On May 5th, 1818, Karl Marx, hero of the international proletatiat, was born. His revolution of Socialist theory reverberates throughout the world carries on to this day, in increasing magnitude. Every passing day, he is vindicated. His analysis of Capitalism, development of the theory of Scientific Socialism, and advancements on dialectics to become Dialectical Materialism, have all played a key role in the past century, and have remained ever-more relevant throughout.
He didn't always rock his famous beard, when he was younger he was clean shaven!
Some significant works:
Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Critique of the Gotha Programme
Manifesto of the Communist Party (along with Engels)
And, of course, Capital Vol I-III
Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don't know where to start? Check out my "Read Theory, Darn it!" introductory reading list!
No they absolutely do not. Free speech isnt simply the claim that "we have free speech" but it is ensuring that the principles of free speech, especially the freedom to criticize, are available for all citizens.
I searched for actual Chinese law to cite for this part, let me know if i made any mistakes but this is what I found:
https://www.cecc.gov/international-agreements-and-domestic-legislation-affecting-freedom-of-expression#criminallaw
I don't want to be close minded to new info, but when you throw out "western media" the way you are it makes me feel like you're trying to gaslight me.
China is a state. No state power is a flawless perfect angel.
The West has a lot of flaws, but one idea it had that is a good one is the idea of limiting the power of the state, and having a strong bill of rights/Constitution which guarantees rights.
This doesn't prevent it from being authoritarian, we can point to clear violations of civil liberties like the students being kidnapped off the streets and disappeared to an El Salvadoran death camp.
If I was unable to recognize that as authoritarian I think you'd rightfully decide this conversation is a non starter and I'm just too far gone.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/01/asia/china-students-peking-university-intl
So am I propagandized to? Was this story (and many more like it I could find and bring up) completely made up?
Or can we both agree stuff like this isn't great and work towards a future where we prevent the abduction of students in both spheres of the world.
Forget the Western Media. I am telling you they are authoritarian. I don't do business with them, I am instead using objective standards of what actions an individual should be able to freely choose without fear of reprisal from their government.
The average citizen is in danger of being arrested over posting speech to social media (yes the UK and Australia are authoritarian for doing the same thing, that's how objective standards should work).
They're in danger of being arrested for protesting their government, or for organizing their labor. The only correct channel of protest is going through the local government with the abysmally poor approval rate you cited.
What? How does that make anything any more or less reliable?
You can't just cherry pick positives out of a negative bias and assume it cancels out.
A study done by someone not hostile would be more reliable. That's what I would have tried to link, but I guess the source you linked explains China's strict censorship makes it difficult to do an objective opinion poll.
Those are all basic laws that apply to businesses, not random citizens. A Socialist State controlling the media influence of private individuals is straight from Karl Marx. Even the specific law on individuals overwhelmingly applies to public figures and celebrities, not random citizens.
I never said China is "perfect." I said it is demonized as "authoritarian" by Western Media because the owners in Western Media can't do as they please in Chinese markets. I'm not "gaslighting" you by disagreeing with your conclusions.
Secondly, Western States aren't limited. They are extremely strong, the US has hundreds of millitary bases all over the world (China has less than 10 foreign millitary bases). The Bill of Rights and Constitution also don't serve the people. What they do serve is providing freedom for Capital owners to plunder and profit as they please, and the State is under their control.
My point is that "authoritarianism" is a meaningless buzzword. All states exert authority, what matters most is which clads is in control and thus exerting its authority. In the West, that is the capitalist class, in China, it's the working class. Both are "authoritarian," in that sense, as all states are, but are fundamentally different in character, backed by why China has such high approval rates and the US has such low approval rates.
As for that one particular CNN article, I question it highly. Either the quality or quantity of the event is highly distorted, or important facts are obscured. This is the standard play, CNN is a propaganda outlet and the US has approved 1.6 billion dollars exclusively for anti-PRC propaganda.
You can absolutely organize, but not in a manner that goes against the public good. Private interests use such mechanisms to oppose the system that is overwhelmingly popular. The CPC frequently supports worker strikes and protests against corrupt businesses.
Further, you again pretend "very satisfied" is the same as overall approval. You're lying. The actual approval rate at the Township level is 70.2%, which you either think is "abysmally low," or are intentionally trying to twist very satisfied into satisfied in general, which is coincidentally a propaganda tactic used by Western Media, focusing on one aspect and omitting the more important data. Here's the actual table:
Yes, a study by a theoretical "neutral" party would be most accurate. It's likely the approval rate is actually higher than the hostile poll shows. By showing that even someone hostile must admit the high approval rates, other, less hostile polls showing the same or better figures are vindicated.
Sorry missed this one part.
Yeah in a vacuum I definitely disagree with this, but to some extent it feels somewhat similar to the usage of chemical weapons in WWI.
If one side is gonna use it, it's just the world we live in that everyone is going to try to use it.
We act more or less peaceful face to face, only choosing to fight each other through proxy wars, but Israel, the US, China, Russia... everyone appears to be actively fighting an information war online, hacking and spying on everyone else with no remorse.
It seems at this point the only way to stop it would be to come to international agreement it's off the limit for everyone and jointly sanction whoever is caught doing it, but I think we all know that's never going to happen.
The information war is simply bad for democracies with freedom of speech and just not bad at all for authoritarian governments who censor vast swathes of the information their citizens have access to.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-naval-academy-speech-china-democracy-warning-1710966
Considering international systems are currently dominated by the US Empire, any agreement, no matter how good it sounds, is going to be passed for the benefit of maintainin that Empire. Considering the people of China love their system despite feeling it has a lot of work to be done, and the people of the US hate its own system, there is a clear difference in effectiveness.
As for Joe Biden's deliberate misquoting of Xi Jinping, you need to realize what Xi actually said. It's no surprise that a genocidal Imperialist like Joe Biden would lie, but to take his lie at face value, rather than Xi's own words on the subject and the people of China who view their system as democratic at higher rates than US citizens, is silly.
Xi was criticizing the Western, liberal conception of democracy, not democracy in general. Biden took that critique of western "democracy" and left it as a critique of democracy itself, despite Xi routinely expressing motive to improve democracy. Read the speech Democracy is not an Ornament by Xi Jinping to see what he means. He is specifically advocating for the Chinese democratic model, which has much higher rates of civilian satisfaction than Western models.
That's not the case, except insofar as private citizens are forced to become businesses and register with the government in order to publish anything at all.
Of course. And Western governments are likewise demonized by chinese media. That's not a particularly meaningful claim.
Every perspective has its own bias. You are "gaslighting" me by pretending "authoritarianism" can't be objectively defined.
The bias of western media comes out in the types of stories they choose to cover and not to cover, the opinion pieces they put out, and the framing of narratives, but usually the factual information is more or less correct and there are obviously sources which are more trustworthy than others.
This is the gaslighting stuff. There are term limits on the president.
There is a separation of branches; executive, legislative and judicial.
There is the presumption of innocence and the right to due process.
If you weren't ignoring these attempts, we could be agreeing at how ineffective they are as limits, and how due process isn't applied to "enemy combatants" but instead I'm having to point out that term limits exist on the president or that the Supreme Court exists and can overturn laws when they violate the constitution.
There are flaws in these systems that led to the NSA continuing to spy and guantanamo to stay open.
But we can't talk about that if you won't acknowledge a Supreme Court exists.
Yeah the US is imperialist. But don't change the subject. We're talking about the limitations on said imperialist state like I listed above. Term limits, separation of power, right to a trial with a jury of your peers, etc which are obstacles (no matter how futile) the imperialist state must overcome when they want to act in an authoritarian manner.
The behavior of the military overseas is a completely different sphere of issues related to manufactured consent and the military-industrial complex and neo-colonialism.
There's the bill of rights and the constitution, and then there's the way a state applies the bill of rights and the constitution after 200 years of capitalist manipulation.
Whatever state of government preexists the capitalists (or at least preexists their total consolidation of power) will be manipulated to rule their interests, we can't discard the baby with the bathwater just because they've twisted our rights around to serve them
Certain rights in these bills like property rights are inherently serving capitalism, but others like the right to bear arms are the exact opposite.
I could not disagree further. To throw this out this far into the discussion feels really disingenuous.
If it's meaningless then I don't know who is and who isn't authoritarian, and that seems really convenient for would be authoritarians.
Are there any means to you that would not justify the ends which we can agree on as ideal natural limitations for any state?
I agree with how you're thinking about this, but it seems backwards.
What matters most is how authority is wielded.
The ideal form of government if you only loon at material conditions right now could be argued to be a benevolent dictator who makes all the right calls. But both of us (presumably?) are against that because we understand the incentives that power structure provides and the implications for long term stability.
The reason the working class should be in control isn't just because that's an axiom one insists on, but because they are the least incentivized (ideally) to wield their power tyrannically.
But in a worst case scenario they still could theoretically be tyrannical (for example imprison people without giving them a fair trial) and that would be bad.
This gives us a lens where it is possible for a worker led government to be authoritarian and one not to be, and says that the latter is preferred.
If we don't have the language to criticize the former and move towards the latter then what are we doing?
Hmm okay.
Since you said you never claimed China to be perfect, can you help me out and provide a source for something China has done wrong recently just for a sanity check?
Every negative example I brought up has been dismissed so in what ways are China not perfect in terms of civil rights/freedom of speech?
Where are you getting this number?
I'm not lying, this is the narrative your source is arguing
I read the whole article, there's no further data on the subject beyond this paragraph
I think you might be misreading the 70% as the US approval rate for local government?
Oh sorry lol. I'm going through the replies one by one on my phone cause theres a lot and i typed the above first
Honestly I'm having a hard time understanding this. Do you know what the averages mean, why are they so low? Like the 2.8 avg?
It's the bolded purple part so it seems like the authors believe it to be the most important number on the chart.
I would think at first to interpret that as a 2.8% average approval rate but obviously the 70.2% approval is right there next to it so that doesn't make sense.
Would I be correct in interpreting this as a minority of people (26%) really dislike the government and (76%) just kind of like it so they average each other out to 2.8%?
Agreed. It's frustrating China does not allow that.
True "neutral" parties dont really exist of course, this is a fundamental tenant of western science which is why data must be transparent and the methodology critiqued through peer review, so that this bias can be revealed and accounted for.
Remember the Western Media trick of demonizing the other side to manipulate a narrative you mentioned? These demonizing tricks can work both ways, we should he careful about sensationalizing things (as you've been critiquing me for doing)
"even someone hostile" who says they're hostile?
Either it's a reliable study and should be taken at face value or its a biased study and should not have been cited.
Why should I care about whether a polling organization is labelled as "hostile" by you or the media? That's a distraction, in the context of authoritarianism you find these labels meaningless.
The thing we should be looking at and questioning is their methodology.
If a study has bad methodology then it didn't get accurate data. The data is wrong. You don't get to add extra points to your side because you deem them as hostile, you throw the study in the trash and find a better one.
It's entirely the case that the purpose and real function of Chinese laws on publication are to control private businesses and celebrities, public figures, etc. Individuals critical of the CPC exist and post and comment, but those that are backed by private corporations attempting to swap the system to Capitalist are shut down.
Western governments are demonized by Chinese media, but you are not a consumer of Chinese News, nor is the average person outside of China. My point is specifically about Western portrayal of the countries that limit Western plundering.
I am not "gaslighting" you about "authoritarianism." The fact that "authoritarianism" is such a common talking point abused by western media against geopolitical adversaries is common even among liberals like Noam Chomsky.
The factual information is often not correct as well. Often times numbers and figures are heavily distorted, relying on anonymity of sources to cover for them. This is also well-documented.
Further, I am not "gaslighting" you about Western states not being limited, either. You are moving the goalpost. All states have limitations, things the state can't do, in the US, China, etc. However, the US state in particular has unlimited support for Capitalists. What it doesn't need to do, it frames as a "limitation," but will quickly go against those if needed by Capital.
As for class dynamics, no. The "how" of authority is fundamentally determined by the class in control and the conditions the system finds itself in. Fascism is Capitalism in decay, not a unique economic system. The Working Class should be in power becayse they are the majority of people, and the ones creating value, not because they are intrinsically kinder.
As for something China has done wrong, I'm not a fan of maintaining trade with Israel, rather than sanctioning it. Maintaining a pro-Palestinian stance without supporting Palestinian liberation materially is soft.
As for the 2.8 number, it isn't a percentage, but an average on responses 1-4, 4 being highly satisfied, 3 being moderately satisfied, 2 being moderately not satisfied, and 1 being not at all satisfied. The number of really not liking the Township is 2.3%, the number of overall not satisfied is 26%, the number moderately satisfied is 57%, and the number of really satisfied is 11%. These numbers appear to be growing, alongside continuous improvements in living conditions over time. This is for the weakest level of government, the higher you go the more satisfied with overall governance, as the CPC is highly competent and development has been rapid, but uneven, in the rural areas still lagging behind. Trends are shifting because in the last decade, there has been focus on the rural areas, which is why the number of satisfied at the Township level is dramatically increasing.
China does allow neutral parties to conduct polls, they even allowed the hostile party to conduct the polls. This is silly.
Western polling is notoriously slanted against its geopolitical adversaries. If I gave you an internal Chinese poll showing the same or better results, you'd be crying foul for it being biased.
Is it possible to deescalate just a bit. Not that I'm blaming you for the tone, I should drop terms like "gaslighting" as well. That's just poisoning the discussion and you seem perfectly good faith and as long as im not overly frustrating you I'd hope not to derail this because I am learning more about your perspective.
Agreement doesn't happen overnight for me but I think about things and it can come in time.
We've both acknowledged that Western Media abuses the definition.
I asked you to forget about their definition, remember. We can define it separate from their abuse of the term.
They also abuse the term "communism", "marxism", "socialism", "capitalism". I don't accept your argument that corporate absurdism can dismantle our language word by word.
The word "authoritarian" can mean something.
I was very clear that bias can be accounted for through proper methodology.
If you linked a poll with bad methodology you're correct I'd have an issue with that, but id have to actually read the methodology..
Im genuinely confused why you'd even think to accuse me of that? It's just you and me having a conversation here. How is attacking my character helpful to the learning process?
That doesn't seem fully historically accurate. In the March on Rome Mussolini was enabled in greater part due to the Monarchy just handing him power.
Fascism in Germany grew in conditions where capitalism hadn't been successful enough to consider to have decayed because reparations were so severe that they couldn't even rebuild and the economy underwent hyperinflation through the compounding effects of that and the great depression.
Do you actually mean that?
Surely what you mean to say is that class shouldn't exist?
But as long as effort is needed to make stuff, the people putting in said effort should be the ones having the say.
There are more freedoms than just economic. Disabled people for example do not cleanly fit into labor and so would not adequately be represented by the working class.
It is only in the imperfect moment where the working class should rule because currently capital rules and from that relativist view it is progress.
Since the workers have no say over how their own production is used, and they are unentitled to excess profits derived by their labor, it is an American Revolution "no taxation without representation" level simple.
As long as workers are forced to pay their "excess value" tax to the employer and have no say on the direction of the company, in the minds of the founding fathers they are no different than slaves.
It's the same logic that rebels and creates a liberal democracy out of a monarchy. Donald Trump actually seems to have a lot of parallels to mad King George.
Fair, I'll tone it down a bit. I get frustrated when disagreements are painted as toxic manipulation on my part, as it avoids engaging with the points at hand and paints me as a deliberately malicious person. Since you made it clear that that isn't your intent, I'll move on from that point.
I fully understand what you're trying to say about "authoritarianism." My point is that the idea of "excess control" is a matter of perspective. If, as we showed in China, the speech of businesses is heavily curtailed, then this is an act of authority. It is, however, a fully justified use of authority in my opinion, as a member of the working class, but someone like Elon Musk would not be a fan and would consider it authoritarian. Trying to treat the existence of excess as an objective measure that can be applied from all perspectives equally isn't really connected to reality, the concepts of a metaphysical "good" and "evil" like in DnD don't actually exist. What exists are systems and people, and the Chinese system has very high approval rates.
I think we are past the point of useful conversation on bias, and we aren't really going to see eye to eye. It's impossible to be unbiased, so when a source with an opposing bias admits positives, I tend to place more weight there than a positive vias espousing positives.
Mussolini was handed power because the ruling class needed to protect itself, same with the Nazis in Germany. When the system decays and is under strain, it can either offer concessions like in the US under FDR, or it has to exert brutal violence to do so. Often, both are applied. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, specifically the first chapter, as its about fascism.
As for class, the way to getting rid of it is via comprehensively resolving the contradictions in society in favor of the working class, until there is a fully publicly owned and planned global economy run democratically to fulfill the needs of all, without commodity production. Class should be abolished, but we can't abolish it at the stroke of a pen, it's a historical action, not a legalistic one. If you want to learn more about Communist theory, I can make some recommendations. Of course, those unable to work or have hampered abilities should be taken care of with unique protections.
That's true. I think the perspective I've been trying to put forward is one of civil liberties.
I get that 99 times out of 100 your typical block here with liberals is that "private property rights" is inherent to these liberties and we could never agree beyond it but that's actually not me.
I think you can separate capitalism from human rights, I don't see these in conflict.
I do too, I apologize.
I feel like this medium itself is inherently manipulative and with the upvote downvote system I'm always subconsciously aware I could be downvoted and you're subconsciously aware of it and it just defaults the human mind into this adversarial role where we're trying to win over each other, even if I don't mean to.
Just trying to step back and notice it is also part of what i mean when I say we can account for our biases.
We looked at the data, but as long as I currently hold the belief that the media isn't free to criticize the government, I have to be suspicious that approval rates can be manufactured consent just like western media can do.
One of the laws I mentioned before said if a civilian wants to write a book about a high ranking party member they need the party's permission.
There is preventing capitalists from paying for a bunch of pro capitalist publications because they have more money than you, and then there's an individual writing a pro capitalist book because they really believe in it.
Ideally, in a world free of the capitalist manipulation of the west, the lone individual writing a pro capitalist book shouldn't be a problem. Its not going to be popular because its not being artificially promoted.
But they're being hit by the laws anyway because the government deems it against socialist values.
This worries me because we're going to need truths that go against socialist values in the transition to the classless society.
That its impossible to be unbiased we do actually agree on.
I think some people though make ideology core to their thinking. A MAGA person who sees the world through that lens is just full on brainwashed for example.
Obviously no one's going to be perfect about it, me included, but I attempt at least to adhere to science, empirical data and the scientific method as my core as much as I can, and actively challenge my beliefs and try to let ideology flow downstream of reality as much as possible.
That's why I place my priority on the methodology and data. I'm trying to apply a method where bias isn't assumed outright but can be revealed through scrutiny.
The inherent instability of late stage capitalism forces me as an ally of truth and freedom of thought to fight against fascism and any propaganda no matter how apolotical i would prefer to be. I am radically anti advertisement for example. It appears to me as though over 95% of information that exists is intended to manipulate you into spending money you didn't intend to spend.
But I would be an irritating ally in that I would naturally seek to question and understand.
I have essentially given up on electoralism as a solution for all of life's problems, the problem is I was not prepared to become so pessimistic (realistic) so quick and so I have nothing to replace it with and a lot of questions.
I will do that
I didn't suggest it would be. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page that working class ownership wasn't the "ideal" but simply a necessity due to power structures.
You mentioned this has to happen on a global stage.
I dont mean to drag this on forever but what would be the problems with attempting the ultimate classless system in say a majority of continents, or in a sphere of influence? Invasion by neighboring capitalist states?
I think a big point to keep in mind is that both Capitalist and Socialist countries propagandize, but Capitalist countries tend to have much lower support rates despite having a more sophisticated propaganda apparatus. "Brainwashing" doesn't exist, people's opinions most closely coincide with what they believe genuinely benefits them. For more on that concept, Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing."
I also don't know what you mean by "truth going against Socialist values." Dogmatism isn't a Socialist value, if something Socialists believe goes against truth, then the Socialist value is to correct course. This is baked-into Marxism from the outset, it's Marx's entire modus operandi via Dialectical Materialism.
As for the fact that Communism must be global, no worries! I much prefer to discuss Marxist theory and practice anyways. For starters, you're absolutely on the right track, remaining Capitalist countries would see lowering rates of profit over time as they monopolize their own resources, and then would seek the resources and potential customers of other countries. The system has this baked-in, leading to war.
There's also the notion of class. A classless society, truly, requires everyone in a system to have equal ownership over all. Either there is no interaction with the Capitalist bloc whatsoever, in which case war will happen, or there is some degree of trade, in which case the production of commodities for trade will persist and thus classes will continue. It would still be Socialist, but not fully classless, and thus contradictions would persist and it would be the job of the proletariat to resolve them until the commodity form can be abolished altogether.
"Trade" still exists in Communism, kind of, just not the kind of commodity exchange likely to happen with Capitalist bloc countries. See what the PRC looks like as an example, in order to participate in the world economy, it has to engage in its own degree of private ownership and commodity production. It's still Socialist, but certainly isn't the future state of Communism.
(I'm sorry I keep pestering you with questions, I just keep typing)
I can read that, but I assumed it was understood I wasn't talking about literal brainwashing but simply the fact that propaganda is effective.
I think the fact we're in agreement the system needs to go regardless of opinion polls so this is sort of a moot point.
I mean that interactions between humans can not fully be understood through ideological motivations alone, but there are more basic ones like human greed, laziness, or incompetence that can find their way into even the most good faith movements.
Looking at the ideology of Jesus and then looking at the Catholic Church tells me ideology alone is not enough, but that accountability and anti corruption measures need to be formalized as legal processes into the state as long as it's a seat of power.
The ideology itself may promote Dialectical Materialism, but does the bureaucracy/system have mechanisms to produce accountability?
If moderators meant to inspect would be scientific publications or books grow bored, lazy, incompetant or corrupt, they might end up censoring something that is needed for the next transition and according to the principles of Dialectical Materialism could become a new conflict (between state Socialist bureaucrats and developing classless communists) that requires a new theory to progress beyond.
I'm not intending to unfairly critique socialism, corruption and conflict is a problem for all existent governments and states.
In Western democracies "freedom of the press" is intended to be a counterbalance against this type of tyranny of the government.
While Communist democracies may have recognized the susceptibility of the "free press" to being bought up by capitalists and turned into a propaganda arm, and so has put limitations on it, it's also removed the check against tyranny of the government. I'm not sure what its replaced it with?
If people are intended to vote out corrupt governments, that relationship breaks down if the corrupt government has sole control over the narratives. You'd be relying on the government to accurately report on its own corruption to be properly informed and that seems problematic, and could potentially be a sticking point on the further transition.
Is this just inevitable then? That seems like it's the trajectory of capitalism anyway.
If so, all a Socialist country would have to do is hold on long enough for late stage capitalism to come to roost. Then they're outproducing the capitalists, and if the capitalists decide to wage a war its too late. They don't have the production.
The US is burning all its bridges, tarrifing itself for no explainable reason, and making enemies out of allies while China, they are leading the green revolution and are capable of acknowledging climate change.
China is investing in the correct places for the future. I don't even know if the US could win a war against them today, let alone tomorrow.
Also are there any people who've addressed the unique need for nuclear dearmament in these late term stages? That seems to be a complicated problem.