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Notes -
At some point you gotta stop blaming outside actors for internal failures, right? The Soviets were large enough to stand their own and engaged in international trade. Still ended up collapsing.
Even China had to adapt to capitalism in the end. Worker control of the means of production simply doesn't work if you get rid of the market signals that influence the means of production -- and if you're adopting a market economy then you're not doing classical socialism anymore anyways.
To add to this, everyone and everything is always being influenced by outside actors. That's part of living in the world, you are not alone. Being able to deal with the rest of the world is simply a requirement.
It's actually quite remarkable how much the Soviets and their satellite states found it necessary to close off their societies. In the modern day, only North Korea does it to that extent.
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First of all I never said it wasn't a failure. It obviously was. Friction is the deciding factor in the success of ideologies because it's where the rubber meets the road. Russia's particular implementation of communism via Marxist-Leninism didn't work, but...
China is a socialist market economy with strong Leninist leanings. So what does that prove? It proves that there are good and bad ways of implementing the program.
WSDE's don't "get rid of" market signals and expressing a preference.
What are the defining features of the Chinese economy that get you to call it "socialist"? Given the state of the Chinese labor market and the bargaining power that Chinese workers have, it does not strike me at all as "worker control over the means of production."
Likewise, I don't see any actual real-life implementations of that that don't seem like they'd be better described by the term "capitalism."
To begin with, China defines themselves along the way I described. This isn't something I just made up. Literally entire textbooks have been written on it. To give it concisely I very much have to abbreviate and abridge the economic and political logic at play here but basically it's a bureaucratic authoritarian system. So some of what I'm going to be misleading for the sake of concision.
In China, once a firm starts making a certain amount of money, the CCP comes in and nationalizes the entire business and takes it over. "Taking it over" in this context means that the business owner becomes a de facto member of the CCP and works in tandem with other actors in a similar position he is in, and with direct CCP officials to "harmonize" business incentives across enterprises to achieve broad political objectives set by the Politburo Standing Committee.
You have to see it the way socialists see it. "Workers control," can mean it's "controlled" by them in a number of different ways. It can be controlled directly by them. It can be controlled by a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (though we've seen how that goes), it can be controlled by the government, it depends on what thread of socialism you subscribe too. Most socialists today that I "know" of somewhat, reject state socialism outright. They see examples like Russia as a God that failed and China as an example of one that works. Plus all the worker co-op's scattered throughout the world.
Call it what you want. Just as there are different flavors and varieties of capitalism, there are different flavors and varieties of socialism.
Right, but is a country's self-definition the best way to understand it? North Korea defines itself as a democratic people's republic, when it's obviously neither democratic nor for the people.
Interesting. The internet socialists I've been in contact with in the past were the type to bemoan that China had lost its socialist way.
Fair enough. How is one to differentiate between a capitalist versus socialist economy then, when there can apparently be many shared characteristics across both? As I've mentioned, I'd like something more objective than "They claim to uphold the ideals of their ruling ideology."
How do you want to define “best” in this discussion? If you think it’s easier and want to lead under your paradigm go ahead. I have no problem operating within their established framework. Labels have their uses but I’m not dogmatically attached to them. In fact, all the better as far as I’m concerned. If you want someone stubborn to accept the brilliance of your philosophy the best way isn’t to argue with them but to convince them it was their idea in the first place, and then roll your eyes once their head is turned around.
Well. I don’t know who these “internet socialists” are. I don’t spend that much time living my life online and this is pretty much the only social media account I actively use on occasion. They clearly aren’t the ones I talk to that have actually read a book down that alley.
You examine the characteristics of these systems, the same as you do for anything else. Capitalism is a system where the means of production are privately owned. Socialism is a system where the means of production are controlled by the workers. Now how both of these different systems go about trying to enact and carry out their aims is multifaceted.
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