Billionaires, but not their billions?

https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/rise-wealth-private-property-and-income-inequality-china

The share of China’s national income earned by the top 10% of the population has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, nearing the U.S.’s 45% and surpassing France’s 32%.

Why is income inequality rising? Are you saying the Chinese working class are enjoying the trickle-down benefits of billionaires getting richer?

Further, you have no proof of the PRC lying about pubkic ownership.

Again, billionaires, and their existence, is proof that the profits are not publicly owned.

Even further, they cannot indefinitely build towards Socialism.

No they can just lie and say “we’re in a transitionary phase to socialism” indefinitely while being more repressively capitalist than America could ever dream of.

as firms grow and get folded into the public sector and socialization increases

Again from the same link posted above, the opposite is happening, China is privatizing.

“The state-owned (vs. privately-owned) share of China’s wealth fell from 70% to about 30%”

The presence of structures potentially contradictory to higher stages of Socialism, like banks, stock markets, and billionaires, does not mean they are not progressing towards those higher stages.

So what does then? If income inequality is rising, billionaires are getting richer, public ownership is disappearing, privatization is increasing, then what are you basing this idea that they are “progressing towards those higher stages” on?

Given our prior interactions, I already know you aren’t a Marxist, why should anyone trust your evaluation of Marxism?

I’m a socialist. I’m trying to get you to think about your definitions by challenging what you believe with the facts. Like this idea that China is “working towards socialism”.

Do you also believe Trump is “working towards Christian values”?

Chinese public to Chinese billionaire: “Can I have some of our public profits?”

Chinese billionaire: “No.”

Again, saying they’re “public” and actually being publicly owned are two different things. The PRC is just lying. They can be in this “building towards socialism” phase indefinitely while they profit off the labour of the working class.

And a simple observation of their economic makeup will see things that you typically see in capitalist economies, like banks, and stock markets, and billionaires, things that are pretty explicitly the antithesis of Marxism.

China has a capitalist economy, not a socialist one.

It sounds like you’ve been soaking up Chinese propaganda!

You’re like those Christian Americans who truly believe that Trump is promoting “Christian values” despite being as far as you can get from Christian values.

All it takes for socialism is to just wave the flag and talk the talk, but not walk the walk, eh?

I didn’t realize banks, financial trade, and currency were also classically Marxist.

What do the PRC do that is socialist? I’m honestly asking because I haven’t seen them do anything socialist.

China isn’t Marxist so I’m confused wtf that has to do with anything.

Specifically though, which part is relevant here?

How do you know?

What theory?

Yeah that tracks, same with Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Being aware of America’s abuses of power is good. Being contrarian and acting like everything they’ve ever said about China is a lie is bad.

Bring guns.

The data surrounding cooperatives don’t appear to indicate any danger to large firms and other Capitalist entities dominating markets.

Can I see that data?

Since I’m sure you’re arguing in good faith here and have actually looked at some data, and you’re not just making things up.

I didn’t write any insults. I attacked your arguments. I said they were reminiscent of Jordan Peterson’s word salad. I’m saying you aren’t saying anything of substance. You’re stringing a bunch of lofty concepts together in an attempt to sound smart, but you aren’t saying anything at all.

I think that’s what Marx was doing at many times too, but unfortunately some people are incapable of questioning it and instead just repeat it verbatim.

No, socialism is when the people own the means of production. That doesn’t require national borders, nor do I take your trolling response to be a positive indicator of arguing in good faith.

Socialism is a gradual process towards Communism.

This was the lie that Lenin told the Soviet to quell their questions about “why aren’t we doing any of the things Marx said we have to do?”

Marx used socialism and communism as synonyms.

A worker cooperative does not endanger the Capitalist system nor move agaInst it,

You sure about that? A bunch of people choosing to not give money to capitalists “does not endanger the capitalist system”? Think about that.

They democratized the economy,

They had absolutely no democracy.

ended famine in a country where that was regular

They deliberately caused famine.

dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth

They were ended by the very corruption and wealth inequality you claim they lowered.

defeated the Nazis,

With the help of capitalist empires.

proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well

It did not work well.

provided free and high quality healthcare and education

We do that in Canada, too.

The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided.

Yet you dismiss everything bad ever said about the USSR as “Red Scare propaganda” to conveniently throw it under the bed and avoid it.

As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics.

China has banks. Stock markets. Billionaires. Absolutely nothing about their economy is socialist or is driven by marxism.

You can’t back these statements up with any evidence. You just make bold proclamations and assert them as true because you said they were, and if anyone doubts you they just have to “read theory”.

Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses.

None of what you just said here is true.

If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes.

Yes, but unfortunately you have dismissed everything you have read as “Red Scare propaganda”, or likely “Yellow fever propaganda”.

Dialectical Materialism asserts that material reality drives the progression of history, and is the primary determiner of ideas, but that these ideas of humans influence them to reshape reality. This process works in endless spirals.

This reads like the word salad Jordan Peterson spews. It’s vague and doesn’t make any sense. Here’s a better image.

I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR.

Learning from their mistakes. Not emulating a failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship.

I don’t see what is “backfiring,”

Americans fear the word “socialism” because they associate it with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Your love of Lenin and the USSR isn’t helping with that.

The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.

The only thing the PRC learned was to abandon socialism. Canada is more socialist than the PRC.

You keep linking books to read. I think we’ve read enough. It’s time to start writing.

Instead of thinking that big ideas or beliefs drive history,

So dialectical materialism rejects the notion of ideologies like socialism?

This seems needlessly arbitrary and reductive. Socialism exists all around us, it isn’t defined by a country’s borders.

But in another comment you referred to the USSR as “the world’s first socialist state”, yet it existed in the broader global capitalist machine. You have contradicted yourself. Which is it? Can socialism exist in a world with capitalism, or not?