Progress doesn’t mean the destruction of the environment. You cannot stop the clock. Progress is necessary to stop the destruction, and to take a more harmonious approach. See how China is combatting desertification, and is rapidly electrifying and adopting solar as the biggest new energy source. This is progress.

As for the state protecting the people, this is progressive. Nay, revolutionary. The people take political power in their own hands, and can radically transform the world and better meet their place in it. The wheel of history is pressed forward.

I fear you’re on a pipeline towards eco-fascism. Not saying you’re an eco-fascist, to be clear, but the combination of trying to stop progress while also adopting prop environmental policies can definitely lead people down that road. It’s not a nice road.

It’s hard to call China communist any more. They’ve embraced the strengths of communism and capitalism, even maybe socialism. Using aspects of each where they’re most effective.

I think you’re misunderstanding capitalism, socialism, and communism. China is and has been under communist leadership since 1949, yet not once has their mode of production been “communist.” Communism is the goal of communist parties, itself a future, global economy where all production and distribution has finally been collectivized, and is run along a common plan to fulfill everyone’s needs. Between capitalism and this future state of being is socialism.

Rewinding backwards, capitalism emerged out of feudalism, and is a mode of production and distribution where private ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and capitalists own the state. It is not an aspect of a system, but a system itself. Capitalism is really good at socializing production, bringing everyone together into one unified system, but as this goes on the contradiction between socialized production and privatized profits grows greater and greater. This results in revolutionary pressure.

Socialism, then, is a mode of production and distribution where public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. China has been socialist since 1949. China did not abandon socialism with the adoption of Reform and Opening Up under Deng Xiaoping, it opened up secondary and underdeveloped industry to foreign investment, while retaining public ownership of the large firms and key industries and working class control of the state. It borrowed the ability of markets to accelerate socialization for the least socialized aspects of the economy, while socializing the social surplus, rather than privatizing it.

This is all in the service of building communism, which has been laid out in a simple diagram by Cheng Enfu:

I hope that highly oversimplified synopsis can help explain how this is entirely within communist theory.

But that long term vision causes them to overlook and dismiss real short term pain and problems. Refusing to publicly acknowledge and correct their mistakes, will eventually be the weakness that brings them down in 50-150 years.

I don’t believe this is accurate. China is a developing country, in developing rapidly there definitely arose new contradictions. There’s now a larger capitalist class, a steeper urban/rural divide, and other problems. However, the CPC is not blind to them. State control over capital is increased as industries develop, the “birdcage” is tightened and capital’s freedom to move is strictly controlled and ever-shrinking. Rural development has been a major focus, to bring the living standards in rural areas closer to that of urban living. This is all being done intelligently, in planned fashion.

There is no such thing as a society devoid of problems. What makes China (and socialist countries in general) special is the ability for humanity to take an active role in shaping the future, scientifically, without capital dominating us.

I understand, but at least if we are to consider the march towards communism as the continued development of humanity onto a qualitatively new level, this is a progression. We can be conservationists with respect to the environment, but certainly not conservative. To try to hold back the wheel of history is to be reactionary, not progressive.

The state is not opposed to the market, which is why I brought up the Nordic countries and China. In capitalism, the state serves capitalists. In socialism, the state serves the working classes. A socialist state is necessary for supremacy over capital, which is why revolution is necessary.

This is, again, not true. You have a caricature of China in your head, not an accurate picture of China. People don’t live in fear, data is reliable. China has some of the best perceptions surrounding their country’s democracy in the world:

From NIRA data.

They build whole cities for millions of people that are functional ghost towns.

This is the western cope for what is in practice intelligent economic planning. These “ghost towns” are regularly populated later, it’s anticipated and planned growth.

They build incredible bridges in record time, while nearly 20% are closed or collapsed within 10 years

Not really true. China’s infrastructure is good, the problem is the urban/rural gap due to how rapidly China is advancing.

They’re nearly as nationalist and xenophobic as most of the worst regimes in history.

Absurdly false. China is a strong internationalist country, and in government ethnic minorities are statistically better represented than Han Chinese, with strong minority protections. China raises multilateral development and cooperative agreements.

But it’s also true they’ve been killing it economically. And performed what was thought impossible over the last 40 years.

This part is definitely true, and as time goes on the cope arguments will also break down. The people who knew this was possible were the communists, both inside and outside of China. Communists are going to be the ones in power this century, and beyond.

I don’t really think “conservative” is a helpful angle due to the connotations. I think “pragmatic, and planned” are good descriptors. The advancement of green energy, the radical restructuring of society, all of this is definitely not seen as “conservative.” Further, I’m confused if you mean social democracy, or socialism proper (ie, Nordic capitalism vs. China’s socialist market economy).

China has prisons, what’s your point? They don’t have slave labor nor prison labor. The overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens support their socialist system thanks to the pro-social policies implemented and the real, material gains. Hitler was not economically efficient, he helped Nazi Germany colonize the surrounding regions, and committed the genocide of 10s of millions of people. The People’s Republic of China has had steady, incredibly rapid growth consistently since it was founded in 1949. Socialism is good because it works, and works for the working classes. Nazism only benefited the ruling capitalists at the expense of mass repressions. What on Earth is this comparison?

Why do you like the nationalists that invaded Taiwan, slaughtering local resistance, and installed a military dictatorship after losing a civil war to the popularly supported communist party?

China has never had gulags, the GULAG administration was a part of the early-mid Soviet penal system. Further, India is absolutely not combatting poverty nearly as effectively, purchasing power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978 in China. Do you know what the poverty alleviation campaign looked like in practice? The building of mass infrastructure, job creation, and directly building up rural economy.

It is true though, China has lifted 800 million out of poverty.

That’s understandable! I think we all get that way from time to time. Revolutionary optimism is an important principle to adhere to, and it’s always a good idea to get organized.

Imperialism: The practice of states to expand their influence beyond their sovereign borders.

Burkina Faso is imperialist for kicking France out of the surrounding region, excellent definition.

State-Capitalism: The mode of production where the means of production are owned by the institutions of the state.

Referring to publicly owned, planned economies as “state capitalism” is monstrously misleading. Capitalism is a system of private ownership, marketized distribution, with capital accumulation as the primary goal of capitalists. Using “capitalism” to refer to an administered, planned economy is just a subjectivist argument. State capitalism is a better descriptor for the Republic of Korea and Singapore, capitalist economies with heavy bourgeois state control.

So, now you want a moralist argument? O.o

This isn’t a moralist argument, the argument is to get you to actually explain with concrete examples how China is imperialist. Given that you provided a definition of imperialism that makes Cuba imperialist for exporting doctors and aid missions in order to gain favor with surrounding countries, I don’t think it’s necessary to provide any examples of “Chinese imperialism.”

Are you referring to Kiev shelling civilians in the Donbass region for 8 years, prompting Russia’s entry into the war? Also, no clue why you’re calling me Mr. Gorsky, are you accusing me of being Russian just because I think the people in Donetsk and Luhansk are human?

Not necessarily! Here’s the final call to action from this incredible essay:

The good news is that we’re further along than we think in overturning this state of affairs. If we relinquish anarcho-liberal fantasies of utopias where we no longer work, if we instead accept that we are workers, if we are able to do so with pride, many realistic victories turn out to be very much within reach. Everywhere that workers already work hard, they simply need to socialize the fruits of their already-socialized labour. Admittedly, reorganizing production isn’t a trivial task. However, the point here is that our social mechanism already offers ample proof that our skills and abilities are in plentiful supply. We already accumulated Alexandrian libraries of scientific knowledge as well as entertainment, and the ability to produce infinitely more without any “help” from capitalists!

Capitalists don’t fear individual rebels. They shower us with such bohemian stories. They fear exactly the opposite: the proliferation of an authentic working-class consciousness that pointedly rejects their “idle rich” lifestyle as everyone’s ultimate ideal. The hatred of “herd mentality” ultimately derives from the aristocratic hatred of the collective wisdom of the underclasses, of their choosing to work together in order to defend themselves from predators that would otherwise pick them off one by one. The project of repurposing this elitist attitude towards utopian goals is a dead end.

If you want to be radical, then, begin by radically rejecting the oldest and most vicious and most widespread bit of ruling class ideology: the idea that there is no wisdom whatsoever to be found in the behaviour of the masses. Reject the idea of “brainwashing,” and insist on seeking the kernel of intelligence and truth and wisdom in everyone’s current actions, even when they seem repulsive or hopelessly short-sighted. Identify where exactly you can intervene, and with whom, in such a way that it dovetails with existing tendencies, but always with an eye to revolution and the prize of a better future. Address yourself to reality in just this way, and you might just begin to change it.

In other words, maintaining revolutionary optimism and treating people not as though we are some intelligent superiors, but instead fellow workers with aligned interests, we can genuinely enact change through organizing.

Yep, that helps too

The party is not the de jure nor de facto owner of the means of production, the entire working class is. This is why production in socialist economies is not run for the accumulation of capital in the hands of party members, such would make accusations of “state capitalism” hold water. Production is socialized, and the social surplus is also socialized.

Do you think in war you only attack what you directly plan on taking?

They didn’t seriously try to take the capital, and even if by miracle they did, the purpose is to end the war then and there. Right now they are focusing on attrition, wearing Ukraine down slowly.

Depends on how you sort, locally or by all, new comments or active.

Lemmy.ml isn’t really defederated. Individual users may block it, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing their viewpoints, it just stops them from seeing mine. You could make a Lemmy.zip account, and just subscribe to the communities across instances you want to see, then scroll by “subscribed,” making your own local feed.

I don’t know what you mean by “moderately conservative communists,” communists are definitionally radicals.