Cowbee

Really? When has liberal changed meaning?

First off, thanks for bearing with me. This is a good question!

But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.

The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I'll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Since I am assuming we are evaluating from a Marxist perspective, it truly is important to apply Dialectical Materialism. One of the pillars of DiaMat is that any analysis that doesn't see the entirety of the system, and purely compares stationary snapshots of entities, is not Dialectical analysis but mechanical.

Within the context of the PRC, SOEs are guided by the CPC, which practices central planning as can be made to work with the rest of the CPCs planning, while private companies in Capitalist countries are the ones lobbying the State for lucrative projects of their own. The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests. It's a measure similar to the NEP.

Private companies within the PRC as compared to SOEs obviously see less direct influence and guiding than SOEs do, but similarly exist under the thumb of the PRC, who allows them to act in their own interests as long as they fulfill their role in rapidly building up the productive forces, which we can see is a role that, to this point, has helped dramatically compared to the era of Mao and the Gang of Four, which saw much slower development.

In my opinion so long as the company's structural hierarchy and it's inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there's not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don't really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.

This really depends on outside factors, again analyzing the context within which these entities exist. In SOEs and Private Companies within the PRC there are elements of Workplace Democracy, as I showed prior, but the idea that business entities are perfectly democratic within the PRC is false, which is why I haven't attempted to make such a point. Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie. Given that the CPC regularly punishes their domestic bourgeoisie and the CPC itself has a 90%+ approval rate among the people, we can at least see that the CPC appears to be acting and managing for the benefit of society as a whole, and not for their bourgoeis class.

There's still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There's still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there's a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.

You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can't beam information into everyone's brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.

Thank you for your time, it's pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don't 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.

I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind. Cheers!

On my Hexbear account, New and Local, on Lemmy.ml New and Active, usually Local. There's enough content but not too much when sorting that way.

Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but this is an extremely lengthy conversation where each minor paragraph could be the focus of a single conversation, and the information conveyed would be much better. I'm not going to disrespect you and accuse you of gish-galloping. If you want to focus on a particular topic, I am okay to continue, you can pick one strand and develop it into a sizeable argument and we can discuss from there, but as it stands there is no way to do justice to any of these topics in one cohesive lemmy comment thread.

I read your comment, you have points worthy of responding to. I'm not dismissing that, and I don't want this comment to be interpreted as such, I just wanted to give you the respect of explaining why I would rather focus on one topic at a time, or disengage altogether. Lemmy isn't the right format for such a convo.

Have a good day if you decide you don't want to continue, I appreciate your time.

Just because a misconception is common doesn't mean it needs to lay unaddressed.

You're on Lemmy.ml, most are Communists here. Lemmy in general leans Leftist, not liberal, unless you only browse instances like Lemmy.world.

It's definitely true, California is just governed by right-wingers.

Sure you can, happened many times in history. US independence, French Revolution, suffrage movement, civil rights movement. Elect radicals

These were none via election, this was done through mass popular struggle.

People that want to get rid of billionaires, corporations in politics and people getting fairly represented are the minority. The majority want a wall on the border with Mexico, arming teachers or abortion rights and lgbtq rights etc. That’s what they care about. Highly controversial topics that ultimately change nothing about how the show is run.

You'd be surprised, but even then trends are changing as Capitalism declines and dies.

I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.

Wikipedia has a lot of western-friendly reporting on the increase in SOE's in quantity and control. Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.

Source for forced labor in China.

Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.

What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?

I assumed you were familiar with Marxist theory, I was not referencing the idea of Socialism in One Country vs Permanent Revolution or anything. Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.

Source?

As above with the SOEs.

Soo if the state "owns" the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don't have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America...... What does that say? Something isn't adding up here.

Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose.... Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.

Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances. The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn't at "breakneck speeds," you're going to have to describe what that entails. Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng's statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.

You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.

No, I could not, because the American Bourgeoisie controls the state entirely.

And what has that ownership meant for the people who "own the means of production"? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.

Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there's even workplace democracy. Simply saying "it seems as though xyz" and gesturing isn't an argument.

Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.

Yes, it's a contradiction that requires careful planning.

Is that worker really worker ownership....? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.

How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you "own"?

Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management "class?"

Right...... But my point was there's not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.

I did not. My statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.

What's the difference?

It's the opposite, the majority of Trump v Kamala posts come from Lemmy.world users and communities, Commies tend to reject both.

That's legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.

I don't think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.

The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can't just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.

The USSR didn't collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.

Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60's.

Russia didn't want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn't track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.

This doesn't really follow. I'd like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical. Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?

But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.

Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.

This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.

I'm sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to "drown in a bathtub". 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.

I said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC. There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.

Yes, and now let's look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We've gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.

Okay.

What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn't productive enough to make that particular leap....who the hell can?

It can't be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.

As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership....modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.

Sure, that's the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can't openly attack it.

Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I'm grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn't coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?

It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.

Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who's disciples were Jews.

You can't be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.

Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.