You only “own” a house as long as you can rely on the police to enforce your claim. The concept is the same. It’s just in China they made a policy decision not to enforce landlords’ claims in order to reduce inequality.

I kind of suspect things were always too big and complex for one person to address but the rampant individualism of our society obscures that history.

Those damn retirees probably get a full pension too! Don’t they know it would be much better for the economy if they had a 401k instead?! That way they could lose it by random chance every 15-20 years and work as a Walmart greeter until they die like the invisible hand intended!

Jokes aside, that explains why whenever I go to China there’s always lots of older people hanging out in public parks having a great time. I just hope that can be me one day.

Don’t just ignore my questions. It’s relevant to the conversation and your perceptions of China.

I’m aware that work hours are long in China. I don’t think that’s a good thing. However, it’s not unique if you take into account China’s level of development.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-working-hours-vs-gdp-per-capita-pwt

It’s also not as if western countries like the US are great either. Full time workers in the US work more than 40 hours during a standard work week.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-by-work.htm

All in all, the fact remains that for most Chinese people, quality of life has improved significantly within a very short time span. It’s likely why most Chinese people believe their government is democratic because they believe it’s acting in their interests to improve their lives.

that there are Chinese who believe differently

The chart CascadeOfLight posted showed a minority of 17% of Chinese citizens think their country isn’t a democracy. What led you to believe COL didn’t think those people were real? Who exactly are you arguing against here?

You do understand that if workers are paid less in China but the cost of living is also lower then the level of exploitation isn’t necessarily greater right?

If you have to defend Nazi’s because the SC will give them a more favorable decision then the legal system is already fucked beyond repair.

This is true for board games as well. The classic example being Monopoly.

They were actually banned from reddit for posting “John Brown was right” memes implying that the radical abolitionist was correct to kill slaveowners. They can be excessive and annoying but they’re certainly not fascists.

I somewhat agree. I do take issue with the notion that the Nordic working class has been bought off though. That makes it sound like they’re conscious advocates of imperialism which I don’t think is generally true. Rather I’d argue that free from hyper exploitation, they can’t develop a meaningful class consciousness. As such, it’s difficult for them to see how their long term interests are put at risk by the capitalist system and how a socialist system could maintain their high standard of living without requiring imperialism.

I doubt the Nordic working class are receiving a meaningful share of the value stolen through imperialist means. Instead, I think the Nordic bourgeoisie are able to accumulate wealth without having to hyper exploit their local populations thanks to imperialism. This ameliorates the local class antagonisms and creates the superficial appearance that a capitalist system can maintain a stable high standard of living for the working class.

Of course, if imperialist exploitation can no longer ameliorate said antagonisms, class conflict will re-erupt in Nordic countries. The danger here is that parts of the working class may be convinced that their standard of living is predicated on imperialist conquest which is the basis for fascism. The good thing is I don’t actually think that’s true. A more reliable way for Nordic workers to maintain their standard of living would be for them to suppress the interests of their local bourgeoisie and transition to an actually socialist model.

Saying the Democrats control the republicans is silly but saying that they use the republicans as a threat to stay in power is indisputable. They literally funded pro trump candidates in republican primaries under the assumption they would be easier to beat in the general election.

Most places in the US developed in a similarly shitty way thanks to the logic of American capitalism. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t ethnic and cultural diversity.

Well Marx used the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” to describe how a transition would work in opposition to what he saw as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.

However, if you’re talking about people like Stalin or Mao, you’ll find self proclaimed communists with a wide variety of opinions on the subject. That’s in part because gets difficult to sort propaganda from the truth of the matter. I also mean both western and communist propaganda. To have a guy going by “Joe Steel” as the leader of your republic of socialist workers councils isn’t exactly a subtle attempt to get buy in from working class people.

Yes, most communists and especially Marxists believe communism must necessarily be fully democratic. It’s certainly true though that there is much debate about what types of democratic structures to use. Although most communists would probably agree that it would require a lot of trial and error to find an ideal system.

That said, communists generally seek to disenfranchise owners of capital from the decision making process up until the point they no longer exist as a class. Therefore in the transition to communism, full democracy may not be realized. This is the given reason for why Marxist Leninist countries generally suppress opposition parties but may allow for political affinity organizations around identity groups that suffer under capitalism, ie worker, youth, women’s organizations, etc.

Communist theory explicitly tries to dispel the idea that political and economic structures are separate things. As such, communists intend to create democratic structures that can distribute resources in place of undemocratic market relationships which empower owners of capital.

Liberalism on the other hand believe that market relationships are inherently democratic. Therefore they may think that any attempt to replace them with a planned economy are undemocratic regardless of how such planning would be decided upon.

You’re right, nobody has ever cared about Marx. No communist revolutionaries anywhere have ever called themselves Marxists. If they did, then their projects must have surely collapsed by now. That’s because Marx was very clear that his political theories were not made to be adaptable or revisable based on new information and changing conditions. No, that would be far too scientific for someone we can agree was clearly an idealist.

This is under the assumption that there is a surplus in society that can satisfy the needs of everyone. Marx’s point is that technological development and industrialization could make this possible. As such, the need to motivate people to work harder is not necessary.

Prior to such a surplus existing, the distribution of goods would be more akin to “From each according to their ability, to each according their contribution”. That ensures people are motivated to maximize their productivity as long as that’s still necessary.

I think want people don’t fully understand is that Marxism is meant to be scientific. That means that there will likely be many imperfect and failed attempts at building a socialist society before one comes along that is stable enough to outlast outside interference from capitalist states.

As such, most people I know who like the USSR are also it’s biggest critiques. Unfortunately, there is so much misinformation about the USSR that most discussions about it online are just about delineating truth from propaganda.

Tell me you haven’t read Marx without telling me you haven’t read Marx.

Seriously though, Marx is like the guy you go read if you want a ruthless critique of idealism. I go so far as to say it’s the reason his theories became so popular in the first place.