This is like an alternate version of "meritcratic" academic testing, it's still a barrier to people who don't have the same resources as others, which I would dare to assert that is a bad thing.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

I'm sorry but if Xi could go from living in a literal cave sleeping on a rock bed to being party leader I have to disagree that it's presenting a resource-based barrier.

With that said he did fail his first entrance exam into the party multiple times.

[–] TerribleHands@hexbear.net 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Not to downplay Xi's abilities, but he wasn't just some random peasant kid who grew up in a cave, he was the son of an incredibly famous revolutionary and politician. His dad was vice-chairman of the NPC for most of Xi Jinping's early-mid political career.

Also, to be clear, Yaodong "cave houses" aren't actually caves; Xi probably had a wooden bed.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 23 minutes ago* (last edited 21 minutes ago)

It's a stone bed with mats on it, and it was shared with 3 people.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Literal bootstrapism. I could present you success stories about poor people getting into Ivy League schools, and you'd rightly say that such stories are masking systemic problems.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What do you propose instead? This exists to prevent what occurred with the party in the USSR which ultimately led to the biggest standard of living disaster in history.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Is that true? Is that how you get people in there who propose that risk is a type of labor? I am pretty sure Xi was involved in things by 2006 as a comparatively petty official, which is not to say that this is his view, but that this shit was allowed in the Party in a relevant timeframe and exams didn't stop it.

I'm sure that politicians being uneducated was a problem in the Soviet Union, but there were people who would at least turn revisionist who were among the Soviet vanguard since before the October Revolution. The problem fundamentally isn't ignorance, or it is somehow that many years of schooling are needed not to trip and fall into being a reactionary. The former means that education won't solve it, the latter is basically an excuse for having a party of the elite who the plebians can't hope to understand the intellectual workings of, who they must sit passively by and approve or disapprove from the short procession of learned individuals who had the privilege to go through all this political grooming.

But that's a counterfactual, I think the main problem wasn't a lack of education a failure to guard against the ability to be a revisionist based on choice rather than mistake. Given that, I think imposing these educational barriers, most of all ones that weren't decided on a direct democratic basis, is just enabling the party to be insular without doing a thing to protect it from intentional revisionism, the much greater threat if we're worried about an autopsy of the Soviet Union.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 34 minutes ago

but that this shit was allowed in the Party in a relevant timeframe and exams didn't stop it.

Yes but how long did it take to get to that point? It took an incredibly large amount of time for the party to become corrupted enough to require the corruption crackdowns, which were essentially purges of this.

The goal is not necessarily to expect this to stop it entirely, but to function as one of many things that reduce or slow it so that other actions can be taken before things are too bad.

I'm sure that politicians being uneducated was a problem in the Soviet Union, but there were people who would at least turn revisionist who were among the Soviet vanguard since before the October Revolution.

Post ww2 the party became a "party of the people" and Kruschev deemed it was of the people because the people were participants. All ideology became muddled. It was a mess. This was because no enforcement of party line, no prevention of those uneducated in marxism was undertaken.

You can not have a marxist party if your members are not marxists.

You must undertake some measure to ensure they are. Either you're doing that through marxism exams or you're doing it through purges, which are just the same as preventing people from rising up that others want to democratically elect is it not?

If you exercise no authority, the party discipline will cease to exist.

You have not proposed alternatives?