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Xi Jinping’s War on Spontaneous Order

118 points by jseliger 5y ago

mushbino 5y ago
>Xi Jinping has weaved a “Chinese Dream.” He has promised Chinese a better life. Growing paychecks aside, the Chinese are not living it. Urban China is a society of miserable egoists who feel manipulated by forces beyond their own control. Lots of opinions here without anything backing them up. 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. It's been steadily growing year over year. Westerners love having opinions on how other countries are doing contrary to the facts. https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/why-chinese-people-support-their-government https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/why-chinese-peo...
- thriftwy 5y ago
  I don't think that there exists any regime which will save the chinese people from overworking and overcompeting themselves. You can give a person money and power but you can't force them to be laid back altruists. So the "not living it" part is not relevant, but neither are Xi's "measures".
- droptablemain 5y ago
  Also nearly 100 million members of the Communist Party -- roughly 1/3 the size of the entire U.S.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    You don't generally join the party because you believe so strongly in communism. You join it for the improved job prospects.
    - dragonelite 5y ago
      So people in the west do the same, improving your social network nothing wrong with it.
      - erulabs 5y ago
        Nothing wrong with joining a political party, empowering the single-party state, for better job prospects? Nothing wrong with acting contrary to your believes in order to get ahead of someone honest? Nothing wrong with it? What is right with it!?
        orthecreedence 5y ago
        There's a single party in the US, and people here seem fine with it. In fact, because that party has two factions, we call it "freedom."
        xnyan 5y ago
        A single party state is not an inherently evil thing. I think you can make a pretty strong argument that history has shown more negatives vs positives of single party states, but that’s not the same thing. Acting contrary to your beliefs, not theirs necessarily, and since when is people joining a group for the purposes of mutual benefit (and yes, competition against outgroup members) dishonest? There’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong with any of these behaviors, and I’m sure that there are many instances of behaviors you support in other circumstances.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > A single party state is not an inherently evil thing. There’s different kinds of single party states: first, a transitory single party state that “single party” because the current political climate leaves only one party currently competitive but where other parties are not structurally prevented from competing, and thus factionalism within the dominant party will lead to the single party condition being short-lived (e.g., the U.S. during Democratic-Republican single-party rule in the 1810s-1820s.) This, while it can have problematic aspects, is not inherently evil or inconsistent with democratic governance. On the other extreme are systems where the dominant party has a structural (possibly in-law) monopoly or at least privileged status. As systems of public governnance, these are inherently evil.
        Ekaros 5y ago
- ummonk 5y ago
  I think it can be simultaneously true that Chinese (or rather urban Chinese) feel manipulated by forces beyond their own control, and that most of them approve of their central government. The fact that the central government is trying to reign in these forces might contribute to that approval.
- tessierashpool 5y ago
  > 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. I have doubts about both this assertion and the source provided. was this a rigorous assesment? is this a reputable source?
  - jialutu 5y ago
    I think you might want to read this recent study: https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7...
- thefounder 5y ago
  >> 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. In a communist/dictatorship regime there is little room for a different opinion.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Anecdotally, most of the Chinese people I've met in the West are quite apathetic politically and at least tacitly support the CCP. It's not like Iran or Zimbabwe where everyone who leaves takes immense pride in hating the government back home. (Of course, there's some selection bias here on both fronts; the people I'm meeting in Australia are wealthy enough to be able to move overseas).
  - mushbino 5y ago
    I work with lots of Chinese nationals in the US and they all support their government and the progress they've made. It seems that only the western narrative on China is the only acceptable and valid one.
droptablemain 5y ago
"The extent to which Xi’s reading of classical Marxist texts has inspired this campaign is not clear." It seems the article's author has not read Xi Jinping's multi-volume series "The Governance of China," which very clearly lays China's path toward building a "moderately prosperous socialist nation" using fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist thought adapted to China's material conditions -- i.e. "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." It's not a big secret. You can buy an English translation on Amazon or even get a free copy from your local embassy/consulate.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Now, this sounds like generic Marxist theology, likely writen by some nameless drone ghost writer. Stalin had "Marxism in a specific country", Khruschev (or was it Brezhnev?) had "socialism with human face".
  - eunos 5y ago
    likely by Wang Huning
  - droptablemain 5y ago
    Stalin had "socialism in one country," and yes, that has significant material and historical meaning, as opposed to being generic fluff. Because it was generally believed that building socialism required a number of successful workers' revolutions around the world. But basically every revolution at the time failed, other than the Bolshevik revolution. So they found themselves in an awkward position. Hence the strategy and policy of Stalin to build "socialism in one country." This is one of the major breaks between Stalin and Trotsky.
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Yup. Trotsky was a perpetual world-wide revolutionary. Revolution was a constant state in Trotsky's mind. Stalin just wasn't. Stalin was much more nationalist in his thinking.
- neaden 5y ago
scarmig 5y ago
> He has promised Chinese a better life. Growing paychecks aside, the Chinese are not living it. I mean... growing paychecks instead of stagnation would do a whole lot to arrest the instability that Western liberal democracies are experiencing.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Paychecks are rising in the US, certainly. Just not very equally.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    But paychecks have no been outrunning inflation or follow productivity increase at least here in western Europe. My paychecks if lucky grows like 2~3% but my house value rises with like 10~18% so do my taxes I need to pay for owning a house.
  - strict9 5y ago
    Securities, property, crypto and other related assets are the real rising stars. The rise of paychecks against that backdrop is very small. In the context of everything else that's increasing in price, it feels like a wash.
    - adflux 5y ago
      Yup, thank the Federal Reserve. Elites profit the most from generous quantitative easing, aka "printer go brrr". Meanwhile you'll be paying double for a house.
      - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago
        Yes, all taxation is theft, but inflation is a tax that is especially bad since it is regressive (affects the poor most), extra-judicial (no one voted to authorize it), and hidden (or at least disguised).
        5y ago
guardiangod 5y ago
>Each targets an industry that seems to strip people of their agency and rob them of their dignity. Each seems to hijack healthy behavior with a set of short term incentives whose end results are self destructive and degrading. >One does not wish to waste a child’s youth away on 18 hours of evening cram school a week, but to do otherwise is to risk falling behind. It is a classic arms race problem: no player can stop the game from the inside, even though all players would benefit from a cap on the game. An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force. I feel the author's logic is flawed here. In the previous paragraph, he wrote- >Xi Jinping is not reigning in capitalism writ large; Beijing is not scrapping market mechanisms altogether. Semiconductor foundries, agricultural conglomerates, and Christmas light factories (to choose three examples of hundreds) have been untouched by Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ agenda. It is a very select slice of Chinese capitalism that is being “reigned in.” You mean, working in 'agricultural conglomerates' or being factory workers making 50 RMB a day, is not 'hijack healthy behavior with a set of short term incentives whose end results are self destructive and degrading.'? (short term benefit for the factory owners to the detriment of the society and workers.) The author took a winded way to try to distinguish the reason why certain industries are targeted, but really there is no need- the PRC literally tells you why themselves: 'Fictitious Economy' vs 'Real Economy' . (https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-cabinet-says-it-will-use-rrr-cuts-support-real-economy-2021-07-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-cabinet-says-it-w...) In Xi's eyes, anything that can't be physically grasp and control by the party belongs to 'Fictitious Economy' , hence the move to squash meal delivery (self-organized proto-union), k-pop/entertainment (voluntary idol worship), cram school (corruption and private source of education), and real estate (mass bubble speculation). Real Economy is output that the party can allocate and mobilize. The populace must lie down and accept whatever the party provides. No need to invoke fancy Marxism philosophies.
- deleted 5y ago
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tlss 5y ago
> The first time an angel heard the devil’s laughter, he was dumbfounded. That happened at a feast in a crowded room, where the devil’s laughter, which is terribly contagious, spread from one person to another. The angel clearly understood that such laughter was directed against God and against the dignity of His works. He knew that he must react swiftly somehow, but felt weak and defenseless. Unable to come up with anything of his own, he aped adversary. Opening his mouth, he emitted broken, spasmodic sounds in the higher reaches of his vocal range (a bit like the sound made on the street of a seaside town by Michelle and Gabrielle), but giving them an opposite meaning: whereas the devil’s laughter denoted the absurdity of things, the angel on the contrary meant to rejoice over how well ordered, wisely conceived, good and meaningful everything here below was. > The angel and the devil faced each other and, mouths wide open, emitted nearly the same sounds, but each one’s noises expressed the absolute opposite of the other’s. And seeing the angel laugh, the devil laughed all the more, all the harder, and all the more blatantly, because the laughing angel was infinitely comical. > Laughable laughter is disastrous. Even so, the angels have gained something from it. They have tricked us with a semantic imposture. Their imitation of laughter and (the devil’s) original laughter are both called by the same name. Nowadays, we don’t even realize that the same external display serves two absolutely opposed internal attitude. There are two laughters, and we have no word to tell one from the other. -- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
rackjack 5y ago
There can only be the state. Anything that threatens the state's dominance in people's minds and lives must be subjugated to the state. That's the point of a totalitarian regime.
strikelaserclaw 5y ago
smart, we should also implement controls in the west, we can't rely on companies inside the capitalism system to do what is right for the people at large, if companies can get away with selling heroin to children, they will do so. The big problem these days is (software) companies essentially hijacking the primitive brain centers for pleasure, fear, attention etc... and commoditizing them.
- jayspell 5y ago
  Who would we give these controls to? Would this be the government? Hard pass on that. I do believe in controls, but those controls are best left to the individual. I don't need a bureaucrat telling my kids they can't play video games 8 hours a day, that's my responsibility. I don't need a government agency dictating I can't invest in risky real estate ventures, it's my fault if I invest and lose my money. I don't disagree that control is needed, just the level at which it is applied. I will admit to being conflicted. I don't like the idea of legalized herion, though I did support marijuana legalization initially.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    Controls should be exerted on companies and institutions, not people. Case in point : the government has no place telling you how long your kids can play, but you might need the government to get rid of highly damaging practices like loot boxes.
    - worrycue 5y ago
      > Controls should be exerted on companies and institutions, not people. Not sure there is a clear distinction. Companies and institutions are owned and ran by people. You can run a one-man corporation if you like.
      - aserafini 5y ago
        Exactly - selling heroin to kids (outside of medicinal purposes) should be illegal. Whether it is a "company" (co-operating group of individuals) or an individual seems irrelevant.
hillsboroughman 5y ago
I dont know if anyone read this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/27/china-to-limit-abortions-for-non-medical-purposes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/27/china-to-limit... A lot of the big drives that Xi is on seem to be simply to reduce cost per child for a family so they will have more children. Thats why they want to go after the after-school tuition industry. They want to go after the housing industry and now this Texas style restriction on reproductive rights. Of course everything Xi does is not motivated by a single objective. But the Chinese are laser focused right now on creating conditions which would increase their population.
- deleted 5y ago
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- sudosysgen 5y ago
  I really do not appreciate this article. It exaggerated a Reuters article that itself exaggerated the document without saying anything outright false. In the exact line where they talk about reducing abortions, they say that access to contraception and evidence based sex ed should be strengthened. That seems to me to be the exact opposite of trying to have more children - and it's a lot closer to Bill Clinton's "safe accessible and rare" strategy than anything else.
  - simonh 5y ago
    The CCP and Xi are obsessed with planning everything, and that includes growing the population. Unplanned and especially unwanted pregnancies disrupt lives and social order. I don’t think there’s anything contradictory about encouraging having children, but also trying to make sure that happens within planned and orderly family situations.
    - a0-prw 5y ago
      I think they're obsessed with optimizing conditions for their country to flourish in the medium to long term. If only we had politicians in the West who thought like that. We could call it "socialism with western characteristics" ;) I'm a citizen of a European country and I regard our politicians as literal traitors. They serve the interests of an elite minority which has power in the USA.
hillsboroughman 5y ago
On a side note, it wouldn't do to assume the Chinese behavior is fundamentally irrational.
nemothekid 5y ago
This kind of reads like western propaganda trying to carry water desperately for capitalism. I forgot what part of communism meant you couldn't have semiconductor factories (Regardless, China's largest semiconductors are state owned so I don't know why he brings this up). A much more rational view I've come to understand is the CCP now has very wealthy leaders from the private sector who are now getting more active in politics. This is standard - once a business grows large enough, business risk from the state grows larger and it becomes important to be able to influence the state. China will now have to balance the needs of the public and private sectors and I imagine the old guys aren't as keen to let the private sector do what it wants. The common prosperity initiative is now a tool that Xi can wield against more capitalist upstarts in the CCP.
- baybal2 5y ago
  A very dumb idea is to imagine CPC having factions being, "a poor one," and a "rich one." That is something long passed, like 30 years ago. What's happening now is rather "old rich communists" fighting the "new rich communists" with both being equally heterodox, and distant from mainstream Marxism, and both being equal in them being terrible parasites on the body of the Chinese nantion.
deleted 5y ago
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okareaman 5y ago
I'm part of the addiction recovery community, so I read it as Xi is doing an intervention on addictive and self-destructive aspects of capitalism. The author repeated twice the sentence "An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force." Sounds like a healthy intervention to me.
Barrin92 5y ago
I wouldn't understate the Marxist aspects of Chinese politics today which the author seems to tend towards. The technological determinism that guides Chinese politics is still very authentically Marxist. However he's right that there is a significant dose of what looks more like Confucianism than Communism in the reforms. If one looks at the kind of intellectual work that is popular in China today next to Marx there is also Carl Schmitt or Strauss. A lot of state capacity in China is directed towards rebuilding Chinese civilization, the industrialism or hard-technology focus of Chinese politics has a distinct nationalist, Conservative bent.
Proven 5y ago
> An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force. "Madness" is a value judgement. Parents, not the Party, are supposed to do that job if they want to. It's not up to the Party to decide what madness is. That's no different than American socialist parents demanding the government to restrict what Facebook can or can't do. How about you start raising your own children? Things would be so much easier if CCP was in charge in the US... Commies will of course fail. Everywhere. No exception.
imtringued 5y ago
I do not believe in the Marxist interpretation that capitalism will ruin itself. Even if we are doomed to have leisure at the end of capitalism, the machine that brings the leisure has to be maintained by someone. That means a reduction in work hours on the individual level. A works 40 hours and demands 30 hours B works 40 hours and demands 20 hours C works 0 hours and demands 30 hours Total labor supplied = 80 hours = total labor demanded We call C lazy even though the technology we invent and work we do has the goal of reducing the need for future labor. The problem isn't that robots will make us unemployed, it's that we measure our prosperity through employment rather than the work being done. People will hoard employment opportunities and work more than they need to. This creates a intensifying race to the bottom as being 1% better gets you the whole job, rather than let you have a fair portion of the job market according to your ability and how much labor you yourself demand. Let's say everyone works full time including C. That would mean 40 hours of meaningless employment. If the meaninglessly worked for surplus is then being invested then interest rates must necessarily become negative. Work becomes leisure and investment becomes consumption. This is the starting line of leisure capitalism. Conventional economists would just say "if there is a surplus just lower prices (wages)". Yes, that is why wages are stagnating. However, what is the purpose of the wage stagnation? Of course, lower prices are a signal to stop production and to stop working. The employers' response is to fire whole employees rather than cut their working hours. That is why C is unemployed. Of course there is a problem with this model. It assumes a perfectly flexible debt market. The economy as a whole is doing fine because C can just borrow 30 hours of work for 0% interest. What if it isn't? If C cannot borrow because of his unemployment, then C will also cut his demand for labor to zero because his demand for work is capped by the amount of work he supplies. This is why depressions and recessions are so ugly. Total demand is now 50 hours, B gets fired, total demand is now 30 hours. It's also why Keynesian stimulus is so effective. All it does is increase the flexibility of the debt market because governments borrow money with good conditions and give it to those with bad financing conditions via unemployment benefits or food stamps. If A worked 10 hours less, B worked 20 hours less and C worked 30 hours more there wouldn't be any intense competition for the scarce resource of employment, there also wouldn't be any need for debt growth or endless GDP growth. An oversimplified conclusion of this argument is that economics is effectively built around a pyramid scheme of population growth because children demand labor without supplying labor, giving the illusion that full time employment is the normal state of an economy and that labor can be stored through money and even earn a return because it's always replaced with more young labor. Think about it this way. If I work a constant amount of hours but my productivity keeps going up and my personal desire to consume does not, then the only way for me to work full time is by having more and more children as the robots get more and more efficient.
scrubs 5y ago
Great great link. Thank you

118 points by jseliger 5y ago

>Xi Jinping has weaved a “Chinese Dream.” He has promised Chinese a better life. Growing paychecks aside, the Chinese are not living it. Urban China is a society of miserable egoists who feel manipulated by forces beyond their own control. Lots of opinions here without anything backing them up. 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. It's been steadily growing year over year. Westerners love having opinions on how other countries are doing contrary to the facts. https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/why-chinese-people-support-their-government https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/why-chinese-peo...

thriftwy 5y ago
I don't think that there exists any regime which will save the chinese people from overworking and overcompeting themselves. You can give a person money and power but you can't force them to be laid back altruists. So the "not living it" part is not relevant, but neither are Xi's "measures".
droptablemain 5y ago
Also nearly 100 million members of the Communist Party -- roughly 1/3 the size of the entire U.S.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  You don't generally join the party because you believe so strongly in communism. You join it for the improved job prospects.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    So people in the west do the same, improving your social network nothing wrong with it.
    - erulabs 5y ago
      Nothing wrong with joining a political party, empowering the single-party state, for better job prospects? Nothing wrong with acting contrary to your believes in order to get ahead of someone honest? Nothing wrong with it? What is right with it!?
      - orthecreedence 5y ago
        There's a single party in the US, and people here seem fine with it. In fact, because that party has two factions, we call it "freedom."
      - xnyan 5y ago
        A single party state is not an inherently evil thing. I think you can make a pretty strong argument that history has shown more negatives vs positives of single party states, but that’s not the same thing. Acting contrary to your beliefs, not theirs necessarily, and since when is people joining a group for the purposes of mutual benefit (and yes, competition against outgroup members) dishonest? There’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong with any of these behaviors, and I’m sure that there are many instances of behaviors you support in other circumstances.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > A single party state is not an inherently evil thing. There’s different kinds of single party states: first, a transitory single party state that “single party” because the current political climate leaves only one party currently competitive but where other parties are not structurally prevented from competing, and thus factionalism within the dominant party will lead to the single party condition being short-lived (e.g., the U.S. during Democratic-Republican single-party rule in the 1810s-1820s.) This, while it can have problematic aspects, is not inherently evil or inconsistent with democratic governance. On the other extreme are systems where the dominant party has a structural (possibly in-law) monopoly or at least privileged status. As systems of public governnance, these are inherently evil.
      - Ekaros 5y ago
ummonk 5y ago
I think it can be simultaneously true that Chinese (or rather urban Chinese) feel manipulated by forces beyond their own control, and that most of them approve of their central government. The fact that the central government is trying to reign in these forces might contribute to that approval.
tessierashpool 5y ago
> 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. I have doubts about both this assertion and the source provided. was this a rigorous assesment? is this a reputable source?
- jialutu 5y ago
  I think you might want to read this recent study: https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7...
thefounder 5y ago
>> 93% of Chinese citizens approve of their central government. In a communist/dictatorship regime there is little room for a different opinion.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Anecdotally, most of the Chinese people I've met in the West are quite apathetic politically and at least tacitly support the CCP. It's not like Iran or Zimbabwe where everyone who leaves takes immense pride in hating the government back home. (Of course, there's some selection bias here on both fronts; the people I'm meeting in Australia are wealthy enough to be able to move overseas).
- mushbino 5y ago
  I work with lots of Chinese nationals in the US and they all support their government and the progress they've made. It seems that only the western narrative on China is the only acceptable and valid one.

droptablemain 5y ago

"The extent to which Xi’s reading of classical Marxist texts has inspired this campaign is not clear." It seems the article's author has not read Xi Jinping's multi-volume series "The Governance of China," which very clearly lays China's path toward building a "moderately prosperous socialist nation" using fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist thought adapted to China's material conditions -- i.e. "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." It's not a big secret. You can buy an English translation on Amazon or even get a free copy from your local embassy/consulate.

thriftwy 5y ago
Now, this sounds like generic Marxist theology, likely writen by some nameless drone ghost writer. Stalin had "Marxism in a specific country", Khruschev (or was it Brezhnev?) had "socialism with human face".
- eunos 5y ago
  likely by Wang Huning
- droptablemain 5y ago
  Stalin had "socialism in one country," and yes, that has significant material and historical meaning, as opposed to being generic fluff. Because it was generally believed that building socialism required a number of successful workers' revolutions around the world. But basically every revolution at the time failed, other than the Bolshevik revolution. So they found themselves in an awkward position. Hence the strategy and policy of Stalin to build "socialism in one country." This is one of the major breaks between Stalin and Trotsky.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Yup. Trotsky was a perpetual world-wide revolutionary. Revolution was a constant state in Trotsky's mind. Stalin just wasn't. Stalin was much more nationalist in his thinking.
neaden 5y ago

scarmig 5y ago

> He has promised Chinese a better life. Growing paychecks aside, the Chinese are not living it. I mean... growing paychecks instead of stagnation would do a whole lot to arrest the instability that Western liberal democracies are experiencing.

beebmam 5y ago
Paychecks are rising in the US, certainly. Just not very equally.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  But paychecks have no been outrunning inflation or follow productivity increase at least here in western Europe. My paychecks if lucky grows like 2~3% but my house value rises with like 10~18% so do my taxes I need to pay for owning a house.
- strict9 5y ago
  Securities, property, crypto and other related assets are the real rising stars. The rise of paychecks against that backdrop is very small. In the context of everything else that's increasing in price, it feels like a wash.
  - adflux 5y ago
    Yup, thank the Federal Reserve. Elites profit the most from generous quantitative easing, aka "printer go brrr". Meanwhile you'll be paying double for a house.
    - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago
      Yes, all taxation is theft, but inflation is a tax that is especially bad since it is regressive (affects the poor most), extra-judicial (no one voted to authorize it), and hidden (or at least disguised).
      - 5y ago

guardiangod 5y ago

>Each targets an industry that seems to strip people of their agency and rob them of their dignity. Each seems to hijack healthy behavior with a set of short term incentives whose end results are self destructive and degrading. >One does not wish to waste a child’s youth away on 18 hours of evening cram school a week, but to do otherwise is to risk falling behind. It is a classic arms race problem: no player can stop the game from the inside, even though all players would benefit from a cap on the game. An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force. I feel the author's logic is flawed here. In the previous paragraph, he wrote- >Xi Jinping is not reigning in capitalism writ large; Beijing is not scrapping market mechanisms altogether. Semiconductor foundries, agricultural conglomerates, and Christmas light factories (to choose three examples of hundreds) have been untouched by Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ agenda. It is a very select slice of Chinese capitalism that is being “reigned in.” You mean, working in 'agricultural conglomerates' or being factory workers making 50 RMB a day, is not 'hijack healthy behavior with a set of short term incentives whose end results are self destructive and degrading.'? (short term benefit for the factory owners to the detriment of the society and workers.) The author took a winded way to try to distinguish the reason why certain industries are targeted, but really there is no need- the PRC literally tells you why themselves: 'Fictitious Economy' vs 'Real Economy' . (https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-cabinet-says-it-will-use-rrr-cuts-support-real-economy-2021-07-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-cabinet-says-it-w...) In Xi's eyes, anything that can't be physically grasp and control by the party belongs to 'Fictitious Economy' , hence the move to squash meal delivery (self-organized proto-union), k-pop/entertainment (voluntary idol worship), cram school (corruption and private source of education), and real estate (mass bubble speculation). Real Economy is output that the party can allocate and mobilize. The populace must lie down and accept whatever the party provides. No need to invoke fancy Marxism philosophies.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tlss 5y ago

> The first time an angel heard the devil’s laughter, he was dumbfounded. That happened at a feast in a crowded room, where the devil’s laughter, which is terribly contagious, spread from one person to another. The angel clearly understood that such laughter was directed against God and against the dignity of His works. He knew that he must react swiftly somehow, but felt weak and defenseless. Unable to come up with anything of his own, he aped adversary. Opening his mouth, he emitted broken, spasmodic sounds in the higher reaches of his vocal range (a bit like the sound made on the street of a seaside town by Michelle and Gabrielle), but giving them an opposite meaning: whereas the devil’s laughter denoted the absurdity of things, the angel on the contrary meant to rejoice over how well ordered, wisely conceived, good and meaningful everything here below was. > The angel and the devil faced each other and, mouths wide open, emitted nearly the same sounds, but each one’s noises expressed the absolute opposite of the other’s. And seeing the angel laugh, the devil laughed all the more, all the harder, and all the more blatantly, because the laughing angel was infinitely comical. > Laughable laughter is disastrous. Even so, the angels have gained something from it. They have tricked us with a semantic imposture. Their imitation of laughter and (the devil’s) original laughter are both called by the same name. Nowadays, we don’t even realize that the same external display serves two absolutely opposed internal attitude. There are two laughters, and we have no word to tell one from the other. -- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

rackjack 5y ago

There can only be the state. Anything that threatens the state's dominance in people's minds and lives must be subjugated to the state. That's the point of a totalitarian regime.

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

smart, we should also implement controls in the west, we can't rely on companies inside the capitalism system to do what is right for the people at large, if companies can get away with selling heroin to children, they will do so. The big problem these days is (software) companies essentially hijacking the primitive brain centers for pleasure, fear, attention etc... and commoditizing them.

jayspell 5y ago
Who would we give these controls to? Would this be the government? Hard pass on that. I do believe in controls, but those controls are best left to the individual. I don't need a bureaucrat telling my kids they can't play video games 8 hours a day, that's my responsibility. I don't need a government agency dictating I can't invest in risky real estate ventures, it's my fault if I invest and lose my money. I don't disagree that control is needed, just the level at which it is applied. I will admit to being conflicted. I don't like the idea of legalized herion, though I did support marijuana legalization initially.
- Bayart 5y ago
  Controls should be exerted on companies and institutions, not people. Case in point : the government has no place telling you how long your kids can play, but you might need the government to get rid of highly damaging practices like loot boxes.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    > Controls should be exerted on companies and institutions, not people. Not sure there is a clear distinction. Companies and institutions are owned and ran by people. You can run a one-man corporation if you like.
    - aserafini 5y ago
      Exactly - selling heroin to kids (outside of medicinal purposes) should be illegal. Whether it is a "company" (co-operating group of individuals) or an individual seems irrelevant.

hillsboroughman 5y ago

I dont know if anyone read this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/27/china-to-limit-abortions-for-non-medical-purposes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/27/china-to-limit... A lot of the big drives that Xi is on seem to be simply to reduce cost per child for a family so they will have more children. Thats why they want to go after the after-school tuition industry. They want to go after the housing industry and now this Texas style restriction on reproductive rights. Of course everything Xi does is not motivated by a single objective. But the Chinese are laser focused right now on creating conditions which would increase their population.

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sudosysgen 5y ago
I really do not appreciate this article. It exaggerated a Reuters article that itself exaggerated the document without saying anything outright false. In the exact line where they talk about reducing abortions, they say that access to contraception and evidence based sex ed should be strengthened. That seems to me to be the exact opposite of trying to have more children - and it's a lot closer to Bill Clinton's "safe accessible and rare" strategy than anything else.
- simonh 5y ago
  The CCP and Xi are obsessed with planning everything, and that includes growing the population. Unplanned and especially unwanted pregnancies disrupt lives and social order. I don’t think there’s anything contradictory about encouraging having children, but also trying to make sure that happens within planned and orderly family situations.
  - a0-prw 5y ago
    I think they're obsessed with optimizing conditions for their country to flourish in the medium to long term. If only we had politicians in the West who thought like that. We could call it "socialism with western characteristics" ;) I'm a citizen of a European country and I regard our politicians as literal traitors. They serve the interests of an elite minority which has power in the USA.

hillsboroughman 5y ago

On a side note, it wouldn't do to assume the Chinese behavior is fundamentally irrational.

nemothekid 5y ago

This kind of reads like western propaganda trying to carry water desperately for capitalism. I forgot what part of communism meant you couldn't have semiconductor factories (Regardless, China's largest semiconductors are state owned so I don't know why he brings this up). A much more rational view I've come to understand is the CCP now has very wealthy leaders from the private sector who are now getting more active in politics. This is standard - once a business grows large enough, business risk from the state grows larger and it becomes important to be able to influence the state. China will now have to balance the needs of the public and private sectors and I imagine the old guys aren't as keen to let the private sector do what it wants. The common prosperity initiative is now a tool that Xi can wield against more capitalist upstarts in the CCP.

baybal2 5y ago
A very dumb idea is to imagine CPC having factions being, "a poor one," and a "rich one." That is something long passed, like 30 years ago. What's happening now is rather "old rich communists" fighting the "new rich communists" with both being equally heterodox, and distant from mainstream Marxism, and both being equal in them being terrible parasites on the body of the Chinese nantion.

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okareaman 5y ago

I'm part of the addiction recovery community, so I read it as Xi is doing an intervention on addictive and self-destructive aspects of capitalism. The author repeated twice the sentence "An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force." Sounds like a healthy intervention to me.

Barrin92 5y ago

I wouldn't understate the Marxist aspects of Chinese politics today which the author seems to tend towards. The technological determinism that guides Chinese politics is still very authentically Marxist. However he's right that there is a significant dose of what looks more like Confucianism than Communism in the reforms. If one looks at the kind of intellectual work that is popular in China today next to Marx there is also Carl Schmitt or Strauss. A lot of state capacity in China is directed towards rebuilding Chinese civilization, the industrialism or hard-technology focus of Chinese politics has a distinct nationalist, Conservative bent.

Proven 5y ago

> An outside force is needed to halt the madness. Xi Jinping has decided to be that force. "Madness" is a value judgement. Parents, not the Party, are supposed to do that job if they want to. It's not up to the Party to decide what madness is. That's no different than American socialist parents demanding the government to restrict what Facebook can or can't do. How about you start raising your own children? Things would be so much easier if CCP was in charge in the US... Commies will of course fail. Everywhere. No exception.

imtringued 5y ago

I do not believe in the Marxist interpretation that capitalism will ruin itself. Even if we are doomed to have leisure at the end of capitalism, the machine that brings the leisure has to be maintained by someone. That means a reduction in work hours on the individual level. A works 40 hours and demands 30 hours B works 40 hours and demands 20 hours C works 0 hours and demands 30 hours Total labor supplied = 80 hours = total labor demanded We call C lazy even though the technology we invent and work we do has the goal of reducing the need for future labor. The problem isn't that robots will make us unemployed, it's that we measure our prosperity through employment rather than the work being done. People will hoard employment opportunities and work more than they need to. This creates a intensifying race to the bottom as being 1% better gets you the whole job, rather than let you have a fair portion of the job market according to your ability and how much labor you yourself demand. Let's say everyone works full time including C. That would mean 40 hours of meaningless employment. If the meaninglessly worked for surplus is then being invested then interest rates must necessarily become negative. Work becomes leisure and investment becomes consumption. This is the starting line of leisure capitalism. Conventional economists would just say "if there is a surplus just lower prices (wages)". Yes, that is why wages are stagnating. However, what is the purpose of the wage stagnation? Of course, lower prices are a signal to stop production and to stop working. The employers' response is to fire whole employees rather than cut their working hours. That is why C is unemployed. Of course there is a problem with this model. It assumes a perfectly flexible debt market. The economy as a whole is doing fine because C can just borrow 30 hours of work for 0% interest. What if it isn't? If C cannot borrow because of his unemployment, then C will also cut his demand for labor to zero because his demand for work is capped by the amount of work he supplies. This is why depressions and recessions are so ugly. Total demand is now 50 hours, B gets fired, total demand is now 30 hours. It's also why Keynesian stimulus is so effective. All it does is increase the flexibility of the debt market because governments borrow money with good conditions and give it to those with bad financing conditions via unemployment benefits or food stamps. If A worked 10 hours less, B worked 20 hours less and C worked 30 hours more there wouldn't be any intense competition for the scarce resource of employment, there also wouldn't be any need for debt growth or endless GDP growth. An oversimplified conclusion of this argument is that economics is effectively built around a pyramid scheme of population growth because children demand labor without supplying labor, giving the illusion that full time employment is the normal state of an economy and that labor can be stored through money and even earn a return because it's always replaced with more young labor. Think about it this way. If I work a constant amount of hours but my productivity keeps going up and my personal desire to consume does not, then the only way for me to work full time is by having more and more children as the robots get more and more efficient.

scrubs 5y ago

Great great link. Thank you