That’s not true, no matter how many times you make that unsupported claim.

You are conflating the elemental molecule of iron with the finished product of an alloy of carbonized iron aka as steel.

Yes, there isn’t a molecular difference between the iron found in sand vs the iron found in rock ore. However, the medium in which you harvest your iron and how you’re able to heat that iron, dictates the quality not your final product.

Lol, my dude. No one is claiming that modern japanese steel is of poor quality.

Im speaking of the time period contemporary with the accusation. You know, how arguments typically work…

Do you think the guns Japanese Samurai used were made from steel refined from sand?

Just pointing out this one because it’s funny. Yes, a lot of the early firearms made in Japan were still made from iron sand (Satetsu). Which was the main source of iron in Japan until the 16th century.

The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I’ll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

I would say it’s important to evaluate all of these points as a whole. I think evaluating certain aspects of a system under a microscope without equating how it’s supposed to function tends to divert attention from the purpose of the hierarchical system to begin with.

The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests.

I don’t know if it means they’re automatically guided by bourgeois interest, but I would also hesitate to claim that just next it’s an SOE it’s immune from creating class stratification. My fear is that an increase of wealth disparity is an indication of a new mode of class stratification.

Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie.

Not that I want to spiral into endless discussion again , but I think framing the argument where we must assume a dictatorship of the proletariat has occurred isn’t a logically sound way to question the effectiveness of any hierarchical system.

You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can’t beam information into everyone’s brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.

I understand the benefit of a centralized economy, my main fear is that systems of hierarchical control are self reinforcing. Hierarchical systems stabilize over time as you utilize them for their intended purpose. If we take a look at the purpose of a profit driven SOE, it’s still to create capital. Now that capital is being controlled by the state, but simply putting that under a stricter hierarchy doesn’t mean that the system is going to change its inherent purpose.

If we assume that the CCP continue to nationalize private organizations until 100% of the production value is being controlled by the state, does that mean the purpose of the hierarchical system is going to change? There will still be people attempting to reinforce the hierarchal system they have been judged upon their entire careers. People have risen to places of power by reinforcing the system of profit, and they will try to protect the system that they excelled at.

I’m not an anarchist or anything and don’t agree with a lot of his hot takes, however if you’re interested Murray Bookchin’s analysis on hierarchy is pretty impressive.

I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind.

An unfortunate rarity now a days. Thanks for keeping it classy.

According to whom?

The reason why Japanese iron is inferior is because of the source of the iron itself, they utilized iron sand instead of rock ore. Rock ore can be made up to 90% ferrous material while the iron sand contains as little as 2%.

This means when you smelt your source material into blooms of iron and slag, the blooms made from sand iron were much smaller. Instead of utilizing a single bloom to make a sword, the Japanese had to work several blooms together. Which is much more labour intensive, and can lead to a lot of imperfections in the final product.

This is why katanas were made out of so little material, and had to be handled with care. They were much more fragile pieces than similar swords made in Korea and China at the time.

Plus, the Japanese developed their iron working much later than their mainland contemporaries, as they never independently invented furnace technology. The technology for furnaces was imported, most likely from the Korean peninsula.

Fair enough, however I would like to point out that my responses have been direct responses prompted by questions and statements originated by you and the person you were originally responding to.

But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.

In my opinion so long as the company’s structural hierarchy and it’s inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there’s not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don’t really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.

There’s still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There’s still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there’s a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.

Thank you for your time, it’s pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don’t 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.

Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.

So you’re saying state ownership is a response to increased disparity, yet the increase of state ownership hasn’t been effective at controlling the disparity.

Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.

An ad hominem? I see this response a lot about anything having to do with the uyghur population. Even if some of the information referenced was gathered by a fascist, that doesn’t mean the information itself is flawed.

The haber process was invented by a literal Nazi and we still utilize it to produce nitrogen. Whatever his motivations, the information he gathered has all been verified by reputable journalists to originate from internal part communications or publicly released information.

Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.

You don’t speak for all Marxist, and Marxist don’t get to redefine terminology to exclude themselves from valid criticism. Even if everyone accepted this definition of imperialism… What do you call it when you violently expand your territorial holdings with ethno national intent?

What do we call it when they transfer entire nationalities to places like Kazakhstan to extract the wealth to support the Slavic population? It’s a complete cop out to think that redefining a term to muddy the waters is meaningful despite the end results being tragically similar.

Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances.

Source?

The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn’t at “breakneck speeds,” you’re going to have to describe what that entails.

The share of China’s national income earned by the top 10% of the population has increased from 27% in 1978 to 41% in 2015, nearing the U.S.’s 45% and surpassing France’s 32%.

Similarly, the wealth share of the top 10% of the population reached 67%, close to the U.S.’s 72% and higher than France’s 50%.

Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng’s statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.

Then why is wealth disparity still growing? If SOE have nationalized the majority of production, how is the disparity continue to grow?

Well, it’s because SOE are still profit driven… A nationalized business that still has profit motive isnt inherently different from private organization, especially considering that most of these SOE still have a significant amount of shares being publicly traded.

How is creating wealth for the state and share holders different from creating wealth for a capitalist and share holders for a workers perspective. There still an inherent motivation to maximize profits at the expense of their own workers.

Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there’s even workplace democracy. Simply saying “it seems as though xyz” and gesturing isn’t an argument.

Simply stating there are “Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power,” isn’t an argument. Especially considering there’s widely available reports of workplaces ignoring these guilines without retort. On top of that nearly a third of their workforce lacks the protections outlines by the state as they are migrant workers who dont work full time for a single employer.

As far as real estate purchasing power… I think we both know the extent of their issues within the real estate market.

I don’t really have any criticisms about the majority of their large infrastructure projects, that’s an area I think theyre ahead of the rest of the world, however id hardly say that’s a byproduct of “workers owning the means of production”. I’d say that’s more a byproduct of a more centralized government .

Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management “class?”

Yes, real wages are rising. But is that a product of industrialization or socialism? Every nation that industrializes sees a rise in wages, that’s not inherent to workers seizing the means of production. What’s strange is that real wages and disparity are rising in eerily similar patterns as western nations.

what on Earth is a management “class?”

Are you being purposely obtuse, or just can’t make the leap in deduction? What do you call a class of people whos job is to represent capitalist in the actual workplace? People whom don’t participate in ownership, but work on behalf of the owners to maximize their profits at the behest of the capitalist?

Just because people don’t utilize the same internalized diction accepted in your particular political ideology, doesn’t mean the information isn’t valid. That’s just asking for discourse based purely on semantic reasoning.

statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.

Right, but you you said it in reference to class reductionism… Which doesn’t really make sense as there wasn’t an established stratified class consciousness at the time.

I honestly don’t have a problem with Communism, I think Marx was brilliant and dialectical materialism is probably one of the most important ideas of the millennium. Im just not as optimistic about the contemporary implementations of it, and I think it’s important to point out the internal contradictions of past and current states for future attempts.

I constantly see people talking about the importance of addressing internal contradictions, however when anyone points out something like rising disparity or soe having profit motive, I tend to just get knee jerk reactions that are usually based in logical fallacy.

I think you and most Marxist who reflexively defend the contemporary CCP from valid criticism would benefit from a different perspective from someone once very engaged in the party. This isn’t a liberal perspective but someone who is upset at the liberalization of the modern CCP.

From Victory To Defeat: China’s Socialist Road and Capitalist Reversal

by Pao-yu Ching

I think the first sentence is probably enough to make anyone not afflicted with a eurocentric brain want to palm some face.

I think excusing it as a “not serious” statement is dangerous, as a lot of people even on Lemmy won’t second guess it.

The belief that the west is the origin of all science and culture is surprisingly pervasive, especially in the tech industry.

My point was that his assertion that Marx didn’t judge Engles for being a capitalist isn’t really meaningful as they didn’t ideologically conflict at the time. There wasn’t an ideological divide between a capitalist and workers, as workers hadn’t developed a stratified class consciousness.

The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.

I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.

Source for forced labor in China.

I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical.

Ahh, so examine internal contradictions…but don’t actually call them contradictions.

It depends on what era and region you are talking about. Stalin was a supporter of communism in one country, as opposed to Mao who urged each country to adopt communism with characteristics unique to each culture.

A large part of the split between Trotsky and Stalin occured over how to handle the CCP during the Japanese invasion. Stalin wanted to make a deal with the KMT and later turn on them, Trotsky wanted to aid the budding CCP in their fight against imperialism.

When talking about the spread in eastern Europe, the Soviets implemented programs to replace languages and culture.

In Korea the Soviets disappeared the socialist leader of Korea who was paramount in fighting off the Japanese, because he wanted control of the country to be transferred back to Koreans and for unification to begin ASAP. He was replaced by the Kim family, who they had trained in Russia.

Or we could just take a look at how the Soviets treated the non Slavic people withing the USSR. Whom are overwhelmingly more impoverished and have historically had the wealth of their land extracted to support the Slavic population. As well as being drafted for wars at a tremendously higher rate than their Slavic counterparts.

Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?

What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?

This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.

Source?

said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC.

Soo if the state “owns” the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don’t have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America… What does that say? Something isn’t adding up here.

Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose… Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.

There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.

You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.

It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.

And what has that ownership meant for the people who “own the means of production”? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.

Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.

Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.

It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.

Is that worker really worker ownership…? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.

How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you “own”?

Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.

Right… But my point was there’s not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.

when they tried to jump to Communism under Mao and the later Gang of Four, they ran into massive issues because the Means of Production weren’t developed enough.

That’s legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.

I don’t think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.

Like it or not, the USSR collapsed due to trying to stay isolated from the West, which legitimately led to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods.

The USSR didn’t collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.

Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60’s.

Russia didn’t want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn’t track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.

It maintains a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over Capital,

But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers’ councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.

Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.

The bourgeoisie exists, but has been kept no larger than can be drowned in a bathtub, in terms of power relation to the CPC, so to speak.

I’m sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to “drown in a bathtub”. 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.

When analyzing something, it isn’t sufficient to take a present-day snapshot, you must consider its history, its relations to other entities, its contradictions, and its trajectory.

Yes, and now let’s look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We’ve gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.

What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn’t productive enough to make that particular leap…who the hell can?

As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership…modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.

Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I’m grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn’t coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?

Engels was a Capitalist, was Marx hypocritical for keeping Engels as his closest friend and ally? No. Class reductionism is dogmatic, we must analyze correctly.

Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who’s disciples were Jews.

You can’t be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.

I can vouch for reolink, they have fairly straight forward nvr with decent cameras for the money. Been using their poe nvr system for around 5 years now and have never had an issue with it.

But Spartan women weren’t that bad off, compared to other places in antiquity

We also white wash Spartan history pretty dramatically. Yes, Spartan women who were citizens were better off than their Athenian counterparts. However, that’s not saying much when you consider spartan citizens were a fraction of the population of Sparta.

The vast majority of women in Sparta were helots, and were subject to chattel slavery. I don’t think you can claim that Spartans cared about gender equality when they had an entire social class made up of the bastards produced by raping their slaves.

Depends on the plastic, you can safely heat most polypropylene and polyethylene based plastics. If it’s putting off noxious fumes then it probably has urethane, styrene, or vinyl in it.

The worst plastic to overheat that I’ve worked with is kydex. Even though it’s most common application is as a thermoplastic, if you over heat it the stuff off gasses hydrogen chloride.

This isn’t going to be accurate, it’s ignoring a key aspect of the heat that will be generated, friction. When designing materials for prosthetics we have to be aware of how much friction occurs between the material and skin. If the amount of friction is too great, the material can create enough heat to damage tissue.

The formula for the skin friction coefficient is cf=τw12ρeue2, where ρe and ue are the density and longitudinal velocity at the boundary layer’s edge.

Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn’t be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.

My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.

Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024

I too have thousands of reasons why I shouldn’t be in charge of a country, however I do have one good pitch.

My appointment to dictatorship would be guided solely by autism. I guarantee my powers will only be focused upon my two fixations that deal with the general public, trains and healthcare.

If made supreme leader I will not only make the trains run on time, there will be more trains, more hospitals, we would even have trains that can take you to your job at the hospital. I would shape the perfect world for me, and vicariously a more efficient and safer world for you.

Demand Me for dictator 2024

Command Senior Chief

The person who came up with the scheme is also the most senior NCO on the ship. All the enlisted people in charge of monitoring that activity knew, they just knew not to ask questions.You would be surprised how much pull an E-8 or E-9 has in the military.

According to the Regan administration perhaps, but not according to intelligence agencies from several European countries.

Again, a reductionist interpretation. There’s been a lot of conspiracies over the years due to so many groups initially claiming responsibility. However the trial held in the UK and a recent one in 2020 both point to the same culprit.

I think you may be talking about the bombing in Germany.

Either way, the point is that Gaddafi has sponsored over 15 violent paramilitary groups in other people’s countries. Not exactly going to be winning a lot of friends on the global stage by doing that.

This is not what stable leadership looks like …

that 1) NATO did, in fact, make a move on Gaddafi

Not something I ever disputed? Would be kinda hard for a rebel force to get a cruise missile.

2. the West supported him when it was beneficial but turned on a dime the minute he stopped cooperating.

This I don’t really agree with as it’s a bit of a reductionist mischaracterization. Gaddafi literally funded terrorist attacks on the US in the 80s, which led to about 15-20 years of political disruptions between the two countries. They normalized relations again in the early 00s, with the US eventually going as far as to delist them from the state sponsored terror list in 08.

It would be hard to describe that as “turned on a dime the minute he stopped cooperating”. There’s a reason why no one in the UN, including Russia and China UN vetoed the resolution.