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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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That's not how it works. A system cannot be "half socialism half capitalism" as these two concepts quite literally contradict each other.
Socialism is the process of transition from capitalism to communism. It's defined by a society where the proletariat has become the ruling class, after having the former ruling class overthrown through revolution; a society where the state serves the interests of the workers and naturally withers away (as Lenin puts it) as the concept of class begins to disappear (as we get closer to communism). For more info on this, you can read state and revolution, by Lenin. As for dialectical and historical materialism, you can read Socialism: utopian and scientific, by Engels and Dialectical and Historical Materialism, by the man of steel himself.
Capitalism is the system that came after feudalism and before Socialism. It's defined by giving full power to the Bourgeoisie and, contrary to under Socialism, the state serves the interests of the Bourgeoisie. Here's a (very) basic explanation of each one:
Early capitalism (idk the marxist term for it): Small competition among national bourgeoisie.
Monopoly Capitalism: As the nature of Capitalism naturally leads to monopolization, the means of production are at a large scale concentrated in the hands of a few.
Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism: Capitalism needs infinite growth and expansion to survive, so it exports capital (workers, firms, factories) abroad in order to expand and increase profits.
My definitions might be slightly incorrect, i haven't had the time to read theory in a while due to life circumstances
One could assume China is revisionist for adopting a market economy instead of a strictly planned economy, like the one in the USSR and former Socialist bloc, but this argument is fundamentally wrong, since it's extremely idealistic to think of Socialism as a fixed set of rules that must be forced upon the material conditions of said society and not the other way around (and that's why the "not real socialism" argument doesn't even make any sense). The truth is that, while it'd have been more desirable for China to keep a planned economy, opening up to the West and its capital (under heavy supervision and control of the CPC) allowed China to flourish and become the very industrialized nation that it is today, and I think if Mao could see what his country became, he would be very proud.
Contradiction is the engine of history. Marxist analysis begins with contradiction. If you think socialism will be free of contradiction then you aren't using dialectical analysis, if you think capitalism is free from contradiction then you are completely out of touch. Capitalism is a system that thrives on contradiction.
I'm not arguing that China is "half socialist, half capitalist," I'm not qualified to make that determination, but it sounds overly simplistic to me. What I am saying is that two contradictory systems can exist simultaneously and may even be the driver to Chinas incredible and undeniable economic success. At the same time it is a country that is rife with contradictions. Resolving contradiction makes new contradictions. Our goal is not to create a society free of contradiction, this is mathematically impossible. Our goal is to create a more fair, progressive, industrious society where the rewards of work goes to the workers. In order to do this we will have to become adept, as China has, at managing contradiction.
Thanks, comrade, you are correct. It wasn't my intentions to say Socialism is free of contradictions, it's just that the "half socialist half capitalist" thing never made sense to me.
By "contradict each other" I meant they're completely opposing forces. They either struggle to or cannot coexist within the same superstructure i.e how can you have the proletariat and the bourgeoisie as the ruling class?
From my understanding, China is, right now, using the Capitalist system (and bringing along all its contradictions) to build productive forces in order to pave the way for Socialism, as Capitalism is the system whose contradictions will create the conditions for Socialism to flourish; it's now in a very early stage of Socialism.
Like I said before, I haven't had much time to brush up on theory as I used to, but I will make sure to revise my knowledge on Materialism like you pointed out, comrade.
Thanks for hearing me out comrade, I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to dialectics and I worry about people who use the term as a shibboleth without really understanding the methods. I don't think this is the case with you, you are open about your self criticisms which is the key to personal growth.
No ahahah you aren't anything like that, it's always good to hear out criticism from people more educated than me. Thanks for correcting me comrade, I will be re-reading this soon.
And I heard the opinion that China has hidden capitalism under the guise of socialism :-) The USSR also began to build socialism, but on the road to communism it was betrayed and destroyed, and before that Stalin was poisoned.
Well, that opinion is definitely wrong. China isn't perfect (living in a world with less desirable material conditions does that), however, it's the Socialist nation that has managed to develop itself the most, so there's that. The reason why it survived the 80s and the 90s wave of color revolutions was because it learned from the mistakes of the USSR and the eastern bloc.
Also, yeah there was a lot of incompetence in the communist parties of both the USSR and the Eastern bloc in general, but there were also many principled communists as well. There was also a lot of friction between its countries, for example, Albania siding with China and denouncing the USSR and the events that led to the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.
Well, let's see what the final result will be? Success or failure :-)
Its been succeeding for over 100 years now, let us know if it fails!
this person has gotta be a troll. There's no way
:-)
What? :-)
From my perspective, the Chinese project as evolved into something like trying to wrap a great socialist party around a capitalist economy in an effort to mitigate the disastrous consequences of capitalist development and prevent the state from becoming subordinate to market forces. Capitalism always requires a strong state in order to function. Western nations chop up state power so that market forces determine the agenda of imperialism. Socialist or burgeoning socialist nations seem to try to keep the state as strong and centralized as possible, while (somewhat attempting) discouraging the individual accumulation of political power to stave off corruption and consolidation of personal interest. This seems to be one of the main points of failure of this model, but the extent to which the country is successful is the extent to which they are able to persist and project the possibility of socialist society into the future.
I'm open to critique of this analysis as I'm aware of some assumptions present in my method.