this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Look, can't we agree that neither country gives a shit about the working class? Nation states are so 20th century. Why not try something new and try dissolving the state and self organizing into communes that best reflect our beliefs and values?
That said... What do the different shades of colors mean in the top image? Only half fucked over?
No we can't because that's demonstrably false. The state in China clearly represents the interests of the majority.
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
People in China also enjoy high social mobility https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
And finally, they have record household savings https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
The real question is why do anarchists have nothing to show aside from rhetoric for over a century. I'll take a functional worker state that actually improves lives of the people instead of living under dictatorship of capital while dreaming about unachievable utopia.
Go ahead. If that works, I'd be delighted. Seems that all it ever ends up producing is a 15 person sex commune. When self-organizing commune lift a billion people from poverty and outmaneuver the US empire, I'll become an anarchist.
Because i want rail roads crossing the world and massive buildings and a global shipping network and all the things that are only possible because of states. If u want to return to monkee feel free but the rest of us would like to have a civilization. Fundamentally i disagree with ur stupid ideals even IF we put aside the reality of defending anything that working people build from capital.
Personally I think a gradual transition towards statelessness is necessary, because people are currently used to living in a state and are generally quite skeptical of sudden rapid change, even if it would be purely positive. Even if the capitalists were eliminated tomorrow and their propaganda networks shut down immediately, the general populace would still be infected by their brainworms for at least a generation.
I have almost the exact opposite take on China.
Shit government, surveil people, torture people, no internet-freedom.
Their huge massive redeeming feature os that they REALLY give a shit about their working class.