Late Stage Capitalism
A place for for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
A zero-tolerance policy for bigotry of any kind. Failure to respect this will result in a ban.
RULES:
1 Understand the left starts at anti-capitalism.
2 No Trolling
3 No capitalist apologia, anti-socialism, or liberalism, liberalism is in direct conflict with the left. Support for capitalism or for the parties or ideologies that uphold it are not welcome or tolerated.
4 No imperialism, conservatism, reactionism or Zionism, lessor evil rhetoric. Dismissing 3rd party votes or 'wasted votes on 3rd party' is lessor evil rhetoric.
5 No bigotry, no racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any type of prejudice.
6 Be civil in comments and no accusations of being a bot, 'paid by Putin,' Tankie, etc.
view the rest of the comments
Pure versions of each have their flaws. Mixed-economics yields the highest quality of life according to the top ranking nations on the World Happiness Report. Nordic nations have the blueprint. We just need to adopt it.
Nordic nations is still exploitive capitalism.
And socialist countries had exploitative socialism. I think realistically it's best to try and find a system with least exploitation balanced with best quality of life for the people.
Yes, socialism
There are a few problems here.
All economies are "mixed," ergo it isn't a meaningful distinction. What is more useful is recognizing which aspect of the economy is the principle, ie which has the real dominant power, over large firms and key industries. Socialism is when the public sector is the principle aspect, Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect. That's why the PRC is Socialist, and the Nordic countries are Capitalist.
Judging which system is correct purely by looking to which countries have the highest happiness scores is myopic. We could use the same logic to say that Jeff Bezos has the most comfortable life, so we should all copy him. The problem is that we can't. The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South, and because Private Ownership has domination over the state, worker protections and safety nets have been gradually sliding.
This is why having a good knowledge of theory and taking everything within a large context, rather than with harsh boundaries, is important to draw correct conclusions.
I'll never understand people who insist China is 'State Capitalism' but Nordic countries are ideal socialism, somehow.
I'll give you a hint: it's about race.
There are a few different reasons that give rise to these (false) conclusions, and different reasons manifest in different degrees. Ie, not everyone will have all of these reasons, but most have at least one.
Chauvanism. Intentionally or not, there is often a superstructural element to western thought derived from being a beneficiary of Imperialism that discredits the achievements of non-Western Leftists. The fact that a western revolution has failed to materialize leads to some westerners being defensive and thus discrediting the achievements of the PRC.
A lack of real analysis at what the PRC is economically structured as. It's easy to not understand the makeup of the PRC's economy if you don't engage with it.
A lack of reading Marxist theory, and thus not being able to properly analyze structures from a Dialectical Materialist perspective.
In my opinion, those are the main 3 reasons for such conclusions.
I imagine the next deflection is something like 'but china has the second largest number of billionares', but as soon as you sort that list by per-capita it suddenly tells a very different story.
Especially since that number is decreasing in recent years while GDP growth is still solidly positive.
May I ask an honest question? Is your account run by 5 people? How do you find time to write thorough, well written responses to so many posts? We don't always agree ideologically, but I really respect your methods.
Haha, it's nothing like that. My job works more in spurts and waiting periods, so it largely depends on what's going on in my work life. Plus, not every comment is bespoke, I usually draw from prior comments I've written if applicable and tweak if needed.
Thanks for the kind words!
Workers rights in Denmark, an Imperialist country that is firmly under the control of Private Capital, are declining. Safety nets are eroding and unions are weakening, disparity is rising. The opposite is the case in the PRC, a rapidly developing country where Public Ownership is in control of the economy.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can't just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn't to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism. Analysis of China's economic makeup affirms this method as true:
Further, China is democratic. It doesn't have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%? The material conditions of Chinese citizens have dramatically improved, along with their faith in the government:
Further, China is not Imperialist. Rather than using financial Capital to provide large loans with clauses requiring countries to privatize industries for foreign capture, they focus on building up trade infrastructure and industrialization. This is because they need to create more customers, they don't have an import-driven economy nor does private financial Capital control the state.
I recommend you check out this introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list I made, if you want to judge Marxists on their application of Marxism, then you should familiarize yourself with Marxism.
Finnish imperialism 💪🏼 Not sure what sort of imperialism Finland for example is doing that for example China isn't. We are super-exploiting them in the same way, as in doing trade and having our companies operate in those countries.
Here are some good resources others have compiled on the Nordic Model in general:
Essentially, Finland (and Imperialist countries in general) operate on a principle of unequal exchange. By leveraging mechanisms like IMF loans with clauses requiring privatization of resources and industry for foreign capture, to relying on overseas production to super-exploit for super-profits, to simply relying on high interest rates on foreign loans, Imperialist countries consume more of the Global South's value than they provide the Global South.
China doesn't operate in that way. China is a country focused on selling goods it produces, ergo it cares more to have customers. The BRI and BRICs exist purely to build up more customers, it's neither charity nor Imperialism. Countries enter it in exchange for large infrastructural build up, in order for China to have new customers that aren't the West, who as we observe are quite fickle to work with. As this article from The Atlantic puts it, The "Chinese Debt Trap" is a Myth.
China also has companies that operate the exact same way and buy resources from Global South. It has a much bigger impact too, sometimes dominating the local economy. I honestly don't see any real difference between Finnish and Chinese trade, than some perceived or claimed difference in ideology behind it. And Finland isn't much of a loan giver to other countries. Finland is a member of IMF but so is China and China actually does do loans to Global South. Not sure I would count membership in IMF and loaning money itself exploitative, but if you consider that as exploitation, then surely it counts for China more than Finland?
China needs rare Earth for its own production, which drives the reason it is involved in Africa to begin with. The difference is that China needs to sell its goods internationally, so it can't just relentlessly exploit these countries. As a consequence, it frequently forgives loans, and moreover does not require clauses requiring privatization of nationalized resources to do so. China's economic model requires some degree of multilateralism to continue to exist, it isn't a consumption driven economy nor one dominated by private financialized Capital.
Finland's economy is externally driven, it relies on brutal production in the Global South for much of its commodities, and does so with immense financialized Capital. China's is internally driven and focused far more on manufacturing and selling.
They may be doing certain things right but do other totally wrong like forced conscription. Keep also in mind that they exploit third world countries like everyone else, their goods are made in china.
I would happily join the military in a country that actually cared for me. Thats something worth fighting for.
A country that cares for you wouldn't force you to join the military and put you in jail if you refuse.
They wouldn't have to force me, thats kinda the point.
Being forced to do it means that you must do it even if you don't want to. You are forced to do it even if you are happily willing to do it, you have no (legal) decision on it.
The flaw is humans; we'll corrupt any system.
I would say it's the dominant western neoliberal culture that accepts corruption as an "Oh well what can you do" type thing. Not all cultures are so accepting of corruption. We need to start treating corruption as great of a sin as murder or pedophilia, perhaps more so.
But the orphan grinding machine has always been around! We can't just tear it down, that's insulting to all the people it ground up!
What's crazy is my "liberal" family use this logic unironically.
You’re not wrong. Some systems are still better than others though.
if Nordic countries had to stand on their own, they would collapse, they can only get by because they're the beneficiaries of a global system of worker exploitation.
The fact that this still got 14 downvotes. Wow...
Edit: Also these BrainInABox and Cowbee communist apologists are really begging for a block or even a ban. Absolutely despicable. Might they be bots or trolls of somekind? They seem to have an awful lot of time on their hands.
Just a bit of background, given that you're on a 12 day old account, Lemmy in general has a lot of Communists of various types, for a number of reasons:
The lead developers are all Communists
Lemmy is an anti-capitalist response to Reddit in design, it's an attempt to cover for the failings of Reddit resulting from its profit-driven nature
Choosing Lemmy over Reddit requires some degree of ideological conviction, as Reddit is far more popular to begin with.
As for myself, I'm not a troll. I am a Communist, specifically a Marxist-Leninist, I even made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Further, this community in particular, c/LateStageCapitalism, is run by Communists and the express purpose is to critique Capitalism from the Left, I'm not breaking any rules by following the purpose of the Comm.
Hope that helps!
You are in a fucking communist space. It will be you getting the ban