I’ve only ever heard this asserted without evidence, and am becoming suspicious of it. Will China’s current rise really compel the bourgeoisie to cede concessions the proletariat?
No China will not do anything lol. They’re looking to “increase productive forces.” There’s legitimacy to it, of course, but how long will this goal take? Who knows. All we know is that China wants your business regardless of ideology, and it has no desire to impose its ideology on anyone else. A country can go through 500 coups of various ideologies and China will be there and say “there must be respect for sovereignty, peace, and trade cooperation.”
The threat of China is one of business and military. Ideology is just a boogeyman to get people riled up. There is no reason for concessions and there hasn’t been any for decades now. The average American recognizes his suffering, but he tells himself to keep on truckin’ because he believes his treats are cheap and readily accessible and the Asians are still living in rural huts. The only thing that will compel the bourgeoisie to give concessions is if the west decouples from not just China, but a lot of outsourcing, and industry comes back domestically.
The fall of the USSR saw inequality rise globally. That is no coincidence. Perhaps it was already rising, but its collapse sped it up significantly. It’s also not a coincidence that some of the bloodiest labor and civil rights moments occurred when we still produced stuff. Of course other factors were in play, but I’m just saying. We haven’t seen a single Pinkerton shot in a very long time.
USSR gave logistics, financial and military support to leftist groups wherever they need. China would ask those leftist groups to first get into power before sitting on the table with them.
It’s true that China usually sets concrete agenda unlike the liberal vibes based policies in the west. But we haven’t heard too much about Xi’s successors yet. He’s been working hard to put the capitalists back under communist control and emphasizing ML ideology in the government and Chinese society. It’s unlikely that the next person will dismantle everything like the POTUS every 4 years, and China has studied the fall of the USSR extensively and determined the slander of Stalin is one of its causes, but it’s still hard the gauge the aftermath.
The average westerner believes they have a higher quality of life than the average Chinese citizen, but that’s slowly changing I think. I think the propaganda is getting more tenuous and more difficult to maintain by western countries. It’s becoming blatantly obvious how developed China is.
Also the USSR’s threats were things like military defectors and brain drain. I haven’t heard of any high profile instances of spies defecting to China or selling state secrets or whatever. If that started happening, I could maybe believe there’s enough discontent among western proletariat to do something like demand concessions.
The CIA’s entire network in China was exposed a few years ago and all of their agents were executed or imprisoned. This was done by a supposed mole in the CIA. He confessed to everything, but the CIA had no evidence against him. He was convicted anyway.
Brain drain is slowly happening. After the racist investigations against Chinese/Chinese American professors in the US that found no spies, China has been offering positions at Chinese universities and some people who joined said China offered more staff members and funding for research compared to the US. But again it’s not happening on an alarming scale.
All of these things are too niche for the average American to care about, so it doesn’t have any affect on public perception of china. Yet anyway.
The average westerner believes they have a higher quality of life than the average Chinese citizen, but that’s slowly changing I think.
restaurants cost 2x what they did earlier in my lifetime, rent probably 3x. I remember learning about career options in highschool that essentially stopped existing less than a decade later. I’m not that old. How fast is slow suppose to be?
In the gardeners’ minds better off and just better are the same. To admit they’re not doing as well materially as the Chinese would require dismantling white supremacy first.
After days of mounting international backlash, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s outspoken foreign policy chief, has apologised for his controversial remarks in which he described Europe as an idyllic “garden” of prosperity and the rest of the world as mostly a “jungle.”
“Some have misinterpreted the metaphor as ‘colonial Euro-centrism’,” Borrell wrote in a blog post on Tuesday evening. “I am sorry if some have felt offended.”
But he did not reject the figure of speech and instead doubled down on it, arguing the term jungle is an apt illustration of the lawlessness and disorder that currently rule world politics.
Much of China’s prosperity is deeply integrated with the global neoliberal free market and China was able to leverage its vast reserve of cheap labor (blessed by the United States wanting to export its own manufacturing base to crush its working class movements at home, back in the 1970s) to bring material gains to its people.
China’s achievement is in its socialist policies that put people at the center, rather than the capitalists or the free market, and this allowed them to lift millions upon millions of people out of poverty and set the nation on a course towards prosperity.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was a genuine alternative (or at least attempted) to the Western-led capitalist system. The Soviet Union was more or less a self-contained entity and largely self-sufficient, and did not rely on foreign export markets for economic development and growth. The workers in the Soviet Union enjoyed working conditions and social welfare that were on par with Western European social democracy, if not better.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for China today - the working conditions, especially for the 300 million migrant workers in the coastal cities, are still distances behind what the Soviet Union was capable of achieving decades ago.
And this brings me to a central point I have been saying many times on this site: de-dollarization is truly the most important first step, the pre-requisite towards the formation of an alternative system that can challenge the US/Western-dominated neoliberal capitalism. The pervasiveness of the dollar regime throughout the world means that everyone is at risk of losing if the empire crumbles. China cannot just sit back and wait for the US to fail. It needs to pro-actively decouple itself before it is too late.
You have to think that was a time back when people understood the sacrifice made by the Soviet Union during WW2. There’s been nearly 80 years of propaganda since then. As far as with China the west is trying desperately to minimize Chinas successes, which is why it’s important for us to talk about them because like others have said China isn’t really interested in providing a good life for Americans, we have to present the Chinese system as a viable alternative and ask the proletariat why we cannot provide a decent living like China can do for themselves.
I’ve only ever heard this asserted without evidence, and am becoming suspicious of it. Will China’s current rise really compel the bourgeoisie to cede concessions the proletariat?
No China will not do anything lol. They’re looking to “increase productive forces.” There’s legitimacy to it, of course, but how long will this goal take? Who knows. All we know is that China wants your business regardless of ideology, and it has no desire to impose its ideology on anyone else. A country can go through 500 coups of various ideologies and China will be there and say “there must be respect for sovereignty, peace, and trade cooperation.”
The threat of China is one of business and military. Ideology is just a boogeyman to get people riled up. There is no reason for concessions and there hasn’t been any for decades now. The average American recognizes his suffering, but he tells himself to keep on truckin’ because he believes his treats are cheap and readily accessible and the Asians are still living in rural huts. The only thing that will compel the bourgeoisie to give concessions is if the west decouples from not just China, but a lot of outsourcing, and industry comes back domestically.
The fall of the USSR saw inequality rise globally. That is no coincidence. Perhaps it was already rising, but its collapse sped it up significantly. It’s also not a coincidence that some of the bloodiest labor and civil rights moments occurred when we still produced stuff. Of course other factors were in play, but I’m just saying. We haven’t seen a single Pinkerton shot in a very long time.
USSR gave logistics, financial and military support to leftist groups wherever they need. China would ask those leftist groups to first get into power before sitting on the table with them.
Silly.
Wdym? Which part is silly?
The goal of increasing the productive forces and moving out of “primary stage socialism” has very clearly been set at 2049/50 (centenary goal).
It’s true that China usually sets concrete agenda unlike the liberal vibes based policies in the west. But we haven’t heard too much about Xi’s successors yet. He’s been working hard to put the capitalists back under communist control and emphasizing ML ideology in the government and Chinese society. It’s unlikely that the next person will dismantle everything like the POTUS every 4 years, and China has studied the fall of the USSR extensively and determined the slander of Stalin is one of its causes, but it’s still hard the gauge the aftermath.
Got it, I misread that as saying the plan was silly.
The average westerner believes they have a higher quality of life than the average Chinese citizen, but that’s slowly changing I think. I think the propaganda is getting more tenuous and more difficult to maintain by western countries. It’s becoming blatantly obvious how developed China is.
Also the USSR’s threats were things like military defectors and brain drain. I haven’t heard of any high profile instances of spies defecting to China or selling state secrets or whatever. If that started happening, I could maybe believe there’s enough discontent among western proletariat to do something like demand concessions.
The CIA’s entire network in China was exposed a few years ago and all of their agents were executed or imprisoned. This was done by a supposed mole in the CIA. He confessed to everything, but the CIA had no evidence against him. He was convicted anyway.
Brain drain is slowly happening. After the racist investigations against Chinese/Chinese American professors in the US that found no spies, China has been offering positions at Chinese universities and some people who joined said China offered more staff members and funding for research compared to the US. But again it’s not happening on an alarming scale.
All of these things are too niche for the average American to care about, so it doesn’t have any affect on public perception of china. Yet anyway.
You know his name?
I did it
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/politics/jerry-lee-china-spying.html
Jerry Chun Shing Lee. Handsome devil
restaurants cost 2x what they did earlier in my lifetime, rent probably 3x. I remember learning about career options in highschool that essentially stopped existing less than a decade later. I’m not that old. How fast is slow suppose to be?
Racism is a powerful buffer to prevent anything good happening. Westerners need to go through a lot before admitting they’re worse off than non-whites
In the gardeners’ minds better off and just better are the same. To admit they’re not doing as well materially as the Chinese would require dismantling white supremacy first.
I know you probably meant westerners but I want to imagine an evil group of racist gardeners stalking around
Calling them gardeners is referencing this:
Oh I hadn’t heard this before, thank you
China is not the same as the Soviet Union.
Much of China’s prosperity is deeply integrated with the global neoliberal free market and China was able to leverage its vast reserve of cheap labor (blessed by the United States wanting to export its own manufacturing base to crush its working class movements at home, back in the 1970s) to bring material gains to its people.
China’s achievement is in its socialist policies that put people at the center, rather than the capitalists or the free market, and this allowed them to lift millions upon millions of people out of poverty and set the nation on a course towards prosperity.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was a genuine alternative (or at least attempted) to the Western-led capitalist system. The Soviet Union was more or less a self-contained entity and largely self-sufficient, and did not rely on foreign export markets for economic development and growth. The workers in the Soviet Union enjoyed working conditions and social welfare that were on par with Western European social democracy, if not better.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for China today - the working conditions, especially for the 300 million migrant workers in the coastal cities, are still distances behind what the Soviet Union was capable of achieving decades ago.
And this brings me to a central point I have been saying many times on this site: de-dollarization is truly the most important first step, the pre-requisite towards the formation of an alternative system that can challenge the US/Western-dominated neoliberal capitalism. The pervasiveness of the dollar regime throughout the world means that everyone is at risk of losing if the empire crumbles. China cannot just sit back and wait for the US to fail. It needs to pro-actively decouple itself before it is too late.
You have to think that was a time back when people understood the sacrifice made by the Soviet Union during WW2. There’s been nearly 80 years of propaganda since then. As far as with China the west is trying desperately to minimize Chinas successes, which is why it’s important for us to talk about them because like others have said China isn’t really interested in providing a good life for Americans, we have to present the Chinese system as a viable alternative and ask the proletariat why we cannot provide a decent living like China can do for themselves.
Not if the propaganda machine keeps being effective.
Have an entire article about it
Maybe if there was such an intense cold war again (probably preceded by another hot one). We do live in materially different times.
https://redsails.org/concessions/ has some good quotes and sources