6 ms·

"communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. Their economy is obviously capitalist. And although Xi has been leaning towards more dict

"communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. Their economy is obviously capitalist. And although Xi has been leaning towards more dictator-like behavior, they haven't been a dictatorship since Mao. It's more like a giant bureaucracy. They have a process, they have regular handovers of power. It's not "I am the law".

izend 8y ago
I've visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong back in 2010 and as a Canadian I feel China is more capitalist than Canada. It had a more America feel to it where everyone has the entrepreneurial spirit
seibelj 8y ago
OK, well, communist is in the name of the only political party allowed to exist in China, so it’s not that absurd to say.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  It's no more absurd than calling North Korea “democratic” because that's literally the first word of the official name. But also not much less absurd than that.
- RIMR 8y ago
  And North Korea calls itself "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", but anyone with a working brain understands that NK is neither a Democracy, nor is it is government for the people. Taking the words of totalitarian leaders literally is very naive.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
r00fus 8y ago
> Their economy is obviously capitalist. Does mandated 50% local (aka party) ownership align with "obviously capitalist"? That seems a stretch (aka crony capitalist). Xi has asked for indefinitely long term of power and gotten it. Handover of power?
- amaccuish 8y ago
  The undertone of your post seems to be that you can't possibly have authoritarian capitalism, which of course, is not true...
  - pitaj 8y ago
    It's a matter of definitions. For many, capitalism means "free market economy". Under that case, authoritarianism is indeed fundamentally opposed to capitalism. If you define capitalism as just "private ownership of the means of production", then sure, you can be authoritarian and capitalist.
    - amaccuish 8y ago
      And there's your problem, capitalism means the second definition, not the first. Prime example being Pinochet.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Better to be more specific and mention Laissez-faire capitalism > Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. > Economists, political economists, sociologists and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free market capitalism, welfare capitalism and state https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
  - r00fus 8y ago
    By that regard, anything can be either capitalism or communism if you squint hard enough. The caveats that I mention aren't just "not like the USA" but specifically not like most other capitalist economies either.
BearilyHappy 8y ago
> "communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. Describing an oligarchy as a communist dictatorship is near-equivalent. Far from dishonest. > Their economy is obviously capitalist It's capitalist at specific granularities. This is a derail, at best. > They have a process, they have regular handovers of power. So does an oligarchy.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Thank you! It's an oligarchy! Not a dictatorship! But they're not near-equivalent. Group vs individual. Politics are entirely different. Both deemphasize citizen rights but that doesn't make them the same! Why are people so offended that this distinction exists?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - BearilyHappy 8y ago
    > But they're not near-equivalent. > Group vs individual. If the organizational operation isn't transparent, it's observably the same top-down dictatorship (worrying about one versus many is silly, insofar as no human governs alone).
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      The decision making process is different and the decisions are different. It's different. Perceived lack of transparency[1] does not change that. [1]: There are vastly different levels of transparency for, in order: Foreigners, rural poor, non-party members (there are 90M party members), party members, people who are well-connected locally and/or nationally -- cynical people might say it's the same here in certain ways, with the biggest difference being party membership as a prestige badge to work for and benefit from.
Thriptic 8y ago
While I agree with everything you just said, it seems to be true that in China you can get arrested for basically arbitrary reasons if someone doesn't like you. While it's not one man saying "I am the law", there is still a group saying it, and that group is the bureaucracy.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Sure. But words mean things. Slapping a bunch of incorrect trigger words together terminates thought.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
ben509 8y ago
All socialist and fascist states, even while suppressing markets was causing starvation, allowed some cronies to maintain businesses. That's where Putin got his start, for instance. China isn't organized by any free trade principles, they've just formalized their black markets and cronyism. > It's more like a giant bureaucracy. They have a process, they have regular handovers of power. It's not "I am the law". You're writing this on an article titled, "China’s Mass Internment Camps Have No Clear End in Sight," with the subtext, "Around 1 million Uighurs have disappeared without trial. Worse may come."
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Yes, it's a terrible human rights disaster but that doesn't make the Chinese government a dictatorship. Running internment camps or Jim Crow didn't make the USA a dictatorship, either. Bad deeds don't change the definition of your form of government. Dictatorship is about an individual. The chinese government has not been since Mao. All non-western-democratic governments are not the same. They're not all some giant grab-bag of interchangeable scare words about communism, fascism, dictatorship. Norway's a socialist state. Do they belong in your bucket too?
adventured 8y ago
> Their economy is obviously capitalist. Their economy is the exact opposite of Capitalist in fact. It's de facto state controlled top to bottom. 1) The Chinese economy is overwhelmingly state owned or directly controlled. All the major banks are directly owned or controlled by the government. All of their major industries, such as steel, aluminum and energy, are directly owned or controlled by the government. Their largest electronics and telecom companies such as Huawei and China Mobile are directly commanded by the government. 2) No company may do anything out of lock-step with the government. Whether you're Alibaba or Baidu, you must obey at all times, no matter what the stray edict of the week is. You may not challenge the party. Ask Tencent about the government's damaging, arbitrary restrictions on gaming for example. [1] 3) There are no actual property rights. Your property may be revoked, taken from you at any time for any reason. You will not get it back, and you have no ability to challenge this in a court of law. The Chinese Government issues arbitrary rules non-stop that alter your property rights and how property may be used (including randomly choosing to restrict what's acceptable day to day; one day you may have joke apps, the next day they're illegal). 4) The entire economy operates on a system of bribes. You can't operate anything in China without paying bribes. There are no exceptions, whether you're trying to operate a small food business or put up a skyscraper. This means the rule of law is entirely lacking, which is why Transparency International ranks China #77 in the world on corruption. 5) The economy is entirely closed to normal foreign business operations. You can't just set up a business in China as a foreigner. You can't buy Chinese businesses outright, or in most cases take a majority ownership position. Contrast this with the US (which isn't even the best example): you can spend less than a thousand dollars with Stripe Atlas and set up a US corporation at any time, without permission, having never once visited the country and you own it outright. 6) Capital is locked down. You may not take your wealth and flee the country. You and your capital are held captive by their very tight capital controls. You can hardly legally get enough cash out of China to buy a middle class house these days. 7) As a Chinese business you may not operate outside of the country in any manner that the government disagrees with. They approve all large transactions and all large investments. If they don't like something you've done, you will be forced to liquidate out of that position no matter the consequences. 8) It's almost entirely illegal to privately own farm land. This contributes to China having the most backwards and low output farming industry of any major economy. How is all of this obviously Capitalistic? The state completely controls everything. It's the exact opposite of Capitalist. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-13/china-orders-tencent-to-kill-game-just-days-after-its-debut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-13/china-ord...
cabalamat 8y ago
> "communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. They are Communists even if they aren't communists.
simonh 8y ago
To be fair China describes itself as communist and intending to bring about communism, and communism or an essential step in achieving it is a dictatorship of the proletariat. That’s actual Marxist and official Chinese state ideology. It may be popycock, but it’s not necessarily unreasonable to identify a government using the labels it uses to describe itself. I see in a later post you say a dictatorship is about individuals. Not in Marxist theory.
geoalchimista 8y ago
Then you don't know the difference between Maoism and Leninism. Basically, Maoists can live with any compromise in order to bring forth their communist ideals, even if the compromise is to backstab Soviet Union and open the door to the US (which they did in 1970s).
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Leninism and maoism both died the instant their namesakes died. I don't care about the difference. They were both tools to control populaces, not straightjackets restraining leaders. Both strongmen did whatever they could and wanted to do. Don't buy the bullshit.
retrogradeorbit 8y ago
"obviously capitalist"? It may be a market economy, but it's certainly not capitalist. Proceeds of the investment of capital are not free to be distributed amongst the investors. Formation of enterprise is not free and voluntary. Exchange rates are not set by the market. Money transactions are strictly controlled. Businesses are not allowed to hold funds in forex. The list goes on and on. I'm not sure you are aware of how business is done in China, you may just be seeing lots of business and then be assuming it must be capitalism.

izend 8y ago

I've visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong back in 2010 and as a Canadian I feel China is more capitalist than Canada. It had a more America feel to it where everyone has the entrepreneurial spirit

seibelj 8y ago

OK, well, communist is in the name of the only political party allowed to exist in China, so it’s not that absurd to say.

dragonwriter 8y ago
It's no more absurd than calling North Korea “democratic” because that's literally the first word of the official name. But also not much less absurd than that.
RIMR 8y ago
And North Korea calls itself "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", but anyone with a working brain understands that NK is neither a Democracy, nor is it is government for the people. Taking the words of totalitarian leaders literally is very naive.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

r00fus 8y ago

> Their economy is obviously capitalist. Does mandated 50% local (aka party) ownership align with "obviously capitalist"? That seems a stretch (aka crony capitalist). Xi has asked for indefinitely long term of power and gotten it. Handover of power?

amaccuish 8y ago
The undertone of your post seems to be that you can't possibly have authoritarian capitalism, which of course, is not true...
- pitaj 8y ago
  It's a matter of definitions. For many, capitalism means "free market economy". Under that case, authoritarianism is indeed fundamentally opposed to capitalism. If you define capitalism as just "private ownership of the means of production", then sure, you can be authoritarian and capitalist.
  - amaccuish 8y ago
    And there's your problem, capitalism means the second definition, not the first. Prime example being Pinochet.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Better to be more specific and mention Laissez-faire capitalism > Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. > Economists, political economists, sociologists and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free market capitalism, welfare capitalism and state https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
- r00fus 8y ago
  By that regard, anything can be either capitalism or communism if you squint hard enough. The caveats that I mention aren't just "not like the USA" but specifically not like most other capitalist economies either.

BearilyHappy 8y ago

> "communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. Describing an oligarchy as a communist dictatorship is near-equivalent. Far from dishonest. > Their economy is obviously capitalist It's capitalist at specific granularities. This is a derail, at best. > They have a process, they have regular handovers of power. So does an oligarchy.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Thank you! It's an oligarchy! Not a dictatorship! But they're not near-equivalent. Group vs individual. Politics are entirely different. Both deemphasize citizen rights but that doesn't make them the same! Why are people so offended that this distinction exists?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- BearilyHappy 8y ago
  > But they're not near-equivalent. > Group vs individual. If the organizational operation isn't transparent, it's observably the same top-down dictatorship (worrying about one versus many is silly, insofar as no human governs alone).
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    The decision making process is different and the decisions are different. It's different. Perceived lack of transparency[1] does not change that. [1]: There are vastly different levels of transparency for, in order: Foreigners, rural poor, non-party members (there are 90M party members), party members, people who are well-connected locally and/or nationally -- cynical people might say it's the same here in certain ways, with the biggest difference being party membership as a prestige badge to work for and benefit from.

Thriptic 8y ago

While I agree with everything you just said, it seems to be true that in China you can get arrested for basically arbitrary reasons if someone doesn't like you. While it's not one man saying "I am the law", there is still a group saying it, and that group is the bureaucracy.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Sure. But words mean things. Slapping a bunch of incorrect trigger words together terminates thought.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

ben509 8y ago

All socialist and fascist states, even while suppressing markets was causing starvation, allowed some cronies to maintain businesses. That's where Putin got his start, for instance. China isn't organized by any free trade principles, they've just formalized their black markets and cronyism. > It's more like a giant bureaucracy. They have a process, they have regular handovers of power. It's not "I am the law". You're writing this on an article titled, "China’s Mass Internment Camps Have No Clear End in Sight," with the subtext, "Around 1 million Uighurs have disappeared without trial. Worse may come."

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Yes, it's a terrible human rights disaster but that doesn't make the Chinese government a dictatorship. Running internment camps or Jim Crow didn't make the USA a dictatorship, either. Bad deeds don't change the definition of your form of government. Dictatorship is about an individual. The chinese government has not been since Mao. All non-western-democratic governments are not the same. They're not all some giant grab-bag of interchangeable scare words about communism, fascism, dictatorship. Norway's a socialist state. Do they belong in your bucket too?

adventured 8y ago

> Their economy is obviously capitalist. Their economy is the exact opposite of Capitalist in fact. It's de facto state controlled top to bottom. 1) The Chinese economy is overwhelmingly state owned or directly controlled. All the major banks are directly owned or controlled by the government. All of their major industries, such as steel, aluminum and energy, are directly owned or controlled by the government. Their largest electronics and telecom companies such as Huawei and China Mobile are directly commanded by the government. 2) No company may do anything out of lock-step with the government. Whether you're Alibaba or Baidu, you must obey at all times, no matter what the stray edict of the week is. You may not challenge the party. Ask Tencent about the government's damaging, arbitrary restrictions on gaming for example. [1] 3) There are no actual property rights. Your property may be revoked, taken from you at any time for any reason. You will not get it back, and you have no ability to challenge this in a court of law. The Chinese Government issues arbitrary rules non-stop that alter your property rights and how property may be used (including randomly choosing to restrict what's acceptable day to day; one day you may have joke apps, the next day they're illegal). 4) The entire economy operates on a system of bribes. You can't operate anything in China without paying bribes. There are no exceptions, whether you're trying to operate a small food business or put up a skyscraper. This means the rule of law is entirely lacking, which is why Transparency International ranks China #77 in the world on corruption. 5) The economy is entirely closed to normal foreign business operations. You can't just set up a business in China as a foreigner. You can't buy Chinese businesses outright, or in most cases take a majority ownership position. Contrast this with the US (which isn't even the best example): you can spend less than a thousand dollars with Stripe Atlas and set up a US corporation at any time, without permission, having never once visited the country and you own it outright. 6) Capital is locked down. You may not take your wealth and flee the country. You and your capital are held captive by their very tight capital controls. You can hardly legally get enough cash out of China to buy a middle class house these days. 7) As a Chinese business you may not operate outside of the country in any manner that the government disagrees with. They approve all large transactions and all large investments. If they don't like something you've done, you will be forced to liquidate out of that position no matter the consequences. 8) It's almost entirely illegal to privately own farm land. This contributes to China having the most backwards and low output farming industry of any major economy. How is all of this obviously Capitalistic? The state completely controls everything. It's the exact opposite of Capitalist. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-13/china-orders-tencent-to-kill-game-just-days-after-its-debut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-13/china-ord...

cabalamat 8y ago

> "communist dictatorship" is inexact enough to be outright dishonest. They are Communists even if they aren't communists.

simonh 8y ago

To be fair China describes itself as communist and intending to bring about communism, and communism or an essential step in achieving it is a dictatorship of the proletariat. That’s actual Marxist and official Chinese state ideology. It may be popycock, but it’s not necessarily unreasonable to identify a government using the labels it uses to describe itself. I see in a later post you say a dictatorship is about individuals. Not in Marxist theory.

geoalchimista 8y ago

Then you don't know the difference between Maoism and Leninism. Basically, Maoists can live with any compromise in order to bring forth their communist ideals, even if the compromise is to backstab Soviet Union and open the door to the US (which they did in 1970s).

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Leninism and maoism both died the instant their namesakes died. I don't care about the difference. They were both tools to control populaces, not straightjackets restraining leaders. Both strongmen did whatever they could and wanted to do. Don't buy the bullshit.

retrogradeorbit 8y ago

"obviously capitalist"? It may be a market economy, but it's certainly not capitalist. Proceeds of the investment of capital are not free to be distributed amongst the investors. Formation of enterprise is not free and voluntary. Exchange rates are not set by the market. Money transactions are strictly controlled. Businesses are not allowed to hold funds in forex. The list goes on and on. I'm not sure you are aware of how business is done in China, you may just be seeing lots of business and then be assuming it must be capitalism.