uniqueid198x

so much respect for cuba. Thedy have accomplished a lot in the face of tremendous advercity

No way boss

wow, thats harsh. I work for a living

Naw, I don't mind much when someone points out that I had a shit take, and takes the time to help me understand it.

An inbox-destroying number of messages about it is a different beast. At some point, a friendly correction or two changes in to a beast with no nuance or possibility of discussion.

It results in a third outcome: the target stops learning or engaging at all.

Thanks, that did help deepen my understanding. Its good to see that the current thought remains commited to socialism and recognizes the miss-steps of the past, and is continuing to iterate towards a more equitable future.

Perhaps one day they will achieve it. I certainly hope they do. As of yet, the state capitalism approach to building socialism has had a number of mistakes and limited success, such that I still remain skeptical of it.

Its uneven, but its uneven in china also. One of the core contradictions the party recognizes in China today is balancing the need for continued need for economic development with the growing demand for more stuff amongst the wealthier people.

In some ways, although through very different mechanisms, the same pattern has developed internally in China. There are plces where resources are extracted from and people have less, and places where goods are manufectured and people have more. At least the party recognizes that this happens and is a problem, so I'll give props to that.

But "lifting out of poverty" is a bad metric because it is, as you say, often just moving the poverty around. Historically, the people on the most extracted end do trend better (access to water has been improving globally, for example), but its more a side effect.

and even if it weren't unreliable, its still not great because it still gives in to capitalist realism. A well paid person who works 100 hours a week as more stuff but probably less freedom than a person who can keep shelter, food, and health on 20 hours a week.

"Hey, fuck you!", the greating of a true anarchist. Or person from New Jersey. Its hard to tell.

(spoken with love, but also its true)

The colonialist powers in Europe, North America, and East Asia have a population in the hundreds of millions and general access to wealth and utilities greater than most of the world. Even in the worst parts of the US, clean water is more accessible than in much of the world.

Like, the global capital machine works on a three part extraction:

• extract wealth from colonies (de facto or dejure) through resource transfer
• extract raw wealth from labor through manufactor of goods out of resources
• re-extract wealth from from both parties through sales of manufactured goods

if we are looking purely at distribution of stuff and money, I feel its not terribley controversial to suggest that a representative person in the colonial core has more than one in a colony.

Now, at what level does having more stuff rise to "not being in poverty" is a topic that I would find a lot more debatable, but even the UN's self congradulatory and pitiful "2 dollars a day" shows more people hitting that in the imperial core than outside it

Edit to note: I'm not saying "CHINA BAD" here, I'm saying "lifted out of poverty" is not a good metric. Its an inherently capitalist metric. Measuring if people have enough stuff is a losing game against capitalist wealth extraction. Measure instead how good a life is.

Thats quite true. As mentioned, the harm of colonialism far outstrips the harm of comnunism in china.

Are you suggesting weavers in China today are rich, compared to weavers in Europe today?

My understanding of it is a system of ownership and direction of enterprizes, where the state participates as a capitalist and as managenent, either wholely or in concert with private ownership.

You know, like Lennin meant

edit to add: Lennin was certainly against any private participation in capitalism, but the soviet party did loosen that with parastroika, and the Chinese Communist party started with, I believe, Deng Xiaping Thought, tho I would have to double chetk that it didn't start earlier

My least favorite is the feudalisn-with-extra-markets crowd who keep doing a fascist recuperation on anarchism. They ruined "libertarian" and now they keep trying to make "anarcho-capitalist" a thing, as if political compass was a real and healthy thing

European colonialism brought hundreds of millions out of poverty. I don't personally think chinese socialism has been nearly as damaging, but bringing people out of poverty is not, to my mind, a sufficient metric.

The characterization of china as state capitalism? You know, I hadn't ever gatten a first hand source for it, so you did inspire me to check my understanding.

Its a central tenant and a core part of Xi Jiping thought. It was unanimously affirmed at the 20th party constitution convention. Some key highlights:

• the system under which public ownership is the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership develop together
• the socialist market economy
• efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows

you can read it yourself in the resolution on Party Constitution amendment