Comment by diego_moita
16 days ago
Fair enough: the Chinese Marxists seem to love their robots, a lot.
But, also, they handle all that automation to the capitalists. Because capitalists are simply much better at doing it.
So it seems that, even when it succeeds, socialism can't really get rid of "the system", after all.
The CCP isn't Marxist and doesn't claim to be.
Deng basically copied parts of Lenins "New Economic Policy" of "limited capitalism" because he like Lenin realised they'd made a mistake in preempting dismantling of the market, in direct contradiction of the Marxist view that a socialist revolution requires a well developed capitalist economy, and Marx explicit warning against attempting socialism too soon. That's what I pointed to with the reference to the German Ideology. Because of course taking out profit enough to do meaningful redistribution will harm growth. That's not a "gotcha" - it's an inherent, core assumption of Marxist thinking that socialism only becomes possible because of capitalism.
> The CCP isn't Marxist and doesn't claim to be.
This is just adorable!
May I assume that the Cuban, North Korean, Laos and Vietnamese Communist parties aren't Marxist also? Naturally, same goes to former USSR, Khmer Rouge, etc
> This is just adorable!
If you think statements of facts are adorable, I get it is. Otherwise it is mostly quite telling as an indicator you do not have any actual arguments.
> May I assume that the Cuban, North Korean, Laos and Vietnamese Communist parties aren't Marxist also? Naturally, same goes to former USSR, Khmer Rouge, etc
Given they all reject core elements of Marxism, that's a reasonable assessment, with some differences to the degree with which they reject it. It does not mean that none of them draw in parts on Marxist thinking, but they all draw heavily on e.g. "democratic" centralism and the use of vanguard parties, and they all have a history of imprisoning and/or murdering people pushing Marxism and opposed to Marxism-Leninism (several of the parties you listed have also rejected significant parts of ML, setting themselves further apart, e.g. North Korea's Juche is more of an evolution of Stalinism and its nationalism)
Having had Marxist-Leninists gleefully tell me face to face that "people like me" belong in labour camps, the distinction rather matters to me on a personal level - ML'ers getting close to power would be a direct threat to my personal safety to the point I'd arm myself; actual Marxists would not.
2 replies →
You are conflating Marxism with China, which is just a state-capitalist powerhouse using the exact same model of enclosure and rent-seeking we are arguing against. China doesn't "hand over" automation because capitalists are better at it; the state simply socializes the risk and R&D before letting private proxies handle the commercialization. Citing a state-backed monopoly system to prove "the market" is the only way to build tech is total nonsense.
China is Marxist, as much as South Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, USSR, Khmer Rouge, Laos, etc. This is objective history. These are the "objective conditions", as Marxists say. These are facts and nothing else exists besides that.
Your idealistic, romantic version of Marxism only exists in your head. In 140 years of history, Marxism only generated the Marxist states I listed above.