this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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How Communism Is Outcompeting Capitalism (indi.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/economics@lemmygrad.ml
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[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

China, the communist country, preserves the rational spirit of capitalism while America, the capitalist country, subsidizes one clown car. WTF is going on? It's almost as if the propaganda were bullshit and communism actually works.

Kinda weird reasoning that America couldn't do capitalism correctly but China has its rational spirit preserved.

Not sure which stage of grief this is but it's good for a laugh.

I think what actually happened is economists in America just got it wrong yet again but the government still keeps listening to them despite being terrible.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I'd say the big difference is that capitalism in China exists within the overarching socialist framework. The market operates within this context and it's used strictly as a tool for resource allocation. Meanwhile, in the west the market ends up being an end of itself. There is no other purpose than just increasing the wealth of financial capitalists who run the economy.

[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think China openly admits that it's only in early stages of socialism. It has capitalists and many privately owned companies. They will transition towards more socialism if/when it is going to benefit their country.

In the case of AI, the American government tried to manipulate the AI market via chip sanctions to benefit their AI companies and block China's AI companies. In an alternate universe where they didn't do that, who knows what would have happened. But because China had those restrictions, their companies innovated even harder and now it's fucked up the US AI industry. In direct competition, US AI companies have taken a loss here. You could even argue it was an unfair competition and DeepSeek beat them all with a big handicap because they didn't have as many GPUs and they weren't the top end GPUs.

The article attempts to pit two ideologies against each other in Capitalism vs Communism but I would argue only China has the talent pool and the tech ecosystem to beat the US (especially in AI). It is unique in the world.

Similarly the US now is uniquely stupid and the absolute worst at spending money in tech. It's a recent phenomena. The US used to have good tech companies.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Right, China is still in a socialist stage of development where the working class holds power, but capitalist relations have not been abolished yet. The key is that even at this stage we can see clear benefits of the proletarian dictatorship already. It's not just the AI market, but it's advancement across the board. EVs, clean energy tech, batteries, infrastructure, and so on. All of these things are advancing very rapidly and in service of the working majority.

[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

EVs, clean energy tech, batteries, infrastructure, and so on.

IMHO the US government believed that they (or their private companies) were ahead in AI technology unlike all those other things where they are behind. That's why they put so much effort into blocking China (Chip fab is another one though it's related to the AI sector somewhat).

But Chinese had to go and overtake the US in AI as well. It's a chef's kiss moment. (Suck it America!) care

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 months ago

Oh yeah for sure, they drank their own koolaid regarding western superiority in tech.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yup, capitalists hold no political power in China, they simply have no way to pursue class interests through politics, theyre not an actual organized class but individuals, their only choice is to keep improving their businesses. In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat establishes the rules of the game and the capitalists need to adapt or die.

The capitalists in China are actually meritocratic while in the West they're not. Take the Deepseek team for example, High-Flyer, a grassroots hedge fund started by masters in engineering and now filled with PhDs and math olympians medalists.

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 2 months ago

Agreed. China is able to take the "best" of both worlds and uses whatever works in their own context, to ultimately serve socialism. The benefits of "both" systems and almost none of the downsides of either. Though of course, socialism is still the best, in the long run.

[–] deathtoreddit@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 months ago

It's not just economists but Elly capitalists themselves that believe in the following:

(in Marx’s critique of capitalism)

People make capital. Everything that counts as capital is a human creation.

Having created capital, people then assign to it the powers of creation.

Once the creative powers of work get misassigned to capital, actual workers {and other people} are made subordinate to it. [28]

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, it could be argued that even though fascism preserves corporate profits, it's bad capitalism overall, because it ruins the veneer of democracy that capitalism claims to have.

Where as in spite, or even because, of the fact that China is socialist, it's able to make the best of "both worlds" and utilize capitalism in limited ways and in limited contexts, to ultimately serve socialism. Achiveing the benefits of 'both" and almost none of the flaws.

[–] GreatSquare@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's actually even better that this AI advancement came out of a private Chinese startup and not a government research lab.

capitalist coping

[–] cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 months ago

Agreed. I can scarcely imagine what can be achieved when China finally takes the fucking gloves off and mobilizes the entire country.

[–] o_d@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 months ago

AI was the golden goose that VR was supposed to be, it made NVIDIA's line go up and the ‘magnificent seven’ crowded into the bathroom stall to get high AF.

😂

[–] Jin008@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 months ago

Always a good read and a good laugh

[–] Jin008@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 2 months ago

Indi.ca always informative and always a good laugh