As Stalin correctly explains here, there will be surplus product in a socialist economy and, similarly, the commodity form doesn’t die overnight. Thinking that communism involves slamming a button titled “END CAPITALISM NOW” is just romantic idealist-slop.
China’s spent 75yrs in primary stage and has challenged the US economic method better than Stalin ever did. Now they’re poised to overtake it and have the upper hand in establishing the new terms on which the global economy works. If this opportunity is not a next step in dismantling capitalism but rather seizing the market for the sake of control, is the higher phase even a goal because it can always be a lofty aspiration on the horizon that “now isn’t the time for”. The nation in control of the market controls the process of exchange. Money can disappear if the products of labour cease to be commodities.
Actually existing socialist states exist under constant threat from the US empire and until the empire is well and truly over it will not be possible to achieve actual communism. The fall of the USSR was a tragedy, and not one I’d like to see repeated.
What threats to China that the US once had remain? They’ve destroyed their education system. They’re people live on credit and increasingly own none of the classic benchmarks of capitalist success, like a home. Their military spends its time blowing up fishing boats and while it starts a lot of war and leaves trails of bodies, it only picks wars with presumably outmatched opponents and then loses. Their closet allies (other than Israel) are drifting away from them. They’re terrorizing their populace and stoking flames of bigotry. Their infrastructure is crumbling and they’re embracing 19th century energy standards while the rest of the developed (and a lot of the underdeveloped) nations move on. Their oligarchs hoard most of the monetary wealth (as well as the physical) and are converting that to crypto and foreign currency to enrich themselves before the collapse they’re helping fuel cripples the plebs. Aside from their nuclear capability, once the dollar ceases to be the global standard, what threat is the US to China?
Most Americans own their home btw https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/homeownership-stats/ the US capitalist empire still exploits the rest of the world and has vassal states in their hemisphere and abroad that they have financialized and steal their profits.
Let’s not forget that USSR also saw astonishing levels of development under Stalin. The stagnation started after Khrushchev reforms. However, as I noted earlier, China can’t just flip a switch and create some sort of a moneyless society. Dismantling capitalism start with worker ownership of the means of production, and there will be a a prolonged socialist stage where existing relations have not yet been abolished, and the only thing that’s different is which class holds power.
The meme is a hyperbole because it’s a meme, we know there’s no single switch. However, I point out again, China has had a long running developmental, implemental, transitional, and establishment phase and will have significant power as it continues to digest the American economy on multiple fronts. The United States gutted its industrial capacity, diluted its education, and is leading the way on ass backwards energy. It’s priced its own citizens out of ownership of land and as a substitute they embraced consumerism of low cost goods as a proof of “success”. What is owned by Americans is largely in the hands of a handful of oligarchs that for all their anti-China rhetoric are also more than willing to enrich themselves at a loss to their poorer fellow citizens because unlike the Gilded Age elite, they don’t give a shit about their legacy, only what they can achieve in their lifetime. Even without the current regime, the US was in massive decline, they’re just speed rolling it because they’ve found a way to profit.
China doesn’t have to flip the switch of “let’s start phase one socialism” nor the switch of “death of American capitalism” because both those have been flipped already. Dismantling capitalism is not an on/off, it’s a dimmer. The idea that the first phase would take time was rooted in the idea that poor or underdeveloped countries would struggle to transition from illiteracy/subsistence farming to a industrial capable state, that they’d have to do as Russia/China did and have their own industrial/technological revolutions and developments possibly over decades to centuries, as well as deal with adverse global conditions. But it is temporary.
America is in decline and its infrastructure crumbling, but it has the core amenities of a developed nation. China has been a global power for quite some time. Neither has to have industrial or technological revolutions. The biggest hurdle the Chinese supremacy has been that the US had been the relatively stable global finance standard for years and has used that adversarially. If that’s finally removed, why not begin the process of elimination of money? Prolonged is a good word because when you have all the cards but refuse to play your hand, you’re prolonging the game.
You’re completely ignoring the contradictions present within China itself here. China still has a capitalist class, and it is still in the primary stages of socialism with the workers having established a class dictatorship over capital, but China is far from abolishing existing relations right now. The collapse of the west is certainly a prerequisite for the transition to any higher stage of socialism, but it will be a long time before relations start meaningfully changing with China itself, let alone the rest of the world.
As Stalin correctly explains here, there will be surplus product in a socialist economy and, similarly, the commodity form doesn’t die overnight. Thinking that communism involves slamming a button titled “END CAPITALISM NOW” is just romantic idealist-slop.
China’s spent 75yrs in primary stage and has challenged the US economic method better than Stalin ever did. Now they’re poised to overtake it and have the upper hand in establishing the new terms on which the global economy works. If this opportunity is not a next step in dismantling capitalism but rather seizing the market for the sake of control, is the higher phase even a goal because it can always be a lofty aspiration on the horizon that “now isn’t the time for”. The nation in control of the market controls the process of exchange. Money can disappear if the products of labour cease to be commodities.
Actually existing socialist states exist under constant threat from the US empire and until the empire is well and truly over it will not be possible to achieve actual communism. The fall of the USSR was a tragedy, and not one I’d like to see repeated.
What threats to China that the US once had remain? They’ve destroyed their education system. They’re people live on credit and increasingly own none of the classic benchmarks of capitalist success, like a home. Their military spends its time blowing up fishing boats and while it starts a lot of war and leaves trails of bodies, it only picks wars with presumably outmatched opponents and then loses. Their closet allies (other than Israel) are drifting away from them. They’re terrorizing their populace and stoking flames of bigotry. Their infrastructure is crumbling and they’re embracing 19th century energy standards while the rest of the developed (and a lot of the underdeveloped) nations move on. Their oligarchs hoard most of the monetary wealth (as well as the physical) and are converting that to crypto and foreign currency to enrich themselves before the collapse they’re helping fuel cripples the plebs. Aside from their nuclear capability, once the dollar ceases to be the global standard, what threat is the US to China?
That’s a pretty big ‘aside’.
That is a hell of an aside.
Most Americans own their home btw https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/homeownership-stats/ the US capitalist empire still exploits the rest of the world and has vassal states in their hemisphere and abroad that they have financialized and steal their profits.
Let’s not forget that USSR also saw astonishing levels of development under Stalin. The stagnation started after Khrushchev reforms. However, as I noted earlier, China can’t just flip a switch and create some sort of a moneyless society. Dismantling capitalism start with worker ownership of the means of production, and there will be a a prolonged socialist stage where existing relations have not yet been abolished, and the only thing that’s different is which class holds power.
The meme is a hyperbole because it’s a meme, we know there’s no single switch. However, I point out again, China has had a long running developmental, implemental, transitional, and establishment phase and will have significant power as it continues to digest the American economy on multiple fronts. The United States gutted its industrial capacity, diluted its education, and is leading the way on ass backwards energy. It’s priced its own citizens out of ownership of land and as a substitute they embraced consumerism of low cost goods as a proof of “success”. What is owned by Americans is largely in the hands of a handful of oligarchs that for all their anti-China rhetoric are also more than willing to enrich themselves at a loss to their poorer fellow citizens because unlike the Gilded Age elite, they don’t give a shit about their legacy, only what they can achieve in their lifetime. Even without the current regime, the US was in massive decline, they’re just speed rolling it because they’ve found a way to profit.
China doesn’t have to flip the switch of “let’s start phase one socialism” nor the switch of “death of American capitalism” because both those have been flipped already. Dismantling capitalism is not an on/off, it’s a dimmer. The idea that the first phase would take time was rooted in the idea that poor or underdeveloped countries would struggle to transition from illiteracy/subsistence farming to a industrial capable state, that they’d have to do as Russia/China did and have their own industrial/technological revolutions and developments possibly over decades to centuries, as well as deal with adverse global conditions. But it is temporary.
America is in decline and its infrastructure crumbling, but it has the core amenities of a developed nation. China has been a global power for quite some time. Neither has to have industrial or technological revolutions. The biggest hurdle the Chinese supremacy has been that the US had been the relatively stable global finance standard for years and has used that adversarially. If that’s finally removed, why not begin the process of elimination of money? Prolonged is a good word because when you have all the cards but refuse to play your hand, you’re prolonging the game.
You’re completely ignoring the contradictions present within China itself here. China still has a capitalist class, and it is still in the primary stages of socialism with the workers having established a class dictatorship over capital, but China is far from abolishing existing relations right now. The collapse of the west is certainly a prerequisite for the transition to any higher stage of socialism, but it will be a long time before relations start meaningfully changing with China itself, let alone the rest of the world.
So when can we expect it to start, 2050?
It’s an ongoing process that’s currently happening.