Reminds me of when there were no homosexuals in Iran 😆
It doesn’t matter which country I live in, I will still want to not exist on earth.
You dummy, the reason people don’t commit suicide in aUThOriTAiaN StAtEs is because the government would murder them for it.
When you commit suicide there they just call in juche necromancer, resurrect you, give you a poetry book and armed guard yell at you “START WRITING” all the time.
Reminds me of Death & Taxes (I don’t know the game aside from this song)
One of those posts where people who know nothing but have opinions they must speak come together to enlighten the poor tankies. Can we at least drop the white saviour mentality this time guys?
Impossible.
Inb4 “no but they’re commies so they must be lying”
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I regret to inform everyone that the white supremacists are at it again.
They practice necromancy so they can kill people again to inflate the numbers. OPEN YOUR EYES!!!
Source?
Imagine being so naive that you believe the propaganda coming out of countries known for their well-documented disinformation policies.
Edit: Imagine being so naive to think that a statement about one thing is somehow also a statement about other things not specifically mentioned. Y’all must clearly also have trouble with statements like “Black Lives Matter” don’t you?
Definitely, people in western countries rarely leave their bubble of the 5 or so anti-communist media companies that control everything they see.
Yea, imagine believing western countries, amirite?
Like America?
Yes, it‘s truly insane that people trust the West so blindly, even though it’s well documented how the CIA and the West in general used misinformation and propaganda to destabilize communities and whole countries. Why should anyone think they ever stopped doing that? And what is it with their billionaires owned “free press”? Who would trust that?
That’s exactly why I don’t put stock in the insane mythologies put forward by capitalist oligarchies about their enemies.
Well-documented
Can I see some of this documentation?
Can I see some of this documentation?
Sure. Go look it up for yourself. It isn’t hard to find. You don’t need my consent or permission to do your own homework. Nobody’s going to do it for you.
This is just the antivax “do your own research” but for defending the geopolitical opinions that were imprinted into you by Epsteinland🇺🇲🇮🇱 before you were old enough to ask questions, which is very on-brand for them.
You made a claim, you back it up. Show me something.
Nah. This is “I don’t owe internet randos my time.”
I said what I said. Agree or don’t. Project whatever rationales your tiny, insecure little mind can use to save you from your own cognitive dissonance. I really don’t care.
This isn’t debate club, kiddo. If you can’t figure out how to locate credible information about the topic at hand, that’s very much a you problem. Because I can guarantee you that a response like that only comes from one place - an ignorant mind bereft of any factual understanding of how the world really works.
All of the pro-China, anti-USA sentiment filling up Lemmy lately exists for the same reasons the pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine senitment was filling up Lemmy a couple years ago. The opinions you’re expressing aren’t original thoughts. But thanks for keeping me updated on what the latest bot-driven propaganda’s talking points are. Maybe we can talk again when you realize I’ve not said a single thing about my opinions of other nations. I don’t get in the middle of people’s love affairs with their own strawmen.
You must be confused. I don’t trust western propaganda one bit.
I think that’s kind of the problem in general, the real issue is, the firewalls and controls. It’s not about believing the western propoganda, but simply the lack of non-propoganda sources. IE how can you find out if finland’s policies are better than america’s.
Hop into a public chat room, chat with someone from finland, or book a vacation to Finland or maybe find someone from Finland who’s visiting or moved to the united states.
Not something you can really do with North Korea.
You can still talk to exchange students who attend Kim Il Sung university and other visitors to the DPRK. There are also those from the DPRK who work abroad, such as those in China, as well as those who live in New York for UN purposes.
The irony is palpable.
To be fair, both NK and SK suck.
Who told you that NK “sucks”, and why do you trust them?
You’re not going to be satisfied with any answer so…
100% of the time this is code for “you’re not going to be satisfied with my answer.”
To be fair, that’s something a person who realizes that the western system is a failure, but still uncritically guzzles propaganda about western adversaries would believe.
On the contrary, I distrust state media both from the US and South Korea. I’m also willing to admit that a lot of the DPRK’s problems are due to the harsh sanctions both social and economic against the country. My main gripe with the DPRK is Kim Jong Un. Do you believe him to be a fair and just leader who isn’t corrupt? Also, no one is immune to propaganda. I’ve worked hard unlearning what I’ve learned and that’s always going to be a process. Are you immune to propaganda?
Edit: And no Trump is not a fair and just leader. I’d say he’s comparable to Kim Jong Un. It does not invalidate my argument and I don’t get to choose where I live.
Ok there genius, explain to me what a just leader who isn’t corrupt would be doing differently? https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/north-korea-economy-success-e80f7062
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You also have major DPRK brainworms. Here’s some resources to learn:
On North Korea / the DPRK
- Is north korea a totalitarian dictatorship? Are they all really required to get the same haircut? A short documentary.
- South Korea boosts reward for defectors to $860k USD.
- Are north korean defectors really paid to lie by the south? A short documentary.
- What is everyday life like? A conversation with a North Korean Citizen.
Wrong. The PRC is a mixed economy, where the socialist, publicly planned sector predominates, and a smaller capitalist sector.
The DPRK is similar but has effectively no capitalist sector.
Is China State Capitalist?
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev’s market reforms?, 2
- Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
- Did Lenin say anything about Market Socialism, or productivism?
- Vijay Prashad - Is China capitalist?
- Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing? China sentences Ex-Chairman of a major bank, guilty of embezzling ~$100M USD, to death in 2019.
I don’t think it makes sense to classify the private sector as the “capitalist” sector, and the public sector as the “socialist” sector. The same would be true in the US Empire, with the military and whatnot as the “socialist” sector of the economy. The actual identity of an overall economy is in the principal aspect, and this is crucial because the rest of the economy, even if it isn’t within said principal aspect, is constantly either reinforcing or working its way towards said principal aspect.
This, I think, is the most useful way to explain to newcomers why China is socialist. It isn’t about ratios of public to private, nor about being mixed, as nearly all economies are de facto mixed, even if de jure they are not. We can instead identify and explain this principal aspect as a use of dialectical and historical materialism.
Awesome sources though!
I agree that the “principle aspect” as you say, or which class is holding power and ultimately controls both the economy and the political system, is most important. I’d argue though that the primary difference in these sectors is who is in control of the surplus, and whose benefit it goes to. In the PRC and even in Cuba, there are still private capitalists who effectively control the surplus generated within those companies, and use it as they see fit. They’re severely limited of course, but they still function differently from the socialist sector whose surplus is worker-controlled via 5 year plans.
The only “socialist industry” I can think of in western countries, outside of tiny examples like coops, are things like state-run natural resource and energy companies. The US military is just the enforcement arm of capital, planned and controlled by capital. Even state-run social services shouldn’t really be thought of as socialist, since they produce no surplus value, and are funded via other ways, and are overall capitalist-planned.
I agree that social surplus is appropriated by capitalists, be they capitalists within capitalism or socialism. Regardless of the overall system, capitalists definitionally appropriate surplus. My bigger point is that in capitalism, both the public and the private sector reinforce and support capitalists, while in socialism both the private and public sector support and reinforce the proletariat. As you said of capitalism, even state-run social services shouldn’t really be thought of as socialist. My point is that the reverse is true of marketization in socialist economies, as they ultimately are under the control and dominance of the proletariat through the socialist state, and are employed for their progressive utility in socializing the productive forces, preparing the base for more developed socialism.
Ultimately, though, this is largely semantics. Capitalists exist in China, and they profit immensely. They differ from their western counterparts, however, in the fact that they have no political power, do not form an organized class, and are constantly working towards their own erosion as a class as they centralize and socialize the productive forces. This is the mirror of how state-services in the US, including the military and welfare stage, both ultimately prop up imperialism and protect the rule of capitalism.
Still, I suppose it might be helpful for those entirely unaware of dialectics to simply see them as “socialist” and “capitalist” sectors, but I do think that this deeper nuance is required to establish why reformism and simply expanding the public sector in capitalism is not socialism, and why marketization was not a move towards capitalism but towards higher developed socialism in China.
China is a socialist country. The commanding heights and backbone of the economy are overwhelmingly publicly owned and planned, within a state controlled and dominated by the proletariat. The existence of private capital is in petty bourgeois sole proprietorships and agricultural cooperatives, as well as in medium and highly competitive industries. The purpose of this decision is the Marxist analysis that marketization accelerates the socialization of production and distribution, thereby preparing the material base for widespread collectivization.
As for the DPRK, it certainly isn’t a utopia, but it is an existing socialist state. Like China, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. It also has free or low-cost housing, free healthcare and education, low working hours, and the economy is doing better than ever before, with even car ownership rising in major cities like Pyongyang despite intense trade embargo.
There should be a bot commenting that every time a lib mentions China or the DPRK tbh
There is, the bot is named Cowbee and they are paid in ruble.
*Rubble
is not ruble?
That article is 4 years old FYI…
This means it’s worse than rubble now!
Would definitely be useful.
Cowbee coming in spitting facts let’s go
🫡
Ya they have an excellent track record of supporting unionization and labor rights.
Definitely, that’s one of the best things about the PRC.
Workers rights
- The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- US Life expectancy peaked in 2015, is on the decline, and is now lower than in China. 2
- Wages themselves are forced to rise in the private sector by the CPC (+16% every years, +400% since 1980) who force the capitalists to accept the presence of CPC chapters who represent the interest of the workers, increasing workers control even in the capitalist parts of the economy.
- Eliminated Urban Poverty. On track to eliminate all poverty within a decade.
- CGTN documentary - China’s war on poverty
- Trade union laws of the PRC.
- The west views China as one big sweatshop, but the actual working hours aren’t much more than anywhere else. The average for a migrant worker (most vulnerable to exploitation as they are traveling from the countryside) is 8.8 hours, little under an hour more than a typical working day. Labor strikes are rarely suppressed, and usually get the support of the PRC.
- The workplace safety standards of China are better than in the capitalist countries of the West like in Australia who have an higher rate of work related death despite having a GDP per capita 3-5 times higher.
- /u/cheezicle - My experience as a factory worker in a Chinese “sweatshop”
- 70% of Chinese millenials own their own home, and 91% as of 2021 plan to buy their own home within the next 5 years.
- In a typical example of proletarian police accountability, the CPC sentences a police officer to death for killing a pregnant woman in a restaurant in southern China.
- The US is losing to China: “Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people.”
I was joking lol, sorry.
A centralized union controlled by the government is not what I think most people would consider a “union”
They do not have the legal right to strike. http://www.bhrdw.gov.cn/Content-1771.html
I don’t understand how a union can advocate for its workers without that.
I have not read through your sources yet but thanks for including them, will go through them. Rising wages is more than I can say for the West, but I’d be careful to equate that with labor rights.
Thanks! Bookmarked all of this! 😭❤️
Yep! The ACFTU is the world’s largest federation of trade unions.
Literally yes. Housing is a human right in the DPRK
I wish I had the confidence of people like you to talk so arrogantly on things you so clearly have no understanding of.
