Episode 222 - The China Episode

Summary

This episode provides a detailed Marxist analysis of the People’s Republic of China, framing it as a socialist state operating in the ‘primary stage of socialism.’ The hosts establish that political power in China is held by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat, meaning capital exists but does not rule the state. Socialist democracy in China is defined by its class content and material outcomes—such as improved living standards and long-term planning capacity—rather than procedural pluralism.

The discussion acknowledges China’s historical achievements in securing national sovereignty and development after a century of foreign domination. However, it also engages in serious Marxist critique of internal contradictions, including the existence of billionaires as a politically contingent but ideologically problematic feature, the risk of administrative overdevelopment relative to mass political initiative, and the uneven development of ‘shop floor democracy’ or direct worker control at the point of production.

The hosts analyze China’s position in the global system, arguing it is not imperialist. They contrast China’s development from a semi-colonial position with the extractive nature of Western imperialism. Initiatives like the Belt and Road are framed as state-mediated development financing that weakens U.S. unipolar hegemony and offers alternatives to IMF austerity, even if they operate through elite channels and lack transformative socialist internationalism. The episode concludes by synthesizing and rebutting common ultra-left criticisms of China, emphasizing the material constraints and historical context that shape China’s socialist path.

Recommendations

Movies

The Battle of Algiers — Hakim mentions watching the uncut version with a friend, providing live commentary on the Algerian dialect.

Shows

Avatar: The Last Airbender — Recommended by Yugopnik, who was surprised by its depth, cultural diversity, and commentary, progressing quickly for a kid’s cartoon.
The Legend of Korra — Mentioned as the follow-up series to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Prison Notebook — A Korean drama recommended by Hakim, which he watched with his wife.

Topic Timeline

00:07:26 — Introduction and Framing of the China Discussion — The hosts introduce the episode as a general overview and Marxist critique of China. They clarify the intent to treat China as a real historical socialist project with real gains and strategic failures, not from a liberal moralistic lens. The core essence is established: China is a socialist country with socialist democracy, but it has deep structural contradictions that cannot be hand-waved away without abandoning Marxism.
00:11:52 — Where State Power Resides: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat — JT explains that in China, political power is held by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. The key Marxist point is that the bourgeoisie does not function as a ruling class; capital operates under party discipline and regulation. This structural exclusion of bourgeois class rule is what decisively makes China socialist, not the abolition of commodity relations.
00:14:52 — Defining Socialist Democracy vs. Liberal Democracy — The hosts contrast socialist democracy in China with liberal democracy. Socialist democracy is defined by class content and material outcomes like living standards and long-term planning, not procedural pluralism or rotating elite factions. It’s a continuous, embedded form of participation in governance, measured by its ability to reproduce proletarian power and constrain the return of bourgeois rule.
00:17:16 — The Primary Stage of Socialism and Its Contradictions — The concept of the ‘primary stage of socialism’ is discussed as an accurate analysis of China’s current state, not an excuse. It acknowledges uneven development, incomplete socialization, and that commodity relations and class contradictions persist. However, these are understood as non-antagonistic so long as political power remains socialist, and they are actively mediated within the socialist structure.
00:20:36 — Mao, Bureaucracy, and the Cultural Revolution — The hosts analyze Mao Zedong’s correct identification of the contradiction of bureaucratic degeneration under socialism. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to confront this at the superstructure level, and its diagnosis was not wrong. However, the criticism is that its execution exceeded material and institutional limits, leading to political rupture without structural resolution and creating a deep historical trauma.
00:22:54 — Reform and Opening as Socialist Self-Preservation — The period under Deng Xiaoping is analyzed not as capitalist restoration but as socialist self-preservation. The party re-centered the development of productive forces as the material basis of socialism. Markets were introduced tactically, but political power remained socialist, with strategic sectors under public control and capital subordinated to socialist political authority.
00:27:57 — Billionaires as a Socialist Contradiction — The existence of billionaires in China is tackled as a major contradiction. Their wealth is politically contingent and legally revocable; they do not control the state. However, their existence reproduces bourgeois social relations in everyday life, shapes aspirations, and can blur lines between socialist accumulation and personal enrichment. The party’s capacity to discipline capital is noted, but the danger of their tolerated existence is acknowledged.
00:33:47 — China’s Political Economy and Class Structure — Hakim delves into China’s political economy, noting dominant public ownership in strategic sectors. Accumulation is directed by the state towards expanded reproduction and national development. A differentiated class structure exists due to the primary stage, including a working class, managerial strata, and politically subordinated private entrepreneurs. The key tension is that the working class retains political dominance but does not uniformly exercise power directly at the point of production.
00:51:59 — Is China Imperialist? A Structural Analysis — The hosts rigorously define imperialism as a structural position of monopoly finance capital and surplus extraction. They argue China is not imperialist because it emerged from semi-colonial subjugation, its development has been inward-oriented, and it lacks a ruling capitalist class whose accumulation imperatives drive state policy outward. China’s global investments, like the Belt and Road Initiative, are directed towards productive infrastructure and fracture existing imperial mechanisms rather than creating new extraction networks.
01:10:09 — Multipolarity, BRI, and the Limits of Chinese Foreign Policy — The discussion covers how China’s rise fosters multipolarity, which weakens U.S. unipolar dominance and creates more policy space for the Global South. The Belt and Road Initiative is contrasted with IMF loans, offering development financing without enforced political conditionalities. However, critiques are noted: BRI deals are negotiated with elites, not popular movements, and China’s foreign policy is cautious, prioritizing stability and non-interference over revolutionary internationalism, which limits the potential for socialist transformation abroad.
01:30:58 — Synthesizing and Critiquing Ultra-Left Criticisms of China — Hakim systematically outlines and rebuts common ultra-left (often Maoist) criticisms of China. These include claims of capitalist restoration at the point of production, that the party has become a new bourgeoisie, that the primary stage is an excuse, and that China is imperialist. The rebuttals focus on the errors in these critiques: confusing administrative control with class ownership, ignoring the scale of China’s material constraints, defining socialism mechanistically, and lacking concrete proposals for how a country of China’s scale and history could immediately transcend markets and imperial encirclement.

Episode Info

Podcast: The Deprogram
Author: JT, Hakim, and Yugopnik
Category: Education
Published: 2026-02-27T09:00:00Z
Duration: 02:24:57

References

URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/the-deprogram/db454ac0-2aba-013a-d615-0acc26574db2/episode-222-the-china-episode/49f2ceed-de3b-48b9-ab62-6f94f52003be
Episode UUID: 49f2ceed-de3b-48b9-ab62-6f94f52003be

Podcast Info

Name: The Deprogram
Type: episodic
Site: https://art19.com/shows/the-deprogram
UUID: db454ac0-2aba-013a-d615-0acc26574db2

Transcript

[00:00:00] I can’t wait to talk about China while sipping from my China bottle sitting on my Chinese table

[00:00:06] looking at my Chinese produced screens writing on my Chinese produced and assembled computer

[00:00:16] surrounded by Chinese memorabilia and those that are not literal memorabilia from China probably

[00:00:24] also printed put together 3d printed electrified also in China so all I’m all I’m all I’m saying

[00:00:36] is a hella hypocrite why do we not use this against against people that are like herder I

[00:00:44] like capitalism the way they’re like you like socialism but iPhone we should say you like

[00:00:49] capitalism but your whole life but everything you’ve ever possessed

[00:00:54] you

[00:00:54] yeah everything from your pacemaker to your cock ring I used to find it cringe when guys

[00:01:01] were like roads or socialism like in a meta way they are right yeah so when somebody was like I

[00:01:06] hate socialism and they would say well then you hate roads roads are socialism but as you get

[00:01:11] older you’re like that was that’s kind of a base take like that’s kind of it’s kind of like correct

[00:01:16] like what the fuck like you know I get what you mean like a you know like grand scheme of things

[00:01:24] right that like the third象 it’s like you know there’s no perverse there’s no占

[00:01:53] You don’t need this.

[00:01:54] It’s begun.

[00:01:55] It will continue.

[00:01:56] Inshallah, it will be far longer than a century.

[00:01:59] But, oh, the opioid epidemic is the exact, you know, the inverse of that.

[00:02:03] Yeah, that’s true.

[00:02:04] Yeah.

[00:02:04] God, I feel so bad for those people.

[00:02:07] Jesus Christ.

[00:02:08] And your government sucks that they just let it happen.

[00:02:10] Well, we’re not here to be, what’s it called, humane.

[00:02:12] We’re here to meme.

[00:02:13] And I have one major meme for you, JT.

[00:02:16] Or it’s not a meme, actually.

[00:02:17] It’s a bit of news.

[00:02:18] I think you, JT will, a good thing we’re not on camera because you will bust all over

[00:02:24] your computer when I tell you this.

[00:02:25] Let’s go.

[00:02:25] I have begun watching Avatar, The Last Airbender.

[00:02:28] No way, dude.

[00:02:30] I thought you were fully opposed.

[00:02:32] I am on season three, like episode 10 or something.

[00:02:35] I’m almost done with the original series.

[00:02:37] It fucking slaps.

[00:02:38] Thank you.

[00:02:39] I love it.

[00:02:40] Yeah, it’s so wholesome and fun.

[00:02:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:02:44] Not even that.

[00:02:44] It’s not about it’s wholesome.

[00:02:46] It’s that when I first, like the first call episode, like,

[00:02:48] yeah, they’re progressing the story very quickly, like very much for like a kid’s cartoon.

[00:02:52] Ah, this is going to be a chill kid’s cartoon.

[00:02:53] And then they start developing like this depth.

[00:02:55] Yeah.

[00:02:56] That I was not expecting whatsoever.

[00:02:58] There’s some commentary there, yeah.

[00:02:58] Yeah, not some.

[00:02:59] There’s plenty.

[00:03:00] I mean, some shit is a little bit like a little cringe.

[00:03:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:03:03] But a lot of it.

[00:03:04] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[00:03:05] But a lot of it is, like, I’m surprised.

[00:03:07] And the, like, cultural diversity and unique presentation.

[00:03:12] Like, I’ve not seen something like this.

[00:03:14] I’m genuinely surprised at what good, how good of a show it is.

[00:03:18] Yeah.

[00:03:19] I’m so happy.

[00:03:20] Oh, that makes my heart feel good.

[00:03:22] We’re going to finish that.

[00:03:24] And then we’re going to do the next one is The Legend of Korra.

[00:03:26] What was it called?

[00:03:27] Yeah, I don’t think I ever finished that.

[00:03:29] I watched the first season, really liked it from what I could remember.

[00:03:32] But then after that, I don’t recall if I watched any more of it.

[00:03:35] I think there are three seasons of it.

[00:03:36] I don’t know.

[00:03:36] All I know is Korra is hot.

[00:03:39] Oh, we found the cartoon lover.

[00:03:43] Let’s go.

[00:03:44] I promise.

[00:03:45] It’s a 7,000-year-old dragon.

[00:03:47] I promise.

[00:03:48] She’s not real, so it’s not illegal.

[00:03:52] Oh, my God.

[00:03:54] I love it.

[00:03:54] There’s this video of this sheikh somewhere.

[00:03:58] And he’s talking in Arabic.

[00:04:00] He’s like, have you heard of this concept called the waifu?

[00:04:05] The waifu is like morals have degenerated or like manliness has degenerated in some sectors to such an extent

[00:04:15] that they began instead of…

[00:04:17] I don’t know.

[00:04:18] I don’t know.

[00:04:18] You’re trying to approach women and having wholesome relations in marriage with women

[00:04:22] have begun romanticizing cartoons and their favorite cartoon characters they refer to

[00:04:27] as their waifus.

[00:04:29] He says it.

[00:04:31] He’s like, the word wife, like the Arabic he translates and then wife, he tries to

[00:04:39] explain what the you is.

[00:04:41] He doesn’t really understand.

[00:04:44] Oh, my God.

[00:04:46] I’ll send it.

[00:04:47] I’ll send it.

[00:04:47] Maybe we’ll put it in the end.

[00:04:48] the edit please do um so that’s that’s what’s happening there but uh my favorite part is i’m

[00:04:53] watching this and then with a friend of mine uh we watched the battle of algiers the un what’s

[00:04:58] called the uncut uh version and uh because a lot of it is and this particular friend of mine does

[00:05:05] not uh speak arabic that well although he speaks it well enough but not for some of the nuances of

[00:05:12] the algerian dialect spoken uh in the movie so i’m sitting there and i’m giving him like little

[00:05:16] you know like oh they said this but the subtitles aren’t exactly right but they said

[00:05:20] and which i think it took us three hours to get through a two-hour movie because of the live

[00:05:25] commentary experience any movie we watch with this man pausing pointing excitedly you love it

[00:05:33] you motherfuckers love it you eat it up yeah i wouldn’t trade it but it’s nice that we made a

[00:05:40] full spin it’s kind of like a like a metaphor for a relationship one is fucking the other guy but

[00:05:46] we don’t like it like mix if you know what i mean we keep we keep this podcast relationship

[00:05:51] strictly segregated like like i shoved a big fat like italian uh sopranos sausage into jt

[00:05:59] and he started watching it then he shoved a big magic avatar stick into his team and he started

[00:06:06] watching it and now in order to connect the chain i need something in me from you hakim

[00:06:11] some show recommendations you know what don’t necessarily

[00:06:16] have to uh revolve around uh revolutionary and anti-imperialist politics oh wait that is

[00:06:24] impossible he has never watched something of that type you know what yes you are you know

[00:06:29] you would be right you you would be right but now i am married uh and as a result my wife shares a

[00:06:35] lot of things with me that i had not i would never consider watching before like korean dramas that

[00:06:38] she likes uh and i watched one called prison notebook that i highly recommend watch it with

[00:06:42] your ladies of course it’s prison notebook yeah you had to get at least a reference to it and i

[00:06:46] to some kind of socialist figure in there

[00:06:48] you just went on a rant about how it’s i’m gonna fucking kill myself

[00:06:55] why do i love you excuse me like you’re in the playbook it’s called

[00:07:00] my mind is so fucking broken i feel true love and i fucking i i want to beat you

[00:07:16] hello everybody and welcome back to the d program today we will have

[00:07:26] most likely our longest episode yet we’ll see how long it ends up being um okay so today we

[00:07:32] will be covering china uh this is the first installment of maybe three or four we’re trying

[00:07:39] to keep it to two we’ll see today’s episode is supposed to be a general overview and the china

[00:07:44] criticism episode uh we’re going to be covering china and the china criticism episode uh we’re

[00:07:46] really with the nuance of course we’re not going to be like oh they don’t have fucking i don’t know

[00:07:50] uh you can’t pay pay for your burger king burger or your pizza hut order uh through clarna 16

[00:07:59] payments with 30 interest right um that’s not the criticism that we’re going to be doing

[00:08:05] um but uh more nuanced and materially based uh and actually based um marxist analysis here

[00:08:14] um today’s episode is going to be about china and the china criticism episode uh we’re going to be

[00:08:16] there’s going to be some overlap of course but um the point of today’s episode is to treat china as

[00:08:21] a real historical socialist project one that has made real gains and real strategic and deep

[00:08:28] strategic failures um today’s episode one we will not go too deep into the history this is kind of

[00:08:33] like a modern china episode we might do more history things in the future but not particularly

[00:08:38] today the core essence of the episode though is china is a socialist country with real socialist

[00:08:45] democracy in and of itself so we’re going to be talking about the history of china and the china

[00:08:46] anti-imperial substance but at the same time it has deep structural contradictions and flaws that

[00:08:51] cannot be hand-waved away you can’t hand with away without abandoning the concept of marxism itself

[00:08:56] so we’re not trying to do like moralism from a liberal lens we’re not trying to do this

[00:09:00] campus you know denial of everything oh no china is the most perfect country but we are treating it

[00:09:04] as what it really is which is it is a socialist country by political administration and as well

[00:09:10] as by substance despite its incredibly deep and at times confusing

[00:09:16] structural contradictions which we will cover and thoroughly criticize okay y’all uh we got a lot

[00:09:23] to get through here i’m gonna keep mine i have just a humble nine bullet points um

[00:09:29] and when i say bullet points i mean paragraphs so we’re gonna y’all y’all get yourself a drink

[00:09:36] and sit down in your comfy chair and uh we’ll get through this together all right gather around

[00:09:40] children okay so to begin uh i want it would have been such a great bit for you to say that in

[00:09:46] chinese by the way yeah let me just learn how to say in chinese real quick i know that a lot of

[00:09:51] people will call us out they’re like you know you’re the world’s most international uh political

[00:09:56] show which is very true and you usually try to invite people from particular regions to talk

[00:10:01] about those particular regions and you’re not doing this uh right now by not inviting a chinese

[00:10:06] person i am sorry but we are all spiritually chinese okay we are china maxing 24 7 so it

[00:10:13] doesn’t count please i don’t know if i just did a racism

[00:10:16] maybe kind of partially please jt continue no there’s also that ji jinping refused the he had

[00:10:21] more important things to do than come on the d program sadly uh i know plenary session real

[00:10:26] revisionist hours but what can you do we tried also it’s like the literally the other side of

[00:10:32] the planet so that would be the worst thing to schedule in the world so but we’ll get someone

[00:10:36] on eventually okay i want to be clear from the start here um about what kind of conversation

[00:10:41] this is and hakeem kind of touched on this because even when we say we’re critiquing

[00:10:46] china from a marxist perspective there’s still a tendency for some people to immediately like

[00:10:52] hear a liberal critique or hear a moral critique that we’re making or some kind of you know china

[00:10:57] failed socialism narrative but that is not what we’re doing here and i hope that’ll be clear

[00:11:01] throughout the episode but let me state this explicitly right up front because everything

[00:11:05] we say in this episode does kind of depend on this framing so very clearly china is a socialist

[00:11:11] state operating in what it officially describes as the primary stage

[00:11:16] of socialism all right that is not a vibes-based statement it is not about our personal approval

[00:11:23] or tendency to glaze china in all things um and it’s definitely not about pretending that

[00:11:28] contradictions don’t exist right it’s a structural claim grounded in marxist leninist theory so if we

[00:11:33] don’t establish that baseline then we’re not doing marxist critique all right all on the same page

[00:11:38] no complaining in the comments dear piggies no they’re gonna there’s gonna be some individuals

[00:11:44] yeah it’s okay that’s

[00:11:46] all right have fun have fun go off uh let’s begin shall we part one where state power actually

[00:11:52] resides all right we’re gonna start with state power um because our political power rather

[00:11:58] because if we don’t understand that we can’t understand pretty much anything else here

[00:12:01] so in china political power is held by the communist party of china that is the cpc

[00:12:08] not the ccp dear piggies please for the love of god use cpc online don’t let the chuds win

[00:12:16] i i literally i do think cultural war i know they say ccp because they’re so stupid they think

[00:12:23] it’s still the soviet union that’s just missing a c and no they’re intentionally doing and also

[00:12:27] i mean english is the default so of course it should be chinese communist party yes um now

[00:12:34] the dictatorship of the proletariat is exercised through the party um as the institutional bearer

[00:12:40] of class power there is no bourgeois electoral competition for state power there is no

[00:12:46] legal or structural pathway for an independent capitalist class to convert economic dominance

[00:12:51] into political sovereignty now this is not a minor detail okay in marxist theory the state is not

[00:12:58] neutral it never has been the state is an instrument of class rule so when people ask

[00:13:03] is china democratic the marxist response is not to like count ballots or parties instead it’s to

[00:13:11] ask which class holds political power over the state apparatus democratic for who

[00:13:16] yeah exactly in china capital does not rule the state capital exists yes obviously capital

[00:13:22] accumulates yes but capital does not command the state it operates under party discipline

[00:13:28] under regulation and under conditions that are politically contingent and legally reversible

[00:13:33] now that does not mean that capital has no influence uh it does not mean that contradictions

[00:13:38] disappear but it does mean the bourgeoisie does not function as a ruling class in the marxist sense

[00:13:46] so when we say that china is socialist we’re not saying that it has abolished commodity relations

[00:13:51] we are saying that political sovereignty structurally excludes bourgeois class rule

[00:13:56] and that distinction is absolutely decisive um and it’s also why you see the u.s fearmonger about

[00:14:02] you know china executing billionaires every now and then uh unlike in the u.s yeah go ahead

[00:14:07] i was gonna say there is an objective difference in the relations to the means of production between

[00:14:11] the united states and china when it comes to those who hold capital and the u.s and the u.s and the

[00:14:16] i mean those outside of the the state and its institutions right um there’s a fundamental and

[00:14:22] clear difference between those relations to production which is usually very understated

[00:14:27] it’s kind of people kind of try and try to sometimes treat china like it is the states but

[00:14:31] chinese yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s like unlike in the u.s if a billionaire gets too big for his

[00:14:38] britches in china and starts trying to subvert the state for personal gain there will actually

[00:14:41] be consequences to protect the proletariat and china’s socialist development okay

[00:14:46] part two what socialist democracy actually means all right i’m gonna stop doing that but

[00:14:52] please don’t keep doing it i love it now here’s where the liberal framework completely falls apart

[00:14:59] socialist democracy in china does not mean procedural pluralism it does not mean rotating

[00:15:07] elite factions through electoral competition you know like four years of team red four years of

[00:15:11] team blue it does not mean the fetishization of formal political

[00:15:16] equality while ignoring material power instead socialist democracy here is defined by class

[00:15:23] content not by form so let’s be explicit about how this democracy actually expresses itself all

[00:15:28] right we are talking about mass organizations we are talking about consultative democracy we’re

[00:15:34] talking about cadre evolution and rotation we’re talking about policy experimentation feedback

[00:15:38] loops uh institutional mechanisms designed to transmit social needs upward and then adjust

[00:15:46] policy downward all right this is not episodic democracy where people you know they raise their

[00:15:52] hands every four years this is continuous democracy it’s one unified goal and you know

[00:15:59] no bullshit about oh it’s the most important election of our lifetimes it is just a a mature

[00:16:04] project pursuing predetermined and constantly refined goals it’s not participate once every

[00:16:10] few years like the united states it is participation embedded into governance itself

[00:16:16] so it’s about you know how policy is formed revised corrected uh evaluated over time and

[00:16:22] crucially democracy here is not measured by whether like every opinion gets equal representation or

[00:16:30] whatever it is measured by material outcomes so your living standards social stability

[00:16:36] infrastructure long-term planning capacity the ability to coordinate development over decades

[00:16:43] rather than election cycles and this is why democracy is so important to us and it’s so

[00:16:46] from a Marxist standpoint, socialist democracy in China is actually much broader, much fuller

[00:16:52] than liberal democracy. Liberal systems give you rights on paper, while capital dominates

[00:16:57] every aspect of your life. Socialist democracy constrains political forms precisely to prevent

[00:17:04] the return of bourgeois rule, and it prioritizes material reproduction of proletarian power

[00:17:10] instead. Part three, the primary stage of socialism is not an excuse.

[00:17:16] I’m going to wake up people every time they fall asleep. All right. Now, I think we need

[00:17:21] to talk about the primary stage of socialism thing, because this phrase is, it’s often

[00:17:27] misunderstood, and sometimes deliberately, and sometimes not. So the Marxist critique

[00:17:32] acknowledges uneven development. It acknowledges incomplete socialization of production. It

[00:17:39] acknowledges that commodity relations and the law of value continue to operate under

[00:17:43] party regulation.

[00:17:46] It acknowledges that it does not deny class contradiction, right? Class contradictions

[00:17:51] persist. The difference is that within this framework, they are understood as non-antagonistic

[00:17:57] so long as political power remains socialist. Now, this doesn’t mean that they’re harmless.

[00:18:04] It means that they are mediated within a socialist structure rather than exploding

[00:18:09] into open class war. Contradictions are actively identified and addressed rather than leadership

[00:18:16] burying their heads in the sand, as in Western liberal democracies. Now, the Marxist framework

[00:18:20] is not a theoretical cop-out or whatever. We’re attempting to describe reality here

[00:18:27] without pretending socialism emerges fully formed the moment power is seized. It’s a process.

[00:18:33] It is stamped by the birthmarks of the system.

[00:18:37] Shut up, nerd. Yeah, you’re right, though. And it’s frustrating to see so many self-professed

[00:18:46] socialists quibbling about whether or not China’s socialist, like, you know, if only there was a

[00:18:51] word for the transitional state between capitalism and communism. Oh, you know, oh, well. But anyway,

[00:18:58] the primary stage of socialism thing, it’s not an excuse. All right. It’s an accurate analysis

[00:19:02] of the current state of affairs in China. Moving on. What are we moving on to? Part four,

[00:19:09] historical achievements are not optional context. Oh, I’m going to bust. I know. We just wait till

[00:19:15] we get to part 13. All right. Now, before we get really critical, and I promise we will,

[00:19:24] we’re not just joking the whole time. We need to ground ourselves historically. All right. The

[00:19:28] Communist Party did not inherit a neutral society. That is not how revolutions work.

[00:19:35] It completed an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution. Okay. So national sovereignty was

[00:19:41] secured after a century of foreign domination. The conditions…

[00:19:45] For independent development were created. Living standards improved dramatically. Education

[00:19:51] expanded. Healthcare access expanded. Infrastructure was built. Industrial capacity

[00:19:55] developed. And critically, socialist state power was preserved under extraordinary global capitalist

[00:20:03] pressure. But here’s why this matters. Socialist democracy is materially grounded. Its legitimacy

[00:20:11] is not abstract. It rests on historical outcomes and social transformations.

[00:20:15] Not on procedural symbolism. And any critique that ignores this foundation,

[00:20:22] in our humble opinion, is pretty unserious. Yeah.

[00:20:26] Any comments, questions so far? Are we feeling good?

[00:20:29] Only significant approval. Oh, very good. Very good. No dissent allowed on my podcast. Part five,

[00:20:36] Mao bureaucracy and the cultural revolution. I promise I’m clapping. I promise there’s me clapping.

[00:20:40] All right. Now we get to the hard part. Okay. Here we go. All right.

[00:20:45] Under the evil Mao Zedong, the party correctly identified a real and dangerous contradiction,

[00:20:53] right? Bureaucratic degeneration under socialism. This was the party, you know,

[00:20:58] not… It wasn’t the party being paranoid. Okay. It wasn’t theoretical excess.

[00:21:02] Bureaucratic layers were forming. Hierarchies were like solidifying. The separation between

[00:21:08] administrators and the masses was becoming a real thing. So Mao’s intervention was grounded in a

[00:21:15] correct insight. Class struggle does not end with the seizure of state power. Bourgeois right

[00:21:20] persists. Unequal access to authority persists. And without intervention, these tendencies can

[00:21:26] crystallize into new class relations. The cultural revolution was an attempt to confront that

[00:21:32] contradiction at the level of the superstructure. Yeah.

[00:21:36] And let me be very clear here. The diagnosis was not wrong. It exposed real contradictions.

[00:21:42] It revealed real tensions.

[00:21:45] It demonstrated that socialism is not immune to internal class struggle.

[00:21:49] But here’s where the criticism starts. The execution exceeded material and institutional

[00:21:56] limits. Productive forces were not sufficiently developed. Stable mechanisms for mass supervision

[00:22:03] were lacking. Voluntarism substituted for durable structures. And the result

[00:22:07] was political rupture without structural resolution. And the consequence,

[00:22:15] of that experience, was not a solution to, you know, bureaucratism and all the problems that

[00:22:22] the party correctly identified, but a deep historical trauma that most people today

[00:22:27] associate with uncontrolled mass politics. You know, at least people in the West,

[00:22:33] broadly speaking here. And that trauma matters, right? It shapes everything that comes after.

[00:22:38] And it also colors the modern interpretation of Chinese socialism, especially among the less

[00:22:45] educated, you know, lay people and those out to undermine socialist projects around the world.

[00:22:50] Moving on to part six, reform and opening as socialist self-preservation.

[00:22:54] Now, as we move into everyone’s favorite topic, reform and opening, we have to

[00:23:00] scrap the idea that this was simply like, you know, capitalist restoration or ideological retreat.

[00:23:06] Under Deng Xiaoping, my little beautiful cowboy, the party re-centered. You’ve seen that picture,

[00:23:12] I’m sure, right? With him wearing the cowboy hat. I love it.

[00:23:15] Um, the party re-centered the development of productive forces as the material basis

[00:23:20] of socialism. This was not about, you know, loving markets or whatever liberals like to claim.

[00:23:26] It was about survival and development and sovereignty. Markets were introduced

[00:23:31] tactically. Commodity relations were permitted under regulation. The law of value was allowed

[00:23:37] to operate within constraints. But the crucial point that often gets ignored is this.

[00:23:45] Political power remained socialist. The party did not surrender control of the state.

[00:23:51] Strategic sectors remained under public control. Planning capacity was not abolished.

[00:23:56] Capital was subordinated to socialist political authority.

[00:24:01] So, in a way, China got to double dip. They were able to engage in global trade, offset some of

[00:24:08] suspicion and hatred of capitalist states, and continue their ideological development in

[00:24:13] relative security.

[00:24:15] This is something that the Soviet Union, unfortunately, failed to do quite as effectively.

[00:24:19] Over time, however, market mechanisms became deeply embedded. And this was not like a single

[00:24:26] decision. Nothing really ever is. It was an evolving contradiction. Pragmatism took precedence

[00:24:33] over ideological rigidity. And that brings us directly to the present. And part seven,

[00:24:39] ideological contradiction today. Now, this is where I want to be very careful. And

[00:24:44] as I said, I’m not going to be very careful. I’m not going to be very careful. I’m not going to be

[00:24:44] very careful. I’m not going to be very careful. I’m not going to be very careful. I’m not going to

[00:24:45] as clear as possible. Marxism-Leninism remains the official ideology of the PRC. It is

[00:24:50] institutionalized. It structures governance. It legitimizes political authority. But here is the

[00:24:55] question we have to ask. Is Marxism functioning as a living method or as administrative common

[00:25:03] sense? Because a living ideology is not ceremonial. It is critical. It investigates contradictions. It

[00:25:12] encourages debate, inquiry, mass participation. It encourages debate, inquiry, mass participation.

[00:25:15] When ideology becomes primarily justificatory, when its main function is to explain why existing

[00:25:25] arrangements are correct, it risks losing its dialectical character, right? This is not about

[00:25:32] bad faith. It’s about structural tendencies and large-scale governance. Administration

[00:25:37] naturally privileges expertise, stability, predictability. But socialism requires more

[00:25:43] than management. It requires more than governance. It requires more than governance. It requires more

[00:25:45] It still requires ideological struggle. Part eight, administrative overdevelopment versus mass

[00:25:52] initiative. So let me lay out the core political contradiction here. China’s socialist democracy

[00:25:59] is substantively deeper than liberal democracy in class content, in material outcomes, and in

[00:26:07] long-term planning capacity. But it faces the danger of administrative overdevelopment relative

[00:26:14] to the development of the world. And it faces the danger of the development of the world.

[00:26:15] So let me lay out the core political contradiction here. China’s socialist democracy is substantively deeper than liberal democracy in class content, in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes, and in material outcomes.

[00:26:15] mass political initiative. All right, so what does that mean in normal people words?

[00:26:19] Well, the party is indispensable. There is no socialist alternative that bypasses it. But as

[00:26:26] governance becomes more complex, the relationship between the party and the masses becomes increasingly

[00:26:32] mediated through professional layers. The mass line risks becoming consultation rather than active

[00:26:39] supervision. Cadre evaluation systems matter, right? Like feedback mechanisms, like

[00:26:44] Feedback mechanisms matter, but they do not always substitute for sustained, organized involvement of workers and communities in decisions over production, distribution, and local governance.

[00:26:57] So the key tension is this.

[00:27:00] Stability is rational, right?

[00:27:02] It is historically justified, but stability can harden into risk aversion.

[00:27:08] And risk aversion can limit experimentation in democratic forms that could deepen socialist legitimacy from below.

[00:27:16] Especially when there’s some stability, some continuous form of stability that is like acceptable to the status quo.

[00:27:23] Right.

[00:27:24] You don’t want to rock the boat essentially.

[00:27:26] Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:27] And this is not a contradiction between like authoritarianism and democracy.

[00:27:32] That’s a liberal frame.

[00:27:34] We’re adults here.

[00:27:34] We don’t discuss these terms.

[00:27:35] Yeah.

[00:27:37] We’re putting the liberal.

[00:27:38] We’re spackling over the holes the liberal is peeking his head through.

[00:27:42] The real contradiction here is between administrative order and class self-activity.

[00:27:49] All right.

[00:27:49] We’re coming to the end here, friends, of my little intro.

[00:27:53] And that is part nine, billionaires as a socialist contradiction.

[00:27:57] So let’s deal with that, the arguably most controversial issue.

[00:28:02] The existence of billionaires in China is not in itself evidence of capitalist class.

[00:28:08] It’s not in itself evidence of capitalist class rule.

[00:28:09] Their wealth is politically contingent, right?

[00:28:11] It is legally revocable.

[00:28:14] What power they do wield can easily be yoinked.

[00:28:17] They do not control the state.

[00:28:18] They do not command strategic sectors independently.

[00:28:21] They do not exercise sovereign political power.

[00:28:25] And this we see on a regular basis.

[00:28:27] Yes.

[00:28:27] Basically expropriation or the governmental recommendation of them giving up.

[00:28:36] You see this often.

[00:28:38] And in extensive terms, and they shut the fuck up and take it.

[00:28:42] They just, they like, like these are Peter Thiel, like, you know, Elon Musk types in

[00:28:46] wealth and influence if they were in the West and they just shut the fuck up and take it.

[00:28:51] There is like, there’s a beauty to like, if you, if that does not make you understand

[00:28:56] which class is actually in power.

[00:28:59] Yeah.

[00:28:59] Oh yeah.

[00:29:00] I’ll do keep going again.

[00:29:01] No, you’re completely right.

[00:29:02] I mean, if you contrast that, like you said, take Musk who has gutted the American state.

[00:29:07] Led to the, directly led to the firing of hundreds of thousands of state workers.

[00:29:12] He’s not even American.

[00:29:12] He’s not.

[00:29:14] He’s, he control, he fully, 95% of space launches are now through his private company, SpaceX,

[00:29:19] which is directly funded by the government because he says, give money.

[00:29:23] That is, that is the key difference there.

[00:29:26] Like that’s, billionaires in China operate on a completely different, under a completely

[00:29:33] different set of rules that would never be allowed.

[00:29:35] Even, even the tiniest bit of control.

[00:29:37] Like what Elon, uh, tries to do on a daily basis.

[00:29:40] But anyway, and this is where Marxists have to, to be honest here, the existence of billionaires

[00:29:46] is a contradiction.

[00:29:49] Extreme private wealth reproduces bourgeois social relations in everyday life, right?

[00:29:53] It shapes aspirations among normal people.

[00:29:56] Uh, it shapes consumption.

[00:29:57] It shapes informal hierarchies of status and prestige.

[00:30:01] These are just facts, right?

[00:30:02] Yeah.

[00:30:03] And we don’t want billionaires in socialism, right?

[00:30:05] That is the end goal.

[00:30:06] We don’t, we don’t want that.

[00:30:07] The party, however, has demonstrated its capacity, uh, to discipline capital through

[00:30:13] regulation, anti-corruption campaigns, um, and intervention.

[00:30:17] But these actions often appear, uh, at least from the outside reactive rather than, than

[00:30:24] structurally preventative.

[00:30:26] And that matters ideologically, right?

[00:30:28] So from a Marxist Leninist standpoint, the danger posed by billionaires is not that they

[00:30:33] secretly run the country.

[00:30:35] It’s not like capitalism with a mask.

[00:30:37] Right.

[00:30:38] It’s, um, the danger is that their tolerated existence blurs the line between socialist

[00:30:44] accumulation and personal enrichment.

[00:30:47] It can shape popular perceptions of success.

[00:30:50] It can distort class education, uh, and it can slow the development of social norms appropriate

[00:30:57] to a higher stage of socialism, which is what China’s trying to achieve.

[00:31:01] The unresolved question is not whether China is socialist today.

[00:31:06] The question is,

[00:31:07] how long this extreme private wealth can be accommodated without deeper mechanisms of

[00:31:13] socialization, redistribution, and public accountability.

[00:31:16] And speaking for myself here, I think I would be more concerned if the very wealthy in China

[00:31:22] didn’t routinely face the consequences that they do.

[00:31:25] Uh, I think the fact that we do see billionaires jailed or even executed occasionally speaks

[00:31:31] to the fact that the party is aware of the risk and they’re currently trying to moderate

[00:31:36] it while reaping the benefits.

[00:31:37] Right.

[00:31:37] As long as possible.

[00:31:38] And that’s, you know, I think that’s just a common sense approach and it’s, it’s, everything

[00:31:42] is a process.

[00:31:43] Um, but in closing, what Marxist critique actually demands.

[00:31:48] Oh, yes.

[00:31:49] Uh, so let me go back to the, to the starting point here to close out my section.

[00:31:53] A Marxist critique of the people’s Republic of China does not deny its socialist character.

[00:31:59] Right.

[00:32:00] We have said multiple times already, our critique insists on China’s socialist character and

[00:32:07] therefore,

[00:32:07] therefore insists on naming its contradictions clearly and honestly, right.

[00:32:12] We’re, we’re just doing our best here to, to adequately and accurately analyze the current

[00:32:19] state of affairs in socialist China.

[00:32:22] Socialism is not a finished model.

[00:32:23] It is a process shaped by history, uh, by material limits and by class struggle.

[00:32:29] If that process is going to move forward rather than ossify, socialist democracy must continue

[00:32:35] to deepen, not just administration.

[00:32:37] But through renewed mass initiative and ideological vitality.

[00:32:43] And, uh, here at the D program, we are doing our, our best to, to ensure that Xi Jinping

[00:32:47] understands what must be done.

[00:32:49] Exactly right.

[00:32:50] Yes.

[00:32:51] Um, it is us and some, some white guy from Wisconsin that has recently read the CPI Maoist

[00:32:57] pamphlet, 14 page pamphlet on white China.

[00:33:00] I am a China expert now.

[00:33:02] Exactly right.

[00:33:03] Suck it.

[00:33:04] 96 million Communist Party members.

[00:33:07] Suck it.

[00:33:07] Um, all right.

[00:33:09] Okay.

[00:33:09] So the only Chinese words I know is orange chicken.

[00:33:12] I think I’m teasing, of course.

[00:33:15] All right.

[00:33:16] My section is more on the, uh, political economy and class dynamics side.

[00:33:20] Um, and then I’m going to go into the, um, uh, is China imperialist discussion, uh, and

[00:33:26] criticize that both the, the, the position as well as the deficiencies of the Chinese,

[00:33:31] but both Belt and Road and their foreign investment and stuff like that.

[00:33:33] By the way, I want everybody to know that when we, when we started this podcast, the,

[00:33:37] the cardinal founding rule of this podcast was, we will not talk about China.

[00:33:42] Here we are four part original series later.

[00:33:45] Yeah, exactly right.

[00:33:46] Okay.

[00:33:47] So, um, China’s political economy, both in form and in structure remains socialist.

[00:33:54] According to the lines that JT mentioned, uh, it does so through the dominant public

[00:33:59] ownership in the commanding heights of the economy.

[00:34:02] So strategic sectors, this means state monopolies over land, finance, banking, uh, the political

[00:34:07] subordination, private capital that JT mentioned.

[00:34:09] The fact that a market economy exists, uh, is of course problematic in ways that I’m

[00:34:14] going to get into, uh, but it functions not as the determinant of class power in itself,

[00:34:19] but as a regulated mechanism through which the law of value operates under planned parameters.

[00:34:25] So that means there are government instated and developed forms of, uh, economic planning

[00:34:30] through which the market is in certain specific ways, limited and, and guided to,

[00:34:37] if the perfect example, houses are for living in not speculation that would never in a billion

[00:34:43] years happen in Germany, in Britain, or for sure in the States.

[00:34:48] But that was something that destroyed a multi, like several tens of billions of dollars worth

[00:34:53] industry and, and, and, and financial bubble in China.

[00:34:57] It was, by the way, not so much destroyed as expertly deflated in a way that would cause

[00:35:02] the least possible damage to, uh, the Chinese economy.

[00:35:05] In fact, it benefited it.

[00:35:06] That is a sort of.

[00:35:07] Like economic and political finesse and expertise that does not get the respect, honestly, that

[00:35:14] it deserves.

[00:35:15] Uh, the Soviets couldn’t fucking do, do this, um, for ways I’m going to get into it in a

[00:35:20] bit, but anyways, that’s why I mean by the law of value operates within planned parameters.

[00:35:24] These are regulated mechanisms.

[00:35:26] Uh, when we talk about accumulation under socialism, uh, we mean, for example, not only

[00:35:29] primitive accumulation, uh, meaning the prerequisites for industrialization that happened, uh, through

[00:35:35] the forties into the revolution and subsequently in the fifties and sixties.

[00:35:37] And so on.

[00:35:38] And not only that, but we mean in the modern day accumulation under the socialist character

[00:35:43] or, or, or, um, action, let’s say, uh, of China is directed towards first and foremost,

[00:35:50] expanded reproduction, uh, of, of the means of the general means of production, social,

[00:35:53] uh, reproduction, I mean, and national development, meaning that surplus extraction is mediated

[00:35:59] by the state rather than by an autonomous group of bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie as

[00:36:04] a whole.

[00:36:05] Right.

[00:36:06] This is another significant.

[00:36:07] This is a significant gap that exists comparative to quote, unquote, capitalist countries.

[00:36:10] Um, this, uh, has enabled China to create large scale redistribution, uh, of this surplus,

[00:36:15] uh, particularly directed towards poverty eradication.

[00:36:19] The many hundreds of millions of people that lifted out of poverty, uh, but at what cost,

[00:36:24] of course, uh, while still preserving the planning capacity, uh, this long-term planning

[00:36:30] capacity that is in essence, structurally impossible under capitalism.

[00:36:35] With all that being said though.

[00:36:36] Cool.

[00:36:37] still, as JT mentioned, in the primary stage of socialism. And that necessarily produces a

[00:36:43] differentiated class structure. That means that while the proletariat retains political dominance

[00:36:49] economically and politically through the Communist Party, it doesn’t uniformly exercise power,

[00:36:55] particularly at the point of production. What I mean by that is that the working class does not

[00:37:00] directly lay their hands on all modes of social reproduction. There is not cooperatives in every

[00:37:06] enterprise in China. That also has its shortcomings, by the way. So it is both a

[00:37:10] criticism and a, not commendation, I don’t think that’s a word, but like a, it’s both a positive

[00:37:15] and a negative thing for the Chinese, which we’ll touch on as well. Along with the working class

[00:37:19] that exists within China, the proletariat, there is also, as JT mentioned, this managerial

[00:37:24] strata, technocratic, I guess, strata. You have these middle managers, professional middle

[00:37:29] managers, certain politically subordinated private entrepreneurs. These are not separate classes,

[00:37:36] per se, aside from the private entrepreneurs of a certain wealth level and ownership level. For

[00:37:42] the most part, the rest of them kind of hover in and around the proletariat, but their connections

[00:37:47] are lessened. The fundamental difference, though, is that these different stratums lack hegemonic

[00:37:54] capacity. They do not command state power in any meaningful way, right? They can have material

[00:37:59] influence, ideological influence on economy and society. But this differentiation, this class

[00:38:04] differentiation resulting from the private enterprise, is not a good thing. It’s not a good

[00:38:06] thing. True.

[00:38:07] Growing화맬 지�

[00:38:32] no

[00:38:33] subscription

[00:38:34] to

[00:38:35] private

[00:38:36] to the means of production, mind you.

[00:38:37] So they do not exert political power in that way,

[00:38:39] but they do exist.

[00:38:40] That generates real tensions

[00:38:42] that require, let’s say, political management,

[00:38:44] ongoing political management, at least thus far.

[00:38:47] There’s other segments to this, right?

[00:38:49] A working class needs trade unions

[00:38:50] to, I guess, organize and agitate for their interests.

[00:38:55] Under capitalism, under socialism,

[00:38:57] they play a different role.

[00:38:58] We discussed this prior,

[00:38:59] but trade unions generally in socialist countries,

[00:39:02] but particularly in China,

[00:39:03] are integrated into the socialist state apparatus.

[00:39:05] This means that they play more of a stabilizing role

[00:39:08] for the working class under a socialist government

[00:39:11] by preventing antagonistic class struggle

[00:39:13] that would be disruptive

[00:39:14] to the current process of accumulation,

[00:39:17] socialist accumulation, economic accumulation, I mean.

[00:39:19] But this also, this integration,

[00:39:20] means that unions end up being more administrative

[00:39:23] instead of militant.

[00:39:25] So that limits their capacity to function

[00:39:28] as direct organs of worker self-activity.

[00:39:30] Now, these are theoretical disputes or points,

[00:39:34] but they are nonetheless still important

[00:39:36] because this kind of, like, ties into the subsequent point

[00:39:38] that a term that Western Marxists love

[00:39:42] is shop floor democracy.

[00:39:43] What they mean is direct management,

[00:39:45] like cooperative management of enterprises

[00:39:46] where the workers run their affairs directly,

[00:39:50] like not through some state institution

[00:39:52] that manages things or local councils,

[00:39:55] but specifically, you know, per enterprise basis,

[00:39:58] the workers decide what to produce,

[00:39:59] how much to produce and whatnot.

[00:40:01] This shop floor democracy is relatively uneven in China

[00:40:04] and generally, you know, it’s not a good thing.

[00:40:04] It’s not a good thing.

[00:40:04] It’s generally weak or very often weak.

[00:40:07] That means that workers usually, like the proletariat,

[00:40:10] experiences socialism more as a policy implementation

[00:40:13] by the state instead of as, like, collective power.

[00:40:16] That’s not 100% always.

[00:40:17] There is a culture of socialism that exists in China.

[00:40:22] It is diffused through society,

[00:40:23] through superstructural mechanisms,

[00:40:26] I mean, through education,

[00:40:27] through general culture and so on and so forth.

[00:40:29] But the direct material experience

[00:40:31] of administering socialism is lacking.

[00:40:34] And this means that the risk is not bourgeois class rule,

[00:40:38] but instead the transformation of workers

[00:40:39] into more, like, administered objects or subjects

[00:40:42] instead of active subjects of socialist construction,

[00:40:45] active makers of their history, if that makes sense.

[00:40:48] That being said, by the way,

[00:40:48] there are cooperative enterprises that are massive.

[00:40:50] Huawei is an example, which I believe,

[00:40:52] if it’s not the largest in the world,

[00:40:53] it’s the largest in China or something,

[00:40:55] and it’s massively successful.

[00:40:57] But that’s one, I guess, like, positive example.

[00:40:59] There’s many negative examples of that

[00:41:01] where they aren’t cooperative in that way.

[00:41:04] And, of course, again, we’ll get into it at a later point,

[00:41:06] but cooperatives are not the end-all and be-all of socialism.

[00:41:08] In fact, sometimes they can be damaging to socialism,

[00:41:11] depending on how they’re instituted.

[00:41:14] We’ve covered this before, but we will continue.

[00:41:16] All right.

[00:41:17] Now, currently, the contradictions that we see

[00:41:21] in Chinese development are not those of a capitalist system.

[00:41:24] They do not reflect a generalized crisis of overaccumulation,

[00:41:27] like you see in the United States, for example,

[00:41:29] the boom and bust cycles, I mean.

[00:41:30] You do not see the declining profitability characteristic

[00:41:33] of mature capitalism.

[00:41:34] Not in the same way, at least.

[00:41:35] Instead, you have the uneven nature,

[00:41:38] the stage, like, step-by-step nature

[00:41:41] of socialist construction across this huge society,

[00:41:44] internally differentiated and large geographically,

[00:41:46] I mean, society.

[00:41:48] You have regional disparities.

[00:41:49] You have sectoral imbalances, I mean,

[00:41:51] agricultural versus, for example, industrial,

[00:41:53] and between different industrial sectors,

[00:41:55] between academic and educational sectors,

[00:41:57] so on and so forth.

[00:41:58] Generational pressures from previous, I guess,

[00:42:01] political setups that existed

[00:42:02] and economic setups that existed.

[00:42:04] But the difference is that all of these regional disparities,

[00:42:06] imbalances between different economic sectors,

[00:42:08] and so on and so forth,

[00:42:09] they are actively managed through, first of all,

[00:42:11] economic and political planning.

[00:42:12] They’re managed through directed political decisions

[00:42:16] that allow for fiscal transfers,

[00:42:18] that outline industrial policy,

[00:42:20] that create the infrastructure

[00:42:22] and the plan for long-term coordination

[00:42:24] instead of basically just market anarchy,

[00:42:27] like exists in the States.

[00:42:28] One perfect example is the soybean industry in the States,

[00:42:31] which from literally week to week,

[00:42:33] it’s either like, oh my gosh, it’s a boom-boom market.

[00:42:35] We’re doing the best ever,

[00:42:36] so I’m going to fucking lose everything

[00:42:37] by whether Trump decides to tweet on tariffs or not, right?

[00:42:42] That is a fundamental difference

[00:42:43] between how the Chinese socialist system exists

[00:42:45] and the American capitalist system.

[00:42:47] Of course, there are certain problematic phenomena in China.

[00:42:51] Youth employment pressures, regional unevenness,

[00:42:53] political and economic development regionally, I mean.

[00:42:56] These are not crises of capitalism,

[00:42:59] like directed capitalist uneven development.

[00:43:02] They are more appropriately

[00:43:04] phenomena of transitional dislocations that exist.

[00:43:08] Think about it like this.

[00:43:09] When you have a nation that’s so large and so different internally,

[00:43:12] or differentiated is a better term,

[00:43:14] that develops at such a rapid rate,

[00:43:16] rapid structural upgrading, educational expansion,

[00:43:19] the deliberate transfer,

[00:43:20] politically driven transformation of labor processes

[00:43:23] towards higher productivity,

[00:43:25] more technological sophistication, and so on and so forth,

[00:43:27] then of course you’re going to have these problematic issues,

[00:43:30] like, for example, youth employment pressures,

[00:43:31] or regional disparities.

[00:43:34] But this is as a result of this rapid development

[00:43:37] that states directed in a socialist system,

[00:43:40] not a result of the production of a surplus population

[00:43:44] that’s driven by capitalist accumulation

[00:43:45] that’s closing commons and forcing people into…

[00:43:48] You understand the point that I’m getting at?

[00:43:50] Now, currently, socialist planning capacity

[00:43:52] is driven by technological development

[00:43:54] and the current digitalization.

[00:43:56] I mean, like computers, supercomputers, AI, and so on and so forth.

[00:43:59] But they’re still fairly rudimentary.

[00:44:00] Like, they’re…

[00:44:01] There is planning, but it’s not the, you know,

[00:44:04] Cybersyn 2, what we’re hoping for, right?

[00:44:06] Which is a huge point of criticism of China.

[00:44:09] But they have their reasoning for this,

[00:44:10] which we’ll hopefully touch on.

[00:44:12] But these function as extensions of socialist planning capacity,

[00:44:14] as I mentioned.

[00:44:15] There’s advances in data infrastructure,

[00:44:17] digital coordination.

[00:44:18] There is real-time feedback from, like, the peripheries

[00:44:22] or particular, like, industrial sectors

[00:44:25] to enhance macro-level planning and micro-level planning.

[00:44:28] There’s strategic foresight that this information allows for.

[00:44:30] And policy responsiveness that exists through this economic planning

[00:44:34] that is either unavailable or impossible under capitalist states.

[00:44:37] The United States, which is a highly developed country,

[00:44:40] like, for all intents, for all our memeing,

[00:44:41] has an incredibly highly developed economic and technological power.

[00:44:44] But they lack this capacity entirely.

[00:44:46] And there’s a material reason for this.

[00:44:49] A political and material reason for this.

[00:44:51] That being said, though, as you may imagine,

[00:44:53] there are difficulties that come,

[00:44:54] administrative and technical difficulties,

[00:44:56] that reflect the material requirements of governing

[00:44:59] such a complex socialist economy.

[00:45:00] At such a large scale, over such a large population,

[00:45:03] over such a large landmass area.

[00:45:05] Now, the tools, these digitalization tools and whatnot,

[00:45:07] can help stabilize different contradictions that exist in society

[00:45:11] by predicting them and analyzing them appropriately with enough data.

[00:45:15] They can improve economic coordination.

[00:45:17] But they are not a substitute for political legitimacy

[00:45:20] of the Chinese government through or derived from mass participation.

[00:45:25] Does this point make sense?

[00:45:26] Absolutely.

[00:45:27] Without, for the Chinese, I mean,

[00:45:29] without conscious alignment with,

[00:45:30] fast-line principles,

[00:45:31] which is a foundational principle of the Chinese government,

[00:45:34] technical governance,

[00:45:36] despite bringing economic benefits long-term,

[00:45:39] risks depoliticizing socialism

[00:45:41] by number one,

[00:45:42] distancing or divorcing itself from the wide mass of people,

[00:45:45] from the proletariat particularly,

[00:45:47] but also allied classes that exist in China.

[00:45:49] And also by resolving contradictions,

[00:45:51] not through like lively political debate and engagement,

[00:45:54] but through administrative,

[00:45:55] I guess, strokes of the pen.

[00:45:56] These are, this is not proletarian self-activity,

[00:45:58] realizing and correcting contradictions.

[00:46:00] It is a,

[00:46:00] administrative clerical thing.

[00:46:04] So what that means is,

[00:46:04] and subsequently,

[00:46:05] like the end of the criticism of this part is the central,

[00:46:09] I guess,

[00:46:09] economic task that the Chinese have,

[00:46:11] I would say in my humble opinion,

[00:46:13] and I’m in no way like worthy to make this fucking statement,

[00:46:17] but I will nonetheless say it.

[00:46:18] The central economic task for them is to,

[00:46:20] is not to resolve antagonistic contradictions that exist in China between,

[00:46:24] for example,

[00:46:24] accumulation,

[00:46:25] accumulation,

[00:46:25] economic accumulation and social reproduction,

[00:46:28] particularly like that is a contradiction that it would not be,

[00:46:30] the primary one for them.

[00:46:31] It is the continued political alignment of this technical governance that China has.

[00:46:36] So painstakingly and expertly developed with socialist democracy,

[00:46:40] mass involvement,

[00:46:42] participation,

[00:46:43] which does exist to a certain level,

[00:46:45] but not necessarily expansive enough.

[00:46:47] I would say,

[00:46:47] particularly on the enterprise side of things.

[00:46:51] Now,

[00:46:51] how you square the circle and how you can bring such a huge and diverse nation together.

[00:46:56] That is a,

[00:46:57] that,

[00:46:57] that is a question that I lack the administrative capacity,

[00:47:00] to give you a direct and easy answer for.

[00:47:02] What I can say is that more advances in the productive forces,

[00:47:06] improvement in the means of production should be consciously integrated into active working class leadership.

[00:47:11] There should be mass participation in this expansion of the productive forces,

[00:47:15] so that the working class of the mass of the Chinese working class feels themselves related to this political growth,

[00:47:22] economic and political growth,

[00:47:23] instead of being treated as,

[00:47:25] I guess,

[00:47:26] subject of these autonomous managerial domains.

[00:47:29] This is kind of a much,

[00:47:30] much more nuanced and developed form.

[00:47:33] Yes,

[00:47:33] I’m,

[00:47:34] I’m,

[00:47:34] I’m stroking my hog here.

[00:47:35] Nuanced and developed form of the over bureaucratization argument that has historically existed,

[00:47:41] but is so frequently like fragile and inadequate and wrongly stated and,

[00:47:46] and developed.

[00:47:47] This is like a parallel thought,

[00:47:51] but I would say much more concretely well developed.

[00:47:54] And this is not me saying this specifically.

[00:47:56] This is any like Marxist who has actually done.

[00:48:00] The research and read into this.

[00:48:01] I mean,

[00:48:01] the real ones,

[00:48:02] not,

[00:48:02] you know,

[00:48:03] like,

[00:48:03] oh,

[00:48:03] yeah,

[00:48:03] my little 14 group fucking Communist Party in Belgium,

[00:48:07] which lives in the People’s Republic of Wallonia,

[00:48:10] or of the fuck,

[00:48:11] which does even have a fucking subsidized milk for baby already dead.

[00:48:18] Yeah,

[00:48:18] I know.

[00:48:19] But when you that’s kind of the point that there is some substance to the over bureaucratization,

[00:48:23] but it’s more of an administrative criticism rather than like a with the fundamental class relations.

[00:48:29] I’ve changed.

[00:48:30] Now there’s more economic criticism that I can deliver here and is kind of building on what JT said,

[00:48:36] and it’s the integration of private capital specifically into socialist accumulation,

[00:48:41] even though it’s politically constrained in China creates differentiated or diverse material incentives and interests that need constant supervision.

[00:48:51] Obviously,

[00:48:51] right?

[00:48:52] Like not only like a political supervision,

[00:48:55] but also active,

[00:48:56] you know,

[00:48:57] like surveillance in particular ways.

[00:48:59] Now,

[00:49:00] the pressures that exist because of the integration of private capital into social accumulation,

[00:49:06] the pressures are not always counterbalanced,

[00:49:09] let’s say by equally developed mechanisms of worker control,

[00:49:13] Democratic planning,

[00:49:14] particularly at the enterprise enterprise level.

[00:49:16] So what you end up happening instead of like capitalist crisis,

[00:49:20] capitalist crisis that exists in the States,

[00:49:22] you have a lag,

[00:49:23] a structural or time lag in where the working class in China would govern politically,

[00:49:28] but without consistently managed to exercise their power in the at the point of production,

[00:49:34] right?

[00:49:34] I’m almost repeating myself,

[00:49:36] but not really.

[00:49:37] I’m trying to kind of give the background,

[00:49:40] right?

[00:49:40] This is kind of the over-reliance of administrative coordination.

[00:49:43] Like the the party will solve.

[00:49:44] It is the idea that we want to get past if you understand what I mean,

[00:49:47] right?

[00:49:48] So the subsequent relation is not only efficiency or growth.

[00:49:51] The economic challenge is not just to maximize efficient,

[00:49:53] but also deepening socialist relations of production so that you end up more,

[00:49:57] I guess,

[00:49:58] proletarian,

[00:49:58] in the expansion of this aggregate capacity for production.

[00:50:02] And this is kind of interesting because when you read the what the Chinese say themselves,

[00:50:06] this is actually what they say.

[00:50:08] This is their criticism.

[00:50:09] They’re like the primary contradiction in China is the regional disparities that we have.

[00:50:13] So on so forth.

[00:50:13] We need to raise the economic,

[00:50:15] the general level of economic existence in China,

[00:50:18] make it more even and reduce wealth inequality and whatnot.

[00:50:20] And subsequently,

[00:50:21] they’re like their B point,

[00:50:22] their sub point or subtext to this as well is that they would like to increase this conscious or deep,

[00:50:27] this,

[00:50:28] this deepening of socialist relations of production to create this,

[00:50:31] what they would refer to as a moderately prosperous socialist society,

[00:50:33] socialist in content,

[00:50:35] economic,

[00:50:35] political,

[00:50:35] social content that can even on like a philosophical level.

[00:50:39] When you have this continued reliance on Market mechanisms,

[00:50:41] of course,

[00:50:42] across large parts of the economy,

[00:50:44] you create fragmented labor relations.

[00:50:46] You create uneven bargaining power for for workers,

[00:50:49] depending off their and migrant labor systems,

[00:50:51] subcontracting chains can result in again,

[00:50:53] uneven bargaining power and other issues.

[00:50:55] Private sector employments usually operate with weaker,

[00:50:57] or weak,

[00:50:58] generally worker participation,

[00:51:00] limited militancy of any unions or engagement in union activities.

[00:51:04] And this can also limit,

[00:51:06] I guess,

[00:51:06] the imagination and aspirations of workers in their capacity to shape production directly.

[00:51:11] So that’s the central,

[00:51:13] one of the central internal contradictions to try to deepen these socialist relations of production,

[00:51:19] which is again,

[00:51:19] much harder said than done because there are tens of millions,

[00:51:23] if not at this point,

[00:51:24] billions of enterprises in China,

[00:51:27] right?

[00:51:27] This is not the swipe of a pen.

[00:51:29] Okay,

[00:51:29] now everybody will like,

[00:51:30] this is this needs to be done stepwise,

[00:51:33] gradually through like overarching economic plans of slow development.

[00:51:38] And that that is exactly what the Chinese have been doing from the 90s until now,

[00:51:42] or at least at least the early 2000s.

[00:51:43] Until now,

[00:51:44] there has been a significant shift in the economic makeup and structure of China,

[00:51:48] which is incredible for for area,

[00:51:50] but we’ll get to will this in today’s on the China glazing episode today nuanced Marxist criticism episode.

[00:51:55] So we’ll continue going the question of,

[00:51:57] what is the imperialism in China?

[00:51:59] If you want to assess or ask is China imperialist,

[00:52:02] then you need to of course,

[00:52:03] define mark the Marxist,

[00:52:05] you know,

[00:52:05] like politically economic definition of imperialism.

[00:52:08] It’s not the function of a size or strength of a economy or the trade volume of it or its global presence.

[00:52:15] Imperialism is a structural position.

[00:52:17] It’s characterized by dominance of Monopoly finance.

[00:52:19] Capital the export of capital as a system systemic and systematic necessity of capitalist expansion and accumulation.

[00:52:27] And the ongoing appropriation of surplus value from dependent regions,

[00:52:30] no matter what they how they exist through unequal exchange through profit,

[00:52:34] repatriate repatriation through debt regimes through intellectual property monopolies and other forms of monopolies through coercive or military enforcement or market access.

[00:52:42] The imperial the imperial core and imperialist countries within the pro-core increasingly live off of surplus extracted from the periphery.

[00:52:48] China number one does not exist in this pathway and did not rise to this pathway.

[00:52:52] China emerged from the opposite condition.

[00:52:55] It was it existed in semi-colonial,

[00:52:57] subjugation forced market opening through military means territorial fragmentation underdevelopment opposed by Western Peel is in Japanese and peels and so on so forth.

[00:53:05] And it was the communist revolution that constituted and I guess an anti-imperialist rupture.

[00:53:09] It dismantled Comprador capital and bourgeois foreign bourgeois capital existence.

[00:53:14] It secured national and economic sovereignty in China.

[00:53:17] It subordinated accumulation to the socialist state instead of or into two social state power instead of two profits for foreign capitalists or even Comprador domestic.

[00:53:26] Capitalists imperialist economies on the other hand developed through outward expand economic expansion and domination.

[00:53:33] We’re not talking about military.

[00:53:34] We’re talking about specifically economic China’s development on the opposite historically and even up to today has been overwhelmingly inward oriented.

[00:53:42] It’s focused on rebuilding productive capacity after centuries of Imperial plunder and humiliation.

[00:53:47] That’s not a political point or a rhetoric point.

[00:53:50] That is a historical fact the trajectory of China as it exists today is that of a formerly colonized China.

[00:53:54] As it exists today.

[00:53:55] Is that of a formerly?

[00:53:56] Colonized Society that’s breaking his dependency and not of a core Imperial and economic power constructing global extraction networks.

[00:54:04] Is this clear so far?

[00:54:06] I think China’s imperialist actually.

[00:54:08] So let’s wrap it up.

[00:54:10] All right.

[00:54:10] There we go.

[00:54:11] I mean, it would be easier.

[00:54:12] We’ll not have to go through them.

[00:54:14] It’s okay.

[00:54:14] We’ll try to limit it to one more hour.

[00:54:19] Okay, look China’s integration currently into the world economy, particularly during the reform period reinforces this position for decades.

[00:54:26] China function primarily as a site of low-margin manufacturing with Western dominated global value chains taking over.

[00:54:32] Basically Chinese labor generated enormous value for them while Monopoly firms in the Imperial core captured a disproportionate amount of profits or surplus through control of finance branding logistics intellectual property and so on so forth.

[00:54:45] So surplus value flowed outwards to to the rest of the world, particularly the industrialized Imperial West rather than inwards even large trade surpluses that existed were largely cycled into us.

[00:54:55] For example,

[00:54:56] financial instruments.

[00:54:57] So that means that anything that was supposed to stabilize or help China was effectively used to stabilize instead Western consumption and the financial system that exists in the West.

[00:55:04] And this is a pattern that reflects China’s existence as a through peripheral value transfer into the Imperial core rather than imperialist super profit extraction as a imperialist power imperialist economies.

[00:55:16] Generally take a look at the United States.

[00:55:17] For example,

[00:55:18] they are defined by persistent net inflows of global surplus China’s historic pattern as well as modern-day panel has been the reverse a large-scale domestic.

[00:55:26] Labor is mobilization.

[00:55:28] You could say compressed wages thin industrial margins for China and outward surplus leakage.

[00:55:34] You could say both in labor as well as in labor hours and in surplus and now while China at the current day invests abroad.

[00:55:42] This investment is fundamentally different from Imperial finance.

[00:55:46] Capital first and foremost.

[00:55:47] It’s concentrated infrastructure.

[00:55:49] It’s directed towards productive capacity there or director was long-term development instead of speculative flows.

[00:55:56] Privatization or rent-seeking monopolies,

[00:55:58] which are so common for Western forms of investment.

[00:56:01] So these investments do not constitute a systemic drain or of surplus into a Chinese financial core like and to zoom out even more the answer to the question of Chinese imperialism or if you China is China imperialist lies in the absence of bourgeois class rule in China.

[00:56:18] Imperialism requires a ruling capitalist class whose accumulation imperatives specifically drive state policy outwards.

[00:56:26] Like the American example.

[00:56:28] I use the American example because it is the hedgemon not not for any other reason particularly.

[00:56:32] It’s the clearest example to have you could use Britain.

[00:56:34] For example, if you want to particularly historically, but even to the modern day, right imperialism.

[00:56:38] I’ll repeat requires a ruling capitalist class whose own imperatives for accumulation drive state policy national state policy outwards in China as JT.

[00:56:48] So beautiful mentioned land finance strategic Industries.

[00:56:50] They remain under state control private capital operates within strict political limits billionaires exist.

[00:56:56] But their necks are short their wealth is contingent.

[00:57:00] It’s revocable.

[00:57:01] It’s subordinate to party Authority.

[00:57:02] They don’t command the state.

[00:57:03] They don’t dictate foreign policy.

[00:57:05] They don’t autonomously export capital as a systemic or systematic necessity without any sovereign Monopoly capital that can dominate political power.

[00:57:14] The heart to the economic engine of imperialism does not and cannot exist.

[00:57:17] Now that does not mean that there are no shortcomings with Chinese foreign investment.

[00:57:23] I’m going to get into that.

[00:57:24] But China is growing.

[00:57:25] Currently growing global influence primarily weakens the existing Imperial hierarchy.

[00:57:30] The primary contradiction internationally, which is Western but specifically American imperialism challenges dollar hegemony.

[00:57:37] It offers alternatives to IMF austerity.

[00:57:39] It rejects or tries to abate or limit regime change politics to the extent that it that it can be mobilized to but just solely on economic basis.

[00:57:49] I mean now this does not mean that or automatically generate socialism internationally and for the most part still kind of like.

[00:57:55] You know, high-level Chinese government driven.

[00:57:58] This is not like the Chinese masses delivering this but it does fracture Imperial mechanisms instead of managing them or recuperating them or sorting them out and incorporating them into into into Chinese ones.

[00:58:09] All of this can reinforce the point that China has not fully exited the world capitalist system because it can’t it means deeply entangled in these global markets.

[00:58:16] It’s vulnerable to financial pressure and there’s internally shaped or Chinese internally shaped by the contradictions of the stage of Socialism, which it finds itself in the primary stage of socialism, which is operating within.

[00:58:25] A capitalist world economy this uneven development that exists within China reliance on exports that’s kind of lessening nowadays, but silly this ongoing market mechanisms so on and so forth.

[00:58:35] This is reflecting a society and a economy that is overcoming the legacy of centuries of under development instead of one that has achieved the surplus extracting position of the imperial core.

[00:58:46] So structurally China occupies a transitional position.

[00:58:49] It is a former semi-colony that has broken many dependency chains, but has not transformed into an imperial center of Global.

[00:58:55] Accumulation and this is a mathematical reality as much as some people would like to pretend that China is imperialist by, you know, silly number games that they try to do the actual math.

[00:59:07] When you look at like, you know unequals change on paper value transfer on paper the commodity chains that exist in China and linkages across the world to other economic sectors.

[00:59:17] I mean China is a net.

[00:59:19] What is the English word not extract it is having net being extracted out of.

[00:59:25] My English is broken down.

[00:59:26] I’m trying to say it’s not extracting out of others.

[00:59:28] And this is the the mathematical truth labeling China’s imperialist kind of collapses Marxism into like the surface geopolitics where you think power means exploitation or it having some influence means imperialism or something by that logic.

[00:59:41] Any larger successful country becomes Imperials by default, which is a stupid thought it strips the concept of its even of its material meaning.

[00:59:48] So if you want to carry out a rigorous Marxist analysis instead that shows that imperialism is about you know, who extract surplus how how class power is organized.

[00:59:55] Globally so on and so forth the through these criteria China as I mentioned remains outside the imperial court and it’s much closer to the historic Imperial periphery, but it’s one that’s led by a social state that has dramatically improved its position within the capitalist system so far you go.

[01:00:10] Do you want to take your bit?

[01:00:10] Okay.

[01:00:11] So what is the most dangerous thing China is doing to us power right now isn’t building warships or hacking servers, but quietly breaking the Monopoly the imperial core has on how the world.

[01:00:25] Develops borrows and imagines its future because if we take Marxism seriously, we have to start from the structure of the world system not from just vibes on who is red and who is purple and who is blue and structurally as we’ve covered multiple times here.

[01:00:44] I just want to confirm on my end the People’s Republic of China today occupies an objectively anti-imperialist position.

[01:00:52] Well at the same time being riddled with contradictions.

[01:00:55] That no honest socialist can just hand wave away.

[01:00:59] Both of these things can be true at the same time.

[01:01:01] And if we drop either side we slide into liberal moralism on one hand or just as Hakeem said campus apologetics on the other.

[01:01:11] So let’s set some definitions for my part imperialism isn’t just a big country being mean as Hakeem said it’s a specific configuration where a core of wealthy States led by the u.s.

[01:01:24] and.

[01:01:25] extract by NATO

[01:01:26] in this,

[01:01:26] I don’t know current version of planet

[01:01:29] Earth

[01:01:29] together with the imf.

[01:01:31] The World Bank extract value from the rest of the planet via finance technology and coercion.

[01:01:38] Is that architecture Washington controls the dollar system rights the rules of trade policies Ceeley and reserves for itself the right to decide which governments

[01:01:49] are legitimate.

[01:01:50] And which can be sanctioned overthrown to or blockade it,

[01:01:53] China

[01:01:54] does.

[01:01:54] not sit in that core. As we’ve learned, it’s a former semi-colonial country that fought its way

[01:02:01] out of direct imperial control, built its own industrial base, and still operates largely

[01:02:07] outside the formal command structures of Western finance and military power. It doesn’t run the IMF.

[01:02:15] It doesn’t dictate structural adjustment programs. It doesn’t anchor NATO. Its currency is not the

[01:02:23] global reserve. When China expands South-South trade, launches alternative financing mechanisms,

[01:02:29] and backs new institutions like the BRICS New Development Bank, it chips away at the monopoly

[01:02:35] the U.S. has on global accumulation. When a global South government can say if the IMF will not

[01:02:41] finance the sport, China might, the whole bargaining position of that country changes.

[01:02:47] Yet maneuvering room, limited but nonetheless real. And this is why

[01:02:52] section 3 of the IMF is so important.

[01:02:53] of the socialist movement argued that China’s rise marks a qualitative change in the structure

[01:02:59] of world power. Not because Beijing is building world socialism, but because a socialist-led state

[01:03:05] is helping to redistribute power away from a single imperial pole towards a system of multiple

[01:03:12] centers of decision-making. That very redistribution weakens U.S. hegemony and the

[01:03:20] enforcement mechanisms that defend it.

[01:03:22] So, on top of that, China’s official foreign policy doctrine centers on sovereignty and

[01:03:34] non-interference. The famous, for those of you who do not know, five principles of peaceful

[01:03:40] coexistence, which are mutual respect for territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression,

[01:03:45] non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence. In practice, that means that

[01:03:52] Beijing does not organize, call it revolutions, does not invade countries on humanitarian pretexts

[01:03:58] and consistently opposes regime change operations at the U.N., including the ones enthusiastically

[01:04:04] championed by liberal democracies that think that, you know, a people of a nation deserve to

[01:04:12] make their choice, even though people that don’t belong to that nation are supposedly supposed to

[01:04:17] make choices for them. But yes, is this decision,

[01:04:21] the Chinese leaders make uniquely, I don’t know, fucking virtuous. No, this is fucking

[01:04:27] get out of here with that liberalism, okay? It’s because they know that the same playbook

[01:04:32] used against Iraq, Libya, or Yugoslavia could be used against them. Defending the sovereignty of

[01:04:38] the global south is simultaneously defending the political space for their own socialist

[01:04:44] experiment to survive. So, if we’re doing materialist analysis, we have to say it very

[01:04:49] clearly. China’s global south is simultaneously defending the political space for their own

[01:04:51] socialist experiment to survive. So, if we’re doing materialist analysis, we have to say it very clearly.

[01:04:52] objectively weakens U.S. unipolar dominance, expands policy space for developing nations,

[01:04:58] and rejects regime change and militarized coercion as the primary tools of international order,

[01:05:05] bringing international order potentially to the scene. That is anti-imperialist in content,

[01:05:13] even if it’s carried out through, you know, very, how should I say this, cautious, bureaucratic,

[01:05:19] like, let’s say, very,

[01:05:21] non-romantic, dry diplomacy. But here’s where, you know, our side often gets confused. There’s

[01:05:31] this temptation to slide into some sort of binary. Either you, you know, cheerlead multipolarity as

[01:05:37] if it’s already socialism, usually done by people from the developing world, or you dismiss it as

[01:05:43] just, you know, inter-imperialist rivalry, usually done by Westerners, you know, hiding

[01:05:48] a slight level of chauvinism. Like, okay, if there’s supposed to be, you know, a lot of

[01:05:51] things going on in the world, you know, there’s supposed to be a big boss. It’s preferable if the

[01:05:54] big boss is Washington because he’s more civilized than the Orientals. But both inherently, let’s be

[01:06:01] honest, slightly biased and lacking responsibility. One much worse than the other one, in my modest

[01:06:06] opinion. But again, I’m showing my subjectivity of not being, for now, at least from the imperial

[01:06:14] core. Multipolarity simply means that, for those of you who somehow listen to the show and don’t

[01:06:21] care, it means that there isn’t one global center of command anymore. The fusion creates conditions

[01:06:28] for socialism, but it doesn’t deliver any outcome automatically. On the one hand, the rise of China

[01:06:34] and BRICS opens doors. Governments can seek finance without accepting IMF austerity as a

[01:06:40] fucking condition. Countries can trade in currencies other than the USD, making them

[01:06:45] slightly less vulnerable to U.S. sanctions and regional blocks, and they can negotiate with

[01:06:51] other countries. And so, you know, I’m showing my subjectivity of not being, for now, at least from the

[01:06:51] front. But again, I’m showing my subjectivity of not being, for now, at least from the front. And so, you

[01:06:51] know, I’m showing my subjectivity of not being, for now, at least from the front. And so, you

[01:06:51] multiple powers and extract better terms for infrastructure technology resource management

[01:06:57] it’s a to say it in the lived as lived up of a way as i can wait this is just like from almost

[01:07:03] every perspective very good it’s let’s call it democratization of diplomacy

[01:07:10] will you actually have choices aren’t you like isn’t that what you know the yeah brother yeah

[01:07:16] like uh the you know democratic world order perspective isn’t that what it’s supposed to

[01:07:23] be about like every nation state no matter how large or small having the choice to direct its

[01:07:31] own destiny both economically and when it comes to expressing their own sovereignty or even the

[01:07:36] opposite for potentially uniting with other nations etc etc isn’t that the point well what by the

[01:07:42] through the removal of unipolarity you can actually take that written on

[01:07:46] paper and actually execute it yes i was no no it’s such a good point but i just wanted to mention

[01:07:52] the historical parallel just so people realize when they’re the last time there’s a multipolar

[01:07:57] world i mean the existence of the soviet union and the united states is the two poles for the

[01:08:00] most part the third pole would i guess you could say the unaligned movement that result particularly

[01:08:05] exists in the soviet union that allowed this multipolarity to exist in the 20th century

[01:08:08] also allowed for the independence of every single colony that had been colonized for centuries up

[01:08:14] until that point political independence

[01:08:16] political independence economic independence that’s something that comes subsequently it even

[01:08:19] allowed for the socialist transition of dozens of countries across the world like this is yes

[01:08:25] like the the significance of this is so like people take it as almost as if it was a uh

[01:08:29] uh a predetermined script of course independence was gonna come after the end of world war ii no

[01:08:34] independence came because the soviet union emerged victorious that’s why they had the weight they

[01:08:39] had the balls that they could let hang right which allowed them uh or gave these nations and these

[01:08:46] uh colonial uh like uh subject the not only the courage but also the understanding the diplomatic

[01:08:53] cover the military support at times as well as economic for their fight for their own liberal

[01:08:58] liberation from slavery and from uh the the the imperial metropole that is ridiculous

[01:09:04] and that is the kind of that’s why we advocate for multipliers so go on yes yes the brilliant

[01:09:09] historical context like if you’re if you if you advocate for socialism multipolarity is good if you

[01:09:15] advocate for national liberalism or or you advocate for democratic liberalism if you advocate for the

[01:09:15] right to go on and be in a democratic society that’s why we advocate for the right to go on and be in a

[01:09:16] liberation multipolarity is good if you advocate for sovereignty without having nukes bro

[01:09:22] multipolarity is good if you if you advocate for everybody gets a fucking nuke multipolarity is

[01:09:28] good if you if you argue for denuclearization because you no longer have a like one guy that

[01:09:34] cannot be policed by multiple other states multipolarity is good there is like unless

[01:09:40] you are an american or okay not an american unless you’re a very large capitalist that does

[01:09:47] not have very large amounts of capital tied in uh the united states economy this is good for you

[01:09:53] like like i don’t i genuinely uh fail to uh fail to comprehend an alternative perspective that is

[01:10:00] not just jingoism that being yeah exactly right that being said just to re-emphasize something

[01:10:05] you said unipolar multipolarity excuse me multipolarity is good but it’s not socialism

[01:10:09] then again

[01:10:10] metastasis and regress is good i mean it’s not a remission but it’s better than you know

[01:10:16] you understand my point please go on you yes exactly it does not guarantee socialist

[01:10:21] transformation it is a terrain of struggle not a substitute for struggle we’re changing you know

[01:10:28] so hard like oh you’re watching those medieval european movies and then like one great general

[01:10:32] is like oh man we’re gonna like uh wait on top of the hill and then you know even though the

[01:10:36] other guys have the same size of an army or even a larger one the guys

[01:10:40] are on top of the hill so it’s easier to aim the bows now some historians are gonna fucking murder

[01:10:44] me probably it’s something completely different but the terrain changing uh changes everything

[01:10:48] from the art for the army in this case in this allegory defending or in our case for a movement

[01:10:55] that is trying to advocate for a particular change in mode of production aka an alternative system it

[01:11:02] gives us more room to breathe let’s say more space to fight but you know someone still has

[01:11:09] to fight

[01:11:10] key point there you know without conscious uh class and political intervention the most likely

[01:11:17] outcome is not global liberation but just you know rebalance capitalism with new centers and

[01:11:23] new peripheries and we have to mention that that is a potential contradiction that could grow

[01:11:28] the chinese leadership at least on paper and in rhetoric repeatedly promises that it does not

[01:11:36] seek hegemony and systemically opposes it

[01:11:40] whether that will turn out to be true or not only history can say for now what we can see is that they’ve been seeking partners not slaves

[01:11:51] uh let we can use the belt and road initiative as an example no matter how complex it is and has you know is not perfect we have a whole fucking episode on it if you’re new here uh go watch that but if you’re very lazy basically bri is china’s massive still evolving infrastructure

[01:12:05] but if you’re very lazy basically bri is china’s massive still evolving infrastructure

[01:12:10] led

[01:12:10] development project

[01:12:11] …”

[01:12:16] simple

[01:12:20] city that i

[01:12:21] live in

[01:12:21] fucking

[01:12:22] connecting asia and

[01:12:24] africa and latin america and young

[01:12:25] parts of

[01:12:26] based europe

[01:12:27] and shit you

[01:12:28] know

[01:12:28] it in a world

[01:12:30] where

[01:12:31] development has usually meant banks just getting fucking rich that’s it the way the chinese do business represents

[01:12:40] a

[01:12:40] major rupture imf loans always arrive with all the brutal conditions you probably know of

[01:12:47] privatization of public services cuts to wages and subsidies trade and capital hardcore

[01:12:54] liberalization fucking uncapistan everywhere all justified in the name you know of stabilization

[01:13:00] you know we we have to consider you a stable country to give you money and by stable i mean

[01:13:06] we just like literally take all your copper china’s offer exists in a stark fucking contrast

[01:13:15] and not only what i said earlier in rhetoric but if we look at the belt and road initiative also

[01:13:21] in practice they give long-term loans for specific infrastructure projects okay they do continue so

[01:13:28] many fucking times a loan forgiveness they negotiate state to state often aligned with

[01:13:36] recipients of the loan forgiveness and they negotiate state to state often aligned with

[01:13:36] recipients countries own development plans they go and they’re like what are you doing right now

[01:13:40] can we make sure that happens and you give us something in return officially no political

[01:13:48] strings in terms of regime change or meddling in the domestic economic system of the country

[01:13:54] from the standpoint of many global south nations this is literally a lifeline but more importantly

[01:14:02] a real alternative to the we will save you but you become our bitch

[01:14:06] this is literally a lifeline but you become our bitch

[01:14:08] this is literally a lifeline but you become our bitch

[01:14:09] at the same time serious left critiques point to some of the contradictions

[01:14:15] bri deals are negotiated you know kind of overwhelmingly through national elites

[01:14:20] you can think heads of state finance ministers and even local very very large capitalists

[01:14:27] while labor unions you know peasant organizations depending on the level of

[01:14:32] industrialization of a particular state and even like popular um let’s not say the price for energy

[01:14:35] and the same for the generation of energy but you know what i’m saying that this is going to have to

[01:14:36] let’s say, alternative movements in any country you can think of, are rarely central actors that

[01:14:43] are even sometimes, unfortunately, reached out to by the Chinese. In some cases, projects even

[01:14:49] heavily rely on, you know, just importing Chinese labor. And I find this particular criticism out of

[01:14:56] everything that we’ve kind of covered today, even though I’m also going to go back on it,

[01:15:00] kind of very strong. Because, you know, China, ironically, does hold almost all the cards when

[01:15:05] negotiating these massive deals with local power brokers, right? If they demanded socialist reforms

[01:15:10] in return for loans, they could see real change. This, though, as we’ve learned, and we’ll continue

[01:15:16] to learn, would very much go against their own policy of, well, not wanting to become the red

[01:15:22] IMF, if you know what I mean. As funny as that alternative reality might sound.

[01:15:30] It keeps them universally attractive, as the point is.

[01:15:33] Exactly.

[01:15:35] That’s exactly what I was going to say. Whether this is, you know, long-term, very, very wise

[01:15:41] dialectical planning, where, you know, the idea is that the local state will develop at its own pace

[01:15:46] towards a class-conscious society now that it has been aided in industrialization by the People’s

[01:15:52] Republic of China. Or, you know, we are saying we are, you know, it’s a cautious episode. We’re

[01:15:58] trying to, you know, devil’s advocate all the time. Or maybe just a classic, like, I just can’t

[01:16:05] ask being done by the Chinese. Like, it’s not our fucking job to, like, fix everyone type of

[01:16:11] perspective. We will see. It’s most likely, in my opinion, kind of a combination of the both. But

[01:16:16] for Marxists, that’s kind of the contradiction. Development without transformation. Anti-imperialism

[01:16:23] without, you know, putting internationalism at the front. It’s a huge improvement over,

[01:16:30] you know, structural adjustment. But it’s not yet, you know, you cannot call,

[01:16:35] and I don’t think anybody is, but I’m still fighting ghosts. You cannot call, like, oh,

[01:16:42] my God, like, BRI is like this global socialist project, et cetera, et cetera. I would rather call

[01:16:48] it a global level-up project for the so-called global South.

[01:16:55] I will say one little pointer on the why doesn’t China export revolutions, even though I wish they

[01:17:01] would. And you can’t read the export revolution, you understand what I mean. But I mean, like,

[01:17:05] in a way, it’s not a political revolution, it’s a war revolution. And I think China is trying to

[01:17:07] support it politically, economically, militarily.

[01:17:07] Sometimes even reactionary.

[01:17:08] Yeah.

[01:17:09] Exactly right. But why doesn’t it do that? And I’ll share with you some Chinese wisdom.

[01:17:14] An egg cracked from the outside is food. An egg that cracks from the inside is a new life.

[01:17:20] That’s the-

[01:17:21] Blind boom.

[01:17:22] That’s the-

[01:17:23] Yeah.

[01:17:23] Yes.

[01:17:24] Which some people might find as a tired, like, kind of just a- but I find it. I,

[01:17:29] in the general historical overview of revolutions, that tends to be the case.

[01:17:33] You can compare-

[01:17:34] We got some-

[01:17:34] Yeah.

[01:17:35] Hey, I keep this in the episode when we had the brilliant Diego Ruzarin and he said when he interviewed like a, not interview, but like he was actually in China and asked like a Chinese politician, why are you, you know, not constantly fucking intervening everywhere, et cetera, et cetera.

[01:17:48] A lot of comments were like, that wasn’t necessarily profound.

[01:17:52] And then the pitch underneath, with all due respect, like it’s fine criticism and enjoy it.

[01:17:57] You have every right to it, right?

[01:17:59] But like then the explanation of why is because, I don’t know, big brother must save me.

[01:18:04] Which is, I’m sorry, but now I’m going to do a little bit of chauvinism.

[01:18:08] That’s very fucking Western perspective, brother.

[01:18:11] I’d ironically pull yourself up on your bootstrap.

[01:18:15] Obviously, I’m jesting here, but you know the point that I’m trying.

[01:18:19] A couple of just small, small points.

[01:18:22] Hugo’s delivery is as always so fucking beautiful and deep and thorough and throbbing.

[01:18:28] But there’s just a few individual points.

[01:18:30] And this is the projects that China delivers.

[01:18:34] General.

[01:18:34] FDI and so on and so forth.

[01:18:36] They are state-to-state channel mediated.

[01:18:38] They’re between local elites and the Chinese government.

[01:18:41] There’s very little involvement of workers or popular organizations.

[01:18:44] And this results in this top-down, you know, development of improved infrastructure.

[01:18:48] But social relations are not directly affected.

[01:18:50] And that’s exactly what Hugo said.

[01:18:51] This is intentional because they don’t want to politically involve or interfere in that way.

[01:18:57] Now, sure, that’s kind of cool for them.

[01:19:01] But also at the same time, socialism is not one you have nicer.

[01:19:04] Trade deals, right?

[01:19:05] Socialism is more complex than that.

[01:19:07] But the reason that China has this cautious non-interference strategy is to their own benefit.

[01:19:12] But it also limits.

[01:19:14] Oh, my God.

[01:19:14] My cat is jumping.

[01:19:16] Yes.

[01:19:17] All right.

[01:19:19] I don’t know if you heard that.

[01:19:19] I was like, the cat, the cat heard we’re criticizing China.

[01:19:24] Lost its shit.

[01:19:24] It’s like, no, fuck.

[01:19:26] What the fuck do you say?

[01:19:28] Exactly.

[01:19:28] How about the fuck?

[01:19:29] I don’t know.

[01:19:30] I mean, yes, I mean, I don’t know.

[01:19:32] My God, you’re so cute.

[01:19:33] Oh, yeah.

[01:19:34] Why don’t you talk to me like that?

[01:19:37] He was sleeping on the mattress behind the cutest sausage way.

[01:19:43] Yes.

[01:19:44] By the way, I’m not misgendering my cat.

[01:19:45] I have had two cats, one of which is with another family member.

[01:19:49] And this is our other cat.

[01:19:51] So, yes.

[01:19:52] And he is now sitting in my lap so cutely.

[01:19:55] Two cats.

[01:19:55] Oh, my God.

[01:20:00] She’s so cute.

[01:20:00] I got to record.

[01:20:01] What are you doing?

[01:20:02] Oh, my God.

[01:20:03] Okay.

[01:20:03] You can.

[01:20:03] You can have some ASMR of me petting him.

[01:20:06] Oh, that’s awesome.

[01:20:08] Okay.

[01:20:08] Premium content.

[01:20:10] All right.

[01:20:11] Hold on.

[01:20:11] Marco Jack, premium content.

[01:20:14] Keep that in for the bucket people in chat.

[01:20:16] Marco Jack, premium content.

[01:20:18] Sorry, please.

[01:20:19] All right.

[01:20:20] So, what I’m trying to mention to you really before my lovely cat decided to interfere

[01:20:26] is that even though these arrangements that China kind of tries to bring forth are more

[01:20:31] favorable than IMF arrangements.

[01:20:33] They reinforce market dependency at some instances.

[01:20:37] And that means that China sometimes mitigates imperial finance, but without transcending

[01:20:42] the capitalist world system and sometimes maybe even increasing its solidity.

[01:20:45] That’s kind of the contradiction.

[01:20:46] That’s the dialectical contradiction that exists in this.

[01:20:49] But this is also, this is part and parcel of the process of development, right?

[01:20:54] Yeah.

[01:20:54] You need to have the necessary level of social historical development of these relatively

[01:20:58] economically underdeveloped or overexploited areas for there to be socialism to begin with.

[01:21:02] So, in the net, it is positive.

[01:21:03] But I understand the criticism and I share it a lot of the time, right?

[01:21:08] Especially for my own country.

[01:21:09] Yeah.

[01:21:09] And that completely links into the whole conversation.

[01:21:12] I can cut it slightly a little bit shorter than the details I was going to go in because

[01:21:17] it’s a point that fucking just properly sticks when it comes to like why does Beijing not

[01:21:24] directly involve itself sometimes even in people’s movements, let’s call it, working

[01:21:31] class movements all around the world, different guerrillas, different.

[01:21:33] Different movements that define themselves as revolutionary, et cetera, et cetera.

[01:21:38] And when looking at that particular choice, we must like to an extent contextualize China

[01:21:44] historically and see what kind of thesis it developed based on what kind of experiences

[01:21:54] it’s seen both domestically and abroad with the Soviet Union in particular, you know, the

[01:22:01] sharp break with Mao.

[01:22:03] During the reforms when, you know, Beijing did support national liberation movements

[01:22:09] and, you know, promoted Maoism as a global revolutionary line while still formally preaching

[01:22:15] non-interference.

[01:22:16] Today, China’s foreign policy is far more, let’s call it, cautious.

[01:22:20] It prioritizes stability in partner countries, sometimes even those ran by, even by our standards,

[01:22:26] leaders of questionable repute.

[01:22:29] It prioritizes economic development and strict non-interference.

[01:22:33] And in turn, it prioritizes the development of the world.

[01:22:33] It prioritizes internal political struggles.

[01:22:35] And you can read this as betrayal, I guess, or you can read it as a grim lesson from the

[01:22:41] 20th century, you know.

[01:22:42] The Soviet Union, in a very courageous way, put enormous resources into backing revolutions

[01:22:50] and competing with the West militarily.

[01:22:52] And unfortunately, for many reasons, we know, yeah, they had to pay a very high price for

[01:22:58] that.

[01:22:58] And Chinese strategy, just what I mean, like historical context, let’s not give him an

[01:23:02] excuse.

[01:23:03] Nor does it say it’s correct, nor incorrect.

[01:23:05] Yes, I’m unironically going centrist on this, because we do not know.

[01:23:08] History will unironically show whether this strategy is appropriate or not for building

[01:23:14] socialism.

[01:23:15] So anybody giving you a hot take on this to an extent is doing a semi-larp.

[01:23:19] But Chinese strategies looked at what happened to the Soviets and drew a very brutal conclusion,

[01:23:25] which is the following.

[01:23:26] If the one actually existing large socialist state left gets overextended and the Soviet

[01:23:32] Union gets overextended, then it’s going to be a very brutal conclusion.

[01:23:32] And if the one actually existing large socialist state left gets overextended and the Soviet

[01:23:33] Union gets overxtended, then it’s going to be a very brutal conclusion.

[01:23:33] The world proletariat doesn’t gain some sort of heroic memory.

[01:23:38] It loses its main material ally.

[01:23:42] So Beijing’s line today is essentially defend the existence of a socialist state first,

[01:23:48] expand its economic and technological strength, build a more favorable global environment,

[01:23:53] keep ideology low key, and avoid direct confrontation with imperialism whenever possible.

[01:24:02] That preserve…

[01:24:03] the state project, but narrows the potential of socialist internationalism.

[01:24:09] So the risk is obvious, and I know some of you are shouting at your, I don’t know, car

[01:24:15] radio that you’re listening to this on.

[01:24:18] Socialism does become nationally bounded and, you know, strategically kind of technocratic

[01:24:24] if you want to get lipped up.

[01:24:26] No, socialism everywhere at once, immediate communism now.

[01:24:29] Now, you know, it becomes more about managing, you know, growth and balancing power than,

[01:24:35] you know, just energizing class struggle.

[01:24:39] Sorry, but we need to focus on vaccinating the children.

[01:24:42] Yes, yes.

[01:24:43] I know you want immediate nuclear war so that you can wave a red flag around, but there’s

[01:24:49] a measles vaccination that needs to go around first.

[01:24:52] Fair, fair.

[01:24:53] Absolutely.

[01:24:54] Absolutely.

[01:24:55] I mean, I even, like, let me put it this way.

[01:24:57] Let me put it this way.

[01:24:58] Two Marxists.

[01:24:59] Two Marxists sitting in a room.

[01:25:00] Both of them, one can say, are correct.

[01:25:03] They completely disagree.

[01:25:05] So a Marxist defense of China’s choice would say conditions are not ripe for aggressive

[01:25:11] export of revolution.

[01:25:13] The correlation of forces is unfavorable.

[01:25:17] The priority is to keep the socialist core alive, which is literally like, bro, we got

[01:25:22] to, like, let’s first vaccinate a couple of kids before we deploy troops in fucking Wisconsin.

[01:25:29] Now, why am I saying that as if the revolution is invading America?

[01:25:36] The LARP is too strong in me.

[01:25:38] I apologize.

[01:25:39] But on the other side, there can be a Marxist that says, if socialist states never take

[01:25:43] risks on the international stage for the international struggle, we risk a permanent, you know, transition

[01:25:51] that never transitions.

[01:25:52] A socialism that is always preparing the ground, but, you know, never, let’s say, sowing the

[01:25:58] seed.

[01:25:59] Right?

[01:25:59] Like, how many vaccinated children is it enough before you step up?

[01:26:06] Unironic question, right?

[01:26:07] And that’s on the Chinese people, the Chinese state, the Chinese democratic state to decide.

[01:26:15] And whether they decide at the appropriate time or not will show the success or, God

[01:26:23] forbid, Jesus knocking on wood, spitting on ground and doing all the fucking ancient shit

[01:26:26] of its failure.

[01:26:29] That’s literally it.

[01:26:30] That’s the bet.

[01:26:32] That’s the gamble.

[01:26:33] That’s the choice.

[01:26:34] That’s what necessitates great statesmanship.

[01:26:37] Yes, Hakim?

[01:26:37] Yeah.

[01:26:38] I think, and I personally decided that 35 million Chinese casualties in a nuclear holocaust

[01:26:47] is worth the ideological purity.

[01:26:50] That will satisfy my personal, right?

[01:26:54] Like, I’m joking, but a lot of people’s criticism does kind of almost boil.

[01:26:59] It boils down to things along these lines.

[01:27:02] Moving on, though, and this will be the best, the most fun part.

[01:27:06] We’re going to get into the real and serious criticism that we get, or not we specifically,

[01:27:14] but the Chinese perspective and those that will defend it or try to give the justification

[01:27:20] or contextualization that it deserves, let’s try to cover the criticism from certain Marxist

[01:27:28] ends.

[01:27:29] The majority of which, by the way, is from certain Maoist circles.

[01:27:32] So those are the ones I’ve kind of focused on, not solely Maoist, but Maoists are the

[01:27:36] only one carrying out quote-unquote serious criticism in that regard.

[01:27:40] Nobody takes Trotskists seriously, not even Trotskists, so we’re not going to bother

[01:27:43] with them.

[01:27:44] We want the actual Marxists to criticize.

[01:27:48] So I’ve pulled from a couple of sources, like a little, I guess, addendum.

[01:27:52] I think I have read every single, you know, China is capitalist text I’ve ever found.

[01:27:58] I have not.

[01:27:59] I haven’t found any one of them to be convincing.

[01:28:00] Not one of them.

[01:28:00] But the ones that are commonly stated or recommended are, for example, the book From Victory to

[01:28:06] Defeat.

[01:28:07] There’s certain pamphlets and essays and fairly long write-ups, actually, from the Communist

[01:28:12] Party of India.

[01:28:12] That’s Maoist.

[01:28:14] The R-Filipino Maoist comrades also have made certain criticisms.

[01:28:18] There’s one, I’m being cheeky, there’s also one journal that I’m referring to.

[01:28:24] It’s called Chuang.

[01:28:25] None of you should ever bother reading it.

[01:28:26] It is garbage.

[01:28:27] It is garbage.

[01:28:28] It’s the most clearly, like, CIA-backed, like, you know, quote-unquote Marxist criticism.

[01:28:34] It’s so fucking bad.

[01:28:36] But it came from nowhere and had two installments, like, a couple of years ago and then just

[01:28:41] disappeared.

[01:28:41] Their website’s still up and everything and their recommendation is still up, but there’s

[01:28:44] been no developments since.

[01:28:46] And I remember I, it was very difficult to get a hold of the first volume at the time

[01:28:50] when it first came out.

[01:28:51] So I had to task a friend of mine who had, like, relatives in London to go and visit

[01:28:58] those relatives and go to the one bookstore in London that had the copies of this so he

[01:29:03] could fucking bring this back to me.

[01:29:05] Yes, my Marxism is serious.

[01:29:07] Unlike you fucking…

[01:29:09] Nerdness is serious.

[01:29:11] Men like you are necessary or we would all die.

[01:29:13] It took me maybe two months to get a hold of this fucking thing.

[01:29:16] I will say the graphic design of it is beautiful.

[01:29:19] What is not is when you look at the resources, their sources, their sourcing, because you

[01:29:22] read these things and you’re like, oh, I mean, some of these points are very interesting.

[01:29:25] And they’re like, oh, let me just check the source.

[01:29:26] And it’s like, the American…

[01:29:28] Freedom Foundations, Anti-China Institute for Hating Chinese People.

[01:29:33] Right?

[01:29:34] It’s very, like, I’m being, I’m being…

[01:29:37] Hyperbolic.

[01:29:38] Hyperbolic with it.

[01:29:39] But it did have some, some bad sourcing.

[01:29:41] And then they have some, like, recommendations on their website on books that you should

[01:29:44] be reading about China.

[01:29:45] And it’s like, oh, you know, this very, like, notable anti-communist figure who’s made some,

[01:29:50] like, bad sociology study of China in, like, 96 or something.

[01:29:54] And they’re still recommending it as if China’s still the same China.

[01:29:57] It’s just sus.

[01:29:58] But anyways, I’ve included their criticisms as well.

[01:30:01] I’ve kind of synthesized a general summary.

[01:30:03] What’s the most common one you found?

[01:30:05] What’s the most common?

[01:30:06] Is it, oh, sure, like, the individual private capitalists don’t have all the power.

[01:30:11] That’s because, like, the political strata has concentrated all of it.

[01:30:15] And they’re, like, a super class that kind of manages everything.

[01:30:19] That’s the most common, like, the one that I hear from, quote, unquote, like, well-intentioned

[01:30:25] academics.

[01:30:26] And shit.

[01:30:26] What’s the…

[01:30:27] From your experience?

[01:30:28] Which is far vaster than mine.

[01:30:29] What would you say is the most stereotypical China actually capitalists re…

[01:30:34] I have actually, I have actually bullet-pointed them in a list of…

[01:30:41] Jesus Christ.

[01:30:42] Okay.

[01:30:44] Apologies.

[01:30:44] We’re running in front of the…

[01:30:46] Perfectly fine.

[01:30:46] Our man’s came prepared.

[01:30:49] Yeah.

[01:30:49] All right.

[01:30:49] I told you.

[01:30:50] You got 15 pages.

[01:30:50] 15 pages of this shit.

[01:30:53] Okay.

[01:30:53] So, the first one is a common claim, I guess I would say.

[01:30:58] The most common claim.

[01:30:59] Capitalist social relations have been restored at the point of production in China.

[01:31:03] This is a capitalist restoration thesis or hypothesis, which was…

[01:31:07] It almost parallels exactly the nonsense that was written about the Soviet Union.

[01:31:13] Like, the TLDR summary of the Soviet Union is, like, maybe in the last, like, eight,

[01:31:18] six to eight months of the Soviet Union’s existence, you could say that capitalism had

[01:31:22] been restored in any meaningful sense.

[01:31:24] From 89, the process had progressed, but it was still not a socialist system.

[01:31:27] It was still not a capitalist system, excuse me.

[01:31:30] So, like, they fall apart under deeper scrutiny.

[01:31:33] But there are some points that are useful, right?

[01:31:35] But I’ll get it.

[01:31:36] This is the, like, the fundamental, like, rounding, you know, not trinity, but, like,

[01:31:40] the idol of Maoist criticism that stands atop of the hill.

[01:31:44] And the idea is that, for them, socialism is not defined by state ownership or by party

[01:31:49] rule, but by social relations of production, which is a correct Marxist point, but they

[01:31:52] misinterpret it.

[01:31:53] I’ll mention how.

[01:31:54] Through that, their perspective, China is…

[01:31:56] Has…

[01:31:56] Has restored capitalist relations because there is wage labor, there is hierarchical

[01:32:00] management, or labor discipline.

[01:32:01] There’s a very common anarchist parallel, by the way, which is wrong.

[01:32:03] Much respect to our anarchist comrades, but it’s silly.

[01:32:07] Just, like, toothbrush…

[01:32:09] Washing your teeth and having a bedtime is not, you know, authoritarianism.

[01:32:14] Labor discipline is not authoritarianism, and it’s not necessarily an aspect of, like,

[01:32:18] existence of capitalism.

[01:32:19] Well, whatever.

[01:32:20] That’s one of their claims.

[01:32:21] Profit-oriented production, for example, dominates everyday life or enterprise life.

[01:32:25] That’s a very…

[01:32:26] Valid, for example, criticism, comparatively.

[01:32:28] Workers sell labor power in some form.

[01:32:31] There are managers who control production.

[01:32:33] There is surplus that’s extracted.

[01:32:35] And they argue that this is indistinguishable from capitalism, even if the state is the

[01:32:39] one mediating it instead of individual capitalists or groups of capitalists.

[01:32:41] So the claim is not that China has become a liberal capitalist country, but that there

[01:32:45] are capitalist relations in China, and the proletariat, in essence, does not constitute

[01:32:52] a ruling class in a meaningful material sense.

[01:32:54] Basically, political control by the party.

[01:32:56] Because production is governed by capitalist logic instead of, like, I guess, a long, quote

[01:33:01] unquote, socialist lens.

[01:33:02] And what they mean by socialist lens is specifically, like, 1932, like, planned economy, state-directed,

[01:33:08] you know.

[01:33:09] That’s usually what some Maoists mean.

[01:33:10] Some Maoists also have a different perspective.

[01:33:13] Not only Maoists, by the way, but I’m just…

[01:33:14] These are the common perspectives that we get.

[01:33:16] Some of them also include the enterprise or, like, the syndicate forms of enterprise control

[01:33:22] as well.

[01:33:23] That’s missing in China.

[01:33:24] So as a result, it is not socialism.

[01:33:26] There’s a lot of…

[01:33:26] This is going to be very quickly laid to rest at this point, because they reduce…

[01:33:30] These arguments reduce class power to basically shop floor relations.

[01:33:34] What happens just at the enterprise, and that’s it.

[01:33:36] They ignore state control over the commanding heights of the economy.

[01:33:39] They ignore state control over surplus, over investment, over credit, over finance, over

[01:33:42] land, accumulation direction.

[01:33:44] These things are huge, insurmountable things that you cannot look over.

[01:33:48] Marxism does not define capitalism by wage labor alone.

[01:33:52] The most important thing is which class controls reproduction at the social level, and it is

[01:33:55] for fact.

[01:33:56] For a definitive fact, not the bourgeoisie, not the capitalist class in China.

[01:34:01] So at the very best, you can claim, like, to kind of, like, synthesize this into a coherent

[01:34:06] criticism of China, capitalist social relations have a presence because of market relations

[01:34:13] in China and the existence of private capital in socialist accumulation, and that risks

[01:34:16] an increased influence, ideological, social, and eventually maybe also political, of the

[01:34:22] capitalist class.

[01:34:23] Bourgeois relations can reproduce themselves in this circumstance.

[01:34:26] Right.

[01:34:26] But they do not control or direct production currently.

[01:34:30] The profit motive and all the, these are questions of strategy.

[01:34:33] This is not what socialism is, because the profit motive existing is problematic under

[01:34:39] a socialist government.

[01:34:40] It does not mean that it excludes it from, it does not excommunicate it from socialism.

[01:34:45] The differentiation between utilizing the market and letting the market run your economy

[01:34:53] is heaven and hell contrast.

[01:34:56] Like, I don’t even know what allegory to give it.

[01:35:00] Like, okay, there’s a difference between waking up in the morning and, you know, you’re a

[01:35:07] horse guy.

[01:35:08] You got a horse outside.

[01:35:09] There’s a very big difference between, like, servicing your horse and calling your horse

[01:35:14] your fucking lord and riding your horse, okay?

[01:35:17] China’s utilizing the market economy in certain aspects off its economy as the fucking horse

[01:35:24] that it rides.

[01:35:25] That’s a shame.

[01:35:26] Yeah, very good.

[01:35:26] In capitalism, we just fucking, we love sucking horse cock.

[01:35:31] Exactly.

[01:35:32] Right, yes.

[01:35:33] Exactly.

[01:35:34] And also, by the way, like a little point on this.

[01:35:35] Anybody who says this, how many public and private statements of all the ghouls of Western

[01:35:41] imperial existence and, like, American foreign policy directives and the American government

[01:35:45] and the leaders of capital in the states, how many of these people need to verbatim

[01:35:49] tell you China is not a capitalist country, capitalists do not control the means of production?

[01:35:53] They use Marxist terms even.

[01:35:55] They’re like, it is not.

[01:35:55] The social relations that exist in China are not that of a capitalist society or country

[01:35:59] or economic setup.

[01:36:00] They say it verbatim.

[01:36:02] How many of these ghouls need to say it to your face until you, like, absorb it?

[01:36:06] And I understand the appeal.

[01:36:09] It is problematic.

[01:36:10] Like, as you said, it is problematic.

[01:36:11] Nobody’s fucking under.

[01:36:13] And can it potentially eat up, like, cannibalize the other part of the economy unless it’s

[01:36:18] held on a leash?

[01:36:19] Of course it fucking can.

[01:36:20] We are criticizing it.

[01:36:21] But to claim that it is taken over the Chinese.

[01:36:25] Do you have eyes?

[01:36:29] What the fuck are you talking about?

[01:36:31] Exactly right.

[01:36:32] The secondary point.

[01:36:35] This is also very common.

[01:36:36] The party has become the bourgeois state apparatus in China.

[01:36:41] The Communist Party.

[01:36:42] Yeah, that’s my classic.

[01:36:44] Yeah.

[01:36:44] This is kind of like the bureaucracy critique, but a little bit sharper and also more misplaced.

[01:36:48] There are certain currents that exist that the Communist Party of China has undergone

[01:36:53] class transformation.

[01:36:54] So instead of it representing.

[01:36:55] For example, a proletarian state that is somewhat distorted, maybe in its representation,

[01:37:00] it is instead become the new bourgeoisie in power.

[01:37:03] They manage capital accumulation on a national scale, hence they are the new bourgeoisie.

[01:37:06] And they’re not defined specifically by private ownership or private ownership alone, but

[01:37:10] by command over the allocation of surplus control of labor, their separation from the

[01:37:16] mass of working people and the reproduction of certain class hierarchies.

[01:37:20] They believe that, for example, these managers or technocrats or cadres, they function as a

[01:37:25] ruling class and their material interests are tied towards accumulation, stability of

[01:37:29] government, integration into global capitalism, and not towards developing socialism.

[01:37:33] This is the weakest criticism, really, because they’re, again, it’s a non-Marxist criticism

[01:37:39] because the relations to means of production are objective things that are measurable.

[01:37:42] It’s not like, oh, it’s not violence-based, exactly like JT was saying in the beginning.

[01:37:46] This collapses administrative control and merges it into class ownership.

[01:37:50] They think that administrative control is class ownership, a bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie

[01:37:54] that cannot.

[01:37:55] In China, for example, a bourgeoisie that cannot legally own land.

[01:37:58] They cannot transmit firms or enterprises freely as inheritance.

[01:38:03] They can be expropriated at will.

[01:38:05] They are periodically purged or even killed.

[01:38:07] This is not a bourgeoisie in a Marxist sense.

[01:38:10] This is a politically subordinated stratum.

[01:38:12] Now, we need to differentiate.

[01:38:14] We mentioned earlier that there is a differentiation of these para-proletarian class, I guess,

[01:38:19] offshoots, right?

[01:38:20] Managerial subsections, for example, technocrats.

[01:38:22] And then you have the subsection of private entrepreneurs.

[01:38:25] And then you have the subsection of the capitalist class, or an existing capitalist class.

[01:38:29] The people, managerial, technocratic, and whatnot, these need to be surveilled and controlled

[01:38:33] and politically molded and whatnot to be maintained in their proximity to the population and the

[01:38:38] working class, as well as the working class has to be given the opportunity to practice

[01:38:41] and only given the opportunity.

[01:38:42] They need to take that opportunity and create those opportunities for themselves to participate

[01:38:46] on a mass democratic basis in economic and political life in China, particularly economic,

[01:38:52] so that they can prevent a, for example, separation of a technocrat from a political class.

[01:38:55] So that they can prevent a, for example, separation of a technocratic managerial strata above the working class, number one.

[01:38:58] And number two, the private capital aspect and existence of some capitalists in China,

[01:39:03] those are problematic, but that does not mean it’s not socialist, right?

[01:39:07] These people do not, just like I mentioned, right?

[01:39:10] They cannot, you can’t even, this is the simple, you cannot even legally own land.

[01:39:14] I don’t know if, I mean, you don’t, in the States it’s different, but where I come from,

[01:39:18] historically, there are certain landowner families that have owned huge swaths of land.

[01:39:23] I’m talking above, like around, like in China.

[01:39:25] In, for 150 years or 200 years in their name, right?

[01:39:30] The Ottomans had a different system where they would like, you could lease the land from,

[01:39:33] from the Ottoman government, but you did not own it and you could not pass it off to an inheritance and whatnot.

[01:39:38] So it was a different setup, but there were in certain like politically independent periods of Iraqi history,

[01:39:43] these landowners that managed to carve out huge land holdings that they would just pass,

[01:39:46] like father to son, to son, to son, like that.

[01:39:50] That is a literal functional impossibility across enterprises.

[01:39:55] Across, for land, for, this is an impossibility in China, in a way that would be politically expedient.

[01:40:01] I mean, in a way that you can impact the political direction of, of, you know, the development of these things.

[01:40:06] I hope all of this is, is, is clear as well, right?

[01:40:09] A politically subordinated stratum is a problematic existence, and it is something that is a very valid criticism to have.

[01:40:16] But this does not in essence mean that the social relations have changed in a way that the technocratic managerial strata and cadres and one of that exists have become a new bourgeoisie with their own

[01:40:25] relations to production, and as a result, their own material interests in its propagation that’s separate from the working class.

[01:40:31] Yes, especially, especially beautifully put, especially like my main piece, a piece of evidence that the entire party is not completely compromised.

[01:40:39] And it’s just a bunch of bros that are like, okay, we’re going to keep on oversimplifying.

[01:40:44] But I think people will understand that it’s a bunch of bros are like, okay, we’re going to keep both the capitalists and the proletarians in check.

[01:40:51] And whoever’s at the highest level of party cadre.

[01:40:54] Yeah.

[01:40:55] That’s who actually accumulates all the real capital, all the real state power, all the, you know, we’re the fucking G’s and we get to do what we want.

[01:41:02] And everybody else thinks they have some control, including the, the capitalists and the, and, you know, the peasantry and the proletariat sit in the, in the background thinking that, that they’re the main guys running this whole ship.

[01:41:16] The main argument against this is why wouldn’t they privatize everything at this point?

[01:41:22] I don’t know.

[01:41:23] Like, why, why would you keep your relations?

[01:41:25] Why would you keep anyone’s, uh, relation to, uh, private capital to private finance and most importantly to, again, uh, the means of production in this kind of, uh, 50, 50 state that, uh, the Chinese, why not just unironically like Russia yourself talking 1990s, Russia, like if the, if the cadre, if the entire party cadre was compromised, they would do that tomorrow.

[01:41:51] They would, they would literally, they could make trillions.

[01:41:55] They, they, they could make, I’ll tell you why.

[01:41:58] I know why they don’t do it.

[01:41:59] Have you been shot?

[01:42:02] If you even think about it, it’s to, they keep up this grand conspiracy to, uh, personally convinced ultra left, uh, John in Wisconsin, uh, of his satisfaction of him being correct.

[01:42:16] Right.

[01:42:16] So they keep up this facade.

[01:42:19] Continuously losing so much money that you could steal as the top creme de la creme.

[01:42:25] Of, of the party by, uh, you know, making sure that everybody has housing, making sure that everybody has healthcare, making sure that you have the, you know, highest increase in life standards for everyday, uh, humans in your country in history as a, as a way to what, to annoy the ultra leftist to like what, like, uh, oh, it’s a long, they’re very wise.

[01:42:47] They’re like long-term investing in their plan to continuously siphon money from the population.

[01:42:55] By throwing money at the population.

[01:42:58] By grandly reinfesting into the poorest subsegments of Chinese society.

[01:43:03] Right.

[01:43:04] I’m Balkan.

[01:43:05] You’re Iraqi.

[01:43:06] We, we are, we understand corruption more than anyone else.

[01:43:09] Okay.

[01:43:09] We are the kings of this.

[01:43:11] Okay.

[01:43:11] Give me, give me like a mayoral position in a village of 200 people and somehow I will make $200 million out of it.

[01:43:18] Yeah.

[01:43:18] These guys are not doing, they’re like, like, this does not smell like that.

[01:43:24] This smells like.

[01:43:25] This smells like fucking, uh, based type of patriotism on fucking steroids.

[01:43:31] That’s what it smells like.

[01:43:33] It smells like something borderline metaphysical in their ideal of what they want to build as a, as, as a people that has existed as that people for unironically thousands upon thousands of years.

[01:43:46] Yeah.

[01:43:46] And, and.

[01:43:47] But it’s channeled and crafted through the socialist existence of, of, of, of China.

[01:43:51] Um, and people, and this is the thing.

[01:43:53] All, all of this underpins.

[01:43:55] A deep distrust or, or like skepticism of the sincerity of hundreds of millions of Chinese

[01:44:04] Communists that have laid their lives down to create this system.

[01:44:07] And it’s like, no, it’s not enough.

[01:44:09] I don’t believe you.

[01:44:11] Like, this is like.

[01:44:12] You’re just a mob.

[01:44:14] Yeah.

[01:44:15] It’s some, some, some sus chauvinism chauvinism in this.

[01:44:18] That’s very deep in this.

[01:44:19] Oh, that as well.

[01:44:21] Yeah.

[01:44:21] That as well.

[01:44:22] That as well as well.

[01:44:23] Because no, it is, that is.

[01:44:24] It is.

[01:44:24] It doesn’t.

[01:44:25] It’s an important point to bring up.

[01:44:27] Most Americans are going to look at you weird, even when you talk about Westerners in general.

[01:44:33] Even when you talk about arguably the most in-your-face corrupt president since Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, right?

[01:44:40] If you bring up like, yo, these guys are ironically just stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the coffers daily.

[01:44:46] And Americans are going to be like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[01:44:48] But that same American or German, you say like, you know, Xi Jinping’s top Gs in the party are stealing hundreds of millions and transferring them to their own accounts daily.

[01:44:58] Like a far higher percentage of those people are going to say, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

[01:45:03] Yeah, for sure.

[01:45:03] They do the Castro thing.

[01:45:04] They were like, oh, yes, Castro is the richest man on earth.

[01:45:06] All the wealth of Cuba historically is in his personal name.

[01:45:09] I’m like, shut the fuck up.

[01:45:10] They do the same thing with the Chinese.

[01:45:11] They do the same thing with, oh, yeah, yeah.

[01:45:13] Why would they continuously shoot also party cadres that are caught stealing something?

[01:45:19] And now I know what they’re going to say.

[01:45:20] I’m falling for propaganda.

[01:45:21] I’m sure you sacrifice one or two guys so that the entire ship doesn’t die.

[01:45:24] It’s more than one or two guys.

[01:45:26] My dude, it is way more than one or two guys.

[01:45:29] Oh, my God.

[01:45:29] But they’re like, yeah, you got to crack 50,000 eggs to make an omelet.

[01:45:34] What do you want?

[01:45:37] Sorry.

[01:45:38] Endlessly, as Comrade Contrapoint said, endlessly critique power.

[01:45:43] I’m sorry.

[01:45:44] That was meta commentary.

[01:45:46] In an alternate universe, she is.

[01:45:48] She is a Chinese citizen, like a party member, 55, on a subset of forum online.

[01:45:55] I’m derailing, please.

[01:45:56] Yeah, no, no.

[01:45:57] It’s all right.

[01:45:57] I want to keep the contents of my stomach inside my stomach.

[01:46:01] So I will move on from the mention of liberal points.

[01:46:07] Okay.

[01:46:07] So the next point is one that comes up, and that’s just because of a cultural fascination with the Cultural Revolution.

[01:46:14] As basically like the feed of it was a counter-revolutionary break.

[01:46:17] I’m just going to go very quickly through this.

[01:46:18] The Cultural Revolution was more or less a necessary and historically correct attempt at rectifying certain political issues that exist in China at the time,

[01:46:27] which are way too in-depth to get into right now.

[01:46:29] But there were severe excesses that happened.

[01:46:33] Severe excesses is actually kind of an understatement.

[01:46:36] But the point is, the criticism of this is they treat the Cultural Revolution as a timeless model instead of a particular strategy in a specific point that should be organized in a particular way.

[01:46:46] A continuous mass upheaval of that type is not a stable mode of governance or economic – for any sort of continental industrial society to develop.

[01:46:54] Marxism is a socio-historical process.

[01:46:56] It’s not a clerical or liturgical – like it is not the Spanish Inquisition on everyday life.

[01:47:05] Like there’s more nuance there, but it’s just a point I wanted to mention because it comes up in every single one of these resources that I’ve mentioned, by the way, that I read into just to like summarize these points.

[01:47:14] The next one is the concept of the primary stage.

[01:47:16] The primary stage of socialism is an ideological cover for capitalist restoration.

[01:47:19] Now, the primary stage of socialism and stage development of socialism was mentioned by Marx and Engels and Lenin and Stalin and Mao and like every significant and even insignificant Marxist theoretician or figure.

[01:47:33] But for some reason, there’s a distrust or a lack of belief in the Chinese assessment.

[01:47:39] By the way, if you were to look up the concept of primary stage of socialism in Chinese in their particular journals and whatnot,

[01:47:45] there are – like,

[01:47:46] there are treasure troves of information written about this.

[01:47:48] There’s so much novel contributions of Marxism that have been done by the Chinese Marxists in the modern day.

[01:47:55] But anyways, they critique the – or they reject the primary stage framework entirely and they argue that is like an alibi for capitalist restoration or capitalist relations existing.

[01:48:04] They think that if market expansion occurs, there’s private accumulation, then class differentiation is just a result and there’s no limit to this capitalist restoration.

[01:48:12] It’s just like socialism is postponed indefinitely.

[01:48:14] Class struggle is non-antagonistic.

[01:48:17] Contradictions are just technical issues.

[01:48:19] Oh, you know, like they think it’s a rewording of Marxism to make it – to justify capitalist restoration.

[01:48:27] This criticism – this assumes that stages are like ideological inventions instead of – stages of socio-historic and political economic development.

[01:48:38] This assumes that these are ideological inventions instead of material constraints imposed by local –

[01:48:44] like social, economic, political limitations as well as constraints imposed by global imperialism.

[01:48:50] No socialist state historically has ever fully abolished markets under conditions of underdevelopment or outright without being limited or eventually collapsing or being destroyed in some way.

[01:49:01] Of course, limitations on market relations up to a point like the Soviets did was actively good and it was something that, in my humble opinion, I think would be beneficial for the Chinese to discuss and think about.

[01:49:10] But I’m not so arrogant as to think that they have not done these conversations and have not –

[01:49:14] interrogated the fuck out of this point and come to the realization that it’s not yet time.

[01:49:18] I’m humble enough to realize that my mind is not – does not counter tens of millions of Chinese Marxists.

[01:49:26] Some people –

[01:49:26] Oh, but you don’t get it.

[01:49:27] All those tens of millions are making like millions of dollars every day.

[01:49:33] I would pay to see a YouTube video called One Hakim versus 10 Million Chinese.

[01:49:38] Exactly right.

[01:49:40] Oh, my God.

[01:49:40] But yeah, so this is generally – this is like –

[01:49:43] Maybe this is like –

[01:49:44] Maybe this is like –

[01:49:44] Maybe this is like a racist point of me as an Arab towards white people because this is a very common criticism.

[01:49:52] There’s a war on patience, right?

[01:49:54] Everything must happen now.

[01:49:55] Everything must happen quickly.

[01:49:56] Everything must be theoretically pure immediately.

[01:49:58] And this is a kind of tendency that is very common in like Western criticism of socialism, particularly of China, but even of the Soviet Union at the time.

[01:50:06] And I – maybe it’s because like these civilized – like the Chinese civilization and my own and so on is so ancient that like –

[01:50:13] Like in the sands of time, we understand that things take many, many decades and centuries for anything worthwhile to happen.

[01:50:20] So as a result, patience is good, right?

[01:50:22] It kind of underpins like the Iranian strategy against – in their like resistance, even though I personally disagree with some of the things that they do and how they carry it out.

[01:50:29] But that’s – they have that perspective again because they’re an ancient civilization.

[01:50:32] They have an understanding that, no, you don’t just pick up the phone and fire 47 fucking cruise missiles into somebody’s home and then the problem is solved, right?

[01:50:40] But it is very tiring to see, right?

[01:50:43] These things take time.

[01:50:45] And I will – at the very end of today, I will give you – like there’s a very short like soapbox monologue that I want to give.

[01:50:51] It’s a single page long, but I want to underpin this like this patience point.

[01:50:56] Let me go into the next one, and this is one we covered extensively, so we’ll go very quickly through it.

[01:50:59] It’s the China is a capitalist imperialist power.

[01:51:02] It is social imperialist – the same shit that they threw against the Soviets.

[01:51:04] Funnily enough, the Chinese used to throw this against the Soviets.

[01:51:07] This is a bit of a controversial point, of course.

[01:51:10] They believe that China has become an imperialist power.

[01:51:13] They’re now a social imperialist because of capital export, because of infrastructure tied to commodity production.

[01:51:17] They’re integrated into global value chains.

[01:51:19] There is disciplining labor or whatever.

[01:51:21] And they argue that just because surplus extraction may be kinder than Western imperialism does not change the fact that China participates in global accumulation, for example, at the expense of peripheral workers and peasants and whatnot.

[01:51:33] Trade is imperialism, yes.

[01:51:34] Yeah, exactly.

[01:51:35] Trade is imperialism, which is a bad point, but that is also disingenuous to their position.

[01:51:40] Some people have a more –

[01:51:43] Some people have a more nuanced point where they believe that China is an emergent imperialist or a sub-imperialist power.

[01:51:47] They’re not currently imperialist, but they are in that trajectory because of this.

[01:51:51] And we already defined – we went through it earlier.

[01:51:52] I went through it earlier, and both you go – NGT expanded beautifully.

[01:51:57] But this is, again, the failing of defining imperialism by capital export alone.

[01:52:01] It ignores Lenin’s criteria and other subsequent criteria that have developed since Lenin.

[01:52:05] Monopoly, finance capital, surplus extraction via unequal exchange, military domination at some instances, control of global pricing power.

[01:52:11] All these things are in the imperial.

[01:52:13] They’re not in China.

[01:52:15] The Belt and Road Initiative harbors no monopoly control.

[01:52:18] There’s no enforced structural adjustment.

[01:52:20] There’s no political subjugation.

[01:52:21] There’s no imposed currency regime.

[01:52:23] This is a state-mediated development financing.

[01:52:26] It’s not imperialism.

[01:52:27] There’s uneven parts of it.

[01:52:28] There’s contradictory parts of it.

[01:52:29] There’s some bits of it that can be problematic, but this is not what imperialism is.

[01:52:33] And to call China a imperialist power as a result of this, despite the fact that the math is not in your favor, right, particularly with value transference measurements and whatnot,

[01:52:42] is time-consuming.

[01:52:43] You don’t want to do the work.

[01:52:44] You’re engaging in ideological fairytailing because it makes you feel good about, I don’t

[01:52:49] know why you’d want to feel good about like, oh yeah, by the way, China is not socialist.

[01:52:52] No, we have no recourse whatsoever.

[01:52:54] It is Baal or Moloch, right?

[01:52:57] It’s this pagan idol or that pagan idol.

[01:52:59] You get some sick pleasure in being so blackmailed all the time, even though you’re wrong, right?

[01:53:06] It’s, yeah, let’s see.

[01:53:08] The one point that I will mention that is the only valid point, and we will get into

[01:53:13] this, this is part of the next subsequent episode.

[01:53:15] It’s national development of China has replaced proletarian internationalism.

[01:53:19] And this critique sees Chinese foreign policy as a more nationalist and socialist or developmentalist

[01:53:24] as a subsequent, like, I guess, nuance.

[01:53:27] Anti-imperialism against particularly US hegemony is not anti-imperialism per se.

[01:53:34] There should be a support for global class struggle.

[01:53:36] That’s what it is.

[01:53:37] And it’s kind of this exporting revolution point.

[01:53:39] The Chinese don’t back people’s wars.

[01:53:40] There’s no armed movements.

[01:53:41] There’s no revolutionary parties abroad that the Chinese support.

[01:53:44] And this means that China is prioritizing its state survival.

[01:53:46] Socialism is within its own borders only.

[01:53:48] If it’s even socialist, the global class struggle is a liability.

[01:53:51] They don’t want to do it.

[01:53:52] And this is an abandonment of proletarian internationalism in their point.

[01:53:55] This is like developmental statism that’s happening.

[01:53:57] There is a lot of validity to this point.

[01:54:00] But they mistake support for people’s wars everywhere as the sole form of internationalism.

[01:54:05] We live in a post-Cold War world, in a Cold War II world.

[01:54:08] A nuclear world and system where preserving a socialist state against encirclement is itself a material contribution to class struggle because of multipolarity.

[01:54:16] We kind of elaborate on that.

[01:54:18] That being said, though, yes, Chinese foreign policy is dog shit.

[01:54:23] Hakim signs on this.

[01:54:24] Chinese foreign policy is arguably the worst foreign policy that exists aside from Czechoslovak socialist foreign policy where they would send guns to Israel.

[01:54:33] Aside from that, China is the absolute worst.

[01:54:35] I think Laos.

[01:54:36] Like Khmer Rouge.

[01:54:38] Excuse me, not Laos.

[01:54:39] Khmer Rouge, Cambodia.

[01:54:40] Right?

[01:54:40] Pol Pot’s Cambodia had better foreign relations probably than Chinese foreign.

[01:54:46] Yeah, we’re going to get into this in the subsequent episode.

[01:54:49] Another one, this is kind of like a niche point.

[01:54:50] This is more common of Indian Maoist criticism.

[01:54:52] There’s the Peasant Worker Alliance that has been broken down because China has dismantled the revolutionary worker-peasant, I guess, camaraderie that existed through rural dispossession of former peasantry, proletarianization, migrant labor schemes.

[01:55:07] There’s an urban bias, and they consider this like it’s a betrayal of peasantry.

[01:55:10] There’s several books actually written on this by serious scholars, and the work is actually fairly good.

[01:55:15] But the sighing of Hugo is very correct.

[01:55:19] They believe this is not developmental necessity of socialism or just development of capitalism even, but a class realignment to favor urban capital and technocratic control.

[01:55:28] And this is like you’re missing the force for the trees, I believe is the English saying.

[01:55:31] They are romanticizing semi-feudal conditions.

[01:55:34] This proletarianization is not a betrayal.

[01:55:38] It is the historical basis of socialism.

[01:55:40] Even if we’re to believe that it’s capitalist development, it is always a good thing that there are instead agricultural laborers, workers instead of peasantry because peasantry as a social form are out there, a relic of the past, and they stand in the way of the development of socialism through perpetual existence.

[01:55:58] Of course, through unity in revolutionary existence and whatnot and combined development and whatnot.

[01:56:04] In the Soviet Union, in Vietnam, in China, yes, absolutely, they can be a revolutionary force.

[01:56:08] But the point is to eventually proletarianize all non-proletarian elements so that you can have a broad working class movement for the working class ideology that is socialism.

[01:56:19] The question is not about management or distribution.

[01:56:22] It’s not about preserving peasantry as a revolutionary class indefinitely because you can’t do that.

[01:56:26] You’re trying to freeze time when socioeconomic development, material development of economic relations requires that there be less peasants.

[01:56:33] No matter what.

[01:56:34] That’s the economic system you’re taking.

[01:56:35] Wait until they hear about what our plan for class in general long-term is.

[01:56:40] Oh, no.

[01:56:42] What classes, bro?

[01:56:43] I don’t think you’re in the right group, bro.

[01:56:46] We’re kind of like doing the opposite, bro.

[01:56:49] Oh, my God.

[01:56:51] Yeah, I agree.

[01:56:51] But the fundamental, I guess, core bit that is correct here is that, yes, there is a lot of rural dispossession in China.

[01:56:58] There are lots of people who are dispossessed or affected by migrant labor schemes.

[01:57:02] There are urban biases.

[01:57:04] But they’re not because of some evil, like, ooh, let’s, you know, move.

[01:57:07] Like, this is not a closure of the commons that’s happening.

[01:57:10] No, this is a developmental aspect.

[01:57:13] We discussed this earlier in today’s episode is different.

[01:57:16] But, yes, there’s many problems there, and they need to be dealt with.

[01:57:18] But that does not mean it is not socialism.

[01:57:20] And now, finally, where we’re coming to the summary of the last two.

[01:57:25] I mean, this kind of builds up on the cultural revolution bit that, like, you know, absolutizing struggle, if that’s even a word, to make struggle absolute as an end in itself.

[01:57:33] It’s a very common thing in Maoist points.

[01:57:35] There’s a lot of, like, stability is the supreme value.

[01:57:39] Like, harmony under heaven is a kind of semi, like, racist term for Chinese existence.

[01:57:45] Like, instead of class struggle, everything should be harmonious.

[01:57:47] And there’s a fear of the masses and engagement and struggle and all that kind of stuff.

[01:57:51] But, no, this is, there are ways of resolving contradictions.

[01:57:54] Not everything is an antagonistic contradiction.

[01:57:56] And antagonistic contradictions can be turned into non-antagonistic contradictions.

[01:58:00] Please, you’re a Maoist.

[01:58:01] Read Mao.

[01:58:03] Right?

[01:58:03] You do not have to shoot that kid for using a skateboard.

[01:58:07] Exactly right, yes.

[01:58:08] It does not mean he loves capitalism.

[01:58:11] Suppressing destructive forms of struggle while advancing material conditions is not anti-Marxist.

[01:58:15] That’s kind of the point there.

[01:58:16] There are other ways of resolving contradictions.

[01:58:18] And finally.

[01:58:19] So beautiful.

[01:58:19] Oh, my God.

[01:58:20] Fuck, that was eloquent.

[01:58:21] Sorry.

[01:58:22] I’m low-key hard this entire time.

[01:58:24] Yeah, same.

[01:58:24] Not as low-key.

[01:58:25] Yes, please.

[01:58:27] Oh, let me.

[01:58:29] Jesus Christ.

[01:58:30] All right.

[01:58:31] This is the final.

[01:58:32] And I’m sorry.

[01:58:33] This is the longest point.

[01:58:34] I’m going to bust your balls with this one, boys.

[01:58:36] Let’s go.

[01:58:37] Okay.

[01:58:38] So if I were to synthesize the critique of markets in China, I am sympathetic to this critique, but I don’t share it 100%.

[01:58:45] There is a common and central argument that markets are not neutral technical instruments, even if they’re politically regulated by a socialist state.

[01:58:52] Markets reorganize social relations.

[01:58:55] So that means that they systematically undermine proletarian power, even if capital is formally – regardless of whether capital formally rules the state.

[01:59:02] So if you introduce competition between firms, regions, workers, markets, fragment the working class at the point of production, and they will instead shift coordination from collective planning to more impersonal individualistic value signals and so on and so forth, which would mean weakening the material base of socialist consciousness and relations of production and cultural and so on and so forth.

[01:59:22] So the idea of a socialist market economy is contradictory.

[01:59:25] It does not – markets are not just like a temporarily expedient form, but they are shaping class structure.

[01:59:30] And as a result, they will – they change.

[01:59:32] So we think that state subordination of capital – the mouse critique is state subordination of capital is not enough if production is governed by competitive accumulation by markets, right?

[01:59:42] It doesn’t matter if they’re state-owned or whatnot.

[01:59:43] If there’s cost minimization, if there’s labor discipline, if there’s profitability, if there’s bourgeois norms of efficiency and managerial authority, then that means that there’s – again, it links back into this technocratic managerial stratum who has different – so the rest of it is kind of nonsense.

[01:59:57] But there’s that point of the market, that the market will displace politics.

[02:00:02] And as a result –

[02:00:02] And as a result, this means that you’re moving directional drift or shift from socialism and towards capitalist development.

[02:00:10] And the reply to this is, number one, yes, markets are a difficult thing to control, but markets are not inherently capitalist.

[02:00:18] Markets existed before socialism.

[02:00:20] They existed in slave societies.

[02:00:22] They existed prior to slave societies in Mesopotamian fucking like copper trading city-state unions prior to the enslavement of – yeah, like they existed under.

[02:00:32] Medieval feudal, semi-feudal, pre-capitalist formations, for example, in the Arab world.

[02:00:37] And they will most likely exist after capitalism and into socialism.

[02:00:42] And it’s a – their withering away is a theoretical question and a likelihood, but it is not the end all and be all.

[02:00:50] This is a very mechanistic form of Marxist like analysis, I would say.

[02:00:55] Markets are tools.

[02:00:56] They’re not classes, right?

[02:00:57] Without – and this is the point – without autonomous bourgeois political power, markets are not.

[02:01:02] equal to capitalism they are subordinated mechanism within a different class structure

[02:01:07] and there’s like a deeper bit unless you have a point are they a potential gateway towards

[02:01:11] uh the capitalist mode of production re-entering through the main door sure through the back door

[02:01:16] yes of course but i i don’t really like to say so just for a second it’s like alternative please

[02:01:23] do you have the ultimate like uh algorithmic state planning fucking ultra giga ai please if

[02:01:32] you do please fucking give it to us and let’s let’s immediately centrally plan the whole

[02:01:38] fucking planetary economy my friend i’m joking but i’m not unironically we will the the process

[02:01:45] is messy and dirty and we will be utilizing the quote-unquote tool set of our enemies even though

[02:01:51] framing the market as only yet belonging uh to capitalists is wrong but it is it is a process

[02:01:58] it is is it a problematic process it fucking is of course but so is everything

[02:02:02] all of it is all of it can be co-opted that’s why it’s class warfare well sorry i can please i’m

[02:02:09] and this is this is you’re exactly right but to like even zoom out further the main error of this

[02:02:14] type of thinking is that this reifies the law value expressed through markets into an autonomous

[02:02:20] like self-executing force like the prime mover you’re like you’re turning you’re turning into

[02:02:26] a god you’re treating markets as if they operate independently of political power of class rule

[02:02:31] and historical conditions

[02:02:32] this is a marxist this reproduces a form of economism that marks like rebuked and actively

[02:02:39] fought against not only marks but lenin and mao as well markets first of all they do not rule china

[02:02:45] the political powers what rules china imperialism and capitalism are not defined by the presence of

[02:02:49] markets they’re defined by class control or which class controls surplus extraction and state power

[02:02:54] the relations of the means of production socially under socialism of course you can have subordinate

[02:02:59] instruments and that’s what the like for different forms of capital is but it’s not

[02:03:02] really about that it’s not about competition it’s about ability to create a system that allows

[02:03:06] other people to be in it because to do that you have to have some type of political system

[02:03:09] the political system is to be a political system

[02:03:28] smart socialist sense

[02:03:29] it makes no capitalist sense

[02:03:31] but it’s nonetheless done

[02:03:32] I wonder why

[02:03:32] it’s because

[02:03:33] it’s not a fucking

[02:03:34] capitalist system

[02:03:34] yes

[02:03:36] right

[02:03:36] yes

[02:03:37] yeah

[02:03:38] markets are

[02:03:40] strafo

[02:03:40] sorry for

[02:03:41] Mr. Brown’s

[02:03:42] our gods

[02:03:43] in capitalist systems

[02:03:45] yes

[02:03:46] they sometimes

[02:03:47] can grow

[02:03:47] into such a massive

[02:03:48] humor

[02:03:48] that they co-opt

[02:03:50] you know

[02:03:51] working class destiny

[02:03:53] away from them

[02:03:53] but in another system

[02:03:55] where they are not

[02:03:56] allowed

[02:03:57] to grow

[02:03:57] into such a

[02:03:58] parasitic metastasis

[02:04:00] they are not

[02:04:01] it is not

[02:04:02] the process

[02:04:03] of

[02:04:04] turning

[02:04:05] the fakest thing

[02:04:07] of all time

[02:04:08] the economy

[02:04:08] into

[02:04:09] literal physics

[02:04:11] is the process

[02:04:12] of jumping

[02:04:13] into the

[02:04:14] ideological

[02:04:15] cesspool

[02:04:16] of capitalism

[02:04:16] if you have not

[02:04:18] jumped into that

[02:04:19] cesspool

[02:04:19] aka you have not

[02:04:20] integrated yourself

[02:04:21] in that particular system

[02:04:22] then utilizing

[02:04:23] those

[02:04:24] then you are

[02:04:25] riding the horse

[02:04:26] you are not

[02:04:26] sucking its dick

[02:04:27] exactly

[02:04:28] I am trying

[02:04:29] to be like

[02:04:30] Hakim gives

[02:04:31] brilliant explanations

[02:04:32] and then I

[02:04:33] paraphrase them

[02:04:34] for frat bros

[02:04:35] and alcoholics

[02:04:36] you do it

[02:04:37] amazingly

[02:04:37] that is your specialty

[02:04:38] it is fantastic

[02:04:39] every time

[02:04:40] generally

[02:04:42] it is exactly right

[02:04:43] and this is

[02:04:44] kind of again

[02:04:44] like at the risk

[02:04:46] of repeating myself

[02:04:46] but it might

[02:04:47] require the repetition

[02:04:48] these arguments

[02:04:50] confuse worker power

[02:04:51] with just

[02:04:51] immediate shop floor

[02:04:53] control

[02:04:53] like immediate

[02:04:53] communism now

[02:04:54] right

[02:04:54] this argument

[02:04:56] assumes that

[02:04:57] workers

[02:04:57] unless they are

[02:04:59] exercising direct

[02:04:59] continuous control

[02:05:00] at the point of

[02:05:01] production

[02:05:01] then there is no

[02:05:02] proletarian powers

[02:05:04] active being eroded

[02:05:05] and this is

[02:05:05] a definition

[02:05:06] a category error

[02:05:07] not Marx

[02:05:09] nor Lenin

[02:05:10] exactly right

[02:05:10] not Marx

[02:05:11] nor Lenin

[02:05:11] nor Mao

[02:05:12] ever

[02:05:12] or anybody else

[02:05:13] any major socialist

[02:05:14] theoretician

[02:05:15] defined the dictatorship

[02:05:16] of the proletariat

[02:05:17] as universal

[02:05:18] shop floor democracy

[02:05:19] only or

[02:05:19] even just as

[02:05:21] universal shop floor

[02:05:21] democracy

[02:05:22] more importantly

[02:05:23] they usually would

[02:05:24] define it as

[02:05:24] political suppression

[02:05:25] of active political

[02:05:26] suppression of

[02:05:27] bourgeois rule

[02:05:27] and the subordination

[02:05:28] of accumulation

[02:05:29] to collective ends

[02:05:30] with suppression

[02:05:31] of markets

[02:05:32] and the suppression

[02:05:34] of wage laborers

[02:05:35] total elimination

[02:05:36] like all these other aspects

[02:05:37] some of these are missing

[02:05:38] in China

[02:05:38] and these are very

[02:05:39] valid criticisms

[02:05:40] that you can have

[02:05:40] China is not

[02:05:41] the 1940

[02:05:42] like 1930s Soviet Union

[02:05:43] their economic plan

[02:05:45] is set up very differently

[02:05:46] than the ways

[02:05:48] that the Soviets did it

[02:05:49] their role of the market

[02:05:50] is way larger

[02:05:51] than it is for example

[02:05:52] in the Soviet Union

[02:05:54] and these are errors

[02:05:55] yes I personally believe

[02:05:56] that they are errors

[02:05:57] and they should be

[02:05:57] rectified

[02:05:58] but at the same time

[02:05:59] at the same time

[02:06:00] this critique ignores

[02:06:03] like the scale of China

[02:06:04] encirclement

[02:06:05] capitalist and imperialist

[02:06:06] encirclement

[02:06:07] developmental time

[02:06:08] periods and what not

[02:06:09] socialism

[02:06:10] cannot immediately

[02:06:11] transcend markets

[02:06:12] regardless of its

[02:06:13] or there’s an assumption

[02:06:15] there you go

[02:06:15] there’s an assumption

[02:06:16] an implicit assumption

[02:06:17] that socialism can

[02:06:18] transcend the markets

[02:06:19] immediately

[02:06:20] regardless of what

[02:06:20] material conditions exist

[02:06:21] right

[02:06:22] and this assumes

[02:06:23] that a country

[02:06:24] of one point something

[02:06:25] million billion people

[02:06:26] excuse me

[02:06:27] 1.4 I believe

[02:06:27] now

[02:06:28] with continental levels

[02:06:30] of unevenness

[02:06:31] right

[02:06:31] post-colonial underdevelopment

[02:06:33] permanent imperialist

[02:06:34] encirclement

[02:06:35] since its founding

[02:06:35] that this

[02:06:36] markets

[02:06:38] people understand logistics

[02:06:39] do you understand

[02:06:40] oh my fucking god

[02:06:41] it’s very difficult to

[02:06:42] yeah

[02:06:43] and that’s why it’s like

[02:06:43] like the most humbling

[02:06:45] experience for any of

[02:06:46] these people

[02:06:46] these these

[02:06:46] like the

[02:06:47] like I’m being fully honest

[02:06:48] I’m not being rude here

[02:06:49] these left calm

[02:06:50] armchair types

[02:06:51] right

[02:06:52] the most like

[02:06:53] humbling experiences

[02:06:54] for them to actively

[02:06:54] get their hands on

[02:06:55] state power

[02:06:55] and try to do it

[02:06:56] because they immediately

[02:06:57] come to the

[02:06:57] reality of what it is

[02:06:58] to apply socialism

[02:06:59] to try to develop it

[02:07:00] and they will fall

[02:07:01] into way larger pitfalls

[02:07:02] and the incredible work

[02:07:03] that the Soviets

[02:07:04] managed to achieve

[02:07:04] or even a vegetable store

[02:07:06] or a fucking

[02:07:07] or a vegetable store

[02:07:08] like get

[02:07:09] make sure

[02:07:10] that there’s

[02:07:11] 120 cucumbers

[02:07:12] 320 tomatoes

[02:07:14] 54 fucking

[02:07:16] celeries

[02:07:17] etc etc etc

[02:07:19] always on time

[02:07:20] that’s first day

[02:07:20] and then adapt

[02:07:21] how much

[02:07:22] on based on

[02:07:23] how much you sell

[02:07:23] every day

[02:07:24] on how many

[02:07:24] you need to order

[02:07:25] how many spoil

[02:07:26] how many don’t

[02:07:27] actually arrive

[02:07:28] how many arise

[02:07:29] spoiled

[02:07:29] etc etc

[02:07:30] and then

[02:07:31] and then

[02:07:31] do that for like

[02:07:32] 3-4 months

[02:07:33] make sure that

[02:07:34] all your clients

[02:07:35] are used to you

[02:07:36] running that particular shop

[02:07:38] in this

[02:07:38] yes

[02:07:39] particularly inefficient way

[02:07:41] and then

[02:07:42] you know

[02:07:42] have an incredible

[02:07:43] like top down revolution

[02:07:45] where you know

[02:07:46] the NKVD officer

[02:07:47] comes to you

[02:07:48] and says

[02:07:48] immediately

[02:07:49] you need to

[02:07:50] like

[02:07:51] on the first day

[02:07:52] on the first day

[02:07:53] the banners are rising

[02:07:54] on the first day

[02:07:54] he comes

[02:07:55] I don’t know

[02:07:55] he needs to come

[02:07:56] with some sort of

[02:07:56] fucking

[02:07:57] chip

[02:07:57] to like

[02:07:58] immediately plug

[02:07:59] into your brain

[02:08:00] so that all of your

[02:08:01] information

[02:08:01] that you have

[02:08:02] previously

[02:08:03] gotten through

[02:08:05] market dynamics

[02:08:06] you can immediately

[02:08:07] plug into the

[02:08:08] centrally planned

[02:08:09] system

[02:08:09] bruv

[02:08:10] this takes time

[02:08:11] of course

[02:08:11] you still

[02:08:12] for like months

[02:08:13] maybe even years

[02:08:14] you’re gonna be

[02:08:14] a fucking

[02:08:15] mini fucking

[02:08:16] vegetable seller

[02:08:17] that adapts

[02:08:18] on how people

[02:08:19] buy as if

[02:08:20] the market

[02:08:20] still exists

[02:08:21] this is

[02:08:22] and that’s why

[02:08:25] that’s why

[02:08:26] you know what difficulty log?

[02:08:27] yeah

[02:08:27] and that’s why

[02:08:28] these left

[02:08:28] these ultra left

[02:08:30] armchair types

[02:08:31] like to stick

[02:08:32] solely to

[02:08:32] endless critique

[02:08:33] and they never

[02:08:34] have applied themselves

[02:08:35] towards political

[02:08:36] organization

[02:08:36] and they for sure

[02:08:37] have never captured

[02:08:38] political power

[02:08:38] because they know

[02:08:40] they will fail

[02:08:40] implicitly

[02:08:41] instinctively

[02:08:42] they know

[02:08:43] that they will not

[02:08:43] be able to live

[02:08:44] by the weird

[02:08:45] ideological purity

[02:08:46] terms that they

[02:08:47] set themselves to

[02:08:48] so as a result

[02:08:48] they don’t even

[02:08:49] bother trying

[02:08:49] right

[02:08:50] it’s so lumpen

[02:08:51] it’s so lumpen

[02:08:52] like with the

[02:08:53] allegory with the

[02:08:54] shop guy

[02:08:54] like you have to

[02:08:56] not understand

[02:08:57] how complex

[02:08:58] processes are

[02:08:59] that just

[02:09:00] that literally

[02:09:01] just get

[02:09:02] a cucumber

[02:09:02] from Algeria

[02:09:04] over into Spain

[02:09:05] like

[02:09:06] like

[02:09:07] and to think

[02:09:08] that that

[02:09:09] that can

[02:09:10] like

[02:09:11] the process

[02:09:13] of transition

[02:09:13] is going to be

[02:09:14] so

[02:09:15] both transparent

[02:09:17] and efficient

[02:09:18] implies that

[02:09:20] you kind of

[02:09:20] like have never

[02:09:21] done anything

[02:09:22] you understand

[02:09:22] what I’m trying

[02:09:23] to say

[02:09:23] like

[02:09:23] have you ever

[02:09:24] had a job

[02:09:25] have you ever

[02:09:26] like

[02:09:26] no

[02:09:27] they have not

[02:09:29] reading

[02:09:31] Bardiga

[02:09:32] endlessly

[02:09:32] is a job

[02:09:33] in and of

[02:09:33] itself

[02:09:34] because you

[02:09:35] have to

[02:09:35] continuously

[02:09:35] it’s a full-time

[02:09:36] job to

[02:09:36] continuously

[02:09:37] resist the

[02:09:39] urge to

[02:09:39] kill yourself

[02:09:40] take this

[02:09:42] from a guy

[02:09:42] who has

[02:09:43] very painstakingly

[02:09:45] I’m not even

[02:09:45] going to get

[02:09:46] into it

[02:09:46] okay

[02:09:47] I mean

[02:09:50] all right

[02:09:50] you need to

[02:09:51] realize that

[02:09:51] markets are

[02:09:51] tools

[02:09:52] markets are

[02:09:53] not ideological

[02:09:53] concessions

[02:09:54] in certain

[02:09:54] instances

[02:09:55] they can be

[02:09:56] used to

[02:09:56] use for

[02:09:56] as coordination

[02:09:57] mechanisms

[02:09:57] for allowing

[02:09:58] for allocation

[02:09:59] of labor

[02:09:59] absorption

[02:10:00] of certain

[02:10:00] surpluses

[02:10:01] rural surplus

[02:10:01] upgrading

[02:10:02] technology

[02:10:03] in like

[02:10:04] more minute

[02:10:05] senses

[02:10:05] resiliences

[02:10:07] against blockades

[02:10:07] and crises

[02:10:08] in certain

[02:10:08] governments

[02:10:09] or economic

[02:10:10] setups

[02:10:10] abolishing

[02:10:12] markets

[02:10:12] prematurely

[02:10:13] could lead

[02:10:14] to reduce

[02:10:15] planning capacities

[02:10:16] strengthening

[02:10:16] black markets

[02:10:17] the enforcement

[02:10:19] the need

[02:10:20] to enforce

[02:10:21] administrative

[02:10:21] like coercion

[02:10:22] like harsher

[02:10:23] coercion

[02:10:24] politically

[02:10:24] to get things

[02:10:25] done

[02:10:25] and that’s

[02:10:26] coming from

[02:10:26] a person who

[02:10:27] I don’t like

[02:10:27] markets

[02:10:27] I don’t want

[02:10:28] there to be

[02:10:28] markets

[02:10:29] I want

[02:10:29] there to be

[02:10:29] state planning

[02:10:30] only

[02:10:30] but

[02:10:31] you have

[02:10:32] to be

[02:10:32] pragmatic

[02:10:32] about these

[02:10:33] things

[02:10:33] so TLDR

[02:10:34] yes

[02:10:35] markets suck

[02:10:36] we want

[02:10:36] to get rid

[02:10:37] of them

[02:10:37] but the way

[02:10:38] and form

[02:10:39] in which

[02:10:39] they are

[02:10:39] restricted

[02:10:40] has to

[02:10:41] happen

[02:10:41] at a certain

[02:10:41] point

[02:10:42] and also

[02:10:42] by the way

[02:10:42] if you exist

[02:10:43] in a capitalist

[02:10:43] country

[02:10:44] in a capitalist

[02:10:45] world

[02:10:46] right

[02:10:46] in like

[02:10:47] your socialist

[02:10:47] island

[02:10:47] in a capitalist

[02:10:48] sea

[02:10:48] at the end

[02:10:49] of the day

[02:10:49] you will need

[02:10:49] to do

[02:10:50] international

[02:10:50] trade

[02:10:51] so you

[02:10:51] will have

[02:10:51] to have

[02:10:51] a market

[02:10:56] can never

[02:10:56] be abolished

[02:10:57] and as a result

[02:10:58] the

[02:10:59] what’s it called

[02:11:00] you’ll never be

[02:11:00] like it’ll never

[02:11:01] be socialist

[02:11:01] no matter

[02:11:01] what you do

[02:11:02] and that’s

[02:11:03] where this

[02:11:03] stupid amount

[02:11:04] of

[02:11:05] and they could

[02:11:06] be a lot

[02:11:08] absolutely

[02:11:08] and it could

[02:11:09] be a lot

[02:11:09] more

[02:11:09] like practical

[02:11:11] in the

[02:11:11] criticism

[02:11:11] and arguably

[02:11:12] it could

[02:11:12] be decent

[02:11:13] criticism

[02:11:13] even though

[02:11:14] it would be

[02:11:14] difficult

[02:11:15] to quite

[02:11:15] define

[02:11:16] what the

[02:11:17] appropriate

[02:11:17] timeline is

[02:11:18] what am I

[02:11:19] talking about

[02:11:19] specifically

[02:11:20] is

[02:11:20] you say

[02:11:21] okay

[02:11:21] you fucking

[02:11:22] pragmatic

[02:11:23] Marxist

[02:11:24] and Marxist

[02:11:25] Leninist

[02:11:25] and so on

[02:11:26] are talking

[02:11:26] about these

[02:11:27] transitionary

[02:11:27] periods

[02:11:28] etc etc

[02:11:28] how long

[02:11:29] is enough

[02:11:30] okay

[02:11:31] ask me

[02:11:31] that question

[02:11:32] that is

[02:11:32] a decent

[02:11:33] question

[02:11:33] very difficult

[02:11:34] to answer

[02:11:35] but a decent

[02:11:36] question

[02:11:36] can we have

[02:11:38] a kind of

[02:11:39] let’s call it

[02:11:39] cap

[02:11:40] kind of

[02:11:40] cutoff point

[02:11:41] in which you

[02:11:42] realize okay

[02:11:42] like

[02:11:43] holy mother

[02:11:43] of god

[02:11:44] we’ve been

[02:11:44] utilizing

[02:11:45] the transitionary

[02:11:47] period

[02:11:48] argument

[02:11:49] as a way

[02:11:51] to integrate

[02:11:52] the market

[02:11:52] economy

[02:11:53] into

[02:11:53] the way

[02:11:54] we

[02:11:54] the market

[02:11:55] into the way

[02:11:55] we manage

[02:11:56] our economy

[02:11:56] partially

[02:11:57] of course

[02:11:57] etc etc

[02:11:58] we’ve been

[02:11:59] doing it

[02:12:00] for far

[02:12:00] too long

[02:12:01] blah blah

[02:12:01] blah

[02:12:01] maybe we’re

[02:12:02] hypocrites

[02:12:02] etc etc

[02:12:03] okay

[02:12:04] make that

[02:12:05] point

[02:12:05] let’s have

[02:12:05] that conversation

[02:12:06] but just

[02:12:07] just screaming

[02:12:08] these as you

[02:12:08] beautifully put

[02:12:09] like the

[02:12:10] fucking

[02:12:10] inquisition

[02:12:11] it’s like

[02:12:12] oh my god

[02:12:12] this is

[02:12:13] like they

[02:12:13] treat it

[02:12:14] as

[02:12:15] as

[02:12:16] doctrine

[02:12:17] as

[02:12:17] it’s

[02:12:19] and that’s

[02:12:19] the point

[02:12:19] this criticism

[02:12:20] does not

[02:12:21] specify how

[02:12:21] socialist economy

[02:12:22] of china scale

[02:12:23] would be able

[02:12:24] or should

[02:12:24] coordinate production

[02:12:25] without

[02:12:25] markets

[02:12:26] under its

[02:12:26] current

[02:12:27] condition

[02:12:27] they give

[02:12:28] you vague

[02:12:28] platitudes

[02:12:29] of mass

[02:12:29] participation

[02:12:29] moral incentives

[02:12:30] revolutionary

[02:12:31] consciousness

[02:12:31] but there’s

[02:12:32] no concrete

[02:12:32] system of

[02:12:33] allocating

[02:12:33] labor

[02:12:33] balancing

[02:12:34] regions

[02:12:34] coordinating

[02:12:35] managing

[02:12:36] scarcity

[02:12:36] innovation

[02:12:37] surviving

[02:12:38] imperial

[02:12:38] blockades

[02:12:38] a

[02:12:40] marxism

[02:12:41] that cannot

[02:12:41] explain how

[02:12:42] reproduction

[02:12:43] occurs

[02:12:43] how you

[02:12:44] can fix

[02:12:44] these issues

[02:12:45] is not

[02:12:45] revolutionary

[02:12:45] it’s just

[02:12:46] it’s a

[02:12:47] dogma

[02:12:48] and that’s

[02:12:49] the thing

[02:12:49] and of course

[02:12:50] by the

[02:12:50] cop out

[02:12:51] answers

[02:12:51] economic

[02:12:51] planning

[02:12:52] let’s

[02:12:52] plan

[02:12:52] better

[02:12:52] oh

[02:12:53] supercomputers

[02:12:54] yes yes

[02:12:54] yes

[02:12:54] but that’s

[02:12:55] also

[02:12:55] a fucking

[02:12:55] process

[02:12:56] and that’s

[02:12:56] what the

[02:12:56] chinese

[02:12:57] are very

[02:12:57] interestingly

[02:12:57] now trying

[02:12:58] to do

[02:12:59] just give

[02:13:01] them a

[02:13:01] fucking

[02:13:02] second

[02:13:02] give them

[02:13:03] a second

[02:13:03] right

[02:13:04] let them

[02:13:06] fucking

[02:13:06] work

[02:13:07] and then

[02:13:07] let’s see

[02:13:08] what they

[02:13:08] fucking

[02:13:08] get at

[02:13:09] they’re

[02:13:09] doing more

[02:13:09] than you

[02:13:10] are

[02:13:10] i would

[02:13:11] i would

[02:13:12] gain more

[02:13:13] from the

[02:13:13] experiments

[02:13:14] of the

[02:13:14] chinese

[02:13:14] even if

[02:13:15] they fail

[02:13:15] than all

[02:13:16] your fucking

[02:13:17] not to

[02:13:18] like you know

[02:13:18] be a broken

[02:13:19] record

[02:13:19] to quote

[02:13:20] angles

[02:13:20] an ounce

[02:13:21] of practice

[02:13:22] is worth

[02:13:22] a ton

[02:13:23] of theory

[02:13:23] right

[02:13:24] your theory

[02:13:24] is worth

[02:13:25] a lot

[02:13:25] it’s worth

[02:13:26] my balls

[02:13:27] at the end

[02:13:27] of the day

[02:13:28] all right

[02:13:29] if it

[02:13:29] does not

[02:13:29] add directly

[02:13:30] applied

[02:13:31] all right

[02:13:31] now i

[02:13:33] will i

[02:13:33] want to

[02:13:33] read you

[02:13:34] the or

[02:13:34] like deliver

[02:13:35] the the

[02:13:37] soapbox bit

[02:13:38] so i hope

[02:13:38] you can bear

[02:13:38] with me

[02:13:39] it’s only

[02:13:39] one page

[02:13:39] we’re almost

[02:13:40] done

[02:13:40] please

[02:13:41] okay

[02:13:41] the chinese

[02:13:43] as i

[02:13:44] mentioned

[02:13:44] i believe

[02:13:45] them to

[02:13:45] be politically

[02:13:46] socialist

[02:13:46] economically

[02:13:47] they’re in

[02:13:47] the primary

[02:13:48] state of

[02:13:48] socialism

[02:13:49] which has

[02:13:49] aspects

[02:13:50] markets

[02:13:51] and all

[02:13:51] this kind

[02:13:52] of stuff

[02:13:52] which in

[02:13:53] some instances

[02:13:53] at some

[02:13:54] points in

[02:13:54] their history

[02:13:54] were more

[02:13:55] oriented

[02:13:55] towards

[02:13:55] state

[02:13:56] capitalist

[02:13:56] formations

[02:13:56] in some

[02:13:57] instances

[02:13:57] more oriented

[02:13:58] towards direct

[02:13:59] socialist

[02:13:59] development

[02:13:59] that is

[02:14:00] it’s a

[02:14:01] fucking

[02:14:01] dialectical

[02:14:01] experience

[02:14:02] oh who

[02:14:02] would have

[02:14:02] fucking

[02:14:03] thought

[02:14:03] now

[02:14:03] why would

[02:14:04] china

[02:14:05] choose

[02:14:05] the system

[02:14:06] and the

[02:14:06] orientation

[02:14:07] and the

[02:14:07] setup

[02:14:07] that it

[02:14:07] has

[02:14:07] currently

[02:14:08] done

[02:14:08] and i’m

[02:14:08] not gonna

[02:14:09] go too

[02:14:09] far back

[02:14:09] but after

[02:14:10] the scene

[02:14:10] of soviet

[02:14:11] split

[02:14:11] there was

[02:14:12] a huge

[02:14:12] crisis

[02:14:12] in china

[02:14:13] fundamentally

[02:14:13] china was

[02:14:14] an incredibly

[02:14:15] poor country

[02:14:15] and people

[02:14:16] don’t realize

[02:14:16] this

[02:14:16] china was

[02:14:17] ridiculously

[02:14:18] poor

[02:14:19] china was

[02:14:20] poorer

[02:14:20] than the

[02:14:21] west asian

[02:14:22] north africa

[02:14:22] region

[02:14:23] when it

[02:14:23] started

[02:14:24] poorer than

[02:14:25] i don’t know

[02:14:26] if people

[02:14:26] listening have

[02:14:26] walked in

[02:14:27] some of the

[02:14:28] like the

[02:14:28] like ancient

[02:14:29] parts of

[02:14:29] or seen

[02:14:30] like the

[02:14:31] poverty that

[02:14:32] existed in

[02:14:32] my region

[02:14:33] of the

[02:14:33] world

[02:14:33] was

[02:14:34] endemic

[02:14:35] and deep

[02:14:36] and structural

[02:14:37] and humiliating

[02:14:39] and the

[02:14:39] chinese were

[02:14:40] at a worse

[02:14:40] level than

[02:14:41] that

[02:14:41] they got

[02:14:42] some leeway

[02:14:43] with soviet

[02:14:44] support

[02:14:44] not that

[02:14:45] it’s still

[02:14:45] the soviets

[02:14:46] were reeling

[02:14:46] from fucking

[02:14:46] world war 2

[02:14:47] and 20

[02:14:47] something

[02:14:48] million people

[02:14:48] dead

[02:14:48] and massive

[02:14:49] industrial

[02:14:50] capacity

[02:14:50] destroyed

[02:14:51] and wiped

[02:14:51] out

[02:14:51] but the

[02:14:52] soviets

[02:14:52] still lend

[02:14:52] a helping

[02:14:53] hand

[02:14:53] and the

[02:14:54] chinese

[02:14:54] kind of

[02:14:55] carried on

[02:14:55] with this

[02:14:56] until

[02:14:56] the scene

[02:14:57] of soviet

[02:14:58] split

[02:14:58] and then

[02:14:58] they were

[02:14:58] fucked

[02:14:59] there was

[02:14:59] no

[02:15:00] for the

[02:15:00] most part

[02:15:00] no

[02:15:00] serious

[02:15:01] industrial

[02:15:01] base

[02:15:02] aside from

[02:15:02] iron and

[02:15:03] coal

[02:15:03] like the

[02:15:03] very big

[02:15:03] like pig

[02:15:04] iron

[02:15:04] shit like

[02:15:04] that

[02:15:05] there’s

[02:15:05] for the

[02:15:06] most part

[02:15:06] no

[02:15:06] technical

[02:15:07] expertise

[02:15:07] at the

[02:15:08] point

[02:15:08] the

[02:15:08] vast

[02:15:09] majority

[02:15:09] of the

[02:15:09] population

[02:15:09] was still

[02:15:09] peasant

[02:15:10] with

[02:15:10] basically

[02:15:10] little

[02:15:11] to no

[02:15:11] education

[02:15:11] illiterate

[02:15:13] but you

[02:15:17] learn to

[02:15:17] read and

[02:15:18] write

[02:15:18] 10 years

[02:15:19] ago

[02:15:19] you’re

[02:15:20] not

[02:15:20] going

[02:15:20] to

[02:15:20] be

[02:15:20] a

[02:15:20] phd

[02:15:21] in

[02:15:21] engineering

[02:15:21] right

[02:15:22] there is

[02:15:22] no

[02:15:23] for the

[02:15:23] most part

[02:15:23] no

[02:15:24] technically

[02:15:24] specialized

[02:15:24] machinery

[02:15:25] of any

[02:15:25] kind

[02:15:25] aside

[02:15:26] from

[02:15:26] the

[02:15:26] few

[02:15:27] that

[02:15:27] they

[02:15:27] had

[02:15:27] which

[02:15:27] were

[02:15:27] handouts

[02:15:28] from

[02:15:28] the

[02:15:28] soviets

[02:15:29] or

[02:15:29] schematics

[02:15:29] that

[02:15:30] were

[02:15:30] given

[02:15:30] to

[02:15:30] them

[02:15:30] by

[02:15:31] the

[02:15:31] soviets

[02:15:31] there

[02:15:31] was

[02:15:32] relatively

[02:15:32] limited

[02:15:33] potential

[02:15:33] for

[02:15:33] growth

[02:15:34] in

[02:15:34] all

[02:15:34] scientific

[02:15:35] spheres

[02:15:35] particularly

[02:15:36] in

[02:15:36] relation

[02:15:37] to

[02:15:37] production

[02:15:37] prioritizing

[02:15:38] production

[02:15:39] increasing

[02:15:39] its

[02:15:39] efficiency

[02:15:40] developing

[02:15:40] it

[02:15:40] technologically

[02:15:41] and so

[02:15:41] on

[02:15:41] there

[02:15:42] was

[02:15:42] a

[02:15:42] general

[02:15:42] isolation

[02:15:43] from

[02:15:43] world

[02:15:43] trade

[02:15:44] generally

[02:15:44] both

[02:15:45] the

[02:15:45] western

[02:15:45] world

[02:15:46] as well

[02:15:46] as

[02:15:46] the

[02:15:46] soviet

[02:15:46] bloc

[02:15:47] countries

[02:15:47] aside

[02:15:47] from

[02:15:47] albania

[02:15:48] and

[02:15:48] even

[02:15:48] that

[02:15:49] didn’t

[02:15:49] matter

[02:15:49] and

[02:15:49] also

[02:15:50] fucking

[02:15:50] albania

[02:15:50] is

[02:15:50] sorry

[02:15:51] to

[02:15:51] say

[02:15:51] as

[02:15:51] we

[02:15:52] say

[02:15:52] in

[02:15:52] arabic

[02:15:52] it

[02:15:52] means

[02:15:53] like

[02:15:53] a

[02:15:54] shit

[02:15:54] stain

[02:15:54] on

[02:15:54] a

[02:15:54] map

[02:15:55] it’s

[02:15:55] this

[02:15:55] fucking

[02:15:55] tiny

[02:15:56] right

[02:15:56] the

[02:15:57] 20

[02:15:59] albanians

[02:15:59] that

[02:15:59] exist

[02:16:00] were

[02:16:00] sending

[02:16:00] fucking

[02:16:01] cups

[02:16:01] of

[02:16:02] sand

[02:16:02] to

[02:16:03] china

[02:16:03] like

[02:16:03] i’m

[02:16:03] being

[02:16:04] you know

[02:16:05] hyperbolic

[02:16:05] and a

[02:16:05] bit

[02:16:06] rude

[02:16:06] to

[02:16:06] our

[02:16:06] albanian

[02:16:07] friends

[02:16:07] but

[02:16:08] even

[02:16:08] that

[02:16:08] with

[02:16:08] albania

[02:16:09] did

[02:16:09] exist

[02:16:09] so

[02:16:09] china

[02:16:09] was

[02:16:10] basically

[02:16:10] on

[02:16:10] its

[02:16:10] own

[02:16:10] so

[02:16:11] on

[02:16:11] and

[02:16:11] so

[02:16:11] forth

[02:16:11] there’s

[02:16:12] so

[02:16:12] many

[02:16:12] other

[02:16:12] examples

[02:16:12] i can

[02:16:13] give

[02:16:13] there

[02:16:14] were

[02:16:14] major

[02:16:15] near

[02:16:15] insurmountable

[02:16:16] obstacles

[02:16:17] that

[02:16:17] blocked

[02:16:18] the

[02:16:18] road

[02:16:18] towards

[02:16:18] socialist

[02:16:19] development

[02:16:19] with

[02:16:20] the

[02:16:20] existing

[02:16:20] setup

[02:16:21] that

[02:16:21] china

[02:16:22] had

[02:16:22] there

[02:16:22] was

[02:16:23] an

[02:16:23] inherent

[02:16:23] backwardness

[02:16:24] culturally

[02:16:24] socially

[02:16:25] and

[02:16:25] in

[02:16:25] production

[02:16:25] there

[02:16:26] was

[02:16:26] a

[02:16:26] lack

[02:16:26] of

[02:16:26] technical

[02:16:27] specialists

[02:16:27] there’s

[02:16:27] a

[02:16:27] lack

[02:16:28] of

[02:16:28] specialized

[02:16:28] machinery

[02:16:28] all

[02:16:29] this

[02:16:29] cannot

[02:16:29] be

[02:16:30] overcome

[02:16:30] with

[02:16:30] revolutionary

[02:16:30] slogans

[02:16:31] and

[02:16:31] mouse

[02:16:31] red

[02:16:32] book

[02:16:32] you

[02:16:32] can

[02:16:32] wave

[02:16:32] around

[02:16:32] all

[02:16:32] you

[02:16:33] want

[02:16:33] it’s

[02:16:33] not

[02:16:33] going

[02:16:33] to

[02:16:33] fucking

[02:16:33] all

[02:16:34] of a

[02:16:34] sudden

[02:16:34] make

[02:16:34] machines

[02:16:35] that

[02:16:35] can

[02:16:35] make

[02:16:35] computer

[02:16:36] chips

[02:16:36] productive

[02:16:37] forces

[02:16:37] aren’t

[02:16:38] always

[02:16:38] permanently

[02:16:39] necessarily

[02:16:40] primary

[02:16:40] let’s

[02:16:41] say

[02:16:41] but

[02:16:41] they

[02:16:41] cannot

[02:16:42] be

[02:16:42] ignored

[02:16:42] productive

[02:16:43] forces

[02:16:43] are

[02:16:43] very

[02:16:44] important

[02:16:45] we

[02:16:45] have

[02:16:45] to

[02:16:46] be

[02:16:46] like

[02:16:46] pragmatic

[02:16:47] for

[02:16:47] understanding

[02:16:48] the

[02:16:48] situation

[02:16:48] as it

[02:16:48] is

[02:16:49] china

[02:16:49] of the

[02:16:49] era

[02:16:49] as i

[02:16:50] keep

[02:16:50] repeating

[02:16:50] myself

[02:16:51] was

[02:16:51] way

[02:16:52] too

[02:16:52] precarious

[02:16:53] of a

[02:16:53] position

[02:16:53] and had

[02:16:54] to

[02:16:54] as a

[02:16:55] result

[02:16:55] take

[02:16:55] very

[02:16:55] drastic

[02:16:56] and in

[02:16:56] some

[02:16:56] instances

[02:16:57] unsafe

[02:16:57] reactions

[02:16:58] to

[02:16:58] further

[02:16:58] development

[02:16:59] themselves

[02:16:59] and that

[02:17:00] is the

[02:17:00] opening up

[02:17:01] and reform

[02:17:01] and the

[02:17:01] introduction

[02:17:02] of market

[02:17:02] mechanisms

[02:17:03] and the

[02:17:03] reducing

[02:17:03] or the

[02:17:04] removal

[02:17:04] or the

[02:17:04] limitations

[02:17:05] on the

[02:17:06] iron

[02:17:06] rice bowl

[02:17:07] program

[02:17:08] and so

[02:17:08] on and

[02:17:09] so forth

[02:17:09] all

[02:17:09] anybody

[02:17:10] who

[02:17:10] criticizes

[02:17:10] china

[02:17:11] at this

[02:17:11] point

[02:17:11] imagine

[02:17:12] you were

[02:17:12] in that

[02:17:12] position

[02:17:13] how would

[02:17:14] you have

[02:17:14] gotten

[02:17:14] china

[02:17:14] out of

[02:17:15] that

[02:17:15] predicament

[02:17:15] in the

[02:17:16] mid 70s

[02:17:16] given

[02:17:17] the

[02:17:17] background

[02:17:17] i gave

[02:17:18] you

[02:17:18] like

[02:17:19] there’s

[02:17:19] a lot

[02:17:19] of

[02:17:19] info

[02:17:20] to give

[02:17:20] like

[02:17:21] it was

[02:17:21] you could

[02:17:21] say

[02:17:22] it was

[02:17:22] the

[02:17:22] soviets

[02:17:22] fault

[02:17:22] for

[02:17:23] blocking

[02:17:23] off

[02:17:24] another

[02:17:24] like

[02:17:24] far

[02:17:25] superior

[02:17:25] avenue

[02:17:25] for

[02:17:26] development

[02:17:26] with

[02:17:26] more

[02:17:26] planned

[02:17:26] economies

[02:17:27] and

[02:17:27] whatnot

[02:17:27] after

[02:17:28] the

[02:17:28] scene

[02:17:28] of

[02:17:28] soviets

[02:17:29] split

[02:17:29] you can

[02:17:29] blame

[02:17:30] the

[02:17:30] chinese

[02:17:30] leadership

[02:17:30] a little

[02:17:31] bit

[02:17:31] but

[02:17:31] they’re

[02:17:31] kind

[02:17:31] of

[02:17:31] the

[02:17:31] right

[02:17:32] in

[02:17:32] criticism

[02:17:32] of

[02:17:32] the

[02:17:32] soviets

[02:17:33] a little

[02:17:33] bit

[02:17:33] at

[02:17:33] certain

[02:17:45] point

[02:17:56] and

[02:17:57] their

[02:17:58] reversal

[02:17:58] towards

[02:17:59] market

[02:18:00] relations

[02:18:00] at

[02:18:00] that

[02:18:01] point

[02:18:01] was

[02:18:01] in

[02:18:01] a

[02:18:01] weird

[02:18:02] paradoxical

[02:18:02] way

[02:18:03] the

[02:18:03] way

[02:18:03] that

[02:18:03] they

[02:18:04] could

[02:18:04] maintain

[02:18:04] their

[02:18:04] political

[02:18:05] order

[02:18:05] i mean

[02:18:06] socialism

[02:18:06] staying

[02:18:07] in

[02:18:07] power

[02:18:07] a

[02:18:07] socialist

[02:18:08] government

[02:18:08] staying

[02:18:08] in

[02:18:08] power

[02:18:08] and

[02:18:09] i’m

[02:18:09] saying

[02:18:09] that

[02:18:10] with

[02:18:10] the

[02:18:10] caveat

[02:18:11] that

[02:18:11] i

[02:18:11] dislike

[02:18:12] some

[02:18:12] of

[02:18:12] the

[02:18:12] things

[02:18:13] that

[02:18:13] took

[02:18:13] china

[02:18:14] in

[02:18:14] that

[02:18:14] direction

[02:18:14] the

[02:18:15] this

[02:18:15] is

[02:18:15] the

[02:18:15] point

[02:18:15] this

[02:18:15] is

[02:18:15] the

[02:18:16] point

[02:18:16] that

[02:18:16] i

[02:18:16] want

[02:18:16] to

[02:18:16] deliver

[02:18:17] right

[02:18:18] and

[02:18:18] it’s

[02:18:18] this

[02:18:18] not

[02:18:19] all

[02:18:19] the

[02:18:19] dang

[02:18:19] reforms

[02:18:19] were

[02:18:20] good

[02:18:20] i

[02:18:20] don’t

[02:18:20] what’s

[02:18:21] it

[02:18:21] called

[02:18:21] agree

[02:18:21] with

[02:18:22] all

[02:18:22] them

[02:18:22] but

[02:18:22] i’ve

[02:18:23] never

[02:18:23] seen

[02:18:23] an

[02:18:23] alternative

[02:18:24] course

[02:18:24] that

[02:18:25] made

[02:18:25] sense

[02:18:25] i’ll

[02:18:26] give

[02:18:26] a

[02:18:26] good

[02:18:26] example

[02:18:27] despite

[02:18:28] the

[02:18:28] literacy

[02:18:28] campaigns

[02:18:29] of

[02:18:29] the

[02:18:29] 50s

[02:18:29] there

[02:18:30] weren’t

[02:18:30] enough

[02:18:31] considering

[02:18:32] the

[02:18:32] modern

[02:18:33] economy

[02:18:33] china

[02:18:33] needed

[02:18:33] to

[02:18:33] develop

[02:18:34] you

[02:18:35] can

[02:18:35] be

[02:18:35] literate

[02:18:35] but

[02:18:35] that

[02:18:47] is

[02:18:48] vocational

[02:18:48] mechanics

[02:18:48] right

[02:18:49] not

[02:18:49] just

[02:18:49] barefoot

[02:18:50] doctors

[02:18:50] right

[02:18:50] you

[02:18:51] need

[02:18:51] highly

[02:18:51] skilled

[02:18:51] legislative

[02:18:52] and

[02:18:52] organizational

[02:18:53] staff

[02:18:53] so

[02:18:53] on

[02:18:54] and

[02:18:54] forth

[02:18:54] to

[02:18:54] get

[02:18:54] you

[02:18:55] these

[02:18:55] you

[02:18:55] either

[02:18:55] train

[02:18:56] your

[02:18:56] own

[02:18:56] or

[02:18:57] you

[02:18:57] get

[02:18:57] it

[02:18:57] from

[02:18:57] somewhere

[02:18:57] else

[02:18:58] training

[02:18:58] your

[02:18:58] own

[02:18:59] is

[02:18:59] great

[02:18:59] in

[02:18:59] the

[02:18:59] long

[02:18:59] term

[02:19:00] but

[02:19:00] not

[02:19:00] in

[02:19:00] the

[02:19:00] short

[02:19:00] because

[02:19:01] you

[02:19:01] have

[02:19:01] limitations

[02:19:01] it

[02:19:02] takes

[02:19:02] years

[02:19:02] to

[02:19:02] train

[02:19:02] them

[02:19:03] and

[02:19:03] decades

[02:19:05] especially

[02:19:07] for

[02:19:07] such

[02:19:07] a

[02:19:07] large

[02:19:07] and

[02:19:07] diverse

[02:19:08] nation

[02:19:08] such

[02:19:08] as

[02:19:08] china

[02:19:09] and

[02:19:09] china

[02:19:09] in

[02:19:10] the

[02:19:10] grand

[02:19:10] scheme

[02:19:10] of

[02:19:10] things

[02:19:11] reached

[02:19:11] this

[02:19:11] point

[02:19:12] that

[02:19:12] i’m

[02:19:12] talking

[02:19:12] about

[02:19:12] of

[02:19:13] having

[02:19:13] technical

[02:19:13] specialists

[02:19:14] that

[02:19:14] they

[02:19:14] have

[02:19:14] trained

[02:19:14] at

[02:19:15] several

[02:19:15] generations

[02:19:16] so

[02:19:16] they

[02:19:16] can

[02:19:16] have

[02:19:16] this

[02:19:16] accumulated

[02:19:17] like

[02:19:17] cultural

[02:19:17] and

[02:19:17] historical

[02:19:18] and

[02:19:18] social

[02:19:18] experience

[02:19:19] in

[02:19:20] these

[02:19:20] fields

[02:19:20] and

[02:19:20] engineering

[02:19:21] and

[02:19:21] medicine

[02:19:22] and

[02:19:22] like

[02:19:22] technical

[02:19:23] experience

[02:19:23] and

[02:19:23] what

[02:19:23] not

[02:19:23] in

[02:19:24] the

[02:19:24] grand

[02:19:24] scheme

[02:19:24] of

[02:19:24] things

[02:19:24] they

[02:19:24] reached

[02:19:25] this

[02:19:25] point

[02:19:25] in

[02:19:25] what

[02:19:25] like

[02:19:26] the

[02:19:26] past

[02:19:26] 15

[02:19:26] years

[02:19:27] in

[02:19:27] some

[02:19:28] instances

[02:19:28] in

[02:19:28] the

[02:19:28] past

[02:19:28] five

[02:19:29] literacy

[02:19:30] it

[02:19:30] was

[02:19:30] the

[02:19:30] first

[02:19:31] step

[02:19:31] right

[02:19:31] it’s

[02:19:31] a

[02:19:31] base

[02:19:32] real

[02:19:32] education

[02:19:33] afterwards

[02:19:33] takes

[02:19:33] decades

[02:19:34] afterwards

[02:19:34] to

[02:19:35] reach

[02:19:35] and

[02:19:36] with

[02:19:36] the

[02:19:36] industrial

[02:19:36] industrialization

[02:19:37] that

[02:19:38] china

[02:19:38] had

[02:19:38] at

[02:19:38] that

[02:19:38] point

[02:19:39] it

[02:19:40] was

[02:19:40] not

[02:19:40] enough

[02:19:40] and

[02:19:41] that’s

[02:19:41] the

[02:19:41] like

[02:19:42] every

[02:19:42] high

[02:19:42] level

[02:19:43] level

[02:19:43] high

[02:19:44] level

[02:19:44] development

[02:19:44] was

[02:19:44] stunted

[02:19:45] by

[02:19:45] lack

[02:19:45] of

[02:19:45] expertise

[02:19:46] i

[02:19:46] keep

[02:19:47] like

[02:19:47] fucking

[02:19:47] repeating

[02:19:47] myself

[02:19:48] and

[02:19:48] this

[02:19:48] is

[02:19:48] like

[02:19:48] an

[02:19:48] error

[02:19:48] of

[02:19:48] the

[02:19:49] stalin

[02:19:49] mode

[02:19:49] of

[02:19:49] industrialization

[02:19:50] that

[02:19:50] you

[02:19:50] could

[02:19:50] blame

[02:19:51] but

[02:19:51] there

[02:19:51] was

[02:19:51] some

[02:19:51] correct

[02:19:52] things

[02:19:52] with

[02:19:52] that

[02:19:52] but

[02:19:52] this

[02:19:52] is

[02:19:53] just

[02:19:53] like

[02:19:53] the

[02:19:54] paradox

[02:19:54] of

[02:19:54] history

[02:19:54] is

[02:19:55] when

[02:19:55] you’re

[02:19:55] such

[02:19:55] a

[02:19:55] poor

[02:19:55] nation

[02:19:56] you

[02:19:56] don’t

[02:19:56] have

[02:19:56] the

[02:19:57] privilege

[02:19:57] and

[02:19:58] the

[02:19:58] luxury

[02:19:58] of

[02:19:59] being

[02:19:59] ideologically

[02:19:59] pure

[02:20:00] you

[02:20:00] have

[02:20:00] to

[02:20:01] make

[02:20:02] concessions

[02:20:02] in ways

[02:20:03] that may

[02:20:03] not be

[02:20:04] ideologically

[02:20:04] convenient

[02:20:05] but

[02:20:05] they

[02:20:05] might

[02:20:06] be

[02:20:06] the

[02:20:06] best

[02:20:06] thing

[02:20:06] that

[02:20:06] works

[02:20:08] out

[02:20:08] for

[02:20:09] your

[02:20:09] nation

[02:20:10] or

[02:20:10] let

[02:20:10] me

[02:20:10] just

[02:20:10] tell

[02:20:11] you

[02:20:11] the

[02:20:11] Chinese

[02:20:12] foreign

[02:20:12] policy

[02:20:12] is

[02:20:13] cringe

[02:20:13] markets

[02:20:14] can

[02:20:14] be

[02:20:14] cringe

[02:20:14] as

[02:20:15] well

[02:20:15] but

[02:20:15] planning

[02:20:15] is

[02:20:16] better

[02:20:16] and

[02:20:18] planning

[02:20:18] in

[02:20:18] China

[02:20:18] should

[02:20:18] be

[02:20:19] greater

[02:20:19] and

[02:20:19] more

[02:20:19] expensive

[02:20:20] extensive

[02:20:20] and so

[02:20:20] on

[02:20:21] but

[02:20:21] I’m

[02:20:21] sure

[02:20:21] they’re

[02:20:22] doing

[02:20:22] that

[02:20:22] research

[02:20:22] I’ve

[02:20:23] seen

[02:20:23] it

[02:20:23] and

[02:20:24] I’m

[02:20:24] sure

[02:20:24] there’s

[02:20:24] even

[02:20:24] more

[02:20:24] like

[02:20:25] talks

[02:20:25] that

[02:20:25] we

[02:20:26] have

[02:20:26] nothing

[02:20:26] we

[02:20:26] know

[02:20:26] nothing

[02:20:27] about

[02:20:27] but

[02:20:27] given

[02:20:27] that

[02:20:28] knowledge

[02:20:28] let’s

[02:20:29] try to

[02:20:30] do

[02:20:30] better

[02:20:30] in

[02:20:30] our

[02:20:31] countries

[02:20:31] in

[02:20:31] your

[02:20:31] country

[02:20:31] and

[02:20:32] if

[02:20:32] you

[02:20:32] do

[02:20:32] better

[02:20:33] then

[02:20:33] give

[02:20:33] us

[02:20:33] a

[02:20:33] blueprint

[02:20:34] so

[02:20:34] we

[02:20:34] don’t

[02:20:34] have

[02:20:34] to

[02:20:35] do

[02:20:35] this

[02:20:35] fucking

[02:20:35] back

[02:20:35] and

[02:20:35] forth

[02:20:36] and

[02:20:36] all

[02:20:36] this

[02:20:36] stuff

[02:20:36] that

[02:20:37] you’re

[02:20:37] disagreeing

[02:20:37] with

[02:20:38] for

[02:20:38] the

[02:20:38] person

[02:20:38] the

[02:20:38] hypothetical

[02:20:38] person

[02:20:39] the

[02:20:39] mouse

[02:20:39] and

[02:20:40] the

[02:20:40] wall

[02:20:40] in

[02:20:40] this

[02:20:40] case

[02:20:40] and

[02:20:41] the

[02:20:41] final

[02:20:41] thing

[02:20:42] that

[02:20:42] I

[02:20:42] would

[02:20:42] say

[02:20:42] is

[02:20:43] if

[02:20:43] you

[02:20:43] really

[02:20:43] want

[02:20:44] to

[02:20:44] understand

[02:20:44] the

[02:20:45] Chinese

[02:20:45] system

[02:20:46] then

[02:20:46] you

[02:20:46] need

[02:20:47] to

[02:21:00] take

[02:21:24] a look

[02:21:24] at the

[02:21:24] Patreon

[02:21:24] it is

[02:21:25] not

[02:21:25] just

[02:21:25] the

[02:21:26] privilege

[02:21:26] of

[02:21:26] supporting

[02:21:27] a

[02:21:27] bunch

[02:21:27] of

[02:21:27] revisionist

[02:21:28] cucks

[02:21:28] but

[02:21:29] it

[02:21:29] is

[02:21:29] also

[02:21:29] a

[02:21:30] favorite

[02:21:31] revisionist

[02:21:31] you

[02:21:32] also

[02:21:32] get

[02:21:33] extensive

[02:21:33] bonuses

[02:21:34] exclusive

[02:21:35] and

[02:21:35] bonus

[02:21:35] episodes

[02:21:35] maybe

[02:21:36] more

[02:21:36] coming

[02:21:37] down

[02:21:37] the

[02:21:37] line

[02:21:37] I

[02:21:38] mean

[02:21:38] in

[02:21:39] total

[02:21:40] amount

[02:21:40] that

[02:21:40] you’ll

[02:21:40] be

[02:21:40] getting

[02:21:41] you

[02:21:41] get

[02:21:41] merch

[02:21:42] benefits

[02:21:43] and

[02:21:43] discounts

[02:21:43] you

[02:21:44] get

[02:21:44] access

[02:21:44] to

[02:21:44] the

[02:21:44] discord

[02:21:44] server

[02:21:45] depending

[02:21:45] on

[02:21:45] what

[02:21:45] your

[02:21:45] pledge

[02:21:46] amount

[02:21:46] you

[02:21:46] get

[02:21:46] to

[02:21:46] chat

[02:21:47] with

[02:21:47] us

[02:21:47] in

[02:21:47] live

[02:21:47] Q&A’s

[02:21:48] on

[02:21:48] the

[02:21:48] discord

[02:21:48] you

[02:21:49] get

[02:21:49] access

[02:21:49] to

[02:21:50] the

[02:21:50] Hakeem

[02:21:51] healthcare

[02:21:51] plan

[02:21:51] for

[02:21:51] Americans

[02:21:52] it

[02:21:52] is

[02:21:52] far

[02:21:53] cheaper

[02:21:53] than

[02:21:53] blue

[02:21:54] cross

[02:21:54] blue

[02:21:54] shield

[02:21:54] or

[02:21:54] what

[02:21:54] the

[02:21:55] fuck

[02:21:55] it’s

[02:21:55] called

[02:21:55] so

[02:21:55] that’s

[02:21:57] another

[02:21:57] thing

[02:21:58] that

[02:21:58] you

[02:21:58] get

[02:21:58] and

[02:22:00] yeah

[02:22:01] with all

[02:22:01] that being

[02:22:01] said

[02:22:02] this has

[02:22:02] been the

[02:22:02] new

[02:22:02] program

[02:22:03] I’m

[02:22:03] Hakeem

[02:22:04] I’m

[02:22:04] JT

[02:22:05] and

[02:22:05] I’m

[02:22:05] Yagopnik

[02:22:06] Nihao

[02:22:07] motherfucker

[02:22:23] you

[02:22:53] Thank you.

[02:23:23] Thank you.

[02:23:53] Thank you.

[02:24:23] Thank you.

[02:24:53] Thank you.

Vox

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