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Comment by WarmWash | Hacker News Reader

Assuming you are just naive like so many others about China...

China is a communist country with elements of capitalistic markets baked in. But the capitalistic elements are mostly a facade. Underneath, the state retains full ownership and control of all business. The CCP runs all aspects of the government (including the courts/judges), and is the single entity that decides what directions the country (and it's businesses) will move in.

The CCP, who defacto owns everything and has ultimate final say on everything, has one leader that has the ultimate final say on _everything_, Xi Jinping.

So while the waters of CCP models feel warm and free, understand it's not organically like that.

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> China is a communist country with elements of capitalistic markets baked in.

While I get the point you're making (it should be pretty obvious to anyone who's held a newspaper), I think it's important regardless to point out that Chinese companies AFAIK aren't worker-owned or -controlled, so you can't exactly call it communism, either. And they obviously do not have a "free market capitalism", as you just discussed.

It's simply a highly authoritarian state then, I guess?

The companies are all worker owned, because the state exists for the people, and the state owns everything. At least on paper that's how it is sold. After all it is the Peoples Republic of China.

I mean, if that's the bar then the state owns everything in America as well. After all, you don't really own your land if the state can regulate what you do on it, what it can be used for, what you can build on it, and can take it away if they really need it. The state owns the land, the money supply, and regularly restricts and instructs businesses to take or desist from actions.

As such, the state owns everything in both countries, the only differences are to what extent they control things.

I wouldn't even call the USA a capitalist system anymore, the economy is so heavily regulated and interfered with. It's a "managed economy", like pretty much every other nation's economy in the present day.

In the US you can take the state to court and win...

for now

Crazy mental gymnastics if you think the American oligarchs don’t have the final say on everything in America. They’re just smart enough to do it behind the scenes, well they used to be. They barely bother anymore.

Generally I consider conspiracy to be the "crazy mental gymnastics"

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