Cowbee [he/him]

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Marxist-Leninist ☭

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 31st, 2023

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  • You’re entirely ignoring davel’s point. The reason the US bombs is because of what davel calls “Imperialism,” and linked to examples of it. What you call “human nature Imperialism” and what davel calls “Imperialism as a stage in Capitalism” are fundamentally different concepts, you’re talking past davel, and davel is 100% correct here.

    The reason the US bombs countries is not because humans are mean. The US bombs to protect its interests. This you both agree on. However, davel has successfully identified why the US’ interests depend on bombing others, and China’s interests do not.

    To simplifiy davel’s point, Capitalism centralizes and spreads, until it spreads along international lines. This results in the country with more Capital leveraging this to gain favorable trade deals, so it can super-exploit foreign countries for super-profits. The bombing the US does is to keep their power projected and punish those turning against it.

    China does not have a Capitalist system, it has a Socialist Market Economy. China manufactures the vast majority of its own goods, rather than manufacturing overseas, so its interactions with the Global South have a fundamentally different character. China wants to uplift the Global South so that the Global South buys from China and makes them even more money.

    Both countries are acting in their own interests, but because of the structures in place, this results in the US bombing and plundering, and China building up infrastructure and hospitals. Even when China wants resources housed in the Global South, this difference in internal structure makes trade more mutually beneficial, rather than plunderous.











  • I appreciate you taking the time to read my write-up. I want to ask, why do you claim the PRC isn’t Socialist? 50% of the economy is in the public sector, a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Private Sector is run with strict central planning and oversight from the government. Socialism doesn’t refer simply to a fully publicly owned economy - it’s a transitional economy towards Communism. In the PRC, the Public Sector further controls key heavy industries and infrastructure that the Private Sector relies on, so the Private Sector is subservient to the demands of the Public. The presense of Markets is not enough to claim an economy isn’t Socialist. From Engels himself:

    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.

    The reason Marxists believe Socialism comes after Capitalism is because Markets have a tendency to centralize in order to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which naturally forces the development of strategies and tools for internal planning. This naturally prepares the way for Central Planning. In the PRC, Capital in the Private Sector is trapped in a birdcage model, and the CPC increases ownership as these markets do their job and centralize. This is Marxism in action. I suggest you read the articles What is Socialism? as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.

    Also, as a side note, “Stalinism” isn’t a thing. Stalin was not much of a theoretician, the proper term is Marxism-Leninism, as it is founded on the writings of Marx and Lenin primarily.

    Additionally, you need to analyze who was happy to see the fall of the USSR. The answer? The West. In the vast majority of the post-Soviet populace, Capitalism brought death and destruction, 7 million people died due to it, and most long for a return to Socialism. In the Global South, the fall of the USSR was seen as an immense tragedy. The only ones benefiting were the Imperialist Capitalists that swooped in and looted the USSR’s former state structures and industry for profit at dirt cheap prices.

    Ultimately, I think you have a lot of research to do if you want to hold a truly internationalist perspective, and not one tainted by Western bias, which is notoriously adversarial to Communism and the Global South in general, as the West relies on export of industrial and financial Capital to the Global South to super-exploit for super-profits. This is what Marxists call Imperalism.







  • A few corrections regarding your misconceptions of Communist theory, for anyone scrolling by but unfamiliar with Marxism:

    1. Marxists advocate for revolution, because Capitalism cannot simply be voted out. Given that following Marxist analysis to its correct conclusions necessitates transitioning to Socialism, this can be seen as a “call to violence.” Yes, it is, but out of necessity. Marxists don’t advocate simply massacring everyone of slightly different beliefs, rather, Marxists are not Blanquists and thus believe revolution is only possible with mass, popular support.

    2. The Marxist conception of a State is a tool of class oppression, not all instances of government. Rather, Marxists advocate for working towards full Public Ownership of Capital and Central Planning by the government. When Marxists say they believe the State will wither away, they mean eventually all property will be folded into the public sector and thus the concept of “classes” will cease to exist as well, gradually as property is folded into the public sector to the degree to which markets have formed Big Industry and Monopolist Syndicates. From Engels:

    “When ultimately it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no social class to be held in subjection any longer, as soon as class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy of production existing up to now are eliminated together with the collisions and excesses arising from them, there is nothing more to repress, nothing necessitating a special repressive force, a state. 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.”

    Socialism: Utopian and Scientific