• Juice@midwest.social
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    6 hours ago

    Yeah youre completely missing my point. If the current China is part of the transition to socialism, sure, sounds like stageism but fine, but then how does that process progress without critique and criticism? Why is criticism worthy of ridicule? When Marx criticized Feuerbach, was it to ridicule him? To me, your suppression of any views contradictory to your One True Marxism Leninism, your defense of state bureaucracies’ use of suppression to quell all criticism, including naturally occurring internal criticism that happens in response to the activities of the party, is exactly the definition of authoritarianism that people are criticizing you for. By your own method, you contradict the definition of authoritarianism as proletarian administration. it’s incredibly unconvincing to anyone who uses critique in order to develop a perspective, you know, people like Marx.

    The fact is there is zero evidence that China is currently progressing toward socialism. Have they made steps in that direction in the last 100 years? Yes, without a doubt. Are they a counterbalance to imperialist hegemony? In some ways, although they’ve gone back and forth on that over the years. But you can’t prove that they are actively negating capitalist relations. They do an immense amount of suppression, surveillance, and yes exploitation of labor, particularly migrant labor. As long as the bourgeoisie doesnt get too Jack Ma, and government corruption is kept informal, their bourgeoisie still live better than huge swaths of the country. I think they function really well as a social democracy that sustains an aspirational middle class, and the party seems like it has been successful in preventing a capitalist “vanguard” from organizing against the party. But there is no revolution happening there now, and I think that the trend is going in the opposite direction. You can not prove that the party has a proletarian character while it exploits labor, suppresses opposing political views, nurtures capitalist relations, nurtures petty bourgeois middle class delusions and presents itself as a state bureaucracy. This is the bourgeois character of the party, it is tangible and well documented. I dont understand why its so hard to admit what is so obvious, you massacre your own credibility. Like its not even that bad by comparison, its better than many other places and they do show up in Africa, South America, and in many parts of Asia. But it isnt perfect, in fact its kinda fucked up in a lot of ways, and we should be able to be honest with each other about it without resorting to “ridicule”.

    Rather than quoting my words and then talking right past me, it would be more productive imo if you actually like tried to digest what people say even a little. Thank god I get to have actually productive organizing discussions to keep me grounded.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      The fact that I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m preventing you from speaking. I just disagree with you, plain and simple. Critique isn’t valuable because it’s different, but because it adds depth to understanding or corrects issues, neither of which I see really being done by your claims here.

      The plain and simple fact is that China is steadily progressing as a socialist country, gradually focusing on building up the productive forces while maintaining socialism as the mode of production. As time goes on, maintaining socialism means the economic characteristics of market forces will continue to force the socialization of production.

      You can not prove that the party has a proletarian character while it exploits labor, suppresses opposing political views, nurtures capitalist relations, nurtures petty bourgeois middle class delusions and presents itself as a state bureaucracy. This is the bourgeois character of the party, it is tangible and well documented.

      The party itself is overwhelmingly proletarian:

      Further, the political views suppressed are fascist and counter-revolutionary views. The fact that private capital exists does not mean the party is “nurturing capitalist relations.” China has contradictions, indeed, but the party itself is not bourgeois, and this certainly isn’t because they have a political party and state administration.

      Rather than quoting my words and then talking right past me, it would be more productive imo if you actually like tried to digest what people say even a little. Thank god I get to have actually productive organizing discussions to keep me grounded.

      I do, just because I’m not convinced by what you have to say doesn’t mean I’m talking past you. What you bring up often is either not true or is based on, say, Bordigist left-deviationist critique which is a whole other can of worms to get into. I do organize in real life, and that does keep me grounded as well, hopefully we can both continue our journeys to learn more and unite theory with practice.