China Knows How to Deal with its Billionaires
www.currentaffairs.org
In the United States, wealthy individuals like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are allowed to dominate the country’s politics and economy. But there is another way.
    • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      12·
      8 days ago

      No surprise coming from Current Affairs. Most of the time they seem more reactionary than Novara (usually good, but also falls into the same western chauvinism.)

      CA always felt somewhere closer to social Democrat than democratic socialist when I read them regularly.

  • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
    186·
    8 days ago

    If China knew how to deal with billionaires, Chinese billionaires wouldn’t fucking exist.

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      394·
      8 days ago

      “The most successful socialist nation in history isn’t doing things exactly the way I, an ignorant western leftist, think are morally pure. Therefore they are evil!”

      Brilliant take, sir.

      • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        231·
        8 days ago

        I get your contempt, but there’s a fair and lively discussion regarding Chinese socialism. Calling oneself socialist while dealing with Israel and while not struggling harder against the yoke of western Imperialism, is morally difficult. If it all ends up in socialism and China actually pulls through with Marxism, anti-imperialism and socialism, then maybe it will be worth it, but I don’t see a problem with criticising the morally gray parts of Chinese socialism.

        • CutieBootieTootie [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          31·
          8 days ago

          The issue is that you then play into anti-communist narratives if your critiques are as simple as “China should already be a 100% socialist economy or else it’s not ruled by a socialist government”. Westerners who level such base critiques often do not have the full understanding of history, let alone Chinese history, that got the world’s largest communist party to this point. This is a simple case of western chauvanism ahistorically abusing the most progressive nations in the world for not measuring up to their grade of “progress” which has been used time and time again to attack those who’ve done the most to bring a better world.

          • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            13·
            8 days ago

            I agree with you and hold hopes for the future in regards to China, and that this is often brandished in public opinion as an anticommunist argument. That said, mindful discussion of these moral standards (which other countries like the USSR or Cuba have generally observed) and the future we want from China is a good thing in my opinion within leftist spaces

      • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
        31·
        8 days ago

        I asked a genuine question on the last time this article was posted and was insulted and down voted. Your “take” contains more assumptions than my snarky comment on this post.

        Brilliant… uh, take?

        • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          112·
          8 days ago

          “I have depicted my snarky comment as the Chad wojak, and your snarky comment as the Soy wojak. I am victorious.”

          Real question: would you rather live in:

          1. a country with billionaires and a strong welfare state helping its citizens

          2. a country with billionaires and NO welfare state that lets its citizens suffer and die?

          In this example, 1) is China, 2) is the USA. There is no third option, not at this point in human history. So tell me, which is better? 1 or 2?

      • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
        25·
        8 days ago

        Answers? I got copied and pasted novels that I did my best to read, and got zero answers. Most of what I read appeared to be pure propaganda. And many of the comments just simply attacked western capitalism, which I hate.

        Y’all don’t fucking know why there are Chinese billionaires and it’s adorable lol.

        Edit: I meant to say I hate western capitalism, not that I hate it when people attack western capitalism. Attack it all you like, it’s currently collapsing anyway

        • CutieBootieTootie [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          282·
          8 days ago

          Chinese billionaires exist because of an economic order imposed by the United States which the PRC does it’s best to operate in while reigning in the political power of the capitalist class. Before the Deng era, billionaires did not exist. Now wealth inequality has skyrocketed in China, but the total amount of wealth has gone up while the CPC has made it incredibly clear that they and the working class are still in charge.

          The future remains to be seen, but China is in the most advanced place to seize private industries and reintegrate them back into public control after they’ve done the task of taking in international capital and massively building up the Chinese economy.

          This is why billionaires exist in China

          • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
            32·
            8 days ago

            Y’all sound like Trump supporters when you use the word “lib.”

            And then you act smug anyway. It’s so cringey.

            • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              16·
              8 days ago

              Liberals are right wingers, Americans are just extremely dumb, illiterate savages and used the wrong definition. It’s like what Americans call an “entree”

            • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              42·
              8 days ago

              Y’all sound like Trump supporters when you use the word “lib.”

              Oh I see you’re one of those people that think everyone who disagrees with you is a Trump supporter. What next, you’ll claim you’re the one true leftist?

          • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
            21·
            8 days ago

            Ugh.

            I’ve learned never to comment on Chinese subs ever again. Y’all keep calling me a “lib” and putting words in my mouth. I do NOT hate “eastern socialism with Chinese characteristics” what the actual fuck are you talking about?

            I called it propaganda because it didn’t answer my question and spent its entire time talking up China. It was evasive and had an agenda. Just like, you know, propaganda.

            • bbnh69420 [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              10·
              8 days ago

              It did answer your question, you are too entrenched in the american supremacist mindset to see the answers. Might as well block hexbear entirely if you can’t deal with paragraphs of text answering your questions.

              How was this propaganda?

              "What makes a country “socialist”?

              A society where public ownership of the means of production, a state controlled by a politically organized proletariat, and production for societal use rather than for profit is the principal aspect (main body) of the economy.

              Key term here is principal aspect. There is a weird phenomenon from both anti-communists as well as a lot of ultraleft and leftcom communists themselves of applying a “one drop rule” to socialism, where socialism is only socialism if it’s absolutely pure without a single internal contradiction. But no society in the history of humankind has been pure, they all contain internal contradictions and internal contradictions are necessary for one form of society to develop into the next.

              If you applied that same logic to capitalism, then if there was any economic planning or public ownership, then capitalism would cease to be “true capitalism” and become “actually socialism”, which is an argument a lot of right-wing libertarians unironically make. The whole “not true capitalism” and “not true socialism” arguments are two sides of the same coin, that is, people weirdly applying an absolute purity standard to a particular economic system which is fundamentally impossible to exist in reality, so they then can declare their preferred system “has never truly been tried”. But it will never be tried ever because it’s an idealized form which cannot exist in concrete reality, actually-existing capitalism and socialism will always have internal contradictions within itself.

              If no idealized form exists and all things contain internal contradictions within themselves, then the only way to define them in a consistent way is not to define them in terms of perfectly and purely matching up to that idealized form, but that description merely becoming the principal aspect in a society filled with other forms and internal contradictions within itself.

              A capitalist society introducing some economic planning and public ownership doesn’t make it socialist because the principal aspect is still bourgeois rule and production for profit. This would mean the state and institutions carrying out the economic planning would be most influenced by the bourgeoisie and not by the working class, i.e. they would still behave somewhat privately, the “public ownership” would really be bourgeois ownership and the economic planning would be for the benefit of the bourgeoisie first and foremost.

              A similar story in a socialist society with markets and private ownership. If you have a society dominated by public ownership and someone decides to open a shop, where do they get the land, the raw materials, permission for that shop, etc? If they get everything from the public sector, then they exist purely by the explicit approval by the public sector, they don’t have real autonomy. The business may be internally run privately but would be forced to fit into the public plan due to everything around them demanding it for their survival.

              Whatever is the dominant aspect of society will shape the subordinated forms. You have to understand societies as all containing internal contradictions and seeking for what is the dominant form in that society that shapes subordinated forms, rather than through an abstract and impossible to realize idealized version of “true socialism”.

              Countries like Norway may have things that seemingly contradict capitalism like large social safety nets for workers funded by large amounts of public ownership, but these came as concessions due to the proximity of Nordic countries to the USSR which pressured the bourgeoisie to make concessions with the working class. However, the working class and public ownership and economic planning never became the principal aspect of Norway. The bourgeoisie still remains in control, arguably with a weaker position, but they are still by principal aspect, and in many Nordic countries ever since the dissolution of the USSR, the bourgeoisie has been using that dominant position to roll back concessions.

              The argument for China being socialist is not that China has fully achieved some pure, idealized form of socialism, but that China is a DOTP (dictatorship of the proletariat) where public ownership alongside the CPC’s Five-Year plans remain the principal aspect of the economy and other economic organization is a subordinated form."

              • ObtuseDoorFrame@lemm.eeEnglish
                12·
                8 days ago

                That was a good read, thanks for taking the time. The propaganda I was referring to was mostly the paragraphs focusing on talking up Xi. He’s a fairly brutal dictator. While China does get a lot right, and I admire socialist countries very much, I’m suspicious of anything that talks up a dictator.

                Norway is an interesting example and I’d like to see its policies in the USA. Capitalism will always devour itself given enough time, especially with a lack of regulation. Strong social programs are a requirement to make it work.

      • Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        8 days ago

        I’m pretty sure China does have a lot of private banks?

        That said, I don’t think many of their billionaires (noting China has way too many) are primarily wealthy from finance

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      8 days ago

      Part of China geopolitical strategy is economically coupling with the West for the sake of tech transfer and making China indispensable to the West while it builds its productive forces from those tech transfers. Unfortunately, the bad side effect of this is that a billionaire class will inevitably form. The capitalist West won’t exactly do business with you if you are still shouting Cultural Revolution era slogans.

      But a lot of those Chinese billionaires are only billionaires on paper. They own assets that total over a billion dollars in net worth, but those businesses are completely controlled by the CPC and as soon as the “billionaire” tries to cash out, they get hit with restrictions on how they can cash out on top of massive fines that eat away the money they could get from selling off those businesses.

      I suspect this is the game that the CPC is playing with these billionaires. It will eventually be like if you have a bank account with 1 billion dollars, but the bank charges a service fee of $999,999,999.99 if you try to transfer the money to another bank. It’s plain to see that you don’t actually have a billion dollars but just a single penny.

      “You are the proud owner of a massive business worth billions, too bad every single major and minor business decision is dictated by us and you can’t sell off the business because reasons. But you can be on Forbes list of billionaires.”

      • Le_Wokisme [they/them, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
        21·
        8 days ago

        Unfortunately, the bad side effect of this is that a billionaire class will inevitably form

        hardly. you can tax your way out of that, require shares to be distrubuted among employees, maximum wages etc. China has billionaires because they don’t value not having them enough to not have them for now.

        • Grapho@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          7 days ago

          Sure, you can, but not without undermining the goal AssortedBiscuits outlined. China is still in the process of developing their productive forces to lead to a genuinely post scarcity society, being essential to the global economy is the only way to ensure they can’t be isolated and implementing the systems to do away with billionaires can only get in the way of that for hardly any material benefit in a country that large and with so few billionaires per capita with a comparatively low share of wealth where they have no meaningful way to impact policy with their wealth anyway.