We discussed those green skyscrapers in university environment class, and as far as I know they didn’t work that well. It was hard to keep the plants alive and when they did grow, they became a breeding ground for pest insects that got into the units where people were living. It’s very much prioritizing looking green over being green.
IMO it’s better to just have efficient but visually boring skyscrapers, and then have dedicated green space around clusters of density (which is what China is mostly doing nowadays). Separating housing and green space make both more effective, easier to manage, and more resiliant.
Also, in case you’re wondering, most Western environment profs are very impressed by what China has done, at least in the university I went to.
Skyscrapers seem a waste and vulnerability compared to the traditional 10 story style brick, or preferably stone, buildings typical in cities before skyscrapers. Some are bigger than 10 stories, and they can be built earthquake safe same as skyscrapers, the first earthquake safe designs of which that I’m aware of happened after the San Francisco area earthquake some time around the turn of the 20th century that leveled the large buildings. But I’m sure there were prior methods probably dating to antiquity in the middle east and elsewhere.
One method was to build a sort of pool over the build area, a solid container, with sand and the like inside, and building on top of that, vibrations would be absorbed by the sand. There are other methods too but they can be employed by both skyscrapers and masonary buildings.
As to size, the city hall building in philadelphia is the larges I believe, a magnificent building, with statues at levels going up with William Penn at the top. Ornate and decorative too, very unlike the brutalist architecture of today’s city leaders. Compare the subway of any european capital city, from moscow to paris, to new york or DC’s subway. Our leaders have no style, all the money for overinflated contrancts, and more money than any, but none for style or art built into it.
I agree, I didn’t want to change the premise too much in my original comment, but ideally you’d do some complicated math to determine the optimal height for your location, building materials, and population density.
I don’t know what that calculation would look like in China because I don’t live there (I’m sure the Chinese engineers are well aware of those calculations though) but in my country it would definitely be a lot closer to the 10 story range, maybe even lower.
Either way, something us in the West absolutely NEED to get used to is prefab buildings that all look the same. A bunch of prefab skyscrapers like China has is still worlds ahead of the logistical nightmare of demanding every single building be custom designed like is so common here. You call it boring, I call it efficient. Having a few reusable designs (usually different heights) to choose from and copy paste building housing, like what China does, is what we need first, IMO, and then we can talk about the optimal heights for those prefab buildings.
Yeah, functionality comes first and we’ve a lack of housing. But we should add some art to that functionality as we go as we are able, but a solid structure reproduced a million times comes first. Waiting on private interests to do it is a fool’s errand it appears. Capital has colluded to keep the housing stock overpriced, with hedge funds and private equity buying a significant percent of all consumer housing, 15 percent just as of 2018, likely higher now.
Eh… I’m not sold by this. For me the “punk” aspect is about people taking hopeful actions that go against the grain. Focusing on the authority of any government is a pretty weak sell. Let’s cultivate hope in people!
Classic western resistance: “people taking hopeful actions that go against the grain.”
Who needs actually achieving environmental goals, it’s the purity that matters.
The purity part is part and parcel of the ruling class keeping people from uniting against them. Look at Marjorie Taylor Green, as soon as the president disowned her legions of mechanized trolls/influence agents and bots and chatbots, flooded social media, and left groups, viciously rejected everything she endorsed because of prior transgressions.
By that logic, you could discount any person, especially with fucking Israel doing the accounting which is what this mostly was. And it was transparent, not the least as it wasn’t there, the president disowned her publicly, and social media was flooded by vicious cunts arguing with anyone saying we should cooperate on what we agree on and not discount groups on purity grounds.
There aren’t enough good people that know what is going on enough to discount people on purity like that, even if we could trust these dumb shits to discount the right people and not listen to the worst people to tell them whom to discount.
You made me think of this short essay by my countryman Jones Manoel: Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture (2020)
Yeah, great essay.
People don’t just need hope, they need education, safety nets, access to healthcare, job security. Going against the grain won’t magically change any of these things.
In China, the government is run by the people. The people of China collaboratively chart a course for the future, towards a hopeful course of development, based on scientific socialism. In being a socialist country, China is taking actions that go against the grain, focusing on mutual development, industrialization, and prosperity.
In China, they have direct elections for local representatives, which elect further “rungs,” laddering to the top. The top then has mass polling and opinion gathering. This combination of top-down and bottom-up democracy ensures effective results. For more on this, see Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. This system is remarkably effective, resulting in over 90% approval rates.
Is it not punk to radically “abolish the present state of things,” as Marx says, and which the PRC is steadfastly working towards? Hell, Rage Against the Machine has even quoted Mao.
Its insane how Liberals will see a wel functioning society and decide they would rather live under the dictatorship of capital
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Love how this has 15 downvotes but not a single reply 💀
That’s pretty common, actually. People would rather silently downvote than try to actually engage with academic literature regarding the PRC’s democratic process.
I just banned like 6 of them, dead or no-content accounts.
Liberals using bot accounts to try to manipulate public opinion (as they do on reddit and the rest of the western internet), is gonna be one of the bigger problems in the fediverse for the foreseeable future, so we have to stay ahead of it.
At this point they’re just targeting specific ppl like @Cowbee@lemmy.ml, but they’ll eventually start doing it en masse.
Figured that may have been the case, considering it was a reasonable comment getting heavily downvoted in a thread where other pro-PRC comments weren’t as inorganically downvoted.
Hexbear stays winning with the removed downvote, which forces you to reply if you disagree with the content
That looks more like spider punk
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Neoliberals so far gone, they attack fascism from the right! “fascism is when foreigners”
They try to out fascist the fascists, by being total monsters but pretending to have “concern” about Israel, or workers rights, or anything. As if everyone really wanted to be exploited by corporations but with gay marriage and token actions taken in their favor while workers are further stripped by the super rich.
The answer is to run a populist alternative, not a fake populism like the Right that scapegoats, one that accurately identifies the villains and the problems they cause, and gives a solution that can actually work.
They are hopeless, and until you realize the “liberals” are controlled opposition of the oligarchy, chosen to be weak, to not upset the license further garnered by rich every term, it doesn’t make sense as to why they would suck so bad.
It’s really true though, chosen to be weak, chosen to cave to the other aggressive party, to not change anything back let alone make it better. Just emptly platitudes, perfunctionary efforts at fulfilling promises, a lack of any real politik, and a reason for being of preventing popular reform while being the party of popular reform.
-Guy who totally knows what fascism is
today’s largest fascistic governance comes from the US and spans almost the entire globe.
leftists shouldn’t spread FUD
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Since people here seem to disagree
Since people here have seen all this sinophobic propaganda countless times already and thoroughly debunked it all, you’re going to go ahead and confidently spew tired, gullible U.S. State Department talking points and lies to be debunked yet again for the umpteenth time because you’re either painfully naive and depressingly uneducated or you have an explicit pro-U.S. anti-China agenda you’re desperately trying to spread.
Yeah, we know, dronie.
Cult of Personality / Leader. From Mao to Xi Jinping, the allegiance to their leaders is much more strongly enforced when compared to Trump. US has term limits and doesn’t even permit a “leader for life.”
Term limits are anti-democratic, and are put in place in bourgeois democracy to prevent left-wing leaders from lasting long enough to overhaul the system, effectively gutting any radical change. Mao and Xi are both examples of extremely popular leaders, far moreso than Trump, Macron, Starmer, etc.
Radical Nationalism. The “Chinese Dream” and “Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” emphasize righting the wrongs of the “Century of Humiliation.” This is often exclusionary, emphasizing Han Chinese identity over others. US has a broader international identity and is much less isolationist.
Han Chinese are not placed above ethnic minorities in the PRC or non-Chinese externally. The PRC has strong minority representation at the state level, and legal protections for them. The PRC isn’t isolationist either, it trades and partners with practically everyone, especially the global south. The US Empire brutally oppresses ethnic minorities, and is dominated by old, white men at the state level. The US Empire is also imperialist, and interventionist, while being extremely nationalist.
Control of Media. China maintains the world’s most sophisticated digital censorship system (The Great Firewall). All domestic media is state-aligned. Under the principle of Dang Guan Meiti (“The Party controls the media”), all news outlets in China are legally considered the “mouthpiece” of the Communist Party.
The Great Firewall isn’t censorship, it’s to promote domestic internet production and infrastructure so as to not be reliant on the west. The CPC does censor liberals, capitalists, and fascists, whereas the west censors communists and the working classes.
Economic Corporatism. While corporate lobbying is very strong in the US, they still have an adversarial relationship. Corporations will often do stuff like suing the US government. Meanwhile in China, all corporations are required to have CCP cells and align their goals with state national interests. They effectively seized control of corporations for nationalistic purposes (epitome of fascism).
This is where you highlight how little you understand fascism. The US Empire is driven by private ownership, corporations dominate the state. This is fascism. In the PRC, private property is subservient to the public sector and to the state. The CPC controls what capitalists can do, not the other way around, because the CPC is communist.
Suppression of Labor. All labor unions must belong to the state-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Independent strikes and labor organizing are illegal and strictly suppressed. There are strong anti-union sentiments in the US, but independent unionizing is still very much legally permitted.
Labor isn’t suppressed, the PRC restricts independent organizations that can be steered by the west in favor of fully integrating unions into the socialist system itself, in the form of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Unions in the US Empire are extremely weakened and the state sides with capital over them.
You fundamentally do not know what fascism is because you think it’s public ownership.
Term limits are anti-democratic, and are put in place in bourgeois democracy to prevent left-wing leaders from lasting long enough to overhaul the system, effectively gutting any radical change. Mao and Xi are both examples of extremely popular leaders, far moreso than Trump, Macron, Starmer, etc.
First part is true. Though it’s ironic considering people are calling it fascism for Trump to hint at a third term, while Xi removed constitutional term limits so he could stay in power.
While term limits restrict voter choice, the complete absence of opposition parties restricts it far more. “Popularity” is functionally unmeasurable in a system without free press or competitive elections. You cannot accurately gauge approval ratings when disapproval is criminalized. Removing term limits without adding checks and balances historically leads to autocracy, not “radical change” as it entrenches a specific elite rather than the working class.
The Great Firewall isn’t censorship, it’s to promote domestic internet production and infrastructure so as to not be reliant on the west. The CPC does censor liberals, capitalists, and fascists, whereas the west censors communists and the working classes.
The “protectionism” argument fails because the Firewall blocks information, not just competitors. Blocking Wikipedia, news regarding 1989, or criticisms of the leadership has zero economic benefit. It is strictly political thought control.
Conversely, Communist parties are legal in the US. They run candidates and publish newspapers. In China, advocating for independent Marxist unions (like the Jasic Incident student group) gets you arrested. The state suppresses unauthorized leftists just as harshly as liberals.
This is where you highlight how little you understand fascism. The US Empire is driven by private ownership, corporations dominate the state. This is fascism. In the PRC, private property is subservient to the public sector and to the state. The CPC controls what capitalists can do, not the other way around, because the CPC is communist.
You are confusing Fascism with Plutocracy or Oligarchy. Fascism, by definition (as articulated by Mussolini and Gentile, or practiced by the Nazis), is the State dominating the corporation, not the other way around. Fascism seeks to merge corporate and state power under the direction of the state to serve national interests. This describes the Chinese model (statist control of capital) far more accurately than the US model (capitalist influence over the state). If the state commands the corporation, that aligns with the structural mechanics of fascism, regardless of whether the state calls itself “Communist.”
First part is true. Though it’s ironic considering people are calling it fascism for Trump to hint at a third term, while Xi removed constitutional term limits so he could stay in power.
While term limits restrict voter choice, the complete absence of opposition parties restricts it far more. “Popularity” is functionally unmeasurable in a system without free press or competitive elections. You cannot accurately gauge approval ratings when disapproval is criminalized. Removing term limits without adding checks and balances historically leads to autocracy, not “radical change” as it entrenches a specific elite rather than the working class.
Trump isn’t a fascist for wanting to remove term limits, Trump is a fascist because the US Empire is a genocidal, imperialist settler-colony where private ownership is principle and the state owned by private capital. In the PRC, on the other hand, over 90% of Chinese citizens support the central government, and ranks far higher than western countries on perceptions of democracy:
The “protectionism” argument fails because the Firewall blocks information, not just competitors. Blocking Wikipedia, news regarding 1989, or criticisms of the leadership has zero economic benefit. It is strictly political thought control.
Conversely, Communist parties are legal in the US. They run candidates and publish newspapers. In China, advocating for independent Marxist unions (like the Jasic Incident student group) gets you arrested. The state suppresses unauthorized leftists just as harshly as liberals.
The firewall is for protectionism. Discussion on June 4th, 1989 happens in China, just not the propagandized version most westerners are taught in school. Instead, political unity in the socialist system is supported. Opposition has historically been supported by western countries to undermine the socialist system, when supposed “leftists” try to separate from the socialist system and agitate against it, these are suppressed just like liberals because they essentially function the same way.
Meanwhile, the US Empire has murdered communists, and funds massive propaganda networks against them. Liberals act far more out in the open in China, for better or worse, than communists in the US.
You are confusing Fascism with Plutocracy or Oligarchy. Fascism, by definition (as articulated by Mussolini and Gentile, or practiced by the Nazis), is the State dominating the corporation, not the other way around. Fascism seeks to merge corporate and state power under the direction of the state to serve national interests. This describes the Chinese model (statist control of capital) far more accurately than the US model (capitalist influence over the state). If the state commands the corporation, that aligns with the structural mechanics of fascism, regardless of whether the state calls itself “Communist.”
No, “plutocracy” and “oligarchy” are not what I’m talking about. In Mussolini’s economy, private ownership was principle, and capitalists in control of the state. Any capitalists that did not toe the line were punished, sure, by the capitalists in charge od the state. If public ownership is principle, and the working classes are in charge of the state, as in China, then it’s socialist.
The idea that socialism is when corporations are independent of and can control the state, your definition, is absurd and stems purely from your incorrect understanding of fascism.
All labor unions must belong to the state-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Independent strikes and labor organizing are illegal and strictly suppressed. There are strong anti-union sentiments in the US, but independent unionizing is still very much legally permitted.
Westerners can stay mad forever that China won’t allow CIA and NED to set up “independent” “labor unions”.
the fuck you are talking about.
state directed != fascism, you know that, right?
state directed + corporatism + extreme nationalism + state control of press and labor + lifetime leader
Name a single thing about the US that is more fascistic than China. I’m willing to concede that such a thing might exist.
here’s more than a single: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
the fascistic us empire has been raining death suffering and poverty all over the planet for decades. china hasn’t been in an active war for decades.
again, the fact that these things are state directed doesn’t make it fascist. that’s not even what fascism is.
13·11 hours agoUS has term limits and doesn’t even permit a “leader for life.”
Lol. Lmao even.
US has a broader international identity
I would say “lol, lmao even,” but the horrors inflicted on all the non-whites in the US is not a laughing matter.
and is much less isolationist.
Sure would be better if it was.
Everything I said is true and you didn’t refute any of it. You do realize that, if you have nothing to say, you don’t have to post, right?
Trump has been leader for 5 years, and will cease leadership in 3 years. Xi has been in power since 2012 and can be leader for the rest of his life.
Now please explain how US is NOT less isolationist than China. This should be good. 🤣
Everything I said is true and you didn’t refute any of it.
When you order beef and the waiter brings chicken, you point out the mistake. When the waiter bites your nose, what do you do?
This is a leftist space. Debunking is something done in general forums, when you’re trying to inform the audience. No one here is gonna waste their precious time debunking any of that for the 100th time lol
To be fair, this isn’t an explicitly leftist space, just a space with a lot of leftists and moderated by them. Clear debunking of anti-communist mythos does have value, as many anti-communists and other liberals do come here.
You imply that it is good to have term limits, despite the fact that it is clearly un-democractic to limit who the people can vote for. If the people like someone and think they should continue their work, they should be allowed to do so. [EDIT:] And if China did have term limits… what would it change? Xi ends his terms and then what? Someone else will simply step up.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. I said it would be better if it was.
No. I implied that it’s not fascistic to have term limits (or less fascistic). I don’t think I said anything was good or bad.
You’re implying that being un-democratic is a bad thing. The US Constitution is also un-democratic, as it doesn’t permit the voting majority to violate the rights of the minority. And I doubt you would consider such mob rule of the majority to be a good thing. Or do you?
being un-democratic is a bad thing
Do you think so?
No? China is a socialist country. Public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. Fascism is the diametric opposite, it’s private ownership as principle and capitalists in charge of the state, ie capitalism, when it needs to violently break up labor organizing and force austerity due to capitalist decay.
Fascist economies seize control of property for nationalistic purposes. Only difference between communism is that they still defer to private property owners while the regime ultimately controls it, as opposed to “the people” owning it.
This is China. They control all their industry for nationalistic purposes. They have a cult of personality leader. Literally every textbook indicator of fascism.
All modern economies have some degree of a public/private split, even the DPRK has special economic zones like Rason. The difference between capitalism (which fascism is a derivative of) and socialism is which aspect of the economy is principle, private or public, and which class is in control of the state, capitalists or workers. In China, public ownership is principle and the state is under the control of the working classes.
The PRC does use nationalized industry and resources for their own benefit, as does every single country, with the partial exception of colonized and imperialized countries that are exploited by the west. Xi Jinping is popular, but doesn’t have a cult of personality. I don’t know what textbook you’re reading, but if it’s telling you that public ownership is fascist you should probably discard it.
I’m saying “if it looks and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.” You’re saying “if it says it’s not a duck, it’s not.”
How is the Chinese economy not fascist corporatism? Because they call it “public ownership”? The CCP mandates all corporations have CCP cells that align with their national interests. They still defer to private property owners who often become very wealthy. (see: Jack Ma). How does a socialist country have people worth almost $30 billion? This is no more socialism than Nazi’s Nat Socs (or rather, it’s equally socialism).
No, I’m saying that tigers are not ducks, and I explained clearly why. No matter how much you point to ducks and tigers both having feet, they aren’t the same in any capacity. The PRC has a publicly driven economy, with the working classes in control of the state. It’s funny that you bring up Jack Ma, because he was punished by the state for acting against socialism. Nazi Germany was driven by private ownership as principle, and a strong state, the fundamental differences lie in whether public ownership or private ownership is principle and which class is in control.
Jack Ma was punished for speaking out against the government’s bank lending policy which prevented people without capital from getting it. Almost the exact opposite of “acting against socialism”. And again, he’s still worth almost $30 billion. Yet you maintain this is somehow socialism, which would require rejecting the private property and capitalism which cornerstones China today.
His punishment further highlights the other tenet of fascism which permits such authoritarian control. If Trump admnistration seized all corporate control (citing their usage for “national interests” or for “the people”), then punished corporate leaders for disagreeing with public policy, would you also say this is somehow not fascism? I imagine you would say he’s very much more fascistic than he is today.
Jack Ma was punished for suggesting that the CPC needed to relinquish control, and privatize more. He wasn’t a billionaire fighting for the working classes, but instead a billionaire fighting for the free movement of capital and liberalization. The fact that the CPC humiliated and punished Jack Ma for trying to undermine the publicly driven economy is precisely evidence of the weakness of private capital within the PRC.
As for Trump, he’s nakedly fascist already. Private ownership is what drives the US economy. Nationalization in such a context strengthens the bourgeois state and facilitates the control of private capital.
At this point I’m not sure why you genuinely don’t seem to understand the difference between public and private ownership, and how that impacts the state and therefore helps us see what a system actually is.
Because you definitely knows what fascism is
Solarpunk is the fiction, the ideal. What China is doing in this regard is 1 version of an attempt to achieve it, and that’s great! Its not the only path forward and there is room for critique of every attempt.
As an anarchist, I would like less authoritarianism actually. But, as a solarpunk enthusiast and environmentalist, im in favor of this action by China. I believe that actions towards solarpunk and actions against government systems i dont like should be handled separately
How would China have to change their democratic processes, or methods of governance, to turn you around more on how they handle things? I often see people claim China should be less authoritarian, but I rarely see concrete steps they could take to be less-so structurally from those that see China that way.
Im not a scholar on china. I dont know a ton, and I dont know anything with a great degree of confidence. My understanding is that to some degree, they do human rights abuses much like the USA, Russia, UK, India etc. To my understanding, that’s just kind of a thing superpower countries do. I have enough on my hands dealing with the USA and all its problems. I value human dignity as the focal point of what a government should embody. If you can think of things they are doing thay go against that, that’s probably what id starr with. If you think that china is sufficiently defending human dignity without exception, id love to hear about that
I’m certainly not a scholar either, but I do think we can investigate certain statements further. Human rights abuses largely stem from class struggle and latent contradictions in society, opposing identities and possibilities, if that makes sense. Excess is a feature of all systems, and as such investigating what drives conflict and the manner of how it’s resolved requires a class analysis. In other words, it isn’t about size, or ideas of power, but largely resolution of contradictions.
In China, the working classes are in control of the state. However, contradictions exist, like the gap between urban and rural development, the class conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, the contradiction between domestic and foreign capital, between liberalism and communism. These contradictions give rise to excess, which is avoidable suffering. However, unlike dictatorships of capital, China’s socialist system is built to address these contradictions.
Rural development is being prioritized to close the gap, including expanding rail, poverty alleviation programs, and making use of urban industrial production to build up rural areas. The proletariat are in control of the state, and use it to publicly own the commanding heights of industry, keeping the bourgeoisie subservient. Foreign capital is limited in what it can actually own, and technology share is mandatory. Corruption is regularly checked, and corrupt party members expelled from the party and punished.
China, compared to capitalist countries, has a great human rights track record, domestic and foreign. It is flawed, because it is real, and more than capitalist countries its structure allows it to improve over time. This extends to areas like LGBTQIA+ rights, which are increasingly important to younger generations while the more socially conservative older generations are replaced. China systemically has a people-first structure.
Forgive me if this is a confused question, I’m still learning my dialectics, but how does China’s concept of democratic centrism and its insistence that the CCP be the sole governing body mesh with this understanding of contradictions and their resolution? Is the existence of absolute power itself not a restriction that prevents (or could very well prevent) the movement and change that would otherwise happen to resolve the contradictions you mention? Like, fundamentally I just don’t see how dialectical materialism is consistent with unchallenged and unjustified power.
Is the existence of absolute power itself not a restriction
I just don’t see how dialectical materialism is consistent with unchallenged and unjustified power.Well there’s your problem. Did you even read the rest of what Cowbee said in this thread, explaining much of how governance in China actually works? You come here basing your questions around this false assumption of “the existence of absolute power,” when no one in China has absolute power, rather power is vastly more evenly distributed there than in liberal “democracies.”
The fact that there is a single party is not (as western propaganda would have you believe) evidence of “dictatorship,” but instead functions as a bulwark preventing reaction and the destruction of the revolution by capital - something I would hope you would be able to recognize even with a very basic understanding of dialectics. There is no reason the will of the people can’t be enacted via a single party that exists to ensure it is their will and not that of capital that rules, indeed it makes more sense to have a single party when the rule of the people is the goal.
Consider how the approval rating for their government across the population of China, well over a billion people, is above 90%! And now consider the U.S. with it’s “two party” system, where both parties represent the interests only of the political donor class (capital) and the government is largely despised by the population. The power there is concentrated in a small number of ultrawealthy bourgeoisie and it is continuously getting worse, more and more concentrated, while the people of the US are losing more and more of their so-called rights every day.
Yet you frame your questions under this base (and false) assumption of “unchallenged and unjustified power” in China without even considering how power is constantly challenged there (see Cowbee’s explanation further up of the many direct elections in China) and through that challenge, its justification is consistently being reestablished.
Authoritarian solarpunk. But really it shows the issues of anarchism, works in small scale but is fragile when scaled. The probably most efficient government form would be a dictatorship of the wise.
Solar panels and computer chips need large complex centralized factories, but that is basically 0%of the Land so there’s no problem with having both, as long as you don’t pretend that your solar powered homestead isn’t dependent on inputs like that.
The probably most efficient government form would be a dictatorship of the wise.
This is just aristocracy with no extra steps, just other name.
That’s an interesting topic btw - what is the way for any dictatorship to work well for everyone’s benefit in theory? If it’s dictatorship of the wise, would smartest people get put into place with absolute power? Is it an expectation that people currently in power pass power voluntarily to wiser people? Would there be a framework that determines wisest people and it would be decided upon by the popular consensus? Isn’t it technically still a democracy if people trust in the framework/system that governs how smartest people are decided upon?
Why not just say you’re against solarpunk? Why try to twist solarpunk to be something it’s not?
Have you forgotten all about me:
My problem with Solarpunk is that it’s an aesthetics-first movement. I appreciate solar and believe it to be necessary, I just believe that theory and practice need to form the base of any movement.
Punk has always had an ethos
I’m aware, but Solarpunk specifically, from what I’ve read from the people pushing the movement, tends to lack theoretical and practical basis, closer to early utopianism than a scientific form of socialism.
That’s deliberate.
The lack of a theoretical and practical basis is deliberate, or the idea that Solarpunk lacks such a basis is deliberate? I’m referring to what people that consider themselves in the Solarpunk community and movement have described and recommended to me for reading.
For example, from the Solarpunk Manifesto:
Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”
The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and lush, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid.
Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world , but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not only warnings.
It’s primarily based on aesthetics and finding potential plans for future society, not a practical means for getting there or implementing said plans, despite its insistence on doing so. This is why I say it isn’t really scientific socialism, but utopianism, which has historically resulted in one-off communes that last a good while without actually challenging the status quo or spreading.
Solarpunk in practice borrows from anarchism or Marxism, without fully committing to either, and as such is reduced to its aesthetics.
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Zenz-maxxing
Gotta love guzzling CIA propaganda uncritically.
They aren’t? Not only is the idea of mass Uyghur slave labor atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, but the PRC is an incredibly industrialized country and as such doesn’t have a need for slavery. Slavery in general is a horribly inefficient system fir anything other than agrarian production, which is why the Statesian North liberated the slaves in the south, for more wage-laboring industrial workers.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China’s response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn’t going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Not to mention you don’t really need slavery when your minimum wage is like 3 euros an hour and unpaid overtime is the norm anyway, at least in office work
China’s doing this capitalism thing way better than the west. We should really learn from them. For example if the US abolished auto unions and increased manufacturing subsidies, they could lower wages and deliver cars for more competitive prices instead of having to rely solely on tariffs on Chinese EVs.
Keep coping that, however bad you have it your country, China must be worse, so it’s fine that you and your fellow citizens won’t do anything about the deteriorating conditions.
Purchasing power in China goes much farther, real wages are much higher than 3 euro equivalent, and that’s for minimum wage, not median. High working hours in office work are a problem to work on, yes, but not one with no signs of improvement. The PRC is a socialist economy with heavy union presence. The large firms and key industries are publicly owned, ie public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. The US Empire can’t compete with China because it hollowed out its own industry in favor of outsourcing it and imperializing the global south.
meanwhile in the real world
typical Chinese adult is now richer than the typical European adult https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-richer-than-europeans-wealth-report-finds-2022-9
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
Chinese household savings hit another record high in 2024 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI
Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
None of these things would be happening in China if it was doing capitalism. It would look the way other capitalist shitholes look like today.
“Re-education”, that’s one way to describe what they do in these camps. And please stop deflecting with “the West did way worse” arguments. To me, China is just as bad as the West.
Clueless
Re-education is also the correct way to describe the vocational schools. I’m not deflecting in mentioning the west, the utility in pointing out how the west deals with extremism is to show that allegations of slave labor and genocide are projection. I understand that you think China is just as bad as the west, the problem is that your reasoning for believing that is based entirely on what the west lies to you about China.
stop deflecting with “the West did way worse” arguments.
It’s not deflection dipshit. Why is the US arming ETIM separatist terrorists? What is the PRC supposed to do when you have radicalized islamists running around killing people in your opinion? Bomb a random country like the US did amrite?
Removed by mod
In the most abstract sense: Is organisation without authority possible?
In a concrete sense, yes
What appeals to you about that text?
How authority is defined and how Engels actually logically provides an answer to the question whether organization without authority is possible
A short ‘logical’ essay can give any answer in an abstract sense, but that doesn’t discount empirical examples.
Always seemed to me like Engels begs the question, takes “anarchy = chaos” as a starting assumption.
Empirical examples… that you have not provided?
Solar punk or solar authoritarianism?
Solar punk is “real” as in, plenty people living off grid on solar, catchment, whatever. China does seem to be making whatever theyre doing become a thing. And its great. Cheap energy probably the most effective path to world peace. If we can get the price to “effectively 0” we can solve just about everything.
How would you produce solar panels when living “off grid”? You need a large, integrated economy to be able to produce such complicated hardware. This is why solar punk is fundamentally an elitist ideology. You look down your nose on “authoritarians”, and have a holier-than-thou attitude toward them, but the society you envision is impossible without them.
Solar panels last a long time and in 30 years or so we will have enough to power the world for a century.
What distinguishes “punk” from “authoritarian?” Is it not punk to radically “abolish the present state of things,” as Marx says, and which the PRC is steadfastly working towards? What makes the PRC “authoritarian” in a way that makes it unacceptable?
I’m also unconvinced that energy prices at effectively 0 will solve everything either, class struggle remains, and we will all have to follow in the footsteps of countries like China in overthrowing the bourgeoisie, as they did in 1949.
Imagine being over the age of 10 and using the word authoritarianism like it means anything.
Ths is sad
How so?
