this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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GenZedong
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They tax rich people more than the US does, its also in line with Dengs thinking here https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1987/133.htm
I think a better marker for China is, is poverty increasing? Do the poorest people get what they need? I would say thats yes they get everything they need (housing/healthcare) and there circumstances are improving too through investment. In cities larger than London rent is 70% cheaper on average like in Shenzen and quality of life is higher. It would be hard to care if billionares exist if you lived in a society that provided everything you needed, and also held said billionares accountable; which again I would argue China does as demonstrated by the high profile rich people they have executed or imprisoned in the last decade.
Is it perfect? No, but they seem to be willing to do more then we do.
Just because they seem willing to do more than us, ans I don't argue that thet do because they do, I can still criticize them for not taking that decision. Billionaires have no need of existing.
Unfortunatly, they sort of do. Neo-liberalism or state capitalism seems to be a required stage in the devolopment of an ecomony towards socialism and the Chinese model seems to be the best compromise existing today between socialism and state capitalism as it manages to provide 90% housing, modern standards of living, wide spread education, high speed rail & subways etc to billions of people while still retaining Marxist ideological reasoning.
The Chinese understanding of this means basically 'speedrunning' through capitalism while keeping the products of it on a tight leash, so far that seems to be working. Income gaps are widening in China though, but people still retain a much lower cost of living in comparable economies such as California. I dont think billionares should exist either but I dont think its the biggest issue facing China either.
Yes I understand the development of state capitalistism to build up production forces on the road to socialism. It's still not an answer qs to why billionaires should exist.
Part of building up production of forces is building up a surplus of profit that can be transferred to wealth, that means allowing private entities under state control. Allowing private entities means that said entities can now decide to pay people at the top enough they become billionares.
Its not the existance of them, every single devoloped country on earth has billionares, its how you manage them that matters; China executes and imprisons the ones that misbehave.
This is a justification but still not an explanation for why China allows (or should allow) billionaires. If you take all the money above 1B Yen and transfer it to the state you also have a build up of capital to be used by the state to help the people.
I think the question is- does such a seizure (however justified) and resulting turmoil and consequences benefit China- whether it be in regards to its role in the emerging multipolar order, and its continued development under state-controlled markets/capitalism?
Personally, I don't think so. The present course is seeing China outcompete the west, diplomatically, economically, and increasingly technologically- it harnesses the productive, competitive advantages of capital, while maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat, and its present approach has also shackled western capital to it (despite their attempts to contain and destroy China), and rather than alienating non-AES states and non-socialists across the global south, presents a development model and partner that they not only can work with, but can engage deeply with and admire.
The seizure of all Chinese billionaires' assets out of nowhere, would imperil all this. And for what? China already has capital controls and countless other regulations in place to manage its capitalist class. Unlike the west and most of the world, China also actually enforces these, with harsh- if necessary, even lethal- consequences for criminals regardless of wealth. The rules are already in place, capital is subordinated to proletarian rule, while still being open for business. Such disruptive actions in contrast could stand to imperil the unique balance that has over time, been perfected (not that it's perfect- but it is undeniably an achievement, perhaps unmatched in human history), and this is during a time of critical development in various fields- increasingly competing with the west technologically, working alongside many partners for the integration of Afro-Eurasia and the global south, expanding China's development and prosperity to every remote corner of the country, resisting encirclement and entanglement in the face of a increasingly deranged and declining west, and creating the foundations of soft cultural/economic/political power that can compete with the west, and building China's infrastructure and industries up to ever greater heights. Why risk all this, for some puritanical short-term (if even that- I doubt it) gain?
Once again I feel I have to state- the present system China has fashioned, has produced results unlike that which any other state has delivered, and this is without imperialist loot, plunder, and lebensraum no less. And the present system is not done yet- China has not yet reached its full potential, but also, its work is not done in uplifting all of China and playing its part in the uplifting of the world in turn. That's not to say that it is perfect and can be left stagnant- but such rash actions could threaten everything.
Its pretty consistent with Dengs/Xi's and Chinas political apparatus's understanding of how they are building socialism. The excess that neo-liberalism provides generates enough structures that can then in turn be used to advance socialism.
Its not the existance of them that matters, its how they are regulated and taxed.
If you just took billionares money (which they already do, through tax...) then there would be no incentive to build up productive forces, within the private sphere.
Yes, I find that the more I study the theory behind the decisions of the CPC, the more they make sense. Most negative assessments of them as an AES nation come from a place of ignorance.
The CPC strategy is based on the idea that an effective and enduring transition from feudalism or capitalism to communism is not made in a single generation, it takes many years and multiple generations to achieve. Given how the revolution occurred ~75 years ago and their strategy is not to make great progress overnight, they have been very successful in their efforts.
What we are seeing is a nation that is currently transitioning towards the goal of communism, not the end product of that transition. It's likely that their patience and methodical progression has contributed to how resilient they've been in the face of external pressure from capitalist forces and they may not have been able to resist that pressure as effectively over a shorter time scale.