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submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Summary

Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year’s speech that Taiwan’s “reunification” with China is inevitable.

China has escalated military activity around Taiwan, including frequent incursions near the island and sanctions on U.S.-linked companies over arms sales to Taipei.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te rejected Beijing's claims, stating Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its people.

Lai also criticized China’s restrictions on travel and education exchanges with Taiwan, calling for dignified, reciprocal relations based on goodwill and equality.

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[-] cqst@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago
[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago

Yes, all Socialist societies should work towards the eventual end of commodity production, however neither Marx nor Engels figured that it could be done away with immediately. From Principles of Communism:

Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

From Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.

Ultimately, it remains a contradiction that eventually the PRC will have to do away with. However, this is a gradual process that can only be accomplished through trial and error. There is a Chinese proverb often referenced in the CPC, that "one must cross the river by feeling for the stones," and this reflects their cautious strategy. Moreover, we must understand that the USSR fell, and the CPC saw that in real time. Not wanting to repeat the Cultural Revolution nor the fall of the USSR, the CPC adjusted their practice. It remains to be seen what will happen in 10, 20, 50, 100 years, of course, but currently the CPC is behaving in a manner we can understand as Marxist.

[-] cqst@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 days ago

The USSR was just as capitalist as the PRC. Because it had generalized commodity production and wage-labor. You can't have a socialist mode of production in just one country, as the interaction with capitalist countries will infect your system.

The PRC is a highly technocratic advanced capitalist democracy, and yes, it will likely outpace the west in a number of key statistics over time, that doesn't make it socialist, because the productive mode is capitalism.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You can't have Communism in one country, as Communism must be international, global, and have fully eradicated Private Property and Commodity Production. You absolutely can have Socialism in one country, however. Socialism is a transitional status towards Communism from Capitalism, and is dependent upon human supremacy over Capital and a trajectory towards further collectivization and the dominance of the Public Sector over the Private not in percentage, but power.

To take the opposite claim, that you can't have Socialism in one country, is to determine that you must call a fully publicly owned economy "Capitalist" despite eradication of Markets and commodity production in general. Further, to claim that Socialism can only exist internationally is to make the asserted claim that a 99% publicly owned and planned economy is actually dominated by the 1% in the market sector and is thus Capitalist, these are anti-dialectical judgements.

Further, revisiting Marx, he considered countries where feudalism was still the majority of the economy yet Capitalism well on its way to dominate the entire economy to already be Capitalist. The dialectical method acknowledges that there is nearly no such thing as a "pure" system, to require "purity" for Socialism alone and not any of the previous Modes of Production erases the foundation of Scientific Socialism.

All in all, I am getting a definite Trotskyist vibe from your analysis and that would explain your stances a bit more, but I really do wonder in particular how you personally reconcile Dialectics with an anti-dialectical approach to Socialism specifically. The productive mode does not depend on a "one drop" rule of commodity production, but the dominant mode and the trajectory of the system as a whole.

I suggest reading What is Socialism? Here's a relevant snippet from it talking about your exact argument:

Let’s imagine trying to apply this line of thinking to any other mode of production. If any hint of private ownership, commodity production, and the anarchy of production in a socialist society would serve to prove it is not socialist, then, by logical necessity, any hint of public ownership, social production, and economic planning in a capitalist society would serve to prove it is not capitalist. Real capitalism, therefore, just like socialism, can be proven to have never been tried.

This also leads to another absurdity. There is an enormous gulf between these two systems. How, then, does one transition between capitalism and socialism? If a mode of production can only exist in its most pure form, then how does one mode of production transition into the next? Necessarily, it must be an instantaneous jump, from one pure form to another. It fundamentally cannot be any other way.

this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
434 points (96.0% liked)

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