I think the concern for the West is that there’s a communist uprising unfolding in India, and that would be the worst case scenario for them because then India could end up being aligned with China. So, if they think BJP might get overthrown they’d jump in to put in a “democratic” government before the left can take power.
Would this actually even make sense though? Would a communist uprising in India actually create a government that embraced China? I mean… is China really communist at this point?
If India had a communist uprising it wouldn’t necessarily embrace China. Communist countries don’t always see eye to eye, but they’d certainly be more ideologically aligned than they are now.
Regarding whether China is communist or not, I don’t think the question is binary. China has a communist party in charge and they’re working towards communism. I don’t think anybody has ever claimed that China has achieved it yet.
China currently has capitalism, but saying that makes it capitalist would be like saying that a capitalist country with some socialist policies is socialist. The key difference between China and capitalist states is that all the essential industry is state owned, and capitalists do not appear to be in charge of the government.
One simple test to consider is that China doesn’t suffer from regular crashes seen under capitalism. One of the inherent contradictions within capitalism is that the capitalists always want to cut pay for their employees to minimize the costs, while they also require consumers with enough spending power to consume the commodities they produce. This is why capitalism results in regular economic crashes when wages fall below the point where consumption can keep up with the rate of commodity production. At that point you end up with overproduction and a crash. If China was capitalist then it should be experiencing these kinds of crashes regularly just like actual capitalist nations are in the Western world.
And a related point is that quality of life in China continues to steadily improve and the government is actively working on doing things like eliminating poverty, creating public infrastructure, providing healthcare, housing, food, and education for all citizens. This is something that simply does not happen under capitalism. We can compare communist China and capitalist India today to see the stark contrast in their development.
It just seems like what defines China at this point is far better described as authoritarianism than a label like communism or capitalism. Same goes with the US. I mean… at what point does it matter how power is legitimized in a system of governance if in practice the results are the elite owning and deciding everything?
If I am way off the mark, please feel free to educate me with some links to stuff I can read, I am not trying to force a point I am trying to work through these ideas myself!
I’d argue that authoritarianism is an orthogonal concept to communism. Authoritarianism relates to the amount of individual freedom that citizens enjoy, while communism deals largely with the way the economy is run. China’s economy is clearly serving public interest a lot better than US economy, and the public has far more influence over the direction of the country.
The claim that the elite owns and decides everything clearly doesn’t bear out when we look at China. If that was the case we’d expect to see a situation that’s closer to US or India where poverty runs rampant, there is no investment in public infrastructure, and no social services. None of these things benefit the elites in the slightest.
There are also some good resources on how the government works in China:
There is also an argument to be made that authoritarian style government is the only type that can stand up to western capitalist aggression. We’ve seen time and again more liberal socialist governments being destroyed in places like Chile and Brazil. Michael Parenti refers to this phenomenon as siege socialism here.
An article about this here. The West is absolutely responsible for propping up Modi and what’s happening in India right now.
The regime is definitely repressive and extremely so but that US think tank BS seems like pretext to regime change.
I think the concern for the West is that there’s a communist uprising unfolding in India, and that would be the worst case scenario for them because then India could end up being aligned with China. So, if they think BJP might get overthrown they’d jump in to put in a “democratic” government before the left can take power.
Would this actually even make sense though? Would a communist uprising in India actually create a government that embraced China? I mean… is China really communist at this point?
If India had a communist uprising it wouldn’t necessarily embrace China. Communist countries don’t always see eye to eye, but they’d certainly be more ideologically aligned than they are now.
Regarding whether China is communist or not, I don’t think the question is binary. China has a communist party in charge and they’re working towards communism. I don’t think anybody has ever claimed that China has achieved it yet.
China currently has capitalism, but saying that makes it capitalist would be like saying that a capitalist country with some socialist policies is socialist. The key difference between China and capitalist states is that all the essential industry is state owned, and capitalists do not appear to be in charge of the government.
One simple test to consider is that China doesn’t suffer from regular crashes seen under capitalism. One of the inherent contradictions within capitalism is that the capitalists always want to cut pay for their employees to minimize the costs, while they also require consumers with enough spending power to consume the commodities they produce. This is why capitalism results in regular economic crashes when wages fall below the point where consumption can keep up with the rate of commodity production. At that point you end up with overproduction and a crash. If China was capitalist then it should be experiencing these kinds of crashes regularly just like actual capitalist nations are in the Western world.
And a related point is that quality of life in China continues to steadily improve and the government is actively working on doing things like eliminating poverty, creating public infrastructure, providing healthcare, housing, food, and education for all citizens. This is something that simply does not happen under capitalism. We can compare communist China and capitalist India today to see the stark contrast in their development.
Great answer thank you!
It just seems like what defines China at this point is far better described as authoritarianism than a label like communism or capitalism. Same goes with the US. I mean… at what point does it matter how power is legitimized in a system of governance if in practice the results are the elite owning and deciding everything?
If I am way off the mark, please feel free to educate me with some links to stuff I can read, I am not trying to force a point I am trying to work through these ideas myself!
I’d argue that authoritarianism is an orthogonal concept to communism. Authoritarianism relates to the amount of individual freedom that citizens enjoy, while communism deals largely with the way the economy is run. China’s economy is clearly serving public interest a lot better than US economy, and the public has far more influence over the direction of the country.
The claim that the elite owns and decides everything clearly doesn’t bear out when we look at China. If that was the case we’d expect to see a situation that’s closer to US or India where poverty runs rampant, there is no investment in public infrastructure, and no social services. None of these things benefit the elites in the slightest.
There are also some good resources on how the government works in China:
Polls in China also indicate strong popular support for the government and policy it enacts:
There is also an argument to be made that authoritarian style government is the only type that can stand up to western capitalist aggression. We’ve seen time and again more liberal socialist governments being destroyed in places like Chile and Brazil. Michael Parenti refers to this phenomenon as siege socialism here.