Lead Lemmy Developer, Dessalines, denying the Tiananmen Square Massacre and praising the Uyghur Genocide
https://sh.itjust.works/post/8419342
Dessalines AKA “parentis_shotgun” on Reddit, is the main Lemmy dev, also the admin of lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml.
Their post and discussions on Reddit (archive as the original post must have been removed):
Please join the discussions for Lemmy.ml tankie censorship problem:
https://lemmy.world/post/16211417
And the discussions for finding/creating alternative communities on other instances:
https://lemmy.world/post/16235541
What is a tankie?
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical.
You could write textbooks about bad Chinese policies - foreign and domestic.
But a country on it’s fifteenth five year plan is most definitely socialist. And if any nation can qualify as “good”, the miracle of Chinese central planning would seem to qualify.
That’s why leftists are prone to like it. That, and the derth of foreign military conflicts. At least from the perspective of an American, the Chinese government is practically saint-like, simply because it isn’t trying to regime change every country it doesn’t like.
Pre-Iraq, I think you could make a much stronger “China bad” argument. But the bar is so much lower now.
The economy of China is not characterized by the common/social ownership of the means of production, which means it is not socialist. No amount of five-year plans can change that.
China does spark international conflicts and does bully its neighbors, but it is true that the country doesn’t cosplay world police and doesn’t participate much in military operations outside the country, which is a big plus.
As per the bar, it shouldn’t fall lower just because some country got even more evil. We can compare the evils, but the evil will be there.
With all that said, I do not say “China bad”. But claiming “China good” would also not be correct.
I don’t think people are saying that the PRC is economically Socialist, just that it has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat of some sort and appears to be more keen on keeping its bourgeoisie in check.
Coupled with their intent to challenge Western Imperialism (Lenin’s definition), I believe this explains critical support among Marxists for the PRC, despite the many flaws.
Kinda like supporting Biden over Trump, not like supporting Bernie over Trump. You work with what’s actually there, even if it isn’t what you wished, and hope things change for the better.
That makes sense.
30% of their industry is SOEs. They have a 90% home ownership rate and one of the most generous pension systems left standing - affording Chinese workers the opportunity to retire inside their 50s. The local property laws force foreign companies to share equity with regional firms, keeping both profits and IP domestic.
And while the high point of the old-school Commune System is long passed, the household responsibility system still guarantees public ownership of arable land. If you work the land, you own the fruit of your labor. That’s textbook Communism.
It goes beyond the negative. They’ve been a positive force for international relations, helping to buffer North and South Korea to prevent a new war, exporting $100B/year in agriculture products to curb global hunger, and pioneering industrial scale solar, wind, and nuclear technologies to mitigate climate change.
As a global diplomat, they’ve got cache that the Western states have squandered, making them a popular back channel in Middle Eastern politics.
And to quote Dr. Lubinda Haabazoka, Director at the University of Zambia’s Graduate School of Business
I would say that alone illustrates why Chinese foreign policy deserves praise.
Textbook communism is an economy that is 100% worker-owned, with everyone’s needs directly met without the intervention of money. The rest is not that, by literal definition. Let’s not play into the hands of people who want to call that communism and ultra-left to exploit in their own needs.
China does have some strong policies, but it doesn’t make it communist by any definition. Also, high home ownership rate is mostly a cultural phenomenon, with housing still seen as “best investment” despite the fact there are entire ghost towns full of houses that never ever filled.
I’m well aware that US pressures China militarily, and that China has a much more peaceful approach. However, Chinese ships regularly bully other countries in the South China Sea against international maritime laws.
The infrastructure China builds is not just a gift - but an investment on which China expects a return. I’m not convinced China is actively pursuing debt trap diplomacy, but it certainly uses economic power to pressure other countries into various concessions.
Utopian Communism is a stateless, moniless society that was hypothized by 19th century European theorists as a possible result of generations of revolutionary struggle.
But if you sit down and read the textbook, you’ll discover even the most idealistic thinkers don’t hold that it would happen overnight. Marx, himself, asserts a number of transitional states - industrial capitalism being one of them - necessary to reach surplus volumes capable of sustaining a post-money society.
The policies are the direct result of experimental application of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist socio-economic theory. They are explicitly and deliberately Communist, in the same way that American socio-economic policy is Capitalist.
The end goal of Chinese state policy is to advance to a state of publicly controlled superabundance. This is markedly different from the American policies intended to fashion fully privatized ownership of an artificially scare pool of goods and services.
A return in the form of improved economic and political relations. It is for the same reason you would bring a gift to a birthday party.
You’re right on classics - but off topic.
I’m saying that China does not economically classify as a communist state, neither did even USSR, because it just wasn’t feasible at the moment.
I’m combating the change of meaning where communism as officially proclaimed ideology is conflated with communism as an actual economic system. As a result of this, people start thinking that communism is when a state controls some sides of economy and gets involved in social programs, which is not a definition of communism, it’s a capitalist state with social elements.
A state can even apply some of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principles, but it is economically capitalist as long as means of production are controlled by private entities looking for profit. This is not an argument about what China should or shouldn’t do - this is an argument that China is not economically communist or even socialist, like it or not. Neither was USSR during the so-called New Economic Policy.
A return in form of cash or lease.
They do. Because they’re pursuing communist economic policies.
Sure. If I’m Elon Musk and saying “By the way, I am actually a socialist. Just not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive” then that’s horseshit nonsense.
However, if I’m Luo Wen, the current director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, focused on breaking up monopolies and limiting the capacity of private business to consolidate control in a given industry, I’m both ideologically and actually committed to communist economic principles.
The Chinese state leadership gave up on trying to be direct owner-operators of capital during the Deng Era. However, it still strictly enforces a prohibition on foreign control of domestic capital as a legacy of its anti-colonial mission. The means of production remain property of the Chinese proletariat.
Define “communist economic policies”.
If you’re Luo Wen, you’re in favor of state regulations of the capitalist market; you are not pursuing communist policies.
It’s not enough to maintain domestic control of the capital - this is a feature of any protectionist regime, even a fascist one. You should also make sure this capital is entirely democratically controlled and owned by the workers - which is not what happens in China. The capital of Chinese businesses is not the “property of workers”.
Strict prohibitions on foreign controlling interest in real estate, capital, and intellectual property, for starters.
State regulation for the purpose of limiting foreign ownership, foreign manipulation of domestic markets, and foreign monopoly of natural resources. This leads to:
All of these rules are intended to protect domestic markets and maintain local control of business capital.
It is the property of the Chinese People, as opposed to a cartel of foreign landlords. The surplus produced by Chinese business returns to the Chinese economy in the form of improvements to the socio-economic landscape. Chinese consumers enjoy an abundance of at-cost / below-cost social services, because they are not exposed to the rent-seeking behaviors of the predatory capitalist class. And Chinese business executives suffer the kind of regulatory surveillance and oversight that is largely neglected in Western democracies.
This guarantees that workers enjoy the surplus value of their labor. And that is the end goal of a Communist economy.
This has not been my experience speaking to leftists at all.