7 ms·

Why is that?

by justicezyx 6y ago

Why is that?

awb 6y ago
China's economy is a mix of communism and capitalism
- jacobush 6y ago
  While true, that's largely ortogonal to why China is so very much a dictatorship.
  - beaunative 6y ago
    While I agree CPC is in ultimate control over government in China, and that China is a one-party state. I don't agree it to be a dictatorship. I see dictatorship as monarchy in disguise. China's leadership as observed are not passed down within a singular family or families and the succession of which have not observed militarial coup. If the dictator can't have his/hers own blood-heir to take over, where is the dicatorship in this?
    - jacobush 6y ago
      Hm, interesting place to draw a line in the sand. Then we can’t know if a country was a dictatorship ship until a ruler dies. Also, all countries with despots ousted and replaced by others, disqualifies as dictatorships. I don’t like your definition. I’d rather look for rule of law and signs of democracy. Both of which are very scarce in China.
      - beaunative 6y ago
        Sucession of power in dictatorship is what I'd think an important attribute of it, not a definition. Many of those despots have every intent and actions that we have observed to have their heirs assume office, only that it was stopped. It's about that they have that power in their form of government where they make all the calls, not them actually achiving it. On the other hand, many of Xi's predecessors are well-alive, well, two of them, if they are/were dicators, what is Xi? There are three dictators at different times in China, with one in the office and the other two well and alive? I doubt dictatorship would be an accurate account for what's really going on.
        jacobush 6y ago
        Maybe we can settle for totalitarian.
- pbk1 6y ago
  In China it's referred to as 中国特色社会主义, which means "socialism with Chinese characteristics"
  - Darmody 6y ago
    Which means "capitalism but we keep the authoritarian hierarchy because it benefits us".
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      China isn't capitalist at all. Even things like buying land are typically timed leases owned by the government, and you see behavior like the Jack Ma incident where he made a perceived insult to the central bank and was "punished". Tied into labor programs and social credit, you see patterns that wouldn't ever fly in capitalism. Communism doesn't mean everyone gets free groceries and doesn't have to work. The CCP, for all of their faults, seriously puts a lot of time and thought into the elements of communism and how the Chinese communism compares and evolves on it as a longterm form of government. Just because someone on the internet mistakes utopianism for communism doesn't mean Mao's party isn't communist.
      - einpoklum 6y ago
        It's quite Capitalist. Government ownership simply means that government is the capitalist instead of it being some private Billionaire, or a collection of investors in a joint-stock company. Communism _does_ mean - among other things - that "everyone gets free groceries", in the sense that they would not exchange money or another commodity for the groceries, but rather get them through wider collective/communal/regional/country-wide arrangements.
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        Communism still has currency. I don't know why this is a popular misconception. You may have ration points or communism bucks instead of dollars, but you still need a hard currency to allow interpersonal trade. You may have resources that aren't obtainable through currency (housing), but you need currency because you need to settle preference/availability/tradeoffs. You probably also even still have some taxes for consumption. The price of all goods is not equivalent on a fundamental labor level and the preference for goods is not flat.
- JuliusPullo 6y ago
  China's is still full communist, but some tightly government-controlled capitalism has been allowed.
  - beaunative 6y ago
    You might get away with it if it's still in the 80s.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  Every Capitalist economy is a "mix of Communism and Capitalism", in the sense that a lot of the economic activity even in highly-Capitalist state is based on non-commodified, non-commercial, non-monetary work and cooperation. The late David Graeber expanded on this point in "Debt: The First 5,000 Years".
endtime 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party
chapium 6y ago
My understanding is that China is part owner in many enterprises, at least thats the case for foreign manufacturers. Sorry I don't have a link that explains this more clearly.
sjtindell 6y ago
The Chinese Communist Party wants total control of China. They exercise strict control over all people, religious groups, and legal entities. Large enterprises can come to resemble small countries in their influence and so definitely fall under that umbrella. In practice the CCP does this by choosing most of the directors of the companies, who in turn are essentially puppets.
acoard 6y ago
"Why" is that the ruling party of China, the CCP, desires and is able to enforce this level of control. This often ties into the related idea of "State Sponsored Capitalism", also sometimes called the "East Asian Model"[0] This is in contrast to more Western Capitalism (Europe, North America, etc). With Western Capitalism corporations are given much more freedom and leeway to operate and build capital. With State Sponsored Capitalism, the the state is influencing or actively controlling corporations for the state's (or ruling party's) benefit. While there are substantial differences between the two varieties of capitalism, if you squint it can be a difference of degree. For example in the West, we do have "crown corporations", and countries often put their own companies' interests above that of the global capitalist market (for example, the USA defending Boeing and going after Bombardier). One important difference is that in the West, our crown corporations/state owned enterprises are never run purely for profit. As for "how", it varies. The State may just own a controlling amount of shares, or have board seats. To put simply, in the West, often it's considered anathema for policy makers to pick "winners and losers" in the market. The idea is the market should decide. This isn't true in China. The CCP is happy to pick winners and losers, and in doing so it guarantees its own position. They user their power to make or break a company to effectively own it and use it to reinforce their strength. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model

Why is that?

awb 6y ago

China's economy is a mix of communism and capitalism

jacobush 6y ago
While true, that's largely ortogonal to why China is so very much a dictatorship.
- beaunative 6y ago
  While I agree CPC is in ultimate control over government in China, and that China is a one-party state. I don't agree it to be a dictatorship. I see dictatorship as monarchy in disguise. China's leadership as observed are not passed down within a singular family or families and the succession of which have not observed militarial coup. If the dictator can't have his/hers own blood-heir to take over, where is the dicatorship in this?
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Hm, interesting place to draw a line in the sand. Then we can’t know if a country was a dictatorship ship until a ruler dies. Also, all countries with despots ousted and replaced by others, disqualifies as dictatorships. I don’t like your definition. I’d rather look for rule of law and signs of democracy. Both of which are very scarce in China.
    - beaunative 6y ago
      Sucession of power in dictatorship is what I'd think an important attribute of it, not a definition. Many of those despots have every intent and actions that we have observed to have their heirs assume office, only that it was stopped. It's about that they have that power in their form of government where they make all the calls, not them actually achiving it. On the other hand, many of Xi's predecessors are well-alive, well, two of them, if they are/were dicators, what is Xi? There are three dictators at different times in China, with one in the office and the other two well and alive? I doubt dictatorship would be an accurate account for what's really going on.
      - jacobush 6y ago
        Maybe we can settle for totalitarian.
pbk1 6y ago
In China it's referred to as 中国特色社会主义, which means "socialism with Chinese characteristics"
- Darmody 6y ago
  Which means "capitalism but we keep the authoritarian hierarchy because it benefits us".
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    China isn't capitalist at all. Even things like buying land are typically timed leases owned by the government, and you see behavior like the Jack Ma incident where he made a perceived insult to the central bank and was "punished". Tied into labor programs and social credit, you see patterns that wouldn't ever fly in capitalism. Communism doesn't mean everyone gets free groceries and doesn't have to work. The CCP, for all of their faults, seriously puts a lot of time and thought into the elements of communism and how the Chinese communism compares and evolves on it as a longterm form of government. Just because someone on the internet mistakes utopianism for communism doesn't mean Mao's party isn't communist.
    - einpoklum 6y ago
      It's quite Capitalist. Government ownership simply means that government is the capitalist instead of it being some private Billionaire, or a collection of investors in a joint-stock company. Communism _does_ mean - among other things - that "everyone gets free groceries", in the sense that they would not exchange money or another commodity for the groceries, but rather get them through wider collective/communal/regional/country-wide arrangements.
      - vorpalhex 6y ago
        Communism still has currency. I don't know why this is a popular misconception. You may have ration points or communism bucks instead of dollars, but you still need a hard currency to allow interpersonal trade. You may have resources that aren't obtainable through currency (housing), but you need currency because you need to settle preference/availability/tradeoffs. You probably also even still have some taxes for consumption. The price of all goods is not equivalent on a fundamental labor level and the preference for goods is not flat.
JuliusPullo 6y ago
China's is still full communist, but some tightly government-controlled capitalism has been allowed.
- beaunative 6y ago
  You might get away with it if it's still in the 80s.
einpoklum 6y ago
Every Capitalist economy is a "mix of Communism and Capitalism", in the sense that a lot of the economic activity even in highly-Capitalist state is based on non-commodified, non-commercial, non-monetary work and cooperation. The late David Graeber expanded on this point in "Debt: The First 5,000 Years".

endtime 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party

chapium 6y ago

My understanding is that China is part owner in many enterprises, at least thats the case for foreign manufacturers. Sorry I don't have a link that explains this more clearly.

sjtindell 6y ago

The Chinese Communist Party wants total control of China. They exercise strict control over all people, religious groups, and legal entities. Large enterprises can come to resemble small countries in their influence and so definitely fall under that umbrella. In practice the CCP does this by choosing most of the directors of the companies, who in turn are essentially puppets.

acoard 6y ago

"Why" is that the ruling party of China, the CCP, desires and is able to enforce this level of control. This often ties into the related idea of "State Sponsored Capitalism", also sometimes called the "East Asian Model"[0] This is in contrast to more Western Capitalism (Europe, North America, etc). With Western Capitalism corporations are given much more freedom and leeway to operate and build capital. With State Sponsored Capitalism, the the state is influencing or actively controlling corporations for the state's (or ruling party's) benefit. While there are substantial differences between the two varieties of capitalism, if you squint it can be a difference of degree. For example in the West, we do have "crown corporations", and countries often put their own companies' interests above that of the global capitalist market (for example, the USA defending Boeing and going after Bombardier). One important difference is that in the West, our crown corporations/state owned enterprises are never run purely for profit. As for "how", it varies. The State may just own a controlling amount of shares, or have board seats. To put simply, in the West, often it's considered anathema for policy makers to pick "winners and losers" in the market. The idea is the market should decide. This isn't true in China. The CCP is happy to pick winners and losers, and in doing so it guarantees its own position. They user their power to make or break a company to effectively own it and use it to reinforce their strength. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model