It’s worse than that. Amtrak gets government subsidies. Conservatives take that to be Communism, so even the “capitalist” solution, the only train we have, is constantly under threat.
Which is, as you hint at, an absurdity. Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism are not elements of society, but the overarching Mode of Production. That’s why Bismark wasn’t a Socialist despite nationalizing industries, what matters is the overall economy and the direction it’s heading.
So real!
China isn’t communist, but way kess stupid as the US, that is the main difference. It’s something like a state capitalism, not depending on private lobbies as in the other capitalist systems. A real comunist state don’t currently exist in the world (no, also not North Corea, it’s a fascistic dictatorship, not so far from what will be the US with Trump in the near future)
China is a socialist state with a communist party in charge of it. This is an indisputable fact. The whole notion of state capitalism is a misnomer. The purpose of labor under actual capitalism is to produce capital for business owners. Capital accumulation is the driving mechanic of the system, hence the name. Meanwhile, the purpose of state owned enterprise is to provide social value such as building infrastructure, producing food and energy, providing healthcare, and so on.
Communism does not exist in the world because capitalism is still the dominant ideology. Socialist systems such as one in China are the first step towards communism.
If communism is a complete lack of a state, do you believe communism is possible?
If we understand the state to be any and all administration, then no, but that’s not the way Marx and Engels treated “statelessness.” Engels in particular referred to stateless administration as “The Administration of Things” as contrasted with state society as “the Government of Persons” in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. States are specific instruments of class oppression, without class, there’s no need for a state in the Marxist sense.
I’m personally skeptical that a complete lack of states can be achieved in practice. Humanity is simply too diverse, and it’s highly unlikely that everyone will agree on a single common system. Even if it was possible, lack of state would not mean lack of need for management and organization, so you would still have hierarchical structures in place to manage things.
That’s why Engels referred to the remnants left behind from a state that has withered away as the “Administration of Things.” It ceases to be an instrument of class oppression in a classless society, but administration remains a useful tool for Communist production.
exactly
Is China State Capitalist?
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev’s market reforms?, 2
- Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
Facts.
propaganda
cry ab it
there is already a political memes channel, put it there
On Lemmy.ml, there"s a catch-all Memes comm (this one) and a specifically non-Political memes comm (a different one). The “political memes” comm you are talking about is likely the Lemmy.world one, which is politically biased towards liberalism and against Communism, so it makes more sense to post here.
nah
China has state capitalism, far from Communism. Still a win for china tho.
No, China does not have state capitalism. Presumably, what you refer to as “state capitalism” is the fact that much of the economy is under state ownership. However, there is a fundamental difference between regular capitalism and what you refer to as state capitalism here. The purpose of labor under actual capitalism is to create capital for business owners. Capital accumulation is the driving mechanic of the system, hence the name. Meanwhile, the purpose of state owned enterprise is to provide social value such as building infrastructure, producing food and energy, providing healthcare, and so on.
China is capitalist.
It’s not, but I’ve learned that there’s no point debating this topic with aggressively ignorant people.
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People disagreeing with you doesn’t mean it’s an “echo chamber.”
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I’d argue not. First, the majority of people in a space disagreeing with your stance doesn’t make it an “echo-chamber” to begin with. Secondly, Marxism is thoroughly demonized throughout the English-speaking internet, while liberalism flourishes in real life and online. Spaces with higher concentrations of Marxists cannot avoid contact with liberals throughout their lives, while liberal spaces can shut out all Marxists from their real lives and online lives.
The PRC is Socialist, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and the CPC has “golden shares” for medium firms so even those it controls. The rest, everything else depends on the publicly owned key industries, so they have to work on the terms of the public sector to do business.
Its not public ownership when an authoritarian state owns a company. Its only public ownership if the state is a democracy.
They’re a capitalist country with an authoritarian government. They may want to transition to a true communist society in the future but they need capitalism to build their countrys economy.
The PRC is democratic, in fact the public in China feels its desires are better represented through policy than in Western Countries, especially the US. It’s absolutely public ownership, this is an extremely confused idea on what Capitalism even is. Private Property is distinct from state property.
Further, markets are not “Capitalism.” The PRC does have private property, but limits it to medium and small firms, and cooperatives. The overwhelming majority of the large firms and key industries are publicly owned, as is the job of a Socialist government, to facilitate this gradual extension of Public Ownership to the entirety of the economy as it develops to the level that such ownership makes economic sense. This gradual transformation in society is the Socialist mode of production.
Lastly, “true” Communism isn’t a thing. There is Communism, and there’s Socialism, and there’s Capitalism. Applying descriptors like “true” or “false” is a moralistic judgement, not a scientific one, and Marxists reject moralistic analysis in favor of scientific analysis.
I think you may get better results if you talk about what people understand in their own lives. People understand how utterly undemocratic the private sector of the economy is. They also understand how unrepresentative the reps the dominant parties present for election. They understand who pays for their politics. People also understand how democracy works in non-partisan settings like municipalities, school boards and so on. Often people don’t realize these things and need help to connect the dots and build a complete picture, but they understand what’s going on. Once the picture is in place, they get it. Then from there you could draw parallels between parts of that picture and China to explain in terms people understand. E.g. the political democracy works similar to municipal democracy, no parties, just candidates and elections.
I agree that you have great points on how to communicate with people willing to learn, but unfortunately many people like Fizz here are entirely unwilling to learn even if we are to be as kind and understanding as possible.
You’re sitting here trying to tell me that the one party authoritarian state who regularly crushes citizens freedom of expression is actually democratic. Yeah I’m sure they wander to the voting booth and make the touch decision of voting for the CCP or nothing with the CCP waiting over their shoulder.
You people are delusional.
You have a biased perception of what constitutes democracy, you take the western, liberal model to be the only form of democracy, and reject other models. This is a rather narrow-minded approach to political analysis, rather than immediately condemning others for not conforming to what you consider to be standard, it pays immensely to ask instead, “why?”
In western liberal democracy, democratic input is largely restricted to which party you want to represent you, not how each party functions. In China, you can’t really depose the CPC, but there is a much larger and more comprehensive scope on what you can influence. Public policy is comprehensively considered and voted on, tested, and local governments have large degrees of input from the local pooulation, laddering up to the regional and finally national level.
I think you’d do yourself a massive service if you asked the question “why do Chinese citizens overwhelmingly approve of their government, and feel that they have genuine democratic input despite having a different democratic model than my own?” Rather than simply looking at a different system and condemning it as wrong on the basis of it being a different system.
China is a democracy, even studies by conservative western institutions show Chinese people have higher satisfaction with their government, more belief in the importance of democracy, and more belief in the democratic nature of their government than western European and American citizens do for their own governments.
They have a more comprehensive democracy too. Consultative processes and deliberative processes are enshrined in institutions in a way that they are not within western bourgeois democracies.
I’m not sure that link helps you at all. It doesnt mention anything about china being a democracy and proves my point.
“95.5 percent of respondents were either relatively satisfied or highly satisfied with Beijing” while 11% were satisfied with local government.
Bro cmon dont tell me you dont see what’s happening here. China plays propaganda for its citizens constantly and punishes anti government thought. But not for the local government. This poll doesnt accurately capture sentiment became people do not have freedom of expression in china. I’d believe that most people like the government, its done very well but 95.5% is a joke.
Not a dude, please don’t “bro” me
Here is another helpful link, on citizen perception of the importance of democracy and whether their government is democratic.
It was founded by a former NATO secretary so it has a pro-western bias.
https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index
Here is a chart sourced from its its 2024 report. As you can see Chinese people have more faith in democracy and the democratic nature of their government than westerners do.
The whole brainwashing thing is nonsense, as Cowbee pointed out you misread the data on the 11 percent. It seems like you are misreading data to support your preconceived notions.
You misread. It said 11% were very satisfied, the satisfaction rate with local government including “moderately satisfied” is 70.2%.
Further, the study acknowledges and accounts for your fears of “brainwashing” (which, itself, is a baseless theory):
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
China is not state capitalist, its a mixed economy with the planned socialist sector predominating. See here.
The PRC is a Socialist economy that is governed by a Communist party. “Communism” as an ideology is the guideline of the CPC, ergo the fact that the PRC has rapidly developed a massive and competent rail system can be seen as an achievement for Communism.
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Japans rail system cooks china.
It doesn’t. China’s high speed rail absolutely dwarfs what Japan has.
In what?
Go look up the size of Chinese high speed rail system and compare to Japan.
By what metric?
China has the world’s largest HSR network at 45,000KM, 15x that of Japan’s 3,000KM network.
Chinas fastest regular use line is 350KM/h. Japan’s is 320KM/h.
(AFAIK) China is the only country with an operational maglev line (in Shanghai). A 30KM line at 430KM/h. While Japan’s Maglev is still under construction.
So what are the metrics that Japan’s rail system cooks China?
China has the world’s largest HSR network at 45,000KM, 15x that of Japan’s 3,000KM network.
They’re also way bigger than Japan.
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Chinas High speed rail has a 97% coverage for cities with a population of at least 500,000. (160+ Cities). (Including standard rail brings it to 99% of cities with 200K, 180+ cities). As you say, China is absolutely massive and that size makes this reach even more impressive. If Japan has better rail coverage, it’s not by much.
Okay? Youre comparing Japanese technology that hasn’t been built yet to established Chinese technology. China has successfully tested a 1,000KM/h Maglev…
China has transported 1.46Billion Passengers this year (as of may 2025) on pace to surpass the over 4Billion Passengers last year. I’ve only seen estimates of around 450M for Japan last year (though finding Data on Japan is more difficult due to their corporate divisions and not speaking the language)
Sources:
http://wap.china-railway.com.cn/english/news/202505/t20250527_145536.html
https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202412/06/content_WS675248bac6d0868f4e8edb50.html
Where does Japan sit on the political spectrum? (Between left and right)
Is Japan communist?
