I do still support some aspects of capitalism and the free market. I’m of the opinion that society should guarantee everyone the basics and then those who want can build extra wealth for all I care. Just not through outright exploitation.
I don’t know if there’s a specific label for my beliefs, as I’m not too into political theory.
I’m not gonna go all Marxist on you regarding the exploitation of the workers by capitalists in the Marxist sense, but I’ll ask you this: what about the people in the global south? Do you believe that countries in South America, Africa, Middle East or South-East Asia are being exploited by the western world?
Well, obviously. But then we run into the whole issue of trade. If there’s no free trade, the people in those areas would have nobody to sell goods to, which is developing their economies. But under free trade, foreign capital exploits them.
In a way, it’s up to their own governments to protect their people from foreign capitalists. We here in the west/north/whatever can’t force that. But that’s easier said than done in a lot of places. They need to have their own money to build their own nations, but where do you get said money into your country unless you have oil, diamonds or other expensive resources that also attract bloodsuckers?
I suspect that the only workable solution is some sort of international fund that provides resources to poor nations and everyone pays into it. Kind of like here in the EU - richer countries pay more than they receive in benefits, but since it builds up the strength of the EU, they still end up benefiting. Thing is, acceptance into EU requires meeting some standards. Said global fund would also need to have standards for the nations they help - to make sure it’s not all wasted on corrupt warlords in the government. But then who helps the people in those countries?
It’s honestly an issue nobody wants to think about, myself included. How do you help people in those places? How do you force education and wealth on a backwards ass country?
If there’s no free trade, the people in those areas would have nobody to sell goods to, which is developing their economies
The main argument against this is that these areas are not developing. Take the famous Steven Pinker graphs of poverty reduction worldwide, and extract China from them: look at poverty numbers in the world without including China. You’ll see that poverty isn’t being relieved outside China, I.e. these countries aren’t really developing. They’re selling their resources for cheap and obtaining essentially nothing in return. This is known in Marxist economics as “unequal exchange” and I highly encourage you to read on it if you’re interested on the reasons for the underdevelopment of the global south. The wikipedia article itself is a good starting point.
The rest of your comment hinges on this crucial point of assuming theyre actually developing, that’s why I’m only answering to this point.
If you read the rest of my comment, I acknowledged that foreign capitalists are taking all the profit. The question is, what’s the solution? Because any local leadership in such a country, whether left or right wing, is likely to be corrupt and serving their own interests over that of the people.
any local leadership in such a country, whether left or right wing, is likely to be corrupt and serving their own interests over that of the people.
Well, my position as a communist is that the local leadership should be supported on popular grassroots movements, which will no doubt spawn in these countries eventually as they did naturally in Iran with Mosaddeq, in Cuba with Fidel, or in China with Mao. Of course, only socialist leaders fight to improve the actual living conditions of the people, which is why all poverty alleviation in the past half a century comes from China, which took 800 million people out of poverty and extreme poverty.
which is why all poverty alleviation in the past half a century comes from China, which took 800 million people out of poverty and extreme poverty.
Uhhh China has been embracing capitalism for a few decades now, sorry to say.
Problem with the “global south”, on the local level, is not even capitalism vs socialism. It’s corruption. The corruption of course stems from the poverty. When the leaders of your country come from poverty, had to gain power by force, and suddenly have access to resources… They do tend to abuse their access.
Yes, a functional socialist leadership is the best way forward for any of these countries, but even a well regulated capitalist system would be better than the leaders just selling their country to a bunch of corporations to increase their own wealth.
Uhhh China has been embracing capitalism for a few decades now, sorry to say.
China hasn’t been embracing capitalism, China has been reigning in capitalism through Dengism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Why did China develop and industrialize while India didn’t? Why didn’t the same process as in China take place in Indonesia or Philippines or Bangladesh or Pakistan, all of them capitalist countries? Why didn’t Mexico or Brazil have similar growth rates?
Why did China develop and industrialize while India didn’t? Why didn’t the same process as in China take place in Indonesia or Philippines or Bangladesh or Pakistan, all of them capitalist countries
China mixes and matches capitalism with state capitalism and socialism. They use subsidies to squash overseas competition, that’s why you can get things for basically free, shipping included, from Aliexpress. China has almost as many billionaires as the US - and is going to overtake them soon enough.
They’re smart in utilizing protectionism too. It’s way harder for western companies to sell things to the Chinese than Chinese companies to sell things to the west. For an example, Volkswagen sells cars through joint ventures with Chinese companies. They can’t just have a western-owned company selling the cars.
Why not India? Tough to say. For one reason or another, China became the factory of the world. Since then, they’ve made a lot of smart decisions to both profit from it as much as possible, and retain their status (just look at Shenzhen. There’s no alternative in the world). The other countries you mentioned could never have the economies of scale that China does. India is the only one that theoretically could.
me checks timeline and notices that this poverty allevation didn’t start until long after Mao’s death and only after China switched to a capitalist mode of production…
Lol, that is fake news. Life expectancy dropped during the war period as expected, but it was about as high before the war as it was after. The methods Mao employed rather delayed the recovery.
I had the same discussion with one of your fellow MLs before, and this is just completely silly cherry-picking of data to make the disasterous policies of Mao look somehow less bad 🤡
I do still support some aspects of capitalism and the free market. I’m of the opinion that society should guarantee everyone the basics and then those who want can build extra wealth for all I care. Just not through outright exploitation.
I don’t know if there’s a specific label for my beliefs, as I’m not too into political theory.
I’m not gonna go all Marxist on you regarding the exploitation of the workers by capitalists in the Marxist sense, but I’ll ask you this: what about the people in the global south? Do you believe that countries in South America, Africa, Middle East or South-East Asia are being exploited by the western world?
Well, obviously. But then we run into the whole issue of trade. If there’s no free trade, the people in those areas would have nobody to sell goods to, which is developing their economies. But under free trade, foreign capital exploits them.
In a way, it’s up to their own governments to protect their people from foreign capitalists. We here in the west/north/whatever can’t force that. But that’s easier said than done in a lot of places. They need to have their own money to build their own nations, but where do you get said money into your country unless you have oil, diamonds or other expensive resources that also attract bloodsuckers?
I suspect that the only workable solution is some sort of international fund that provides resources to poor nations and everyone pays into it. Kind of like here in the EU - richer countries pay more than they receive in benefits, but since it builds up the strength of the EU, they still end up benefiting. Thing is, acceptance into EU requires meeting some standards. Said global fund would also need to have standards for the nations they help - to make sure it’s not all wasted on corrupt warlords in the government. But then who helps the people in those countries?
It’s honestly an issue nobody wants to think about, myself included. How do you help people in those places? How do you force education and wealth on a backwards ass country?
The main argument against this is that these areas are not developing. Take the famous Steven Pinker graphs of poverty reduction worldwide, and extract China from them: look at poverty numbers in the world without including China. You’ll see that poverty isn’t being relieved outside China, I.e. these countries aren’t really developing. They’re selling their resources for cheap and obtaining essentially nothing in return. This is known in Marxist economics as “unequal exchange” and I highly encourage you to read on it if you’re interested on the reasons for the underdevelopment of the global south. The wikipedia article itself is a good starting point.
The rest of your comment hinges on this crucial point of assuming theyre actually developing, that’s why I’m only answering to this point.
If you read the rest of my comment, I acknowledged that foreign capitalists are taking all the profit. The question is, what’s the solution? Because any local leadership in such a country, whether left or right wing, is likely to be corrupt and serving their own interests over that of the people.
Well, my position as a communist is that the local leadership should be supported on popular grassroots movements, which will no doubt spawn in these countries eventually as they did naturally in Iran with Mosaddeq, in Cuba with Fidel, or in China with Mao. Of course, only socialist leaders fight to improve the actual living conditions of the people, which is why all poverty alleviation in the past half a century comes from China, which took 800 million people out of poverty and extreme poverty.
Uhhh China has been embracing capitalism for a few decades now, sorry to say.
Problem with the “global south”, on the local level, is not even capitalism vs socialism. It’s corruption. The corruption of course stems from the poverty. When the leaders of your country come from poverty, had to gain power by force, and suddenly have access to resources… They do tend to abuse their access.
Yes, a functional socialist leadership is the best way forward for any of these countries, but even a well regulated capitalist system would be better than the leaders just selling their country to a bunch of corporations to increase their own wealth.
China hasn’t been embracing capitalism, China has been reigning in capitalism through Dengism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Why did China develop and industrialize while India didn’t? Why didn’t the same process as in China take place in Indonesia or Philippines or Bangladesh or Pakistan, all of them capitalist countries? Why didn’t Mexico or Brazil have similar growth rates?
China mixes and matches capitalism with state capitalism and socialism. They use subsidies to squash overseas competition, that’s why you can get things for basically free, shipping included, from Aliexpress. China has almost as many billionaires as the US - and is going to overtake them soon enough.
They’re smart in utilizing protectionism too. It’s way harder for western companies to sell things to the Chinese than Chinese companies to sell things to the west. For an example, Volkswagen sells cars through joint ventures with Chinese companies. They can’t just have a western-owned company selling the cars.
Why not India? Tough to say. For one reason or another, China became the factory of the world. Since then, they’ve made a lot of smart decisions to both profit from it as much as possible, and retain their status (just look at Shenzhen. There’s no alternative in the world). The other countries you mentioned could never have the economies of scale that China does. India is the only one that theoretically could.
me checks timeline and notices that this poverty allevation didn’t start until long after Mao’s death and only after China switched to a capitalist mode of production…
Fake news. Life expectancy in China before Mao was 35, by the time he died was close to 60, Maoism saved hundreds of millions of lives.
Lol, that is fake news. Life expectancy dropped during the war period as expected, but it was about as high before the war as it was after. The methods Mao employed rather delayed the recovery.
I had the same discussion with one of your fellow MLs before, and this is just completely silly cherry-picking of data to make the disasterous policies of Mao look somehow less bad 🤡