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 should know /politics and /news ban anyone critical of israel and Lemmy.world is ran by Zionists.
Lemmy.world is ran by Zionists.
Do you mean people in favor of the existence of a state of Israel (original meaning) which is most of the Western world, so unsurprising, or in favor of the colonization after the 1993 “two states solution” agreement?
If it’s the later, do you have proof?I’m from Israel, and no one is using “Zionism” in the second meaning.
Zionism is, by definition, support for Israel as a Jewish state.
There are those who say “real Zionism” is supporting settlements in Gaza and the west bank, but there are also those who say “real Zionism” is an Israeli state existing alongside a Palestinian state. That’s like a US democrat saying a “true patriot” would support supplying a social safety net for the well-being of all citizens, while a US republican would say a “true patriot” would support a small government that doesn’t restrict the will of all citizens.
Personally, I feel that referring to Zionism in general as support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza started as a (partially successful) tactic to de-legitimize the existence of Israel. Not saying everyone who uses the term incorrectly is an antisemitic or whatever, but that’s basically where it came from.
while a US republican would say a “true patriot” would support a small government that doesn’t restrict the will of all citizens.
I don’t think they say this much anymore since all Republican policies are explicitly about restricting the will of their fellow citizens.
Personally, I feel that referring to Zionism in general as support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza
I never used it this way or considered it this way until the past few months. 🤔 Now you’d have a hard time convincing me that it’s not what it means.
I don’t think they say this much anymore since all Republican policies are explicitly about restricting the will of their fellow citizens.
Thant’s not really the point, though it does kinda feed into a general issue with the way both out countries (assuming you’re from the US) are divided - When was the last time you had an actual talk with a republican in order to understand what he/she thinks?
I never used it this way or considered it this way until the past few months. 🤔 Now you’d have a hard time convincing me that it’s not what it means.
Err… that’s just the definition of the word? You can look it up on any dictionary.
We could talk about the current government, it’s policy or the opinion of Israelis but saying the entire concept of Zionism equals support for Israeli control over the west bank and Gaza is not only factually wrong, it collapses the Israel-Palestine issue into a winner-take-all situation, where both sides are encouraged to beat each other in the hopes one of them will give up before both are dead.
When was the last time you had an actual talk with a republican in order to understand what he/she thinks?
Every day until the Pandemic. My republican friends now work in a different office than I do. It’s not hard to see the policies and politicians they vote for though, and I can read the handwritten signs in their yards explicitly calling me an idiot, moron, or traitor for having different views than they do. (I see those every day BTW.)
it collapses the Israel-Palestine issue into a winner-take-all situation
I’m just looking at what I’ve spent the past several months witnessing via news reporting and video clips. I’m not debating what the dictionary says about it. (And in any case, dictionaries reflect usage not prescribe it.)
Every day until the Pandemic.
Cool, good for you (seriously). Do you honestly think they’ll say they’re against the freedom of the individual, or is it that you think they’re against it? Not saying you’re right or wrong, just asking if you’re describing what you think they’ll say, their own beliefs or the beliefs/consequences of their party. It’s an important distinction, especially when trying to engage in dialogue with them.
I’m just looking at what I’ve spent the past several months witnessing via news reporting and video clips.
Maybe I don’t follow enough news outside of Israel, but I do read quite a bit and there wasn’t anything about Zionism. Could you maybe link to one or two sources?
I’m not debating what the dictionary says about it.
I’m actually not debating at all, right now I’m trying to understand you, and I’m having some difficulties. My best guess is, you seem to have issues against the Israeli army and government (me too, btw), and somehow decided that’s Zionism. Zionism is more than a century old, and there are plenty of people who call themselves Zionists, yet don’t support all the IDF and the Israeli government did during the past few months (you’re talking to one right now, and Biden is another example). Do you think these people are wrong in what their opinions are? That they’re lying? That they’re not using the correct word, even though that’s the same usage as in the dictionary?
Mods are tankies? Waow
Worse. Devs are tankies :D
Lemmy was built by those tankies you disagree with. Numerous accounts have discredited the official US bullshit about Tiananmen Square and the fake Uyghur Genocide.
Lol loser
Damn son, you sure showed him! With a one-two punch of clever wording and masterful insight, you showed us all the level of wit and intellect anyone will have to deal with if they dare to… pull the ripcord@lemmy.world.
Yes
Really loving the “What does it matter if they support genocide???” commenters in here. Really showing where their priorities are.
Who gives a fuck
And a good thing it is, too - if you liberals were managing it lemmy would have been sold off to Meta or Google a long time ago.
Liberty means freedom, not only from government,s,but from authority in general. Corporations, religious organizations, criminal organizations, political organizations and other people.
I may not agree with the devs political view, but I think their work developing lemmy is excellent and made me subscribe to monthly donation on opencollective. Lemmy is an open source project where the devs have absolutely no say over how the software being used, as evidenced by so many lemmy instances defederating from lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. Their political belief won’t affect other instance.
the devs have absolutely no say over how the software being used
It seems like they have some strong say when it comes to their own instance. According to some recent posts, ML admins (and maybe even mods?) have the ability to erase any record of mod actions, for example disappearing critique of the CCP’s brutal actions in Tiananmen Square that were posted on ML. That left no record in the public mod logs, and the users were never informed that their contributions had been (completely) deleted.
I’m only a 1yr Lemming myself, but I never saw such a critique aimed at any other instance, hence why I’m skeptical that the devs don’t have influence over how the software is used.
the devs have absolutely no say over how the software being used
According to some recent posts, ML admins (and maybe even mods?) have the ability to erase any record of mod actions, for example disappearing critique of the CCP’s brutal actions in Tiananmen Square that were posted on ML. That left no record in the public mod logs, and the users were never informed that their contributions had been (completely) deleted.
That isn’t an example of them having a say over how people use the software. That’s them using their own property as they wish.
It’s more than just that IMO. It’s breaking the stated aim of open federation by tampering with comments, posts and mod records, which in turn get propagated or de-propagated to connected instances, right?
Yes, you may say that ML is of course free to screw with their own instance, but 1) one instance (particular a significant one like ML) affects other instances, and 2) they’re breaking the spirit of their own software by shamelessly abusing admin powers, in turn helping to normalize that behavior to the Lemmy side of the FV.
What’s the point of leaving oppressive, commercial social media only to run in to the same kinds of abuse of power on a supposedly transparent, user-run, P2P social network?
all instance admins have the ability to do this on their own instance, the functionality was added to deal with doxx info being posted so it wouldnt be visible even in the modlog, and it was used a lot to deal with the CSAM spam attack too - basically whenever this happens the relevant message will still be in the modlog but it will be changed to “Permanently Removed”. Currently there’s no evidence or even accusation that this functionality has been used for anything except the stated purposes though so i wouldnt worry too much.
That’s fine on ‘paper,’ but can you seriously not understand how it’s being shamelessly abused on the Tankie / ML front?
well i havent seen anyone even claiming its been used against them or pointing to their post being permanently removed from the modlogs unjustly, only people saying that maybe it could be used in this way, so no i dont think that the ML tankie front are using it that way. and since i know it has been used for its stated purpose to fully remove actual doxx information and child porn i dont see why it should be removed as a feature, at very least until there’s some evidence of it being used maliciously
Well then, good for you.
Meanwhile, there’s been a legion of solid users here pointing out across the FV that the ML has in fact been abusing its admin powers, or did you think that the whataboutism of CSA would somehow, magically erase that shizzle?
If so, then shame on you.
I didnt say that lemmy.ml mods havent been overbearing with their moderation i said “i havent seen anyone even claiming its been used against them or pointing to their post being permanently removed from the modlogs unjustly”.
if you want me to spell it out slowly i can:
- lemmy.ml mods have abused admin powers at some points
- it is possible that the lemmy.ml people could abuse this admin power
- as far as im aware there is no evidence that anyone has misused this specific admin power
- this specific admin power has been used to remove child porn and dox info
- since this admin power has been used for good reasons and hasnt been used for bad reasons it shouldnt be removed as an admin power
as far as im aware there is no evidence that anyone has misused this specific admin power
In that case, then congrats for living in your own little delirium, apart from the many, many reports people have made reporting those specific abuses.
Most instances are federated with Lemmy.ml, it’s Hexbear and Grad that .world and a few others have defederated from, among the major instances.
Regarding lemmy.ml: yes, you should avoid it. It does not make sense to create politically-neutral communities on a politically-oriented instance.
Regarding Dessalines: The great thing about Lemmy is that I don’t need to give a shit about the lead developer’s politics, because he’s not in control of how Lemmy is used, and if he ever tried some kind of heinous cross-instance power grab, it would get shut down before it got started.
Regarding the cognitive dissonance required to A) value decentralization of power, and also B) support the CCP: 🤦
Regarding the cognitive dissonance required to A) value decentralization of power, and also B) support the CCP: 🤦
One of the tenets of Marxism-Leninism is that a dictatorship is required to guide the proletariat to communist society (which would be completely stateless). So the dissonance is inherent in Leninist dogma 🤷
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This is used in contrast with Capitalist Liberal Democracy, which Marx called the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. It doesn’t refer to a literal Dictatorship as we commonly understand it, but instead to whichever class controls the state, Capitalists or Workers.
Lenin didn’t invent the concept of the DotP, that was Marx, and was his way of advocating for violent revolution, which in Engels words is “the most authoritarian action one could take” in his essay On Authourity.
As for Communism being Stateless, yes, technically, but as a long result of elimination of contradictions. Marx didn’t see the state as an “evil” so much as a tool that would eventually just be unnecessary, same as Money, not a temporary sacrifice for something eventually greater. This is outlined in Critique of the Gotha Programme.
All well and good, but the term dictatorship here still refers to a situation where the state apparatus has complete control over the means of production, in other words a total centralisation of power. Indeed in Marxism-Leninism the dictatorship takes the form of a vanguard party forming a single party state. Whichever way you look at it, practical power resides with a very small group of individuals.
The contrast with the eventual stateless communist society, in which power would be completely decentralised, is quite striking. It’s not quite clear to me how Marxist-Leninist theory envisioned the transition from one to the other, although it seems to me there was a general feeling that central economic planning and industrialization would fairly quickly lead to the end of scarcity altogether, which in hindsight seems… very optimistic.
If you ask me, the ideals of communism mostly died around the same time as Lenin. Pretty much all communist states that have existed (and currently exist) are mainly interested in maintaining their own power structures rather than actually working their way towards the idealised communist society. Which pretty much just makes them dictatorships in the classical sense.
Yes, Marx and later Lenin argued for complete centralization of power in the hands of the proletariat, and in Lenin’s case, an additional group of well-read proletarians dedicated to leading the revolution.
A common misconception is that a non-ML revolution wouldn’t have a vanguard, Lenin is literally just referring to whoever is the most advanced and leading the revolution. A vanguard may be a group of Anarchists trying to lead the revolution, even if they don’t use Democratic Centralism like Lenin did and advocates for in State and Revolution.
Marx also didn’t believe there would one day be a state and the next it would collapse, same with Lenin. They believed that over time the Material Conditions would lessen the need for a state until it “whithered away” over time. It wouldn’t be a relinquishing of power, but a shrinking.
Complete statelessness would have the same centralized power as Socialism, just without a state. This centralization becomes a decentralization, in that the Proletariat can democratically operate the Means of Production, which they cannot under Capitalism. If this sounds confusing, Marx makes this clear in Critique of the Gotha Programme. You refer to the state as an “other,” distinct from the workers, when it is an extension of them and made up of them in Socialism, according to Marx. There would still be a government, just no means by which one class oppresses another.
Marx was not an Anarchist, who instead believe in free association and networks of mutual aid.
I don’t believe Communism has died. It may seem that way if you see systems as static, and not as ever-changing and evolving along with humanity and technology.
What are you implying here? People don’t use Lemmy because of this guy’s politics? Do we know the politics of other developers?
Mods and admins have enormous power to shape what can be discussed using comment moderation tools, bans, and promoted content. At the very least you should be aware of what potential biases an admin has that may inform how they moderate.
Right, but Lemmy is open source. It can be forked.
Their political ideologies that are anti-capitalism are actually Lemmys greatest strength.
I don’t know that I’d agree that the political beliefs of the lemmy.ml admins are lemmys greatest strengths. Certainly federation amd open source contributions are core to lemmy but support of a specific nation’s policies and actions certainly is not.
We already have a capitalist, Lemmy. It’s called Reddit.
Lemmy exists explicitly because of anti-capitalist sentiment, not despite it. Remember that politics is two separate spectrums, possibly more. Economic theory and governmetal theory are completely different things. My point is that it is their economic communism that birthed lemmy, and thier governmental theory is really not releveant to the software in the same way.
What’s that got to do with censoring some discussions about some countries?
I literally just described the difference between their governmental philisophies and their economic ones.
Ok but they are administering and moderating their instance according to their political beliefs about a specific nation. They’re not defending China’s economic policies at Tiananmen Square or their notions on tariffs with Uyghurs. I don’t think you answered the question in the way you think you did.
Oh nice, thank you. I didn’t realize they were an admin and mod too. I thought just a developer.
Only of their own instance, they cant do this shit on other instances
Only of their own instance, they cant do this shit on other instance
They can when they bake it directly into the lemmy code.
The ended up allowing instance admins to enable / disable that filter as well as customize it but the discussion shows how much power they wield across all instances and their mindset about using that power. The comment about something not being in line with their view of the the project (lemmy) is particularly telling.
To be clear I’m not disagreeing with the filter nor am I necessarily bagging on the developers, what I’m trying to demonstrate is the breadth and depth of their reach. They are most definitely not confined to a single a instance nor is everything they do, or can do, visible to most users.
Encourage users to create content on Lemmy communities hosted on non-tankie instances.
My problem with this ideology is while there are plenty of tankies on Lemmy, the term gets overapplied.
Some people think anyone to the left of Bill Kristol is a tankie.
Do you know the political views of the developers of every piece of software you use? Why is Lemmy different?
It’s the radical moderators and developers of Lemmy that censor and delete posts and comments that fit their narrative. They are trying to foster authoritarian views and perpetuating lies (like tiananmen square didn’t happen, or Ukraine invaded russia). It’s a big mess that causes problems when people voice opposing views or even sourced material and get censored and banned. Using Lemmy feels like we have to accept their cooked views. I’m hoping there will be a fork or new federation project that doesn’t have baggage. Many moved here because of the reddit bs, and now there is extreme communism baggage.
Because anti-communists will bicker about every single thing they’ve been taught not to like about communism and remain quiet in terms of criticism to the current system
Seems more “anti-authoritarian-communism” than anything.
Dude, this is common fucking knowledge, and nobody cares.
It’s one of those things where the very tankies you’re talking about made it trivial for anyone not wanting to interact with them, their instance, or anyone in specific can just block whatever. And then there’s the instances that defederate from .ml and/or grad, which is a decent amount of them.
They may be assholes (though they tend not to be in interpersonal ways, only in their political views), but they’re assholes nobody has to interact with for very long.
You’re beating a dead horse with this one
I have Lemmy.ml blocked and I still see them in other communities all the time.
If that’s the case, then that may be a bug. I advise you to report that.
It’s standard, unfortunately, I’m not the only one
What do you mean by “it’s standard”? As in that is the intended functionality? It shouldn’t be — the whole point of blocking instances is for the user to be able to, well, block an instance, ie content originating from it no longer shows up.
Yeah, the software is set up so that even if you block an instance you still see comments from their accounts on other instances.
Is that stated in the documentation?
Dude, this is common fucking knowledge, and nobody cares
The 730 people who upvoted this post do care.
The problem is that lemmy.ml hosts too many popular communities. There are people who want them gone from their feeds but also don’t want their Lemmy experience to become empty and boring.
Votes mean as much as the shit I just took.
No. The shit that you took is more meaningful than fake Internet points.
Usually I’d agree with this, but on this post, the upvote count is a direct representation of how many people care about this issue (out of the number of users who saw this post). That is meaningful.
I don’t have access to traffic data to make a good argument on this specific post. Without the ability to compare total interactions vs votes, as well as the ratio of up vs down, it’s a matter of general principle in my opinion.
It is also my opinion, having moderated off and on since the nineties on various types of forums that pretty much any post is ignored by a majority of users that come across it. Voting really only shows which people are willing to use the effort to hit a button. If a majority of users don’t engage, I think that it is indeed a direct representation of how many people care. Again, I can’t see those numbers, so it’s kind of a moot point to make at all, but I suspect this post is like most posts anywhere.
But I still maintain that votes are meaningless across the board because they’re a horrible metric for anything at all, especially when they’re the only metric available.
Edit: again, fwiw, in the time it took me to type that up, the number of positive votes went down by 3. And, iirc, at the point where this tangent about the value of votes started, or was over 400, which is still meaningless, but taken in isolation would point to a general trend where there’s significant disagreement with whatever it is about the post drawing votes.
I kind of see your point. The information we have is not sufficient, and we cannot really know how much of the Lemmy userbase cares about this issue.
Judging from other threads on the matter, a lot of people don’t even know what “tankie” means.
So here’s a pro tip: replace “tankie” with “dipshit” and the meaning remains the same.
YSK: lemmy.ml is managed by dipshits, and lead lemmy developer is a dipshit
That’s not a really good example. You can replace “dipshit” with “potato” and it will mean the same too.
And? I’m not a tankie and not a marxist. Hell, I’m not even a socialist. Hell, I identify as a leftist, but I bet lots of folks would tell me I’m nothing of the sort. But I’d rather be on an instance with folks to the left of me than to the right (to the very, very minimal degree that I care about who else is on my instance). I don’t remember why I didn’t sign up for .world, but at the end of the day does it really matter?
The only impact I’ve seen are smear posts like this one, and folks who dismiss opinions if they see a user is from .ml. shrug If that’s as far as folks can look, I’m not interested in talking with them anyway.
I have hexbear blocked in my own settings; if folks want to block .ml that’s no skin off my nose. Ain’t respecting user freedoms great?
Dessalines AKA “parentis_shotgun” on Reddit, is the main Lemmy dev,
So I see you are on a Lemmy instance. If we’re going to smear instances based on the politics of their devs, I’d think you wouldn’t want to use ANY Lemmy instance.
Nothing wrong with holding a political stance, but they routinely ban people for specious reasons. With some of the biggest communities on .ml this is a problem for the growth of Lemmy.
Nothing wrong with holding a political stance, but they routinely ban people for specious reasons.
OP should have left the politics and personal smears out of it then and opened a discussion about moderation practices. And as OP points out, the person he’s primarily smearing is the main Lemmy dev. What’s the endgame there? Trying to get the main dev thrown off his own project?
OP should have left the politics and personal smears out of it then and opened a discussion about moderation practices
That’s… exactly what OP did, though. Did you even read the post?
To brand the lemmy.ml as the censorship hell that it is.
Please don’t conflate tankies with leftist thought. They are not leftists. They are fascists with strong ties toward fascist regimes that are “known” to actively usurp elections around the globe.
A good metric is: a very hardline Communist might have an argument for why effectively slavery is ethical because social and economic planning requires people to engage in jobs they actively do not want to do. I personally consider that the reason that Communism can never work at scale but that is a discussion that needs to be had.
A tankie will just justify anything that China or Russia do. Usually with an attempt to deflect by pointing out something the US or, increasingly, certain EU countries did.
But, regardless: There is another issue with your “just let everyone taolk it out” nonsense. Because the ml moderation team(s) and admin staff have increasingly been using mass bans and false claims of xenophiobia to shut down anything that is not tankie bullshit. So there is no discussion. Just one sided propaganda in some of the largest communities on lemmy.
To expand on the moderation strategy a bit. A LOT of people who aren’t increasingly of one nationality and ethnicity have a lot of problems with ResetEra’s moderation strategy. The mods and admins are known for using a heavy hand and outright mockery against anyone who they disagree with and the remaining community stumble over each other to be part of the “cool crowd”.
But you can also very easily see why the vast majority of leftists and PC gamers and… Asian people left. Because they have a policy to only edit user posts when they contain actively dangerous/illegal statements. So you can see when someone catches a permaban because they dsiagreed with an admin or joked about the corporate interests behind brexit. And you can see the discussion of the remaining users on why that was so fucked… up until the thread gets permanently locked.
With the model ml (and certain other more "world"ly instances…) use… you don’t. You just see comment branches disappear the moment anyone pushes back on some propaganda. And if a user pisses off the admins, they get banned straight up. Often with some comment about how they are racist or xenophobic in the modlog with all of their comments removed but NOT in the modlog. And that is a problem because, unless you were actively following along with that discussion, you never see anything other than MAYBE “wow, a lot of really racist people disagree with this very smart discussion on why Chinese Taipei was always a part of China and is totally not a sovereign-ish nation called Taiwan”
I’m more of a libertarian communist, communist economic theory I think is excellent. That doesn’t mean that communist regimes of the past make any sense, because of their authoritarian bend.
Turns out political opinions arent black and white.
It sounds like you are a Democratic Socialist from this tidbit.
I kind of feel the same way. I think the economic theory behind communism/socialism sounds much more beneficial towards our progress as a species and towards a more sustainable existence. I just don’t agree with the authoritarian methods of implementation. I think that if socialism is going to succeed, it will need to come about in a gradual democratic way.
You will be surprised how much of the open source software out there is written and maintained by lefties and tankies.
Sadly conservatives seem to have either lower education and are not notorious for their sharing and selflessness.
Denying historical events and refusing to come to terms with their causes and repercussions is not a left or right problem.
You can be as communist as you want but pretending that events with photographic evidence didn’t actually happen put you in the same category as moon landing deniers in my book.
And yet so many people believe in religion without a single scientific proof. But yes, I got your point.
For the record there are a lot of shameful events in your history too, but I am sure your own government has done its utmost to hide those facts.
Just that in the US there is a massive anti China and anti Russia propaganda. Do not get me wrong, I don’t disagree with a lot of their policies, but the US isn’t also spotless and a role model in a lot of ways.
The US has so much red on its ledger it will never be balanced. And there are plenty of apologists for atrocities in our history. They’re just as bad as the Chinese or Russian (or pick whatever country you want because they’re all guilty to some extent) when they do it.
As a fellow communist, I was always bewildered by this urge of many tankies to prove by all means, against any evidence, that China is socialist and ultimately good.
It’s neither. China turned to markets, privatized many industries, and really did commit atrocities on Tiannamen square and in Xinjiang.
Doesn’t mean socialism as a system is dysfunctional. United States are directly responsible for insane atrocities all over the world, and we don’t need to deny that either.
We need to learn from the experience and strive for it not to happen again. Not close our eyes, scream “blah-blah-blah” and pretend it never happened.
China and the Soviet Union were responsible for acts of genocide, mass murdering/starving people, etc.
Doesn’t mean this didn’t happen in a capitalist world, and doesn’t mean we should close our eyes on that to defend the good look of the system. If anything, this does the opposite. Problems need to be solved, not ignored.
Tables are, like fascists, searching for dogmatic “easy” in a complex world. You know, like ignorant assholes.
prove by all means, against any evidence, that China is socialist and ultimately good
Taps life expectancy, infant mortality, and education statics
That’s it. That’s the nefarious methodology of the villainous Wumao.
By that I primarily meant “Chinese government is not guilty in atrocities it ordered to commit”
But in general, of course China is a miracle in many ways.
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.
That’s why leftists are prone to like it.
This has not been my experience speaking to leftists at all.
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.
The economy of China is not characterized by the common/social ownership of the means of production
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.
China does spark international conflicts and does bully its neighbors
the country doesn’t cosplay world police and doesn’t participate much in military operations outside the country, which is a big plus.
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
Every time Britain visits we get a lecture, every time China visits we get a hospital.
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.
Textbook communism is an economy that is 100% worker-owned, with everyone’s needs directly met without the intervention of money
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.
China does have some strong policies, but it doesn’t make it communist by any definition.
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.
The infrastructure China builds is not just a gift - but an investment on which China expects a return.
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.
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.
You also don’t affect lasting, meaningful change with dreams of an “uprising” or other fanciful ideas spawned by stories of Cuba in the 50’s. There will be no romantic struggle here, no plucky rebels, no heartwarming finale where everyone is happy.
If you want to make the world better, work on it from within the system and learn why the system is the way it is and what power you have as an individual and as a group, THIS is how people have changed the world before.
I would delight in socialism becoming more widespread and accepted as a system to maintain population growth and happiness, I argue for it all the time, we need a number of very important safety nets before we start feeling like our tax money is going into something less abstract than “America: fuck yeah!” But I also know it takes more than cosplay theatrics and defending tyrants.
edit: the tankies are mad.
On that, I’d sadly have to disagree to a degree.
Most radical shifts, especially as large as revamping an entire economic system, were violent or at least highly outside the existing framework, not some “change from the inside”.
Behind any government is a desire for self-preservation - and capitalist democracies rig elections by underrepresenting the disadvantaged and also, as other systems, through the bureaucratic inertia that is there for a reason.
Taking America as the most studied case, the two-party system absolutely does not allow for the building of socialism, as both parties are highly capitalist in nature, and the rest exist there as a pure formality, deprived of resources for actual political campaigning. All while plenty of anti-freedom acts are taken specifically to silence who people in power don’t want to see.
At the same time, the two leading parties create an illusion that this is the only choice and that Democrats are “the left” and act in the interest of the people. Even the most unprecedented case - the campaign of Bernie Sanders - came with what essentially can be seen as centrism - and even that was seen as “too much” with him failing miserably.
Similar story in many countries.
They flood the media, they control the opposition, and they approve anti-democratic laws - all to cement their place and make sure exactly that no change is ever gonna come from the inside.
Which is why, sadly, through all my desire for peace, I have to say that small and steady change is not enough. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t vote whoever’s the biggest and leftest in your area, that you shouldn’t do what is within the law and the current system to improve the situation where possible - but thinking it would be enough is a bit of a fairy dream.
The fairy dream here is thinking that America is ever going to suffer a violent uprising from a socialist/left direction.
I know if you consume all the propaganda it will feel like this is really the viable solution to so many of our problems, but every meme that proudly shows people in jumpsuits marching under a red flag, they tend to ignore the reality which is if every tankie and socialist were to topple the US government tomorrow, we would still have to live with the hundreds of millions of people who do NOT want a socialist utopia. There is no long-term planning, there is a really delusional belief with some people that actually says “Once the population sees how good it will be, they will fall in line” and I want to scream and physically shake you idiots out there who think this shit.
You can push our society towards more social policies that help more people, but this is nowhere close to a realistic time to talk about actual takeovers and coups. It’s insane and stupid and it fucking HURTS the cause advocating for better policies and social services.
That’s not what revolutionary Leftists think would happen, lol. That would be adventurism, not a mass worker movement. Please read any book by a revolutionary, nobody is advocating for coups and then hoping everyone falls in line, lol.
It sounds stupid because it is stupid, which is why the adventurists you speak of are seen as ridiculous among revolitionary leftists.
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No one expects America to turn communist today, not in 10, 20, 50 years. The red scare and capitalist propaganda is so bad it would be idiotic to assume America as a socialist frontier.
But:
- We have to work against red scare and change the people, not the government;
- We should develop revolutionary movements in other parts of the world. The successes of USSR in the 30s have seriously affected people everywhere, including America.
I get involved in my local elections and city/county boards to endorse and support every policy or candidate that either leans distantly socialist, or puts any measure of power or control back in the hands of the people and workers. That alone will do far, far more realistic good for each of us than “developing revolutionary movements.” That’s still roleplaying and I don’t think the USSR’s “successes” were as meaningful as the tankies propaganda makes it out to be. But that’s not an invite for a biased history lesson.
Currently we are witnessing a capitalist genocide in Gaza were children are starving to death and the working class are powerless to stop this. But yea denial on both sides certainty is problematic, the issue is though “tankie” communists will argue propaganda as well as the libs and conservatives. We have been bombarded with fictitious narrative that its a real struggle to find comprehensive and honest reporting of previous events.
Last month I read a “tankies” recap on Tiannamen Square protests, it went as far as to say there was no massacre and quoted creditable journalist that had reported a peaceful evening on the night of the massacre, but I equally saw photos of piled up buddies, bloodied police officers and alike. There’s also a conspiracy that the CIA staged the massacre or played some rule within it.
Ive also dealt with american denying the genocide in Vietnam, or Americas rule in creating North Korean.
Solidarity comrade
Not sure where you are from, but your type of worldly reasoned view does not come without exposure to multiple systems of governance. Labels like “socialism”, “communism”, “capitalism” are the Newspeak that are used to place the populace opinion into buckets with which to control. And I completely agree about the US - its entire history is based upon capitalism and will always be based upon capitalism. Biden is the MOST progressive president in 50 years, yet it’s a stretch to even call him a centrist he’s so enmeshed with the existing corporatists.
