Disappointing that db0 still behaves this way towards socialism, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence backing the liberatory nature of socialism, the horrendous backslide after its dissolution, and an absurd insistence that all socialism is somehow state capitalism.

[–] axont@hexbear.net 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I get really annoyed with this attitude. I wish people who believe this would simply come out and say they believe liberal capitalism is a more preferable political situation than a socialist state that exercises a market economy. Because that's how it seems. They throw around words like dystopia, police state, dictatorship, authoritarian, etc for socialist countries, but curiously don't use the same words for liberal capitalist nations. I don't get how any flavor of leftist could feel this way.

Anarchists I know in real life simply don't give a shit about that kind of thing and are more focused on ground level work.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The big kicker for db0 is that they consider planned economy to be "state capitalism" as well, which makes the very real differences between socialist market economies like China and Vietnam with more planned economies like the DPRK into nothing at all. These are all socialist systems, but even calling the PRC "state capitalist" and calling the USSR/DPRK "planned economy" would still be more useful than designating anything with a state that's doing socialism as "state capitalism" (which, unless db0 has changed, is what they do).

[–] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It's such a weird thing that anti-AES sectarians like to focus on, this one awkward term that was used by Lenin to describe "a capitalist state^[Wait, is that where the term comes from, was it wordplay reversing "capitalist state" (being a state subordinated to Capital) to "state capitalism" (being Capital subordinated to the state)?] ruled by a communist party that's doing social welfare and business regulations as a stopgap while building up the cadre and infrastructure necessary to move to a centrally planned socialist economy" which did accurately describe both the USSR during the 1920s and China in the early 1950s, and may or may not be an appropriate description^[Albeit not one that one should use outside of a dry hypothetical like this, because of the term's weird sectarian shitflinging history and connotations.] of China now that it seems to have reversed the momentum of the revisionism/strategic retreat of Deng's liberalization and appears to be gradually moving back towards a socialist economy with significantly more resources, infrastructure, and industrial capital than they had before.

Like I don't think it even describes the Deng era China, because they were retreating from a socialist economy to get access to industrial capital and resources by commodifying their immense pool of comparatively highly educated labor, and they were deregulating business and reducing social welfare at the same time. They were doing the State Capitalist progression backwards in what was objectively a revisionist action, for all that it ultimately worked out for them in the long term (at the cost of saving the US from its economic slump caused by aging industrial capital that Capitalists didn't want to simply replace and a lack of additional workers to be able to expand their operations with; China provided a market for the sale of new industrial capital and a massive untapped workforce to scale up production with, enabling American financial capital to make a fortune and "recover" the economy by expanding to include China within its auspices).

It certainly doesn't describe the USSR once it got central planning up, unless one wants to get really ultra about them continuing to use currency instead of some non-currency medium like labor vouchers, or the tacit tolerance they had for small scale private enterprise in the "second economy" that existed in a grey area of being a black market that was allowed to exist. Nor does it describe China from the mid-late 1950s up until Deng's reforms.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

For clarity, when Lenin referred to "state capitalism," he also called Germany "state capitalist." State capitalism was used by Lenin to refer to a market economy heavily managed by the state, with large state enterprises as well. The difference Lenin drew between the NEP and Germany was the socialist state, and the imperialist junker state of Germany.

Later, this became clarified to be a socialist market economy to refer to the NEP and what China/Vietnam have, where the commanding heights of industry are overwhelmingly publicly owned and marketization helps with lesser developed and secondary industry, and state capitalism now is better fitting for the ROK, Singapore, etc.

Regarding Deng Xiaoping Theory, it isn't revisionism. It was a tactical retreat in order to accelerate and stabilize economic growth, facilitate technological transfer, and enmesh China within the world economy. Xi Jinping Thought is not a reversal of Deng Xiaoping Theory to a more socialist economy, but instead the same concept, Marxism-Leninism applied to conditions contemporary to China. Deng did not reverse Mao's industry but built upon it, and Xi is not reversing Deng's advancements but instead carrying them to a new era.

It was a tactical retreat for strategic gains, so to speak. The Xi Jinping era is built on foundations laid by both Mao and Deng, and required both. The bircage is allowed to be tightened by Xi because the growth was already accelerated under Deng, allowing a new era, towards more planned economy. I don't like framing it as socialism vs. capitalism, but socialist market economy vs. socialist planned economy, planned being more advanced.

As for db0, though, the problem is that all of this is state capitalism, because the state controls the means of production. That's literally it, last we discussed, and db0 therefore considers state ownership to be state capitalism. All nuance is dead.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 5 points 4 days ago

Anticommunism is a hell of a drug