The US and EU are tight-knit allies in empire. The US Empire has hegemony, sure, but the EU is still a willing participant in imperialism. They are all millitary allies through NATO, they share data. If you live in the west, the west having data on you is what can harm you.

Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation

The PRC is not murdering, enslaving, nor sterilizing Uyghurs. It’s genuinely a complex situation, but you can absolutely rely on the west to uncritically report their paid propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz of the “Victims of Communism” state department propaganda outlet. The reason why the west keeps pushing this distortion of what’s actually going on in Xinjiang is because they wish to stoke political and civil instability, creating a wedge to force through economic liberalization and capitulation to US demands.

The U.S. doesn’t give a shit about muslims, and are actively committing genocide in Palestine. There’s absolutely no reason to trust what the U.S. State Department says on the matter, especially when nearly all evidence circles back to testemonials (and fabrications!) from Adrian Zenz.

Developing towards communism isn’t something one country can do alone. Chiefly, imperialism must be overcome, which requires the US Empire to be dethroned. Ideally, that would be through socialist revolution, but even without one the US Empire is in decay. Communism must be a global system, you cannot have a fully collectivized network of production without, you know, making it global. Until then, the PRC needs to continue building up their productive forces, and build up to higher levels of socialism.

Wealth inequality isn’t the primary issue. What’s important is that public ownership is the principle aspect, and by and large development has been driven in the interests of the proletariat. From the massive poverty eradication programs to the steady and massive increases in real wages, society is run by and for the working class. It doesn’t matter what the bourgeoisie wants, they don’t have control of the state, or the critical or large industries. Wealth inequality has actually been declining as of late, actually, and will likely continue to decline as the PRC continues to develop.

China is already democratized and socialist, yes. I wrote a comment elsewhere on this thread, with resources at the end if you want to read further, right here.

If we are being technical, the PRC doesn’t claim to have reached communism yet, they are still in the primary stage of socialism. Communism must be global, the highest stages of which will be stateless, classless, and moneyless, while in the current PRC class struggle is very much alive and public ownership, while dominant, exists alongside private and cooperative ownership in lighter and smaller industry.

Child labor is illegal in the PRC, and purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. It’s time for you to turn off Fox News.

Depends. I’d focus on participating in a disciplined community that can develop some degree of self-sufficience, and if feasible focus on producing some surplus goods to trade with other groups, like alcohol as disinfectant or fuel for goods we need. We would still practice self-defense.

The PRC does enforce human rights, and they have consitently had higher and higher wages. None of what you said is sourced, you need to turn off Fox News and see what China is actually like these days.

It fits!

Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation

The PRC is not murdering, enslaving, nor sterilizing Uyghurs. It’s genuinely a complex situation, but you can absolutely rely on the west to uncritically report their paid propagandist and christian nationalist Adrian Zenz of the “Victims of Communism” state department propaganda outlet. The reason why the west keeps pushing this distortion of what’s actually going on in Xinjiang is because they wish to stoke political and civil instability, creating a wedge to force through economic liberalization and capitulation to US demands.

The U.S. doesn’t give a shit about muslims, and are actively committing genocide in Palestine. There’s absolutely no reason to trust what the U.S. State Department says on the matter, especially when nearly all evidence circles back to testemonials (and fabrications!) from Adrian Zenz.

Purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. This process is continuous. You need to turn off Fox News and actually look at what’s happening in China right now.

This is just factually untrue. Real wages for the working class have increased substantially year over year for decades in the PRC. The reason why it’s cheaper is because the PRC has become that much better at producing goods.

Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.

In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized:

Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.

China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.

Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.

Put another way:

The English language is violence, I hotwired it

I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialed in

I’m downwind with the drop

I’m Deng Xiaoping, smoking oil in the wok

-billy woods

For further reading:

1. Qiao Collective’s Introductory Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Study Guide

2. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ProleWiki page

3. Socialist Market Economy ProleWiki Page

4. People’s Republic of China ProleWiki Page

5. My “Read Theory, Darn It!” Introductory Marxist-Leninist Reading Guide

6. Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism by Domenico Losurdo

7. China Has Billionaires by Roderic Day

8. The Long Game and its Contradictions

9. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

10. Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance by Michael Hudson

11. Marxism is a Science by Deng Xiaoping

12. Regarding the Construction of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics by Xi Jinping

Minor addendum, historically arguments for socialism, at least from the Marxist viewpoint, have avoided the moral argument in favor of the scientific argument. The moral argument can be framed as perspective, the scientific argument cannot, and is much more solid. That doesn’t mean socialism isn’t morally correct, it is, it’s just also scientifically indisputably correct.

Feminism as a movement specifically sheds light on the systemic violence against women and gender-diverse individuals under patriarchy. That doesn’t mean men don’t also benefit, but it does shed light on the primary issue.

This is the same as saying the “All Lives Matter” crowd were correct in fighting Black Lives Matter. Women are more oppressed than men, even if everyone is oppressed by the patriarchy.

In my experience, rationality plays very little in deciding between socialism and capitalism, no matter how fairly the facts are presented. Ultimately, people license themselves to follow narratives their material conditions shape them to, those who believe capitalism is superior do so because they believe they benefit from it. I recommend reasing Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.”

I disagree with the notion that these are “losing causes.”

1. Socialism is necessary. Not only is the largest economy in the world by PPP a socialist country, and is using it to dramatic effect, capitalism and by extension imperialism are dying systems that have no future. Despite governing more of the world, capitalism is in decay, and is thus the “losing side.”

2. Veganism is ethically correct. Not only is animal liberation a valuable pursuit, but it has far lower of an environmental impact. It isn’t a “side,” it’s the correct conclusion.

3. FOSS isn’t losing, it doesn’t need mass adoption because it doesn’t need profit. FOSS is growing though.

4. Anti-car urbanism is improving, socialist countries like the PRC are building huge amounts of effective urban transit. Between the car centric society of today and the urbanist future we desire, there is a transitional period marked by electrification and building up urban transit.

5. Lemmy/fediverse is healthy and stable, and already does what it needs to: provide an alternative for those who want one.

At the end of the day, framing movements as “winning” or “losing” purely on adoption rates is an error. What is important is trajectory and the material basis for transitioning from the present state of things to the next, ie how do the problems of today make the solutions of tomorrow physically compelled? For socialism, it is the decay of capitalism due to its inevitable contradictions, as well as capitalism’s centralization making public ownership and planning in a post-capitalist society remarkably effective. How does that apply to others?

I’d say no, not really. It would suck.

Yep, for us it only worked precisely due to a ton of branching choices changing who we are and how we lived our lives prior to meeting.

Great! For us, so many things had to go right and wrong for us to meet each other at the right place, right time, and right frame of mind. Honestly any slight change could have led us to never meeting or never liking each other.