[dude with glasses in a communist t-shirt, arguing] I'm the only leftist here, your opinions are TRASH
[dude holding a theory book on smug, arguing] Read theory you losers, you're all WRONG
[dude in an anarchist hoodie, arguing] Nuh-uh, I'm the only leftist here, you're SHITLIBS
[the three dudes are now caught in a cartoon fight, glasses gone flying, punches everywhere, while a firing squad of nazis are targeting them with rifles]
[a confused nazi asks] Why… why are they still arguing?
ah yes, because marxist-leninism has no history of its adherents glorifying imperialism or state-capitalism.
Correct. Neither imperialism is glorified, nor is state-capitalism like the US Empire, Republic of Korea, Singapore, or Bismarck's Germany if you want an earlier example, are glorified by Marxism of any kind.
i didnt claim that.
nevertheless, china was oddly missing in ur list of state-capitalist nations that werent glorified..
Your claim, sarcasm aside, was that Marxist-Leninists have a history of glorifying imperialism and state-capitalism, which I rejected, and said not just Marxism-Leninism but all Marxism rejects both. Either you're trying to say Marxism-Leninism isn't Marxist, in which case some heavy justification is required, or I misunderstood your point, in which case I'd appreciate elaboration.
As for the PRC, I didn't list it as state-capitalist for the same reason I wouldn't list the US as socialist. The PRC has a socialist market economy. The large firms and key industries of the PRC are publicly owned, and the medium firms are heavily controlled by the state and rely on the publicly owned key industries to function. Private property and the bourgeoisie don't have political power because they don't control the large firms or key industries.
What distinguishes state capitalism from socialism is private ownership of the large firms and key industries, or public ownership. The US, Singapore, ROK, etc all have large megacorps with firm control of the state, which uses its power to relatively guide and plan the economy for private interest. In the PRC, the opposite is the case, since the large firms and key industries are publicly owned and planned, the bourgeoisie doesn't have political control, the proletariat does. This is reflected in over 90% approval rates for the government in the PRC.
The reason the PRC has a bourgeoisie and private property to begin with is because they haven't yet developed out of it. They are still in a relatively early stage of socialism, market forces are quite useful for small and medium firms to grow into centralized firms that can be gradually sublimated and folded into public ownership. This is a Marxist understanding of economics, and while it isn't what an anarchist would want, I don't personally define socialism in a manner that excludes Marxism.
Does that make sense?
my claim was not about marxism or marxist-leninism, but specifically its adherents. i dont think that marxism inherently glorifies state-capitalism or imperialism, but i recognize that an uncomfortably large portion of its adherents do.
as to ur explanation of chinas economic system..
it seems that u define socialism as public ownership of industry/means of production, and capitalism as private ownership of these.
i would argue that public ownership should refer to the public i.e. the populace of the area, not the state that claims to represent them, yet according to u is disapproved of by 10% of its people.
and when the state owns all/most of the firms, and the workers/proletariat does not own them, this is another form of capitalism: one where the state owns the means of production. therefore, state capitalism.
id recommend this video series that tries to explain the state and its function in different historical contexts:
part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwxpTyGUOI
its also available in text format if u prefer reading: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-the-state-is-counter-revolutionary
Regarding Marxists and imperialism/state capitalism, I suppose I just disagree with you there, either we are using different definitions of imperialism just like we are using different definitions of socialism and state capitalism, or you're seeing something I don't.
As for me, and socialism vs capitalism, socialism is essentially a mode of production by which collectivized ownership forms the principle aspect of society, ie the base. In practical terms, that means the large firms and key industries, which have control over the rest of the economy (controlling the rubber factory means you have power over the rubber ball factory, as an example). Capitalism is the reverse, privatized ownership of the large firms and key industries, and thus bourgeois control.
Returning to the state, the state is an extension of the ruling class, not a class in and of itself. This is principly the Marxist stance, here. The reason state ownership in a principly publicly owned economy is socialist, is because that necessitates proletarian control. If the bourgeoisie only control the medium firms, and only to the extent that they cannot work against the common, collective plan, then they have no political power, the proletariat does. The small firms are largely cooperative or petite bourgeois property in the PRC, meaning the bourgeoisie proper really only has the non-essential, smaller-scale industry. As a side note, 10% is actually higher than the disapproval rate. Disapproval is highest at the township level, but gets higher the more central you get, with only 4.3% disapproving at the top level:
State ownership is not juxtaposed with proletarian ownership, if the proletariat actually directly owned and controlled the tools they used, they would not be proletarian, but petty bourgeois. Cooperative ownership, in small-scale firms, is petty bourgeois ownership. This isn't intrinsically an issue in a broader socialist economy, but without collectivized ownership you cement class divisions, ie each cooperative is its own competing cell, rather than existing in the context of a collectivized economy run by all in the interests of all.
Capitalism, on the other hand, relies on the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit of reproduction. State-run industries don't have to adhere to this, they don't need to run a profit and they don't need to compete in a market, but in capitalism, this is the dominant mode of production over the largest and key firms and industries. The difference between how the US, for example, and PRC functions is dramatic, and its why the PRC has such large approval rates.
As for the state, Marxists and anarchists have different views. Marxists see the state as an instrument of class oppression that exists as long as class does, and so in order to get rid of it, all property needs to be gradually sublimated into collectivized property, across all of society. The principle difference is between centralization and collectivization vs decentralization and horizontalism.
I appreciate the link, but as a former anarchist myself I'm already familiar with the anarchist perspective. I'm not trying to debate anarchism, or try to explain why I agree more with Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, just defend Marxism from what I recognize as misrepresentations of it. Anark's central premise seems to be that the state creates classes, which fundamentally relies on either a different definition of class at best or a misunderstanding of the state and class at worst.
it does seem that we have very different understandings of the state.
in my mind, a disapproval rating larger than 0% already shows that the state =/= its people and the people do not truly control the state.
also, by the people owning industry, i meant all of them, not some subset. this means it doesnt create class distinctions, in fact, even if it was previously owned and controlled by the state (a subset of the people), this would be a reduction of class distinctions in my mind.
i think the crux of our disagreement is that u seem to consider the state as equivalent/"an extension" to the people, while i want to clarify that one may claim to be controlled entirely by the people, but this does not make it so.
Regarding approval rates, all classes were interviewed, including the bourgeoisie. Further, you will not find 100% of people agreeing that the Earth is round, flat-Earthers exist. What should be recognized is that the PRC has some of the highest approval rates in the world, and that that number appears to be increasing over the course of the study. I don't think your argument that there being a non-zero number of Chinese citizens that disapprove of the government doesn't mean the people aren't in charge of it, Chinese citizens aren't a hive-mind nor is the PRC a classless society. Class struggle is very much alive in China.
As for state-ownership, that doesn't mean those in government are the actual owners. That's not how public ownership works, again, the state isn't a class, but an extension, in the PRC's case of the proletariat. Public ownership rests on ownership among all citizens, just because said citizens elect managers and administrators doesn't mean these managers and administrators are the owners. If I am a local manager of a McDonalds store, I'm not the owner, I'm still a proletarian.
I don't consider the state to be equivalent to the people. I do consider the state to be an extension of the ruling class. Further, I see the state the same way Marx did, as purely the repressive elements of government that uphold the ruling class and oppress the other classes, and that once production is all centralized and democratized globally, fully collectivized, there won't be any class and thus no state, but there will be administrators, managers, accountants, etc as there must be in the kind of large-scale and interconnected production that the Marxist conception of communism holds as its basis.
The principle distinction between anarchism and Marxism is in decentralization and horizontalism vs centralization and collectivization. I hold both as socialist, and much prefer the Marxist framework of analysis, but don't really waste much time trying to discredit anarchism or anarchists.
ok let me try and phrase it another way:
regardless of who supposedly owns the firms, who makes the big decisions of how they are to be run? is it the people of china? or is it whoever is in government at the moment?
who makes decisions about the course of the country? is it the people who live there, or do they simply elect someone to make all of those decisions?
If your stance is that administration and managers are incompatible with socialism, and that democratically elected representatives are not a genuine form of democracy for the people, then your stance is that Marxism in general isn't socialist to begin with. I think this is more of a semantical argument than a moral or logical one, if I ceded that Marxism isn't socialist by your definition that says nothing about whether or not Marxism is a sound framework and that Marxist "socialism" is something worth pursuing.
Further, I don't see how you could have large-scale society while requiring every decision to be made collectively, so either you're pushing for the small-scale commune model with individual or small cooperative production, or there's something else you agree with that I'm not aware of. Most anarchists recognize "justified" hierarchies of some sort to get around this issue, usually with different models like participatory economics, but I do understand that the maximally horizontalist anarchists do also exist.
As for how decisionmaking is made in the PRC, it depends on the scale. Much of the larger decisions are made centrally at the level of the NPC, but local decisions are often made directly through township councils or regional councils. It works well for its people, which is why it gets such widespread support.
i did ask who makes the big decisions and decides "the course of the country". i agree that if the entire populace were to decide every minor detail, it would become inoperably slow.
i make a distinction between ceding all power and decisions to a representative every voting cycle (5 years for the NPC?) vs. choosing a delegate who enacts decisions made by the populace, and has decision-making power of their own in the confines of the mandate they were given by the people, and who is directly recallable at any time by a simple majority.
this attemps to give decision-making power to everyone affected by a decision, without giving it to those unaffected and slowing the process down.
whereas the state reduces the power of the individual to a decision of "1, 2, or 3" every 5 years or so, followed by all other decisions being made by their new ruler.
my argument is that the representative model does not give meaningful enough control to the people to consider this "state" an extension of the people.
i would define socialism as public ownership of the means of production. where "public" means "of the people" and ownership means "having meaningful control of".
so in my view, until the people meaningfully control the state or the means of production, it is not socialism.
The PRC generally follows the latter model you describe. Recall elections are possible, and there are different "rungs" that are directly accountable to lower rungs. Politicians have to work their way up the rungs in order to increase their scope of decisionmaking, if they break that trust they fall back down the ladder. Part of Xi Jinping's campaign that brought him immense popularity among the people was purging of opportunists that held comfortable positions throughout the 90s and 2000s.
Going back to the "rung" model, there are townships, county, provincial, and central governments. Townships are the lowest level and most direct, and each county is made up of many townships, each province many counties, and all provinces under central. This direct line from bottom to top means the legitimacy at the top is laddered upward, while allowing those who have proven themselves to operate from the top back downward. Their legitimacy and accountability is maintained through that unbroken chain.
I would say that, based on my previous paragraphs and answers, the PRC absolutely qualifies. I think if we are merely disagreeing about vibes, then we are abstracting away from the material base in a way that is counter-productive to discussion.
i think u misunderstand the delegate model i described.
what youre describing is a hierarchical system where the higher up the "rungs" u go, the larger the scope of decisions u can make.
whereas in the delegate model, the maximum scope of decisions is always directly with the people (who could make any decision independently of delegates, if they want to), and every delegate has decision-making power smaller than that scope, meaning the scope of possible actions decreases rather than increases.
Hierarchy isn't something antihetical to socialism, it exists in all systems. Further, I still don't really see how this model handles global systems of production and supply chains, and further still, I think you're just redefining socialism to only include anarchism, which is a semantical argument and not a logical one.
as a communist, i believe there is such a thing as a non-hierarchical system.
further, i dont really see how the PRC will ever achieve communism or socialism and further still, i think you are redefining socialism to include china, which is a semantical argument and not a logical one.
Communism is generally held to be about class and state abolition, not hierarchy in general. Delegates in your model still have hierarchy, what's important is accountability and that the general interest is upheld. As for the PRC, it's already socialist, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned. It certainly isn't anarchist, nor is it a stateless, classless, moneyless, global society, but it's socialist.
which are hierarchies, and the criticism of these are based on the same root issue that all hierarchies have. i admit that this statement was somewhat inflammatory, altho i firmly believe that anarchism is the natural conclusion of the communist idea.
no. the power is always among the people who choose the delegate, formulate their mandate, and can recall them at any time. the delegate has no power over the people, nor is the delegate coerced into their role.
and u can call the PRC socialist all u like, but that still dont make it true.
Inter-class hierarchy exists, ie bourgeois and proletarian, but intra-class hierarchy also exists, ie worker and manager. The Marxist critique of class involves the fact that there's hierarchy, but that's not the focus, the focus is on class as a social relation to production as informed by ownership. I'm more than willing to agree that your critique is the general anarchist critique, and I'm okay with you preferring anarchism, I just think that if you're trying to argue that Marxism isn't a communist ideology because it doesn't hold the same view of hierarchy as anarchism does, that that's a bit myopic.
Just because the delegate was elected and is subject to recall doesn't mean it isn't a hierarchy, though. Unless your point is that the delegate can only do what 100% of those who elected them want, and if any oppose them then they have no power, but in that case everything would collapse to a halt. The PRC has delegates and elections, and recall elections too, so I'm not sure I understand your criticism with that.
As for not considering the PRC socialist, are you saying it doesn't fit the anarchist conception of socialism, or the conception of socialism that includes Marxism as socialist? Ie, is your argument that the PRC does not meet the Marxist understanding of socialism as well as the anarchist? This is something that needs heavy judtification if so, but if you just mean the anarchist conception then I agree, the PRC isn't anarchist and isn't pretending to be.
ok this gotta be my last response bc i got better shit to do today.
so first off, i simply dont care what the marxist definition or critique of something is, so yes, please understand it as just the general anarchist critique.
well yes, if they want to stay a delegate they have to comply with the mandate they were given. i also understand that there may be practical considerations that lead ppl to choose weak (e.g. 95%) consensus decisions, and u can call that hierarchical if u like, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt strive to abolish all hierarchies.
the way u have described the PRC does not sound like they have delegates, rather representatives. ive already explained the difference.
as for considering the PRC state capitalist, this is my conception (altho i know a few marxists who agree), and so far ive only argued about the ownership situation and not touched upon wealth accumulation or markets at all, but i think ive still made a fair argument.
Well, up front, it's nice that you at least cleared up that you don't consider Marxism to be socialist. I disagree with that, of course, but now that we've established that your definition of socialism is exclusionary of Marxism, then that does at least mean we can have a consistent conversation.
As for delegates vs. representatives, the PRC's democracy extends beyond simply voting for candidates and representatives. I already explained that each rung makes decisions for that which their area needs, and elect from among themselves delegates that they can recall. People's integration into politics isn't relegated to simple elections, but consensus building, feedback, drafts of policy, etc.
As for ownership, your argument was that politicians are literally owners of publicly owned industry, which isn't how public ownership works anywhere. Even if the PRC is centrally planned for the majority of its large firms and key industries, that doesn't mean those large firms and key industries are run for profit, personal enrichment of capitalists, participate in markets, etc. There's nothing at all resembling capitalism there, so state capitalism is an absurdity. I gave clear examples of capitalist systems with heavy state involvement, like Singapore, that better fit "state capitalism."
Either way, this will be my last comment too. Have a good one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc2q-82G6dg
Again, I'm aware of the anarchist critique, I used to be an anarchist myself, I just firmly disagree with it.
yes, well, if u had watched it, u wouldve noticed its not about the anarchist critique.
I did watch it, just posting a 4 minute video from an anarchist YouTuber doesn't mean I immediately need to agree with it. Anark coats it as a Marxist critique, but it's thoroughly an anarchist critique attempting to claim higher and universal legitimacy by invoking Marx and Engels, but what Marx and Engels described as state capitalism was Bismarck's Germany, which had the large firms and key industries absolutely privately owned with minor exceptions like railways.
The state in Bismarck's Germany played a hand in directing the private economy, while retaining class relations. It wasn't because they had a state, it's because the base of production was capitalism, subject to the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit. Anark's critique is ignorant at best to dishonest at worst. Here's Engels directly speaking about it:
Instead, what needs to happen is proletarian revolution, and gradual appropriation of property into the hands of the new, proletarian state, until all property is collectivized and the proletarian state is no more:
So yes, I did watch it. It's one of those videos that only really makes sense to people that haven't put in the time to take Marxism seriously, and just want to quotegrab Marx and Engels to give their points higher legitimacy. Even Anark's examples of Chile and Yugoslavia were more market-focused and less collectivized, Yugoslavia in particular relied on IMF loans to keep going. Anark's mislabling of socialism as intrinsically worker-ownership and not collectivized ownership pretty much leaves only anarchism and anarchist adjacent ideologies as socialist. And, the USSR and PRC, Cuba, etc. do have worker democracy:
I'm sorry I took your video seriously, I guess? I dunno, were you just wanting me to concede the point outright?
im sorry to hear that after all of this u continue to claim the state is an extension of its people, and continue to mix representation and delegation. or for that matter, the myth of the state abolishing itself, which has no basis in reality.
ill give up on explaining this to u now. just one small thing: its spelled Bismarck, not Bismark.
Yes, after all of this I hold to the Marxist understanding, you haven't offered any compelling reason to abandon it, and have, to the contrary, shown a poor understanding of Marxism on both your's and Anark's parts. I'll correct a few of your misclaims about my stance here, though, for any popping in afterwards:
The state is an extension not of its people. The state is an extension of the ruling class, and the ruling class is determined by the base mode of production. A bourgeois state is one where private property is the base mode of production, and a proletarian state is one in which collectivized ownership is the base mode of production. As all property gets collectivized, class disappears, and so too does the need to oppress other classes, as everyone has equal ownership, leaving only instruments like social planning, administration, management, etc in place. That's the economic and historical basis of the elimination of the state.
As for delegates vs representatives, I understand the difference you claim they have, I just don't hold them as foundationally different to the point that one or the other invalidates the entire social basis of production.
Thanks for the Birmarck correction. Doesn't invalidate my points, but I'll make the correction regardless. If you have more questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.
I've never seen such unjustified condescension, my god.