So I recently joined a socialist org (Eur*pe), been participating in some cool anti-imperialist protests and anti-fascist local struggle.
The topic of China's socialism came up in conversation, and I naturally said that China is socialist. They looked at me as if I were nuts, and a discussion ensued about China not being socialist.
Their points are that it's not expanding worldwide socialism, that it's engaging in imperialism in Africa, that it's only shifting to renewables because it's profitable for them, and the classic "but they have rich capitalist owners and the Chinese workers are exploited".
Doesn't matter that their capitalists don't control the media and state apparatus (which they somehow disagree with), that they're the only country capable of fighting the fossil fuel lobby, that they've uplifted 800mn people from poverty in 30 years, that they deindustrialized NATO, that they support Iran and are creating the possibility of a multipolar world, that most investments in Africa are in electric infrastructure, that Chinese people overwhelmingly say that they live in a democracy and support their socialist government, that housing is not only not prohibitively expensive but actually prices are going down, that food is incredibly affordable, that they don't engage in imperialist war... Nothing is good enough, they're capitalists because they conform to capitalist mode of production (which isn't even true because like half their economy is state-owned). And they have the guts to tell ME I'm being dogmatic and only seeing black and white, because I dare speak about a model of socialism that doesn't conform to their narrow views.
I swear it's impossible to find socialists in Eur*pe who aren't patronizing, condescending, and honestly fucking racist to global south socialist movements. They literally told me that Cuba "should have industrialized". Like, god fucking damn it, do you SERIOUSLY believe you know better about the possibilities of the economy of Cuba than the people devoting their entire lives to it in the country, supporting and maintaining the revolution throughout the 70 years of murderous embargo? Like, how do you believe you can thoroughly industrialize a 10mn inhabitant island entirely cut from trade with the rest of the world? The Eastern Block could only do this because it had like a fucking third the landmass of Earth and some 400mn inhabitants, and even then they suffered limitations such as lack of access to critical semiconductor technology due to embargo. But no, Cuba is not socialist because it has private hotels for tourists, as if they had any other way to get foreign currency to purchase high-tech medical diagnosis machines and critical energy resources. Fucking bunch of idealist, anti-materialist, condescending pieces of shit!
My response to "China isn't socialist" is just "then I guess I like what they're doing more." I only give a shit about socialism because I tend to think it could make life better, but if something else is doing that instead, I'm choosing whatever that is. When these types are mad at us, they call us pejoratives like "dogmatic", but we're the ones picking movements for what they've actually done, rather than some sort of brand recognition or ideological purity.
Basically, the chauvinist left's whole angle amounts to "that's not real socialism, real socialism is when you suck ass and fail without actually helping anybody or improving anything."
I guess real socialism is like liberalism, but even more whiny and even less effectual.
Exactly right: socialism is amazing because it gives us the scientific tools to evaluate the best analysis of history, of economy, of strategies and of action with the goal of making peoples' lives better. Socialism is good because socialism works to this end, and not because it's a set of strict definitions.
What made Marxism so important isnt that it thought up ways to improve the conditions of the poor, many utopians have done that. What Marxism did is show, with evidence and painstaking scientific investigation, that unless the capitalist mode of production—commodities, markets, the laws of value—are abolished any improvements in the conditions of the poor will be temporary because the laws of capitalist production will re-assert themselves unless its germ, the commodity form, is fully eradicated from the globe. Anything else is just social democratic reformism that moves the chairs around on a sinking ship
Is this capitalism?
If so, guess I'm a capitalist.
Ah but you forget, they're doing socialism while not being white. Clearly a sign of their inferiority. Western Chauvinism is just awful.