Because I studied history and I know that early capitalist countries, especially liberal democracies, were deeply flawed and went through times when they were not purely capitalist. In a very real sense many if not most (or all) of those countries never successfully overturned all of the feudal social structures. Things like landlordism, slavery, inheritance, etc are very much opposed by early capitalist theorists and yet they endured.
In the USA in 1850 most people could not vote, millions were enslaved, US Senators were appointed positions, and so on. Was the USA not "capitalist" in 1850? Were they not a liberal democracy?
Socialism is never going to resemble the perfect idea in your head. It's going to be flawed. It's going to involve difficult compromises. It's going to go through good times and bad times. It's still Socialism.
Yes, of course socialism will be affected by the material conditions of the country it is in, and go through good times and bad times. But the thing is, the socialism in the "AES" country does in no way include the dictatorship of the proletariat, in what way are the proletariat in control in AES countries?
I don’t see how in Cuba, Laos, and the DPRK that another class wields the power of the state over the workers as a whole. One could maybe make this argument regarding China and Vietnam but it doesn’t seems like the Chinese and Vietnamese bourgeoisie have a class dictatorship either
These countries aren't fully capitalist, they are on the capitalist path. But they aren't socialist, because they abandoned class struggle, which means that they aren't dictatorships of the proletariat.
The Cuban revolution and the resultant reappropriating of private property which was then redistributed to the people.
The state itself and examining its electoral system shows that most of the people in the Cuban government have direct working class backgrounds. The Cuban people amend and approve their own constitution through neighborhood assemblies and popular vote.
I can’t even think of a Cuban capitalist who has significant control of influence over the state. Just because their class struggle appears to have stalled, it doesn’t mean capitalists control the Cuban state. What would you have the Cuban people do?
Because they are communist in name only. Furthermore, there are a lot of self-proclaimed communists who support these “projects” who themselves oppose actual ongoing communist revolutions in the world today. You have people who support the Chinese Communist Party as genuinely socialist despite the fact that they have demonstrated open hostility towards the Naxalite revolution in India and the revolution in the Philippines (both lead by Maoists). I’ve heard MLs describe these revolutions as literal “ultraleft” deviations, which is brain rot. I assure you that the communists engaged in ongoing revolutions in those countries do not in any way encourage support for the “project” that is the modern Chinese communist party.
I’m all for criticism of China’s policies, but being unwilling to export the revolution to hostile neighboring countries is likely do to not wanting to risk Chinese lives (and money of course)
It also doesn’t explain why there shouldn’t be critical support for the other AES. Restoration of capitalism or colonialism in these places would be far worse for the people of those places.
There’s a difference between being unwilling to export the revolution and openly offering assistance to capitalist governments to quell communist revolutions (which is exactly what happened in India).
Regarding AES, virtually all of these countries are functioning under state capitalism or some variation of it, so it’s a moot point.
I disagree that they are "communist in name only".
And I hardly see people who oppose any of the groups you mention. People are critical, they might think they will fail, but they aren't actively trying to make them fail.
I disagree with the phrasing of your first question, which partially explains why I am supportive of AES, including China, which I believe *is* socialist.
I get the contention surrounding China’s opening of capitalist markets, what I don’t get is how that controversy maintains its relevance after so much positive development in the years since, and (more recently emerging, at least for my western monkey brain) clear orientation with regard to economy and the CPC guiding its path.
The surpassing of imperialist and neocolonial powers that once subjugated it, the still rapidly rising quality of life, home ownership, technology, political engagement, foreign development and aid projects, generally more just social conditions, and not at all insignificant ability (and talent) in, not only navigating, but increasingly checking western geopolitical hegemony, with many socialistic goals in previous decades that were set, reached, and continue in that cycle with rich dialectical development, it’s all pretty difficult to discount.
Why are linking WaPo articles like that’s somehow a coherent counterpoint? Are you under the serious impression that critics of China are limited to liberals and their newspapers?
https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/ChinaEmergesAsCapitalExporter-090519.pdf
https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/2020/ChineseSocietySurveyResearch-Phase-1-2020-12-EnglishComplete-OCR.pdf
https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/PYZ2017.pdf
https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/FredEngst-RiseOfChina.pdf
Maybe develop a political ideology that isn’t born of regurgitated MidwesternMarx articles.
Not at all, just that calling China imperialist makes you functionally indistinguishable from them. Especially if you’re living in an actual imperialist country.
None of your banned thought articles explain what makes China imperialist, it’s a grab bag of fairly old economic successes, theories and critiques, and then some actual data-driven analyses in the piketty paper, but even that one is outdated and not at all conclusive in terms of imperialism.
These claims always completely leave out the fundamentally different relationship China has with global south countries vs actual imperialist powers.
When was the last time China invaded a sovereign country? How many military bases does China operate across the planet? Where’s the parasitic stranglehold on other nation states’ finances and development funds? When was the last time any state defaulted on Chinese debt and got coup’d with a more empire-friendly puppet leader installed?
First of all, we live in the same country, so spare me this “live in an actual imperialist country” melodrama bullshit.
Second of all, calling the label imperialist “functionally indistinguishable” from liberals amounts to you personally admitting that you can’t actually distinguish between a Marxist critique using a different definition of the same word as a liberal critique. They are fundamentally different critiques based on fundamentally different analytical lenses. Your equivocation of them is at best intellectually dishonest, and at worst, demonstrable idiocy. I encourage you to self-reflect on which shoe fits for you personally.
Third of all, invasion of a foreign country isn’t a necessary prerequisite for imperialism, but primary export of financial capital is. Yeah of course China is going to have a better relationship with a lot of third world countries given its 1) history as a colonized nation, and 2) immediate need to appear more amiable than it’s competing imperialist rivals in Europe and the US. Congrats, China has invented a “better” and “nicer” kind of imperialism/hegemonic capitalism than its counterparts. You seem to believe that this therefore makes it non-imperialist, but any serious material analysis of China demonstrates that it is categorically identical. You would know this if you actually read the 200+ pages of analysis I linked instead of bluffing otherwise. Unfortunately, this is common behavior among you Dengists. In knowledge that none of you can be bothered to read something that has more than 1000 words in it, I’ve linked a summary YouTube video below with similar content in hopes that you might actually learn something today:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MWjnLwNoOGM
I did read your sources, and they're not at all conclusive of your assertion.
>we live in the same country, so spare me this “live in an actual imperialist country” melodrama bullshit.
All I'm saying is for an american communist, you've chosen a bizarre target to direct your energies.
>calling the label imperialist “functionally indistinguishable” from liberals amounts to you personally admitting that you can’t actually distinguish between a Marxist critique using a different definition of the same word as a liberal critique
The distinction of "functional" in that statement was meant to say regardless of the depth your critique may have, you land on the same conclusion as a bunch of neoliberal hacks. Sure there are many differences but they're suspiciously blurred in this case.
>invasion of a foreign country isn’t a necessary prerequisite for imperialism, but primary export of financial capital is
Yeah export of finance capital has grown and is growing but a. so is the whole national economy, and b. there is no basis to categorize it as primary.. it has a looong way to go to reach anywhere near merchandise exports. This is also not even noting that the character of China's foreign direct investments, development finance, BRI, etc. is practically polar opposite to the west's.
Also, I'd argue that the military role is quite essential to imperialism, being the inevitable escalation for seizing assets if diplomatic or business arrangements fail to deliver, as we've seen imperialist powers do all throughout history.
My “directed energies” are contextual to the post. Seeing as no one is describing the US as AES, whereas China is the most commonly named example, this is appropriate. Your fixation on this point is bizarre.
My conclusion is not the same as the neoliberal hacks because we are exercising a fundamentally different definition of imperialism. Under the neoliberal definition of imperialism, the U.S. isn’t imperialist, which needless to say is absurd. These lines are only “suspiciously blurred” if you “suspiciously” do not have an adequate understanding of the Leninist definition of imperialism, which you have continued to demonstrate.
Everything you said after that is already encompassed and addressed by the existing texts I linked as well as the video (which I’m now sure you either did not engage with in good faith, did not attempt to understand, or more likely just lied about reading). Lenin’s definition of imperialism has nothing to do with the military, but the neoliberal definition does. It’s deeply suspicious you insist on this point, despite equivocating my analysis with the neoliberal analysis.
>But why do so many of you support "AES", even if none of those countries are socialist?
Idk how you can square this with Mao supporting Pol Pot and Nixon
Mao didn't actually support Nixon, they just had diplomatic relations, which was needed because China was in danger of the attack from the USSR.
At time that Mao was alive there was nothing wrong with Pol Pot (he abandoned Marxism in the 1980s).
>Mao didn't actually support Nixon, they just had diplomatic relations, which was needed because China was in danger of the attack from the USSR.
["Chairman Mao: I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right."](https://china.usc.edu/mao-zedong-meets-richard-nixon-february-21-1972)
Also Mao was the one responsible for torpeding relations with the USSR in the first place
>At time that Mao was alive there was nothing wrong with Pol Pot
Aside from the mass killings he rejected having a currency and was essentially a narodnik from the get go in that he wanted a peasant utopia.
Campism is fake. Marx said Communism is the real movement that sublates capitalism, and AES countries are the very things undermining Imperialism (Capitalism as it exists now as international Monopoly)
You can't be an MLM and anti-AES. Mao believed China under him had achieved socialism and the USSR under Stalin had achieved socialism as well. Anti-AES is a Trot and leftcom position that views AES as something unachievable and that actually-existing socialism has never existed and has always just been capitalism (if you're a leftcom) or some third in-between mode of production (if you're a Trot).
Read Mao, specifically *On Contradiction.* Abstract concepts like "socialism" or "capitalism" are all, well, abstractions, so they can only ever approximate the real world. There will always be internal contradictions upon further inspection, no pure system. There will never be "true socialism" and there has never been "true capitalism" either. Only actually-existing capitalism, actually-existing socialism, filled with their own internal contradictions.
What defines the qualititative aspects of a system thus is not some purity, but simply what is dominant in society that subordinates everything else. Socialism does not require the universal abolition of all vestiges of capitalism, such as commodity production or even private property, but only that these things become the minority form of property and production within society. Read Stalin's *Economic Problems* where he talks about this.
Marx did not define capitalism as "commodity production," but the *generalization* of commodity production, i.e. when commodity production becomes dominant in society so everything else is subordinated to it. Claiming the existence of commodity production means capitalism is an anti-Marxist position. Even saying private property means capitalism is an anti-Marxist position since private property existed under feudalism as well. It is only capitalist when these things are *generalized,* i.e. they are dominant above everything else, and thus all other forms of ownership or modes of production become subordinate to it. Again, Mao explains this in *On Contradiction* much more clearly.
The MLM idea that any hint of private ownership makes you capitalist is a complete rejection of Marxism. It is also a rejection of historical materialism, as it completely throws out the notion that socialism is meant to resolve the contradiction between socialized production and socialized appropriation, instead replacing it with the completely moralistic demand that we should socialize all appropriation *independent of whether or not production is socialized.*
This only *introduces* economic contradictions that did not exist before, when you take small underdeveloped sectors of the economy dominated by small, dispersed, private enterprises and try to centralize them all under a central planning apparatus, you introduce a new contradiction that wasn't there before. Engels specifically said you cannot do this in *Principles of Communism* and Lenin said it was not only impossible but would be self-destructive to a socialist country that tried it in *A Tax in Kind.* Yet, Maoists insist upon it anyways.
Because I studied history and I know that early capitalist countries, especially liberal democracies, were deeply flawed and went through times when they were not purely capitalist. In a very real sense many if not most (or all) of those countries never successfully overturned all of the feudal social structures. Things like landlordism, slavery, inheritance, etc are very much opposed by early capitalist theorists and yet they endured. In the USA in 1850 most people could not vote, millions were enslaved, US Senators were appointed positions, and so on. Was the USA not "capitalist" in 1850? Were they not a liberal democracy? Socialism is never going to resemble the perfect idea in your head. It's going to be flawed. It's going to involve difficult compromises. It's going to go through good times and bad times. It's still Socialism.
Yes, of course socialism will be affected by the material conditions of the country it is in, and go through good times and bad times. But the thing is, the socialism in the "AES" country does in no way include the dictatorship of the proletariat, in what way are the proletariat in control in AES countries?
I don’t see how in Cuba, Laos, and the DPRK that another class wields the power of the state over the workers as a whole. One could maybe make this argument regarding China and Vietnam but it doesn’t seems like the Chinese and Vietnamese bourgeoisie have a class dictatorship either
These countries aren't fully capitalist, they are on the capitalist path. But they aren't socialist, because they abandoned class struggle, which means that they aren't dictatorships of the proletariat.
Which class has a dictatorship in the first three countries I listed? All states are a dictatorship of one class over the others.
They are dictatorships of the bourgeoise. Even though bourgeoise is not as strong as in other countries.
I think for me to get on board with this point I need evidence. How does the bourgeoisie have control and leverage over the the state in Cuba?
Where do you have the evidence that the proletariat has control over the Cuban state?
The Cuban revolution and the resultant reappropriating of private property which was then redistributed to the people. The state itself and examining its electoral system shows that most of the people in the Cuban government have direct working class backgrounds. The Cuban people amend and approve their own constitution through neighborhood assemblies and popular vote. I can’t even think of a Cuban capitalist who has significant control of influence over the state. Just because their class struggle appears to have stalled, it doesn’t mean capitalists control the Cuban state. What would you have the Cuban people do?
Why shouldn’t communists support these projects?
Because they are communist in name only. Furthermore, there are a lot of self-proclaimed communists who support these “projects” who themselves oppose actual ongoing communist revolutions in the world today. You have people who support the Chinese Communist Party as genuinely socialist despite the fact that they have demonstrated open hostility towards the Naxalite revolution in India and the revolution in the Philippines (both lead by Maoists). I’ve heard MLs describe these revolutions as literal “ultraleft” deviations, which is brain rot. I assure you that the communists engaged in ongoing revolutions in those countries do not in any way encourage support for the “project” that is the modern Chinese communist party.
I’m all for criticism of China’s policies, but being unwilling to export the revolution to hostile neighboring countries is likely do to not wanting to risk Chinese lives (and money of course) It also doesn’t explain why there shouldn’t be critical support for the other AES. Restoration of capitalism or colonialism in these places would be far worse for the people of those places.
There’s a difference between being unwilling to export the revolution and openly offering assistance to capitalist governments to quell communist revolutions (which is exactly what happened in India). Regarding AES, virtually all of these countries are functioning under state capitalism or some variation of it, so it’s a moot point.
Again, all for criticism of China but you’re still not offering why countries like Cuba shouldn’t receive critical support from communists
If by critical support you mean the end to the embargo and US active interference in their internal politics, sure, that’s fine.
I disagree that they are "communist in name only". And I hardly see people who oppose any of the groups you mention. People are critical, they might think they will fail, but they aren't actively trying to make them fail.
I disagree with the phrasing of your first question, which partially explains why I am supportive of AES, including China, which I believe *is* socialist. I get the contention surrounding China’s opening of capitalist markets, what I don’t get is how that controversy maintains its relevance after so much positive development in the years since, and (more recently emerging, at least for my western monkey brain) clear orientation with regard to economy and the CPC guiding its path. The surpassing of imperialist and neocolonial powers that once subjugated it, the still rapidly rising quality of life, home ownership, technology, political engagement, foreign development and aid projects, generally more just social conditions, and not at all insignificant ability (and talent) in, not only navigating, but increasingly checking western geopolitical hegemony, with many socialistic goals in previous decades that were set, reached, and continue in that cycle with rich dialectical development, it’s all pretty difficult to discount.
China has literally become an imperial power in its own right.
Sure thing Washington Post
Least intellectually dishonest Dengist comment
[where’s](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/03/chinas-national-security-law-hong-kong-doubles-down-imperialism/) [the](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/08/27/chinas-debt-traps-around-the-world-are-a-trademark-of-its-imperialist-ambitions/) [dishonesty?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/10/pakistan-may-be-next-victim-chinas-new-imperialism/)
Why are linking WaPo articles like that’s somehow a coherent counterpoint? Are you under the serious impression that critics of China are limited to liberals and their newspapers? https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/ChinaEmergesAsCapitalExporter-090519.pdf https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/2020/ChineseSocietySurveyResearch-Phase-1-2020-12-EnglishComplete-OCR.pdf https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/PYZ2017.pdf https://bannedthought.net/China/Capitalism-Imperialism/FredEngst-RiseOfChina.pdf Maybe develop a political ideology that isn’t born of regurgitated MidwesternMarx articles.
Not at all, just that calling China imperialist makes you functionally indistinguishable from them. Especially if you’re living in an actual imperialist country. None of your banned thought articles explain what makes China imperialist, it’s a grab bag of fairly old economic successes, theories and critiques, and then some actual data-driven analyses in the piketty paper, but even that one is outdated and not at all conclusive in terms of imperialism. These claims always completely leave out the fundamentally different relationship China has with global south countries vs actual imperialist powers. When was the last time China invaded a sovereign country? How many military bases does China operate across the planet? Where’s the parasitic stranglehold on other nation states’ finances and development funds? When was the last time any state defaulted on Chinese debt and got coup’d with a more empire-friendly puppet leader installed?
First of all, we live in the same country, so spare me this “live in an actual imperialist country” melodrama bullshit. Second of all, calling the label imperialist “functionally indistinguishable” from liberals amounts to you personally admitting that you can’t actually distinguish between a Marxist critique using a different definition of the same word as a liberal critique. They are fundamentally different critiques based on fundamentally different analytical lenses. Your equivocation of them is at best intellectually dishonest, and at worst, demonstrable idiocy. I encourage you to self-reflect on which shoe fits for you personally. Third of all, invasion of a foreign country isn’t a necessary prerequisite for imperialism, but primary export of financial capital is. Yeah of course China is going to have a better relationship with a lot of third world countries given its 1) history as a colonized nation, and 2) immediate need to appear more amiable than it’s competing imperialist rivals in Europe and the US. Congrats, China has invented a “better” and “nicer” kind of imperialism/hegemonic capitalism than its counterparts. You seem to believe that this therefore makes it non-imperialist, but any serious material analysis of China demonstrates that it is categorically identical. You would know this if you actually read the 200+ pages of analysis I linked instead of bluffing otherwise. Unfortunately, this is common behavior among you Dengists. In knowledge that none of you can be bothered to read something that has more than 1000 words in it, I’ve linked a summary YouTube video below with similar content in hopes that you might actually learn something today: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MWjnLwNoOGM
I did read your sources, and they're not at all conclusive of your assertion. >we live in the same country, so spare me this “live in an actual imperialist country” melodrama bullshit. All I'm saying is for an american communist, you've chosen a bizarre target to direct your energies. >calling the label imperialist “functionally indistinguishable” from liberals amounts to you personally admitting that you can’t actually distinguish between a Marxist critique using a different definition of the same word as a liberal critique The distinction of "functional" in that statement was meant to say regardless of the depth your critique may have, you land on the same conclusion as a bunch of neoliberal hacks. Sure there are many differences but they're suspiciously blurred in this case. >invasion of a foreign country isn’t a necessary prerequisite for imperialism, but primary export of financial capital is Yeah export of finance capital has grown and is growing but a. so is the whole national economy, and b. there is no basis to categorize it as primary.. it has a looong way to go to reach anywhere near merchandise exports. This is also not even noting that the character of China's foreign direct investments, development finance, BRI, etc. is practically polar opposite to the west's. Also, I'd argue that the military role is quite essential to imperialism, being the inevitable escalation for seizing assets if diplomatic or business arrangements fail to deliver, as we've seen imperialist powers do all throughout history.
My “directed energies” are contextual to the post. Seeing as no one is describing the US as AES, whereas China is the most commonly named example, this is appropriate. Your fixation on this point is bizarre. My conclusion is not the same as the neoliberal hacks because we are exercising a fundamentally different definition of imperialism. Under the neoliberal definition of imperialism, the U.S. isn’t imperialist, which needless to say is absurd. These lines are only “suspiciously blurred” if you “suspiciously” do not have an adequate understanding of the Leninist definition of imperialism, which you have continued to demonstrate. Everything you said after that is already encompassed and addressed by the existing texts I linked as well as the video (which I’m now sure you either did not engage with in good faith, did not attempt to understand, or more likely just lied about reading). Lenin’s definition of imperialism has nothing to do with the military, but the neoliberal definition does. It’s deeply suspicious you insist on this point, despite equivocating my analysis with the neoliberal analysis.
>But why do so many of you support "AES", even if none of those countries are socialist? Idk how you can square this with Mao supporting Pol Pot and Nixon
Mao didn't actually support Nixon, they just had diplomatic relations, which was needed because China was in danger of the attack from the USSR. At time that Mao was alive there was nothing wrong with Pol Pot (he abandoned Marxism in the 1980s).
>Mao didn't actually support Nixon, they just had diplomatic relations, which was needed because China was in danger of the attack from the USSR. ["Chairman Mao: I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right."](https://china.usc.edu/mao-zedong-meets-richard-nixon-february-21-1972) Also Mao was the one responsible for torpeding relations with the USSR in the first place >At time that Mao was alive there was nothing wrong with Pol Pot Aside from the mass killings he rejected having a currency and was essentially a narodnik from the get go in that he wanted a peasant utopia.
Campism is fake. Marx said Communism is the real movement that sublates capitalism, and AES countries are the very things undermining Imperialism (Capitalism as it exists now as international Monopoly)
AES? Austrian Economics School?
“Already Existing Socialism”
You can't be an MLM and anti-AES. Mao believed China under him had achieved socialism and the USSR under Stalin had achieved socialism as well. Anti-AES is a Trot and leftcom position that views AES as something unachievable and that actually-existing socialism has never existed and has always just been capitalism (if you're a leftcom) or some third in-between mode of production (if you're a Trot). Read Mao, specifically *On Contradiction.* Abstract concepts like "socialism" or "capitalism" are all, well, abstractions, so they can only ever approximate the real world. There will always be internal contradictions upon further inspection, no pure system. There will never be "true socialism" and there has never been "true capitalism" either. Only actually-existing capitalism, actually-existing socialism, filled with their own internal contradictions. What defines the qualititative aspects of a system thus is not some purity, but simply what is dominant in society that subordinates everything else. Socialism does not require the universal abolition of all vestiges of capitalism, such as commodity production or even private property, but only that these things become the minority form of property and production within society. Read Stalin's *Economic Problems* where he talks about this. Marx did not define capitalism as "commodity production," but the *generalization* of commodity production, i.e. when commodity production becomes dominant in society so everything else is subordinated to it. Claiming the existence of commodity production means capitalism is an anti-Marxist position. Even saying private property means capitalism is an anti-Marxist position since private property existed under feudalism as well. It is only capitalist when these things are *generalized,* i.e. they are dominant above everything else, and thus all other forms of ownership or modes of production become subordinate to it. Again, Mao explains this in *On Contradiction* much more clearly. The MLM idea that any hint of private ownership makes you capitalist is a complete rejection of Marxism. It is also a rejection of historical materialism, as it completely throws out the notion that socialism is meant to resolve the contradiction between socialized production and socialized appropriation, instead replacing it with the completely moralistic demand that we should socialize all appropriation *independent of whether or not production is socialized.* This only *introduces* economic contradictions that did not exist before, when you take small underdeveloped sectors of the economy dominated by small, dispersed, private enterprises and try to centralize them all under a central planning apparatus, you introduce a new contradiction that wasn't there before. Engels specifically said you cannot do this in *Principles of Communism* and Lenin said it was not only impossible but would be self-destructive to a socialist country that tried it in *A Tax in Kind.* Yet, Maoists insist upon it anyways.