this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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How socialist is a system that crushes the working class beneath it's boot heel, though? Is that really the working class seizing the means of production because that just seems like someone else beating us to the punch and becoming our new overlords.
The working class in China are not being crushed under anyone's bootheel, though. They really do enjoy a dictatorship over the bourgeoisie, which has been used to great effect to improve working class lives. Yes, a dictatorship of the proletariat as mediated by the party, but vast swathes of the working class people are the party. And those who are not, well, there is a reason the party has an over 90% approval rating and it's not some disgusting racist trope about Asians being sheep. It is because they've watched their quality of life rise by leaps and bounds, repeatedly.
Yes I'm sure the suppressed LGBT really enjoy the weight of that boot as much as you enjoy its taste
Yes, a country that 70 years ago was feudal has some backwards social policy. Is that an own?
The difference betweent China and the west in this regard, is that social justice victories in China are not constantly threatened by right wing parties and far-right Nazis.
Cope harder buddy, nobody buys that shite except you lot.
You should check out hexbear, plenty of pro China queer people there!
Which is naturally a disgusting phenomenon to see queer people support oppression of people like them. But I guess needing to fit in is indeed a strong counter to cognitive dissonance.
Is queer support for Palestinian liberation "a disgusting phenomenon" as well, due to socially reactionary views from Hamas? Nobody supports China's lacking queer rights, but instead the fact that they are continuously improving, both in general and with respect to queer rights. The major obstacle in China with respect to queer rights are the social conservativism of older generations, it isn't a fixed, static aspect of China but a phenomenon caused by the new society still needing to overcome lingering elements of the old. It's the same for Palestine, social progress is something that unfolds over time and is expedited by progressive movements, such as national liberation from genocidal settler colonialism.
Funny how you run interference for bigots like that.
I'm not? Like I said, I support the LGBTQIA+ movements in China and Palestine. What I don't support is looking at social progression like it's a static, unmoving phenomenon intrinsic to Palestinians or Chinese people, or socialism. Try listening to what queer Palestinians and Chinese citizens are saying. They certainly aren't saying "I support the IDF over Hamas" or "overthrow the CPC!" Using Cuba as an example, they went from socially reactionary positions to passing one of the world's most progressive family codes precisely because of the emancipatory nature of Marxism-Leninism.
Or, maybe, you're the propagandized person programmed to look for reasons to hate China?
Yes, I should just disregard LGBT oppression from my camp like a good campist
But it isn't being disregarded. I think China should change a lot of things, LGBTQ rights included. If they did reforms like Cuba tomorrow it'd be a positive thing, for sure. But then there's still the issues of education, animal agriculture, corruption, liberalism growing in the CPC, among other things.
It just becomes really useless to have a discussion about politics when you adopt this "let's find the good guys and the bad guys" mindset, which I think ironically you might say is the essence of 'campism.' You're acting like the reason we like China is we think they're ontologically good and everything they do must be for a good reason, when that's just not true and an absolutely infantile way to see the world.
You don't have a camp
"Queer people disagreeing with me is disgusting" lol fuck off
If nobody believes that China is rapidly improving living conditions for the working class why do Chinese people love their country so much?
The existence of patriots is evidence of improving working conditions now? Daym, USA must be the best country in the world.
It's not that people who love China exist at all, it's the fact that they're 90% of the population.
Uh huh, sure buddy
From https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
"Color revolutions" when facts don't match the narrative, impeccable trust when they do. So it goes...
this was your claim. That's what I was responding to. Nothing about color revolutions or whatever you're on about now.
Don't see how your link addresses my reply about LGBT-repression cope but ok.
I replied to that specific part elsewhere, and you got a reply from Cowbee that I think was better than mine.
Your willingness to disbelieve verifiable facts is not a good thing
I'm nowhere near well versed enough on the topic to chime in. But isn't this the same excuse people try to throw against supporters of Palestine? "Oh yeah you support ending the genocide in Palestine? Did you know they throw LGBT people off the rooftops".
Regardless of the truth/inaccuracy of the statement. It seems like it's not really that relevant to the conversation and just thrown out there as a cheap gotcha. Does the suppression of LGBT individuals mean that their overall quality of life hasn't improved? Does a country have to be perfect and not have other social changes that need to be worked towards in order to acknowledge progress? This is not an endorsement of China, again I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic. But just a criticism of this rebuttal.
They didn't respond but I think the main reason they're using that specific rebuttal is because the more orthodox argument which goes, "It's bad to like China because China is even more authoritarian than Western countries" has already been deployed elsewhere in the thread and received a solid enough response. Actually taking that conversation further would require analyzing information from several sources that have conflicting biases, and a lot of effort in general, so the conversation dies there. Other arguments they could've used include accusing China of being imperialist, more capitalist than the West, faking their statistics, censorship, not a legitimate government, or something along those lines.
Simple, that shit is fictional
By the time it achieved industrialization, USSR had universal healthcare, free education to the highest level, had abolished unemployment and homelessness, had the lowest income inequality rates seen in the history of the region, and materially supported emancipatory anticolonial movements all over Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Was it imperfect? Yes. Was it the most emancipatory project humanity has ever seen? Absolutely.
You're judging them while they have the boot heel of Western imperialism on their necks.
There it is! The goalposts just got kicked into another galaxy.
The goalpost is "actually existing socialism actually exists"
That's it. The fact that it exists under siege simply means that our goal should be to lift the boot off their necks, instead of wasting time criticizing them. Are they imperfect, flawed, with tragic excesses and rightist deviations? Yes. That's beyond the scope of anything we can possibly do. Our project, if you actually believe in anything other than capitalism, is to use our privileged position within the core to fight for the defeat of the empire: lift the blockades, end the espionage, stop regime change.
Right now it's Venezuela on the chopping block. You will help them far more by fighting the US than by criticizing Maduro.
Defenses of "AES" always equivocate on whether it is actually socialism.
At best, the term is a deliberate lie, but the situation is much worse.
As soon as the characterization of socialism is challenged, it is walked backed, and the challenger is gaslighted for saying that what was said moments earlier was ever said.
"AES" is a nonsense concept defended by nonsense arguments.
It's the only socialism that actually exists, hence, actually existing socialism.
So, choose. Do you want capitalism, or the only existing alternative? In Venezuela you can support Maduro, or you can support Trump's regime change. Those are the only options that exist. Pick one.
You insist it is socialism.
When someone correctly objects that socialism not yet exists, you deflect and make excuses.
Socialism is worker control of production. Chinese workers being employed by companies in China is not socialism.
"AES" is obscurantist nonsense.
China commanded the economy to shut down to implement the zero COVID policies, it likely saved the lives of millions of workers. That's not something any other continental capitalist country could even attempt, because in capitalist countries the market is in command. There were a few islands (or semi-islands like South Korea) which could boast similar successes, but they were clear outliers that benefited from not having land borders. The rest of us live at the whim of the market and we were all marched to our deaths.
That convinced me that actually existing socialism actually exists. It's not perfect, with many capitalist compromises and internal flaws, but politics are in command.
When I point out that you have to pick a side, you vacillate. You insist that there aren't any sides worth choosing so you can avoid dirtying your hands in the real world. You just retreat into the perfect socialism that does not exist and will only ever exist in your head. You have removed yourself from the struggle entirely. You might as well not even exist.
Chinese workers do not control production in China.
Do you agree or disagree?
I am not interested in the deflections to apologetics.
The Party controls production and workers control the party. In capitalist countries, markets control the parties. In socialist countries, the Party controls the markets.
Politics are in command.
You aren't interested in the real world. You're only interested in the perfect socialism that exists in your imagination and no where else.
If workers control production, then all are free to dissociate from the Party at will, to form a new party, or have no association with any party.
The facts are that the Party controls the state, and the state controls workers. Therefore, all workers are bound involuntary to one party that determines their fate.
Denying that Chinese workers are subordinated under state power is sophistry and apologetics.
The fact of the matter is that over 90% of Chinese citizens support the CPC. You're confusing individualist tendencies with socialism. The citizens of the PRC don't have to join the party, they have 100 million members but 1.4 billion citizens. The party is supported because it consistently improves the quality of life of the working classes of China in a regular and planned fashion. Whole Process People's Democracy is core to the idea of the PRC's consensus-building and direction.
Standard of living is quite high and rapidly rising. For example, purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. The gap between rural and urban development has long been acknowledged and is already something worked on. The famous poverty eraducation campaign was focused on just that. Read The Metamorphosis of Yuangudui to see what that looks like in practice.
Another consistent metric is perceptions of democracy:
For more reading, The East is Still Red, Socialism in Power: On the Theory and History of Socialist Governance, and Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners are all great for understanding how the PRC works. ProleWiki's page on the People's Republic of China is also good if you just want an in-depth summary.
Support is not control.
The state is run democratically, both within the party and outside of it, by the working classes. You're drawing a line between the state and the rest of society as something outside of class struggle, not within it.
In what way is AES "nonsense?" Countries where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the workint class in control of the state factually exist. It isn't a "deliberate lie" because you either disagree with that or with the understood definition of socialism.
No, you're just desperate for an excuse to dismiss valid criticisms
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