“Lol China will never catch up”
Outsources everything to China
China catches up
“Yeah well China will never become eco friendly”
China starts producing cheap eco friendly tech
Yellen: “Hurr durr muh overproduction will hurt the oil compa- i mean global market”
“We already benefited from slaves so now slavery is bad, We dictate what civilized world means”
and
“We polluted the whole world for our industrial revolution, so now pollution is bad, we protec environment”
Outsources everything to a country without any labor rights or environmental protection
feels good man
also
“We enabled our big tech to create a global surveillance system and international monopolies”
Tiktok bad because it reports to CCP
Pointing out any of the hypocrisy means you’re a tankie (i’m yet to know what it actually means).
As far as I’m concerened, one does bad things without any filter, one uses the media, tech and its hegemony to project a positive image while severely downplaying and ignoring their atrocities.
Sooner or later, China is also going to learn to do the same with their big tech and media companies.
What you said is all true. And most of the tankies I’ve come across seem to hold their beliefs mostly due to learning about and needing to confront the hypocrisy that you’ve outlined.
But in my opinion, they come to some strange conclusions. For example, it seems to me that many hold Russia and especially China up as some kind of shining beacon of hope, and miss that they are just as bad as the US, if not worse, just in different ways.
I think it’s out of the false dichotomy of The West vs China and Russia. While in fact there is no dichotomy, every large political actor will only try to bend everyone else, not benefit humanity.
It’s not a capture the flag, it’s more of a death match, but many think they are too big to fail, have too much upper hand, or can outsmart others. Too bad the people are the losing side
If it helps, probably not
A tankie is a kind of communist that is disliked by other communists. So you know if someone calls you a tankie, that person is a leftie and they agree you’re a leftie too, but the bad ones.
It comes from the invasion of socialist Hungary (?? Not really sure here) by Soviet tanks. There were people for and against it. The ones in Hungary defending Soviet point of view, that is, supporting tanks imposing social order, were called tankies.
what do you mean sooner or later? China’s spreading their influence now, their hegemony has been growing to rival the West through their investments in Africa and South America. They started decades ago, and really caught up during the Trump presidency.
Western Economists: What China really needs to do is stop investing in production, promote domestic consumption, and start spending foreign reserves on goods rather than bonds.
Because China can outsource everything to India, while India can outsource everything to Africa…
makes me wonder what would happen when we run out of cheap labour in third world countries
but I guess, no one will ever let all the (other) countries develop enough for that to happen 😠
So it is pyramid scheme
The impending climate/water crisis is likely to make us find out! As conditions worsen it will effect “third world countries” the most (and highly dense countries), forcing an unprecedented wave of immigration. Our systems aren’t built for this, and we seem fully unwilling to change anything until it is actively on fire.
China closed the gap for sure, but they haven’t caught up yet. Their demographic issues and deflation over the next decade is likely to hinder their progress in closing that gap
Not that I oppose other economic systems from prospering, just I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’ve caught up. For example, they still can’t manufacture chips at as small a scale as US companies can. That’s a very significant manufacturing component to be dependent on
What “other economic system?” China is a state capitalist command economy – They can call themselves “communist” all they want but at this point it is in name only and we all know it. They left behind any shreds of actual communist philosophy in the late 1970’s and conveniently kept only the Soviet style authoritarian parts.
The entire country is run as one giant business for the purposes of profit, and although major swathes of their business sector may be state-owned, they’re still driven by a capitalist profit motive, and they keep said profits for themselves to no benefit of the teeming masses who make up everyone who isn’t already at the top.
I’m anti authoritarian, but I meant centralized vs decentralized economic planning. I agree though, communism is state capitalism
I work for a company that manufactures environmental testing chambers. We also have operations in China, but they mostly sell to the Asian and European markets. They make one specific model at that plant, 4-5 units at a time, very rapidly, but they can’t do custom work, like the plant I work at in the US does. We specifically make chambers that are outfitted to meet specific needs of our customers, our Chinese plant can’t do that yet.
Yeah it’s non-stop laughs here
I’d laugh, but I lost the ability to in an asbestos mine and don’t have health insurance to fix it.
Don’t worry about it. They can’t really fix that anyway.
And Canada, too. Thanks Mulroney.
Privatized oil, privatized Air Canada, privatized Via Rail. They would’ve gone further if they could’ve.
They’re really trying here in Alberta. I hate it here
Preach. It’s just getting worse and worse here.
I feel sorry for you.
And Australia, too. Thanks Hawke.
Don’t forget the NAFTA-shafta. Selling all our manufacturing down the river.
Because Karl Marx said socialism is good, and they determined Karl Marx is bad, therefore socialism must be bad.
Other way. They determined socialism is bad first since that gives a real alternative to capitalism.
It doesn’t need to be an alternative. It’s a really effective way to regulate capitalism by standardizing and socializing private industries like education, police, fire, roads, internet access, healthcare, etc.
Socialism is the workers collectively owning the means of production, everything else is just details. (Well, the anti-heirarchy bit is important too, especially to keep the means from falling into something that isn’t just capitalism with extra steps, but complicated)
It is innately opposed to capitalism as a result. What it isn’t innately opposed to is a market economy.
Is a service economy inherently socialist? The person is the means of production and is self owned.?
🤔
The problem would start when you start organizing the service provision into company heirarchies. Especially if the main thing someone provides is owning the company. In that case, the “means of production” include the organization itself.
I could see a really idealized gig economy model working, though. Or just everything being organized as worker co-ops.
And, of course, then you have to start asking questions about how the service economy is actually procuring resources to function. Sure, you’re trade based, in theory, but who are you trading with? One of the reasons socialism tends to be globalist in nature is that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good for the idea if that “socialist economy” is actually supported by imperialism or someone else doing the ruthless exploitation of labor and then selling you those resources for cheap.
How socialist is your worker owned co-op, really, if you’re buying your food from a slave plantation?
The means of production would not just be yourself but also other work tools. A basic desk job wouldn’t really fall under this condition, since you usually don’t have control over your computer or the software running in it, for example. I couldn’t think of any example of a service job where all the work tools are worker controlled right now.
Socialized industries, like the ones stated above, are collectively paid for by all citizens and provided to all citizens equally. You don’t pay every time you need the police because their salaries are socialized by taxes. It’s an effective way to ensure quality of life for all citizens, with payments proportional to their income. Adding industries to tax socialization is an effective way to bring balance to capitalism, and improve the quality of life for vulnerable members of society, without the need of a full system overhaul.
If power remains with the capitalist class, and industry continues to be organized around their whim, you will not achieve meaningful reform, except in response to a threat, which will be taken away when that threat diminishes. FDR didn’t do the New Deal because he was secretly had socialist beliefs despite his family, but because he was old money buying guillotine insurance.
I was clarifying the difference between checking capitalism with socialism, and a socialist economy. You seemed to think socialism cannot be integrated into capitalism. Did my explanation help you understand the difference now?
What you are describing is social democracy, a subset of capitalism. That is not socialism integrated into capitalism, because once again, power remains with the capitalist class.
Honey socialism is an economic system. A socialist economy is socialism.
Like, a honeydew melon is a honeydew.
Socialism is when the government does stuff, huh
Socialism does not need to be regulated by a government. It’s a form of economy. However, we currently socialize many industries in a capitalist nation, and by socializing more industries, we can improve the lives of poor people at the expense of the wealthy, effectively keeping capitalism more equitable.
It’s okay to be a social democrat, buddy, welfare states are perfectly acceptable forms of ideological liberalism.
One might even call it a step on the path to actual socialism. Someone should write a book about these transitionary states, perhaps leading to the eventual withering of the state entirely.
I would argue that the alternative is important even if you don’t do it. The USSR increased standards of living in capitalist powers by leaps and bounds, just by standing, even only on paper, for an alternative.
Sweden also stopped investing in infrastructure in the 1980s but not because of privatisation. It’s just very expensive. Now everyone one is blaming each other when everything breaks down, especially politicians that are no longer in the government. There is no “accountability” for the government.
The child in me takes some twisted pleasure in hearing of Scandinavians suffering from similar problems to us over here who seem to be unable to right the ship. Maybe it’s a misery loves company thing. Maybe it’s because I think the more of us suffer, the quicker we can all work together on a larger scale to come up with a fix. Just feels a bit hopeless at times, and I guess it’s by design.
And I wish the best for you in Sweden, I don’t mean to suggest I am hoping for your failure at all. I just see a picture painted here and on Reddit so frequently of a bustling utopia, and it can be a little demoralizing at times.
Maybe it’s because I think the more of us suffer, the quicker we can all work together on a larger scale to come up with a fix.
I’d love to share that line of thought, but then I remember the COVID response and that initial plan for a patent free vaccine.
Same shit different day it feels like. I just don’t know what it’ll take for a full on workforce strike. Whoever is pulling the strings does a great job balancing taking away our liberties with working us to the bone.
You’re absolutely right though, and it just leaves me feeling like what now, what do we do? And then we fight over stuff amongst each other.
Do guerrilla rail, figure out the nearest land contiguous place with a smart grid, and the nearest place with coherent train signalling. if their system isnt shit, adopt the standard. If it is shit, look up whatever the Japanese are using and rip off their shit. Block by block. Just appropriate a traffic lane, say the outside one.
Its not the best way, but I do genuinely think people could fund construction and maintenance of rail lines on their streets. Making them IT and electrical arteries as well (you’re already running communication and high voltage lines, possibly small wireless solar setups for signal redundancy) makes sense. Get rural broadband and really good fucking economical transit.
I wish there were a community of extremely obsessive online rail nerds that could be tapped to plan something like this, down to the level of a proper network (with like the tiny tolerances you get in modern rails), so we could just, like, look up our blocks and order the necessary parts off a list and start building.
‘Us’ starts with u.
Love the energy but cant understand how it would work or what it would achieve.
Being able to get around, eventually.
I find it depressing/reassuring in equal measure because whilst Scandinavia is better in many respects, it’s still no escape from the dominance of neoliberalism.
One of the forces that drove neoliberalism is globalisation, so it feels intuitive to me that neoliberalism itself is a global problem. Like all economic paradigms, it’ll be unseated by something else, hopefully sooner rather than later. A post-neoliberal US would look quite different to a post-neoliberal Scandinavia, and I can’t imagine either of those, but when change happens, I reckon it’ll be a global thing.
I remember when driving from Finland to Sweden, the road quality markedly dropped when we crossed the border. I found that funny, because I was sharing a car with some friends who had had an unfortunate time in Sweden and they joked that the sudden dip in road quality was more evidence of Sweden being cursed.
Any source for that?
Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted, just wanted to verify that.
Stories like this will always by its nature opinionated. There will have been expenses made but who can say it was enough? That was kind of my point in the original posy though, that it’s very easy to blame someone or something. Here are some pieces that may paint the picture of Swedish rail. I will leave translation to the reader rather than trying to do that myself.
Everyone seems to agree that investments are needed but no one wants to invest:
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Opinion piece (2024, Left), “Everyone is blaming anyone else”: “I Sverige är järnvägen ett virrvarr där alla skyller på andra och ingen tar ansvar för att tågen kommer fram i tid.” https://jarnvagar.nu/det-kravs-storre-satsningar-pa-jarnvagen/
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Government statement 2022: “Behoven inom infrastrukturen är stora och en satsning på höghastighetsjärnväg skulle tränga undan andra nödvändiga investeringar.” https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2022/12/regeringen-lagger-om-vaxlarna-for-jarnvagsinfrastrukturen/
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Opinion piece 2014, blaming the creation of SJ 1988 [Wikipedia says SJ was founded 2001, weird]: “Järnvägssystemet har brutits sönder och fel bannedläggningar gjorts under mer än 50 år.” https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/samhalle-och-valfard/infrastruktur/tagexperter-den-svenska-jarnvagen-har-havererat/
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Wikipedia, citing a lot of dates. Excerpt: “Denna nedläggningsutveckling påbörjades strax före andra världskrigets utbrott (bland annat nedläggning av linjen Lund–Bjärred våren 1939), stannade av under kriget, accelererade på 1950-talet, nådde en topp kring 1965, gick sedan nedåt för att nå en ny nedläggningsvåg i mitten och slutet av 1980-talet.” https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_järnvägshistoria
*Opinion piece (2023, Right): “Det bedrövliga tillståndet för den svenska järnvägen är ovanligt tydligt just nu. Decennier av bristande underhåll har skapat ett järnvägssystem med stora – och växande – brister.” https://www.di.se/ledare/lyssna-pa-wallenberg-och-storsatsa-pa-jarnvagen/
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But I was told that Sweden is a socialist utopian paradise where there is no right wing, all the cities, bridges, and sidewalks are clean, new, and shiny, you can walk or cycle everywhere 365 days a year, free healthcare and lollipops are offered on every street corner, and everyone is happy and productive all the time!
Did the internet lie to me???
You can just look at any objective metric of wealth or wellbeing and notice Sweden very often near the top of the list. You don’t need to invent some theoretical internet opinion in your head to be mad at.
You don’t need to invent some theoretical internet opinion in your head to be mad at
This is a good one, I’m going to remember it for use in every other thread
It’s thoroughly capitalist, but most people pay hefty taxes so public funding is in a much better place than most countries.
But no right wing is wild. There’s quite a hefty following down south and historically Sweden was “neutral” in WW2 which included selling to the Nazis and transporting their troops around.
This might be revisionism but laying down flat and doing your enemy’s bidding is the same as joining them.
It’s pretty accurate though.
4 people are richer than God
Wait… Doesn’t the church give all their donation money to that guy? Surely God is still richer. /s
“He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!”
There really is a Carlin quote for everything
I mean the guy canonically can’t resist taking a bet on wether torturing a guy will make him lose faith, might be a bit of a gambling problem.
God spends the money through his disciples, child.
Now fucking tithe.
I donate 10% of my income to the poor.
I am the poor.
The more you give, the more you qualify to receive!
We take tithe now, charity comes next weekTM
Similar thing happened to German telecommunication infrastructure (for an industry nation our internet is notoriously bad in compatison to EU neighbours), happened to our public transport infrastructure, especially to our trains, and is currently happening to our hospitals.
Privatizing critical infrastructure has never been a good idea.
It’s a good thing that the train infrastructure is now for the common good (gemeinwohlorientiert) and can finally renovate everything.
Don’t get me wrong: the trains are still for profit
(West-)German telecom was a government monopoly run by the mail service and it was terrible.
They’re waiting for The Trickle.
I feel like I have been trickled on my whole life. Kinda ready for it to stop honestly. Maybe they could take a step closer to the capitalist urinal.
Any day now!
Sure but almost everyone is richer than god. That mf needs money all the time.
Read ‘The Shock Doctrine’…
I don’t remember anything about potholes.
I hate the roads here in the UK. I feel like I’m driving a slalom every time I get in the car. So many potholes. Some are pretty tiny, but others are like god himself fisted the road
Why even have them? Guerrilla rail honestly seems simpler. Just take the most ruined lane and chop it up a little more, then pile some gravel, planks, and ties on top.
Spray paint cocks around every pot hole.
No worries,mobility will tickle down eventually
I’m still waiting for the first round of trickle down economics to reach me…
Keep in mind that it’s actually really bloody hard to get potholes filled as a “private entitty” the only real option you have is to literally throw money at the “Local Government” whatever it might be called for you then tell them the flow will stop unless they do it.
Free market can’t do shit unless it’s actually free to do stuff like this.
Ghostface Kafka is an awesome username.
Yeah…
…ha ha…
…funny…
