zephyreks

@zephyreks@lemmy.ml

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zephyreks,

America is occupied with sending aid to Israel. There’s only so much money Biden can draw down for foreign military aid with Congress being in the state its in and the budget being in the state its in. It’s been the Biden administration’s policy that Israel’s military needs are important as well and many bills have tied aid for Ukraine to aid for Israel.

zephyreks,

People want the government to operate without opposition. Almost like in a… one-party state?

zephyreks,

The same argument can be applied for free market capitalism: it’s too fragile and susceptible to corruption and outside influence. The reality is that the big economies of the world lie somewhere in the middle.

Study finds voters skeptical about fairness of elections. Many favor a strong, undemocratic leader (apnews.com)

Voters in 19 countries, including in three of the world’s largest democracies, are widely skeptical about whether their political elections are free and fair, and many favor a strong, undemocratic leader, according to a study released Thursday....

zephyreks,

Clinton received so much more support from Democrat party leadership, so much more funding from corporate donors, and so much more coverage from mainstream media sources. The fact that Bernie even put up a fight was admirable, but he really had the odds stacked against him.

zephyreks,

What country has a 90% home ownership rate (in fact, many people are buying second home due to oversupply), 80% without mortgages or liens?

What country net 0.1% CPI recently with 5% GDP growth? (A single RMB can buy 0.1% less goods, but the economy is worth 5% more RMB).

What country is “flooding the world with cheap solar panels” for renewable energy? Leading global reforestation (with, thankfully, no more monoculture plantations).

Different countries have fundamentally different challenges. Let’s not pretend like everyone’s challenges are the same.

zephyreks,

sigh

Do people consider the US to not be capitalist because of SEC regulations, the FDA, FAA, and other organizations impeding the free market? Do people consider the US to not be capitalist because of tariffs on, say, Canadian aluminum?

Why do people consider only end-stage communism to be true communism? Why do people consider only end-stage socialism to be true socialism?

zephyreks,

This is a rather reductionist view of capitalism, socialism, and communism. To understand these systems, we need to take a look at the actual literature.

In 1776, Adam Smith published his work “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” which defined the cornerstones of capital, money, and value theory in the context of the changing economies of the 18th century. Smith’s work is known for concepts such as “the invisible hand” and “competition prevents exploitation” through free market capitalism.

In 1867, Karl Marx published his work “Das Kapital,” which offered a critique on some of capitalism’s theories. This work provided the foundation for work on class theory, class struggle, and the notion of socialist/communist states. The key definitions being that capitalism separates the workers (who contribute labour) from the capitalist class (who contribute capital and thus machines and forces to improve productivity) and that socialist states place increasing control of these productive forces in the hands of the state (as opposed to the capitalist class). The other key work towards these notions is “The Communist Manifesto,” written with Friedrich Engels. The slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is perhaps the most representative.

Following Marx, Vladimir Lenin wrote critiques of capitalism and described how revolution could be used to achieve a socialist and (eventually) communist society. Mao Zedong’s writings discuss the ideas of revolution to achieve socialism and communism from a Chinese perspective, rather than the Russian one that Lenin had. Crucially, while Marx had written on the socialist transition as one for the advanced capitalist societies of Germany and England, Lenin and Mao approached it more from the perspective of how socialism could be realized from the predominantly agricultural economies of Russia and China.

In 1936, John Maynard Keynes published his work “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” which looked at savings and consumption in the context of the Great Depression. This work forms the foundation for much of modern fiscal and economic policy in the West. Keynes called for government intervention in support of the economy, deviating from Smith’s notions of a free market.

Perhaps the most relevant ideas on the topic today are from Deng Xiaoping Thought, which provided concrete ideas of developing Chinese socialism in the context of a capitalist global economy and in the context of China’s predominantly agricultural economy. This work was kick-started by “Putting into Effect the Socialist Principle of Distribution According to Work,” which described how China was unable to make progress from the primary stage of socialism due to the lack of productive forces which could be leveraged. Remember that Marx’ writings were written from observations of the great industrialized European powers, not the perceived agricultural backwaters of Russia and China.

The crucial concept of Deng Xiaoping Thought is the idea of a socialist market economy. Crucially, that socialism inherently involves the elimination of poverty (pulling people up) rather than the moderation of productivity (pulling people down). As per Keynes, a planned economy with government intervention does not preclude capitalism, and the lack of one does not preclude socialism. Indeed, per Keynes, public ownership of property did not preclude capitalism, and by extension Deng Xiaoping Thought argues that private ownership of property does not necessarily preclude socialism. Indeed, Engels work on the subject discusses that the abolishment of private property cannot happen immediately, and instead proposes alternatives (progressive taxation, inheritance taxes, development of state-owned enterprises) in the meantime for those countries struggling to get past the primary stage of socialism.

Just as a true Smithian free market capitalist economy does not exist, a true Marxist end-stage socialist economy does not exist. If you’ve any interest in this space, the works of Smith and Keynes on one side and Marx, Engels, and Deng on the other side provide pretty complementary coverage of things. In this framework, Smith, Marx, and Engels can be treated as one group (laying the foundations of the work) while Deng and Keynes can be treated as the ones building on top of those core ideas to adapt them to the realities of the situation (for Deng, China’s agriculturally-dependent economy, and for Keynes, the Great Depression).

In practice, we can see the obvious differences between the American and Chinese economies. Whereas the US economy is led by giant multinationals, China’s is led primarily by SOEs. Whereas US billionaires who hold productive forces are essentially invulnerable to government prosecution, Chinese billionaires are not. Whereas land in China is either owned by the state or by farmer collectives, land in the US is mostly privately held.

zephyreks,

No country in the world has claimed to achieve communism. What are you even trying to say?

zephyreks,

Israel struck an Iranian embassy. Some things demand a response.

Not everyone can be China and shrug off the US bombing their embassy in Serbia.

zephyreks,

This entire concept has been studied extensively in China, and the conclusion has been that the yield is vastly overclaimed when solar panels are deployed on productive soil.

See: CCTV exposes 8 million RMB solar farm built on prime farmland, leads to plummeting rice yields

zephyreks,

Your claim is that… China has incentive to reduce deployments of solar panels by criticizing the deployment of solar panels over agricultural land? We’re talking about the same China, right? World leader in solar panel production, being criticized by American and European leaders for overcapacity in solar panel production? I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here.

zephyreks,

What’s the incentive structure for which China would want people to deploy fewer solar panels?

zephyreks,

There are also crops that do well in Siberia, but this is prime agricultural land.

zephyreks,

Your claim is that a PRC news source wants people to deploy less solar panels.

zephyreks,

BBC? CBC? NPR? RFA? Al Jazeera?

What, exactly, do you think the incentive is for a PRC news source to discourage solar panel adoption?

zephyreks,

In the name of national security, who cares about the rights of a few foreigners living on foreign (allied) soil? This isn’t a coincidence, this is literally a core component of US foreign policy.

zephyreks,

Myanmar and the PRC have been trying to address the same problem in northern Myanmar. See: japantimes.co.jp/…/china-myanmar-civil-war-cyber-…

Fugitives from China fled the country following a domestic crackdown on cybercrime and now they’re stuck elsewhere. These fugitives kidnap and traffic Chinese citizens and force them to work for cybercrime centers abroad.

zephyreks,

What many people don’t realize is that Quebec is poor.

zephyreks,

Racism, everybody.

zephyreks,

This is an extremely reductionist take on Vietnam and ignores, y’know, the Vietnam War.

In fact, it’s a completely reductionist view on the entirety of ASEAN. Just as Canada and Mexico are forever coupled to America’s industrial gravity, ASEAN is forever coupled to China’s industrial gravity. You can have infighting, but you don’t piss off both your largest trade partner and the country that simultaneously supplies the market and expertise for your continued economic development. The ex-United States of the Philippines is an exception because of obvious reasons

zephyreks,

Palestine was relying on some type of pan-Arab response or Arab unity, but now it seems as though the only country that has any influence on Israel in the region is Iran. Everyone else is either beholden to other interests or reeling from decades of conflict.

zephyreks,

This is probably the most horrifyingly depressing article I’ve read in the past decade.

zephyreks,

Mod abuse? Impossible.

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