokenGameboy posted:

Any recommendations for the Mao era? Also, if it's not too much trouble, any about Chinese history in general?

punk rebel ecks posted:

Geisladisk is right. Contrary to what many think, dictatorships rarely produce good results. Nobody is an expert on everything.

This dumbfuck didn't bother to like individually test individual towns/cities to see if this poo poo worked before expanding it nationwide?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

The Sparrows had it coming.

In other news, there's a documentary out on Netflix that looks interesting:


I'm sure wacky hijinks will ensue.

bonelessdongs posted:

TaMaogotchi

Grape posted:

For a brief period during the 80's, a similar policy was shaped around Deng Xiaoping lookalikes filling the same role as the old Maos.
it was abandoned quickly after the vast majority of the Dengs turned out to be wily and poorly behaved. Various stories around China from this period have small mobs of tiny grinning old men causing constant mischief. Things like taking communal tractors on joy rides, loitering around in front of shops while smoking and cussing at passing people, and constant fighting over girlfriends.

Tupperwarez posted:

Now I'm picturing a futuristic version of this with android duplicates of Xi.