Sorry I didn’t know which other community to post this on😅. So let me take example of my country, Well so what most people don’t know, is that India is a socialist democracy by the constitution, and I must admit before I start that yes, there’s plenty of problems with this country, but I was surprised by how deep socialist roots go in this country, so I thought a few of India’s policies would make an excellent case study.
Firstly, a subtle one, existence of MRP, maximum retail price, on everything you buy. Packet of lays, coke, medicine, everything has an MRP, over which you cannot sell the product for. Enforcement had been weak historically, but even then you would only see people selling above MRP in amusement parks or movie theatres, for everyday shopping, you are almost always likely to pay the MRP price. I was surprised to know that such law doesn’t exist in the west, though feel free to correct me.
Second, India’s medicine patent laws. India has strict ‘non evergreening’ laws, which means a patent of a medicine cannot be extended unless you made the medicine better. Also government can give orders to bypass medicine patents if deemed necessary.
Third the farming in India. A nice rabbithole to dig in, but I am picking one example, Amul, the most popular brand of milk in India, is less like a company and more like a co-operative society, where they co-operate with regional dairy farms. Most of the money made by selling the milk actually goes back to the farmers.
Plenty of examples, but just these few I could think of. Infact MRP does not even exist in China, so in that policy, India is literally more left than China.
Yeah again, Indian laws in practice are riddled with corruption, but I think the template they work in are interesting, and I think west would tackle those problems a lot better.
Any more examples of socialist democracies?
I don’t think the PRC falls into the bracket of socialist countries. If you apply for jobs, nine out of ten times you will end up working for a compamy owned by one boss or a board, and that makes the principal aspect of economy owned privately. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
That’s not what I mean by “principal.” The principal aspect of something is that which is rising, dominant, and determines the character of a system. In China, the commanding heights of industry are overwhelmingly publicly owned. Private ownership is largely of the petty type, or in secondary/high competition categories, with more state oversight the larger and more important the industry is.
As these firms grow, they are gradually folded into the public sector. Capital exists in a birdcage that the CPC can gradually tighten as they please, thanks to the political power they have, and they allow capital to serve the purpose of building up the productive forces to service the future economy that is more publicly planned.
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996 is illegal and largely found in big tech companies in Beijing and Shanghai. The average work week in China is 46 hours. You are confusing taxation for socialism. When I say public ownership is principal, I am very much speaking of the fact that the backbone of China’s economy is the public sector of the economy. The largest entities are nearly all State Owned Enterprises, and critical industries are also overwhelmingly state owned.
Secondly, wages are getting higher and higher. Purchasing power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978, and this growth is steady.
Thirdly, the social product of society is not directed towards private profits, but for the needs of society and future growth. China has more high speed rail than anyone on the planet, is combatting desertification, electrifying faster than anyone, eradicated extreme poverty faster than anyone, has practically no homeless people, plans cities ahead of using them so that they have smart civil planning, and more. China invests in the future, because it isn’t dominated by the profit motive.
I implore you to actually look at China’s real existence today, compared with 10 years ago, 20, 50, and 100. No other country has managed to come so far in such a short time, and it’s thanks precisely to socialism.
that fact that china is unable to stamp out this cultural phenomenon of overworking yourself for some theoretical benefit makes me wonder if it’ll ever go away.
What makes you say unable to? The CPC, as impressive as what they’ve accomplished is, are not gods. They are actively cracking down on and reducing it. It isn’t a cultural phenomenon, but a material one caused by the ongoing contradiction between capital and the socialist system, one which is being steered by the CPC along the socialist road.
i know that no one can directly change how people think when it comes to trying to impress the boss. but i figured that if anyone could change that mindset, it would be the chinese.
that said, i had never thought of this as a material phenomenon before, and now that explanation makes sense to me. after all, the whole logic behind this kind of self-exploiting peer pressure clearly benefits only the bosses.
Yep, it’s something that shifts gradually with the mode of production.
Oh my God go back to reddit you insufferable dork