Eh, there’s a notional aspiration to socialism at least, which is more than can be said about the US sphere of countries.
In practice though? Yeah, China is hyper-captialist, without much of the social security present in wealthier countries.
Why Leftist get a hard-on for the former USSR, Russia and China, or frankly any country, is beyond me.
There are positive and negative outcomes in line or against socialist ideals everywhere (I think people are too black and white about China in both directions personally)
I just do not understand simping for any country, just because they are “socialist”.
That notional aspiration to socialism is basically the ideological smokescreen. It was much more effective in the Cold War era, but it condenses down to: “Suffer through our version of (state) capitalism and exploitative labour for our capital accumulation” - be it by state institutions or even state-sponsored billionaires - “and at the end of it, we promise, there will be communism.”
But that “communism” then tends to be like nuclear fusion - always 20 years away.
There is always someone willing to twist the rules and game the system to get more money and power than everyone else. The 1% have always existed and so have the worker class. It will always shake out to that.
IMO this is why it takes an additional axis to define a government, not just left/right but also free/authoritarian. You can find examples of all combinations. Left wing and repressive? Cuba. Left leaning and free? Sweden. Right wing and repressive? Russia, Saudi Arabia, whatever. Right leaning and free (mostly)? USA.
Obviously, there’s a gradient within these axes, but it’s strange to see people cheering on a country that matches their preferred left or right wing ideology if they’re super repressive.
I think Saudi Arabia is the perfect example of why even that model isn’t even enough. I mean sure they are a monarchy and quite self-focused but not really in a nationalistic way. To be fair I don’t know much about their domestic politics. To put them into the same corner as Russia, eh dunno.
Authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily require nationalism or vice versa, though they’re often linked, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The USA is pretty flag waving, nationalist brained but individual freedom exists. Versus a country like Saudi as you mention is not particularly nationalist, but repression is widespread.
They are quite different than Russia, but looking only at individual freedom, the two are similar in that freedom of speech is not respected and leaders are not fairly elected.
I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.
In what universe is Saudi Arabia more free than Cuba?
I think some aspects of freedom are to some extent objectively observable, eg, is freedom of speech or religion observed? These can exist independently of US alignment - there are many countries in the global south that can qualify as free or partially free.
Even the axis spectrum is unproductive, ideologies and frameworks cannot be distilled into single data points on a map, no matter how many axes you add.
The axis spectrum has proven to be very efficient imo. A lot of the politics we talk about are mainly composed of social and economic elements which the axis spectrum portrays well.
These views aren’t complicated though, or aren’t as complicated as you think. Most of our political opinions can be boiled down to any of the 4 quadrants of the axis.
Can you name any view that doesn’t fit into this axis?
Many. Which is more “authoritarian” and which is more “libertarian,” a fully publicly owned and democratically controlled economy, or a highly decentralized market economy with a nightwatchman state?
Eh, there’s a notional aspiration to socialism at least, which is more than can be said about the US sphere of countries.
In practice though? Yeah, China is hyper-captialist, without much of the social security present in wealthier countries.
Why Leftist get a hard-on for the former USSR, Russia and China, or frankly any country, is beyond me.
There are positive and negative outcomes in line or against socialist ideals everywhere (I think people are too black and white about China in both directions personally)
I just do not understand simping for any country, just because they are “socialist”.
That notional aspiration to socialism is basically the ideological smokescreen. It was much more effective in the Cold War era, but it condenses down to: “Suffer through our version of (state) capitalism and exploitative labour for our capital accumulation” - be it by state institutions or even state-sponsored billionaires - “and at the end of it, we promise, there will be communism.”
But that “communism” then tends to be like nuclear fusion - always 20 years away.
My money is on fusion before proper socialism.
There is always someone willing to twist the rules and game the system to get more money and power than everyone else. The 1% have always existed and so have the worker class. It will always shake out to that.
IMO this is why it takes an additional axis to define a government, not just left/right but also free/authoritarian. You can find examples of all combinations. Left wing and repressive? Cuba. Left leaning and free? Sweden. Right wing and repressive? Russia, Saudi Arabia, whatever. Right leaning and free (mostly)? USA.
Obviously, there’s a gradient within these axes, but it’s strange to see people cheering on a country that matches their preferred left or right wing ideology if they’re super repressive.
I think Saudi Arabia is the perfect example of why even that model isn’t even enough. I mean sure they are a monarchy and quite self-focused but not really in a nationalistic way. To be fair I don’t know much about their domestic politics. To put them into the same corner as Russia, eh dunno.
Authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily require nationalism or vice versa, though they’re often linked, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The USA is pretty flag waving, nationalist brained but individual freedom exists. Versus a country like Saudi as you mention is not particularly nationalist, but repression is widespread.
They are quite different than Russia, but looking only at individual freedom, the two are similar in that freedom of speech is not respected and leaders are not fairly elected.
I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.
In what universe is Saudi Arabia more free than Cuba?
I think some aspects of freedom are to some extent objectively observable, eg, is freedom of speech or religion observed? These can exist independently of US alignment - there are many countries in the global south that can qualify as free or partially free.
This is why we need to reeducate people and stop using the traditional left-right spectrum and start using the axis spectrum
Even the axis spectrum is unproductive, ideologies and frameworks cannot be distilled into single data points on a map, no matter how many axes you add.
The axis spectrum has proven to be very efficient imo. A lot of the politics we talk about are mainly composed of social and economic elements which the axis spectrum portrays well.
You cannot distill complicated views into linear axes, though.
These views aren’t complicated though, or aren’t as complicated as you think. Most of our political opinions can be boiled down to any of the 4 quadrants of the axis.
Can you name any view that doesn’t fit into this axis?
Many. Which is more “authoritarian” and which is more “libertarian,” a fully publicly owned and democratically controlled economy, or a highly decentralized market economy with a nightwatchman state?