Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Sheilbh]

I don't think China is socialist.

I know this is a bit of academic discussion for which I'm ill-prepared, but I think socialized ownership of the means of production is a tenet of classic socialism, and China doesn't do that. Or Sweden for that matter.

I feel like China's far more of an edge case.

There are still lots of state owned enterprises - I think estimates are that around 60-70% of the big, listed Chinese companies are state owned but there's reason to believe that even more are because of ownership structures, funding and corproate law designations etc which can make it unclear. It's not really clear how much of the Chinese economy is in private hands but the state is still a very significant economic actor - especially on the commanding heights of what the Party considers fundamental to China's economy, to their strategy for China or for development.

And the most important institution in any reasonably large Chinese company is still the Party branch. Often, but not always, the chair of the Party branch will also be chairman or CEO but for important decisions there's no doubt who has the final say between the Party interest or, say, the board. I think it ebbs and flows how much corporate or private interest can basically be aligned with the Party. But we're currently in a period of "corporate rectifications".

Edit: Or I suppose on their own terms, I think China's definitely a Leninist state and personally I'd also argue that it's a Marxist one.

[celedhring]

I think they are more of a mixed economy, where the state is a very powerful economic actor but there's too much private entreprise going on - even if reliant on connections with the state, but then again that doesn't make modern Russia a socialist state - or market economy (i.e. competition) to really call it bona fide socialist.

I think Cuba is the sole remaining purely socialist regime in the world. And for good reason.

EDIT: Well, I forgot North Korea.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah North Korea is there.

That's probably fair - it's maybe not really socialist.

Although while I know MM disagrees (and is probably right), I still think China's basically doing a 21st century New Economic Policy to catch up for their political goals - and has been since reform and opening kicked off. It may be more state capitalism than socialism, but Lenin's line was "state capitalism is capitalism that we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix".

I think the Party's power to restrain and fix limits is still very clear. Political power and power over the limits of capitalism is not leeching to private actors, but retained by the Party (which is strengthening its hand).

[Jacob]

Apparently reporting in Russia is that everything is under control now that Putin has demonstrated his unequivocal control, disappointing the fever-dream hopes and aspirations of the enemies of Russia. Analysis indicating that this leaves the Putin regime weakened is pure hysteria or spiteful propaganda.

In case you were wondering....

[Tamas]

 

Another thing is, remember those videos of Rostov citizens cheering Wagner and damn near rioting when the police came back after Wagner left? Some quick polls were made in Rostov after the coup attempt coming back with a 90% approval rate for Putin.

This also feeds back into what wew discussed in tbe past, how the West used to take these Russian "polls" at face value. Even if actual polling took place on these, how could anyone think people answeres honestly when they get a random phone call asking about their opinion of Putin?

[celedhring]

Apparently reporting in Russia is that everything is under control now that Putin has demonstrated his unequivocal control, disappointing the fever-dream hopes and aspirations of the enemies of Russia. Analysis indicating that this leaves the Putin regime weakened is pure hysteria or spiteful propaganda.

In case you were wondering....

I saw a great meme doing the rounds that changed the setting to the US with McDonald's owning a PMC in a war with Mexico and taking Dallas before being talked down by Trudeau - and how this apparently makes Biden a stronger leader.

Sidebar: when was the last armed revolt on European soil? Spain in 1981?

[Sheilbh]

Sidebar: when was the last armed revolt on European soil? Spain in 1981?

Maybe Russia in 93?

I feel like there must have been something in former Yugoslavia at some point?

[celedhring]

Sidebar: when was the last armed revolt on European soil? Spain in 1981?

Maybe Russia in 93?

I feel like there must have been something in former Yugoslavia at some point?

Ah yeah, 1993 for sure.

I thought about Yugoslavia, but I don't think there was an "army revolt" at any point - it was all led by various civilian authorities declaring independence or declaring independence from those that had declared independence, and then all raising their own armies to secure that independence/commit war crimes. But correct me, I haven't looked with that much detail.

[Valmy]

There's better examples of socialism than Cuba.

China?


I kid. send them to Sweden. It's socialist, plus it's cold and they speak funny so the Quebecers will feel right at home

I don't think China is socialist.

I know this is a bit of academic discussion for which I'm ill-prepared, but I think socialized ownership of the means of production is a tenet of classic socialism, and China doesn't do that. Or Sweden for that matter.

I thought originally Louis Blanc, who coined both Capitalism and Socialism as terms I think, meant more about prioritizing solving social problems instead of serving the interests of Capital. Hence "Capitalism" and "Socialism" as political stances. The government of restoration France (especially after 1830) was about serving capital and not society was the critique I believe. It has been awhile since I have read any of that so my memory may have some or all of that wrong.

But his National Workshops were only supposed to address unemployment (and their accompanying social ills) and providing labor and funding for needed public projects that were not able to attract private funding. It was not necessarily to change how the means of production were controlled, but to provide for the common good and keep people fed in a system which cruelly both subjected the unemployed with starvation and failed to generate enough work for them to do.

But granted plenty of experiments with communal ownership were certainly also tried in that era before Marx came along, but it seems like he more strongly attached the term "Socialism" with how the entire economic system of society was structured.

It sure seems like people flexibly use that term to mean both things: government programs to attempt to address social problems AND the entire structure of society. Those strike me as very different things so it does tend to lead to confusion and constant semantic debates about "what is Socialism".

[celedhring]

Blanc's National Workshops were supposed to eventually be run by the workers themselves, IIRC (again, not an expert). The whole idea being that communal ownership would look after the good of the many, as opposed to private run enterprises. However, I agree that Blanc didn't want to fully transform society, he was more of a gradualist and wanted to empower workers. In the end, though, most early socialist theorists eventually floated towards communal ownership of resources and means of production (not necessarily by the state as how we understand it) as the way to solve social ills. Even Proudhon saw private proprierty as an issue to be solved, even if he's one of the few notables that didn't go with full collectivism as the answer.

Of course the conundrum is that when the rubber hits the road, the only way to enforce collectivism in any significantly large community is through tyranny, which is why the whole thing ended badly.

Through the years, indeed, mainstream socialism has transitioned to a more modest scope that encompasses government regulation and programs to ensure redistribution of wealth usually in the form of guaranteering/easing access to basic services (education, health care, transportation) and various forms of minimum incomes.

[Josquius]

The government owning vast chunks of the economy doesn't necessarily equate to socialism. When its done in modern China's style of incestuous relations between government and big business then fascism is a more accurate descriptor. And even there you do get watered down versions in other major east asian economies.
Not to mention the whole lack of rights, shit gini, unequal rights, etc...

Worth noting too, something that is always forgotten, is the dictionary definition of socialism:

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Regardless when I said there's better examples of socialism I wasn't intending to start discussion on the nature of socialism, I simply meant a better example of what socialists in western democracies aspire to; its a sad cliché for hard right folk in the west to hear socialism then instantly knee jerk jump to Marxist ideology authoritarian dictatorships, despite most socialists clearly not seeing these places as their model. The Nordic nations would indeed be a better example for western socialists.
Its really curious that the socialist ideology of nations like the USSR is always what attracts such shit rather than the whole authoritarian dictatorship thing.

[Solmyr]

Sidebar: when was the last armed revolt on European soil? Spain in 1981?

Maybe Russia in 93?

I feel like there must have been something in former Yugoslavia at some point?

Ah yeah, 1993 for sure.

I thought about Yugoslavia, but I don't think there was an "army revolt" at any point - it was all led by various civilian authorities declaring independence or declaring independence from those that had declared independence, and then all raising their own armies to secure that independence/commit war crimes. But correct me, I haven't looked with that much detail.

Technically, 2016 in Istanbul was on European soil.

[Eddie Teach]

And there's been an ongoing revolt in parts of Ukraine.

[Legbiter]

Ukrainians are now pretty much probing along the entire front with small but steady gains in quite a few places. Next month should be interesting.

[Josquius]

In interesting slant on the Ukraine war.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/01/25/is-europe-assimilating-ukrainian-refugees-to-solve-its-economic-and-demographic-problems/

The longer it goes on the more fucked Ukraine makes it's already not particularly great demographic situation.