MonkCanatella

counterpoint - get rid of car parks and cars

You still have not answered the basic question: what, concretely, would count as workers controlling the means of production?

It's extremely obvious but you can't agree with it because it proves that China is definitely not that.

Because so far your position is just “China is not socialist because I have defined socialism as whatever China is not.”

Not even remotely true and a purposely poor understanding of what I've already said. Either way, if china is "socialist" according to your definition, I just don't give a shit about that fucking unprincipled version of socialism. I don't want it, I don't think it will lead to communism. It's just a bourgeois state with red aesthetics. Spare me the excuses, your doctrine is flawed and you can't contend with that.

So again: what is your concrete alternative?

I know you're aware of the alternatives, but I'm certain you're totally ignorant, willfully or from intellectual laziness/dishonesty. You've already somewhat proven this point by saying that having a stateless society is akin to people taking turns running the nuclear power plant. You don't believe in communism dude.

How do workers control chip fabrication? How do they coordinate national rail? How do they run hospitals and nuclear plants? How do they defend against sanctions, invasion, sabotage, ...

again, proving my point - you simply don't believe communism is possible. And once again you're repeating anti communist propaganda.

“I wish you would contend with material reality” is rich coming from someone whose entire argument is refusing to define socialism, refusing to define worker control, refusing to explain the transition, refusing to explain defence, ...

There are entire theories that describe exactly this, and it would be pointless to replicate them verbatim here. ML/MLMism isn't the only leftist theory that exists, you know that right?

You have not disproven that China is socialist. You have only shown that your standard for socialism is an imaginary society with no transition, no state power, ...

No, cnt-fai I would say was much closer to socialism than china ever has been. and no, but neither have you proven china is socialist, unless you contort everything to fit that definition. And again I must impress, you seem to believe that communism is actually impossible. Everything you're arguing against is actual communism. You're just making excuses.

Nah I disagree, all I can see from you guys is that you contort any data to fit your belief system. It's quasi religious

There’s too many examples to even list, but you don’t provide even one.

you can very easily find this yourself, if you can bring yourself to not make some excuse as to why it doesn't fit into your ideology.

No, these are contradictions that exist during socialist development. Socialism isn’t a switch you can just flip and suddenly wage labor and the commodity form are abolished. Revolution doesn’t simply magic socialism into existence, it has to be built first.

Ok then it's not socialist then! It's promising you socialism at some point in the future. ....when no other bourgeois nation exists. More tautology from the ideology built on tautology.

I feel like we're devolving into talking about one anecdote that doesn't represent China or the CCP on its own. This is a logical fallacy. the ccp did something that one could describe as being evidence of china being a worker state, thus, china is a worker state. And there were tons of bourgeois countries that responded to covid in ways that hurt capital

In a bourgeois state, the state will never coerce the bourgeoisie to do anything unless the state itself is coerced to do so by outside forces (organized labor, mass demonstration, revolutionary violence, etc etc).

This is also patently false. I get what you're trying to say here, but there are way too many examples of this NOT being true to even list. It would support your argument if it were true. But it's not.

your zero covid example demonstrates an episode in which the ccp made a policy decision that potentially negatively effected the bourgeois in the country, but it does not prove that the ccp is worker controlled.

I could point to the fact that in china, the vast majority of production is actually private enterprise. Or the fact that the police regularly crack down on labor strikes to protect bourgeois interests. How about that it's literally illegal to form a union in china?

"Oh but those are totally normal contradictions in socialism" well then I don't want your fucking brand of socialism

This is really thought provoking, thank you for sharing. I disagree fundamentally with a lot of claims stated as settled fact such as "engels has already dealt with this" and ok, I'll accept that an ML would believe this, but that's more of the type of tautological thinking that just can't be escaped when discussing anything with state socialists.

That said, at the end of the day this is just a really long way of saying “China will become actually socialist eventually, trust me bro.” I don't see anything here that actually proves the CCP has demonstrated worker control, but rather redefines worker control as whatever the CCP is doing, cuz reasons. "capitalists get punished sometimes" ok bro, do the workers control the means of production? Are the workers at foxconn secretly calling the shots?

I should also mention a total lack of understanding of concepts outside of MLism/MLMism. Nobody serious is saying abolishing hierarchy or authority means people are just going to take turns running the nuclear power plant. You are repeating the same reactionary talking points capitalist media uses against communism itself. that without bosses, cops, and centralized state authority, society instantly collapses into chaos. The way you frame stateless communism is basically indistinguishable from capitalist propaganda. No one who thinks this way will ever relegate power to the working class, they'll just redefine who the working class is to include themselves and not the actual workers.

I understand why this stuff is seductive, I just wish you guys would contend with material reality.

Because workers doesn't control the means of production? Unless you make some massive and stupid logical leaps, it's not fucking socialist

counterpoint, no, not even close

Look, the covid stuff is important to me too, I still wear a well fitting n95 everywhere that's not my own apartment. I think China probably did a better job than the USA in terms of covid. Even as someone much closer to anarchism than anything resembling state socialism, I am all for lockdowns/shelter in place and whatever is required to protect the populace from pandemic. I would just suggest not being uncritical when it comes to China. Better than the US, sure.

All that said, I'm not convinced any of this "proves" that china is a worker controlled state. In fact I'm convinced that it doesn't prove that. Really I don't think any of your logic connects. whatever forces coerce the ruling class into things that are beneficial for the working class, in whichever state structure, it exists because the working class is not in control. It's bizarre to bring up China in this. Certainly you don't believe they're actually socialist

China's response to covid being proof that they're socialist isn't convincing. Good for them, but is the existence of forces coercing the ruling class into decisions that benefit the working class proof that it's a working class state?

we learned that from existing socialism

Ok, so you should have started with that. There is no “existing socialism” if socialism means workers actually owning and controlling the means of production. Or is that not what socialism means?

If I had known you were starting from the premise that socialism already existed in some meaningful form, I could have avoided this entire conversation.

The material relationship when workers collectively own the means of production

Again, that would be super cool. It would also be diametrically opposed to a state standing over those workers, controlling production, suppressing independent organization, and calling that “collective ownership.”

You’re making idealist errors.

Absolutely wild thing for someone who believes MLism is still valid to say.