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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

It is absolutely ridiculous to me there are still people consider China communist. It's especially hilarious when the discussion is about a hyper-rich patron Jack Ma talking about how his workers should work. It's not about capitalism vs communism; it's about capitalism vs capitalism.

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How is it ridiculous? According to Lenin socialism is "state-capitalist monopoly."[0]

[0]: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11....

E.g. Ma is a capitalist and is not the state. So there is no state-capitalist monopoly in China. Surely, there are some Chinese industries where this is true but e.g. in Norway oil industry is owned by the state, but does anyone think Norway is communist? The truth is, the State is a very integral part of capitalism. Both regulation and state-funded industries are an important part of capitalistic economies. The degree at which we allow this (from almost none to a lot) is a political question. In a fundamental level, Chinese government allows some people to have private property and to accumulate wealth i.e. it is capitalism.

In American public discussion China is "communist" the same way America is "capitalist". You just need to understand what those using the term intend it to mean. (I'm talking about casual, conventional use in everyday conversation and the infotainment sphere, not an academic sense.) "Capitalism" is intended to mean, "the way we do things here in the United States, which is awesome" and "communism" is meant to mean "the way people who aren't like us do things, and which is bad". It's pressure to justify American-style economic policy, while suppressing any discussion of alternatives.

Arguably, China is not capitalist. Granted, China has a market economy, but capitalism refers to the ownership of bulk of assets by private parties. The Chinese government holds a lot of the wealth in China, and does not operate on a level playing field with private parties. Conversely, in a capitalist system, you would expect state ownership to be minimised to assets necessary for the practice of government activities (e.g. schools, courthouses, and military hardware), or even eliminated and contracted out to private enterprise.

Private ownership rights for real estate and securities are also much weaker in China, compared to typical Western nations.

These are good points. I wish people tried to comment arguments like this instead of downvoting and writing angry comments about how I'm insensitive to people killed by communism. I don't even support communism, just wanted to express that China is not communist.

> Private ownership rights for real estate and securities are also much weaker in China, compared to typical Western nations.

This may be true, but private property is not non-existent in China. Nor do they think it should be annihilated eventually. Capitalist private property owners like Ma exist, and China knows that they let China compete in the world. So I still find it hard to believe China does not operate within capitalistic market.

Liberal market capitalism vs totalitarian state-coordinated capitalism.

In reality the level of state coordination is quite high in many countries normally considered free markets.

The amount (edit: percent) of GDP directly allocated by the Federal and State governments in the U.S. is greater than it ever was in the Soviet Union or China.

I did some fact checking. As per www.imf.org:

US General government total expenditure as Percent of GDP - %35.2 (2016)

China General government total expenditure as Percent of GDP - %31.9 (2016)

This has been bothering me for a long time.

Many formerly communist countries, e.g. Vietnam, have unleashed the purest form of capitalism possible, where positive feedback loops make the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

No labor laws, corruption and salary ratios of 1:1000 within one company - it would be a true nightmare for the ideological socialist elite of the early 1900 to see what has become of their dream of equality.

>Many formerly communist countries, e.g. Vietnam, have unleashed the purest form of capitalism possible.

If you had an abusive ex you'd pick the exact opposite for your rebound too.

Political ideologies are for the masses, not elites.

Socialist workers built the key infrastructure that eventually gets turned over to privateers for profit. That's not capitalism.

How are the poor growing poorer? From what I've read they're wealth is increasing: https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/vietnams-average-wages...

Pushing workers to work extreme hours is not some sort of unusual thing for communism. Please read the following topics before you spread disinformation that communism was somehow pro-workers rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_calendar

Where did you infer I had the opinion that communism is pro-worker? This is irrelevant. China isn't communist because their economic system is exactly capitalism, not because they're pro or con worker.

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