The discrepancy between the stance of Marxists and yourself is in your analysis of “Capitalism” as the private sector and “Socialism” as the public sector. This form of compartmentalization does indeed imply that everything is a balance, but that isn’t the analysis of Marxists. When I describe public ownership above as the principle aspect of the PRC’s economy, I mean that the large firms and key industries are firmly and overwhelmingly in the public sector. The reason this is relevant is because this means the public has dominion over the entire economy, not private Capital. It isn’t a blend of Socialism and Capitalism, or a halfway point, it’s a Socialist economy.

When you outline your ideal society, having antitrust laws, strong regulations, etc, you leave out analysis of political power. Which class has control of the state? Which class controls media, and the large firms and key industries? Without such analysis, these antitrust laws and corporate lobbying laws will only be passed in a manner that serves Private Capital, including the public sector.

So, circling back around, there isn’t an in-between of Capitalism or Socialism/Communism. A country is either on the Capitalist road, or the Socialist road, ie it is either under the dominion of private Capital, or public ownership. The ratio of socialization of the economy will vary depending on economic development, but the direction it is moving and the power dynamics of the classes within society are relatively binary.

That’s why I say you haven’t actually engaged with Communists and their ideas, legitimately, and likely would agree with us.

If you could elaborate on what you designate as “flawed,” that would be more useful. However, all systems, inevitably, run into struggles, both internal and external. Evaluating how these struggles are solved in different ecomomic systems is more important than the idealistic and fruitless quest for a “pure” and “sinless” system; no such system exists and to pursue it is to pursue unicorns and fairies.

As for China specifically, as you brought it up, what do you mean by “changing historic events to push an alternative truth?” What exactly is the PRC guilty of obscuring or changing? If I were to venture a guess, you may be referring to discrepancies between Western reporting and reports within China, but without specifics all I can say is that it is indeed true that those discrepancies exist, but that doesn’t mean Western accounts are correct and Chinese are not.

I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of Socialism as it exists in the real world, or Capitalism as it exists in the real world. Further, I think the idea that Communists don’t focus on the politics beneath, alongside facts, statistics, and causality to be extremely far outside the norm. If anything, ask any Communist for a source, and they likely keep a laundry list of books and links for you to check out, a flood of information. That has been more true in my experience, and is part of what led me to Communism.

Wedding prep

Just want that cat lover back

I think you’re quite dramatically misinterpreting what the solutions put forward by Communists are, or at least Marxists. Marxists are not believers that there is some perfect form of society we can implement today that will also be perfect 100 years from now. Rather, the Marxist assertion is that different forms are best suited in different conditions and different levels of development.

China is a good example. The PRC is headed by a Communist party over a Socialist economy, one that has public ownership as the principle aspect, but nonetheless heavily relies on markets. This is because the CPC believes this to be the best form of society right now, and that as markets coalesce into fewer firms, they can be more efficiently publicly owned and planned. The long term belief is that eventually abolishing the value form will be possible and necessary, but we aren’t there yet.

I think that because you haven’t engaged with what Communists are actually trying to do, you’ve ended up inventing a strawman to argue against, even though you’d likely agree with us. Marxism is a scientific approach to economic development. There isn’t an “in-between” of Communism vs Capitalism, because we are either taking control over Capital, or it has control over us.

As always, incredible job and fantastic research, comrade. That was a fascinating read (and sickening, too).

I have seen no evidence of that.

I didn’t say all, I listed a couple sources I know are. You didn’t make any point.

Linking a bunch of Wikipedia pages isn’t really a point, especially with propaganda outlets like HRW and Amnesty International featured prominently as sources. A country being Socialist doesn’t mean it’s a perfect wonderland, just that public ownership is the principle aspect of its economy.

By and large, though, these countries do much better than Capitalist peer countries, with higher life expectancies, literacy rates, lower poverty rates, and more. Further, they are usually the targets of large sanctions and embargoes, and subject to constant western propagandizing and myth making.

If you have a specific thing you’re curious about, we can go in depth and try to separate fact from fiction, or contextualize them. If not, and you’re just going to call countries “ass” because they protect their economies from US financial Capital, then there’s not much to discuss.

And I’d be down to live in China for a few years, or Vietnam, for sure. Wouldn’t want to move away from my family for the long run though.

Yep, it’s a notoriously bad book.

It isn’t a heritage foundation outlet, the creator of the Political Compass based the ideas of “libertatian-authoritarian” and “left-right” on how the Heritage Foundation sees those aspects.

I hate Trump, and I hate genocide. That’s why I voted for a party that had neither.

“Free speech” is neither good nor bad. Rather, it doesn’t exist. Speech, ie what is discussed in the court of public opinion, is dominated by whatever mechanisms and institutions that have power. In countries like the US, this means large megacorps and billionaires can flood the information space with articles flattering their positions. Companies like google can censor importabt but inconvenient information from searches, and more.

Speech is controlled by whichever class has control, be it bourgeois or proletarian, or even aristocrat.

If we are to be 100% objective, the Chinese Revolution also saved millions. Life expectancy doubled, and hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. We also know that the Black Book of Communism has long been debunked, it included made up numbers, Nazis killed during World War II as victims of Communism, and non-births as deaths.

Gotcha, so you’re denying the evidence, in favor of protecting a genocidal party of Imperialists from the criticism of the public they are supposed to earn the votes from.

For clarity, are you denying the collusion with clear evidence, or are you making the point that the collusion doesn’t matter?

You could read the article and see how the DNC colluded against Bernie, as well as the mass media machine working against him and for Clinton.

The US isn’t a democracy.