• UnfortunateShort
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    310 minutes ago

    The former acted because he was personally affected by a person supporting exploitation within a liberal system, the latter leads an authoritarian regime that allowed their CEOs to do what they do until they got annoying for whatever reasons.

    So if you want to talk objective results here, sure, one of them got a higher kill count. However, who has the moral high ground here is not even up to debate IMO

  • @assassinatedbyCIA
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    74 hours ago

    The corporate media has been consistent in their response to both.

  • @maxinstuff
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    126 hours ago

    Punching down vs punching up

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      Won’t someone think of the poor billionaires?! 😭 Communism is scary… I don’t think I want the Proletariat to have power after all, those billionaires seem so cool and fun… /s

      • Dessalines
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        45 hours ago

        Nothing is more terrifying to liberals, than a government having capitalists under their thumb, and serving the people, rather than the other way around as is normal in their “superior” capitalist dictatorships.

  • @GrammarPolice
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    3210 hours ago

    One is authoritarian in nature, the other is protestant in nature. These are not the same thing

    • comfy
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      117 hours ago

      The authorization of CEO execution sounds like a good thing. People are clearly singing for it, so why not make it policy?

      • @[email protected]OP
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        bc when the gubmint do thing it makes it communist and that’s literally like that book with the animals at the farm

      • @GrammarPolice
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        2510 hours ago

        Luigi’s alleged actions were an attempt at drawing attention to social issues. Xi Jinping’s actions on the other hand are attempts at violently suppressing opposition ergo authoritarianism.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      Bro but they did it dictatorshiply 😭 in a real democracy you’d yell at them online, get arrested by Homeland Security, and politicians give them another 500 million in subsidies and tax breaks.

      • Dessalines
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        85 hours ago

        Not sure. But the US just executed an innocent man, Marcellus Williams, just a few months ago.

        Some more US legal system fun facts!


        • The US currently operates a system of slave labor camps, including at least 54 prison farms involved in agricultural slave labor. Outside of agricultural slavery, Federal Prison Industries operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories , where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies. 1, 2, 3
        • The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Even individual US states outrank all other countries.
        • The War On Drugs, a policy of arrest and imprisonment targeting minorities, first initiated by Nixon, has over the years created a monstrous system of mass incarceration, resulting in the imprisonment of 1.5 million people each year, with the US having the most prisoners per capita of any nation. One in five black Americans will spend time behind bars due to drug laws. The war has created a permanent underclass of impoverished people who have few educational or job opportunities as a result of being punished for drug offenses, in a vicious cycle of oppression. 1, 2
        • In the present day, ICE (U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement), the police tasked with immigration enforcement, operates over 200 prison camps, housing over 31,000 undocumented people deemed “aliens”, 20,000 of which have no criminal convictions, in the US system of immigration detention. The camps include forced labor (often with contracts from private companies), poor conditions, lack of rights (since the undocumented aren’t considered citizens), and forced deportations, often splitting up families. Detainees are often held for a year without trial, with antiquated court procedures pushing back court dates for months, encouraging many to accept immediate deportation in the hopes of being able to return faster than the court can reach a decision, but forfeiting legal status, in a cruel system of coercion. 1, 2
        • Over 90% of criminal trials in the US are settled not by a judge or jury, but with plea bargaining, a system where the defendant agrees to plead guilty in return for a concession from the prosecutor. It has been statistically shown to benefit prosecutors, who “throw the book” at defendants by presenting a slew of charges, manipulating their fear, who in turn accept a lesser charge, regardless of their innocence, in order to avoid a worst outcome. The number of potentially innocent prisoners coerced into accepting a guilty plea is impossible to calculate. Plea bargaining can present a dilemma to defense attorneys, in that they must choose between vigorously seeking a good deal for their present client, or maintaining a good relationship with the prosecutor for the sake of helping future clients. Plea bargaining is forbidden in most European countries. John Langbein has equated plea bargaining to medieval torture: “There is, of course, a difference between having your limbs crushed if you refuse to confess, or suffering some extra years of imprisonment if you refuse to confess, but the difference is of degree, not kind. Plea bargaining, like torture, is coercive. Like the medieval Europeans, the Americans are now operating a procedural system that engages in condemnation without adjudication.” 1
        • A grand jury is a special legal proceeding in which a prosecutor may hold a trial before the real one, where ~20 jurors listen to evidence and decide whether criminal charges should be brought. Grand juries are rarely made up of a jury of the defendant’s peers, and defendants do not have the right to an attorney, making them essentially show-trials for the prosecution, who often find ways of using grand jury testimony to intimidate the accused, such as leaking stories about grand jury testimony to the media to defame the accused. In the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, all of whom were unarmed and killed by police in 2014, grand juries decided in all 3 cases not to pursue criminal trials against the officers. The US and Liberia are the only countries where grand juries are still legal. 1
        • The US system of bail (the practice of releasing suspects before their hearing for money paid to the court) has been criticized as monetizing justice, favoring rich, white collar suspects, over poorer people unable to pay for their release. 1
      • @[email protected]
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        -911 hours ago

        I guess if you can survive the camps and can be virtuously re-educated you deserve to be a sycophant.

        So happy for them 🥳🙌 this means there wasn’t any crimes against humanity after all, must have all been a big western propaganda operation. 🤡

        • @[email protected]OP
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          35 hours ago

          Just because they didn’t pay you to spout nonsense doesn’t mean there’s not verifiable evidence that they have paid people to do it, it just means you’re gullible enough to do their legwork for free.

          Congress just approved a 1.5 billion anti china propaganda package lmao, it was in your fucking news, how do y’all not get it.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          Western countries do not even pay the same level of lip service to their own minority populations, white people continue to dominate parliament and leadership roles in a manner that well overrepresents their makeup. Do you have sources for “crimes against humanity” that don’t originate with Adrian Zenz, a US State Department propagandist? The re-education program is complete already.

          You would do well to see why this story is so long-lasting despite a clear and odd lack of evidence, from UN inspectors finding no evidence to the ability to openly travel to Xinjiang, by reading The Xinjiang Atrocity Propaganda Blitz. Your attitude that the Uygur deputies must be sycophants and instead trust US State Department Propagandists over the people you claim to be fighting for is wildly chavanistic and racist. It’s one thing to have a hypothesis and investigate it further, it’s another thing entirely to assume its correct and doing no further investigation.

        • @[email protected]
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          811 hours ago

          While I agree the concept of work is bad and we should do everything possible to make sure no one ever works again, jobs programs aren’t crimes against humanity. Neither are housing investment programs or schools

    • @[email protected]OP
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      Are you dumb libs still claiming an Uyghur genocide despite being like 10 years, zero evidence, and multiple western sources calling out the atrocity propaganda? How does that look like, if Xinjiang’s economy is growing enormously, there’s tons of video evidence from travel bloggers of the bustling cultural and religious activities there? Plugging your eyes and ears to let the state department guide you doesn’t seem like a wise way to go about anything.

      The people boosting claims of an Uyghur genocide are still denying and aiding the fucking Palestinian genocide ffs.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          36 hours ago

          American liberals would only speak the truth if the state department told it to them for once lmao

          • @[email protected]
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            -59 hours ago

            My source

            Now go ahead and try to discredit them that they’re a bourgeois run agency so their journalism is biased

            I had to make my point. The mods can proceed to ban this account too

            • Dessalines
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              89 hours ago

              So predictable. The source for that is the australian strategic policy institute, a right wing australian defense department war-hawk think tank, with close ties to the US DoD.

              Vice is also just western supremacist media targeted to hipsters. They mostly do shorts / videos against all the US empires primary enemies, and get most of their funding from fox news and other right-wing outlets.

            • Cowbee [he/they]
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              69 hours ago

              Cool, so now we have the idea that states pay influencers money. This still hasn’t translated to execution of billionaires being done out of opposition instead of mass corruption and breaking the law. You need to provide sources for your arguments, not justifications that they could be true.

              You are directly decieving yourself because you license yourself to. If you actually looked at real sources and didn’t reject them reflexively, instead of accepting bourgeois media at face value, you’d sit much closer to where I do. You should read False Witnesses and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” Both are excellent examples of why people don’t change their minds when seeing indisputable evidence, they willingly go along with narratives that they find more comfortable. It explains the outright anger liberals express when anticommunism is debunked. That doesn’t mean Communists don’t do the same thing, but as we live in a liberal dominated west (most likely, assuming demographics) this happens to a much lesser extent because liberalism is that which supplies these “licenses” to go along, while Communism requires hard work to begin to accept. This explains the mountains of sources Communists keep on hand, and the lack thereof from liberals who argue from happenstance and vibes.

              • @[email protected]
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                -38 hours ago

                We both know the corruption claims were cover ups for the corporate witch-hunt. Also, you’re very aware of my readiness to change my views in the presence of convincing evidence. This evidence is however not so convincing.

                • Cowbee [he/they]
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                  What do you mean “corporate witch hunt?” I believe the evidence of corruption is valid, do you have evidence to the opposite? Why do you say it isn’t convincing?

                  Furthermore, I believe you have displayed the exact opposite of being willing to change your views in the face of evidence, and have proven the articles I provided here quite accurate given your refusal to read any of the evidence I provided in our last conversation where you not only refused historical books, but even an 8 minute article.

                  You shattered any impression of openness back then, so you’ll forgive my lack of faith in you.

  • @[email protected]
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    1112 hours ago

    This thread is funny because it’s filled with a bunch of libs criticizing but bringing nothing of value to the table except vibes, and communists and comrades providing extensive source material to support their arguments, while avoiding low-hanging fruit like ad hominem.

    If you’ve ever done any sort of research into democratic socialism, you’d quickly learn that this is the way. Criticism and self-criticism are at the forefront of cadre training and will make you a better person. If you view a person trying to provide you with educational material as your enemy while you spout off vibe-driven nonsense, you’re not getting the picture and are still hindered by your country’s propaganda, as well your own apathy and ignorance. You’re criticizing people that are passionate because they see a chance to have a better world for all working class—you included—while responding with empty words.

    Unchain yourself from the criticisms of figures your country has implanted in you over your lifetime, and think in terms of ideas.

    • @[email protected]
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      Unchain yourself from the criticisms of figures your country has implanted in you over your lifetime, and think in terms of ideas.

      Realistically, that’s not gonna happen for most people. Hear me out:

      In 1500s when the printing press was invented, Martin Luther (not to be confused with Martin Luther King) saw the opportunity to print “bibles for everyone” to transform everybody into a priest - an enlightened being that always (or at least mostly) does the good/right thing.

      We know from history that that didn’t succeed. Not everybody turned into a priest, not even close. Instead, he caused Evangelism, and is partially causal for the Thirty Years’ War.

      Realistically, people thinking in terms of ideas is an inclination you’re born with (or so I believe). There’s just a lot of people who are not gonna do that. Especially if people see themselves at a (economic) disadvantage because of it. Most people just wanna live through ordinary life.


      BTW, I guess something similar happened with the internet. When the internet was first invented, people guessed that it would lead to the total education of all human beings. Instead, it has caused smartphones, “social” media (which is more antisocial media tbh), and a lot of spreading dumb narratives. So i’m not sure it really “enlightened” the people.

    • @[email protected]
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      1210 hours ago

      and communists and comrades providing extensive source material to support their arguments, while avoiding low-hanging fruit like ad hominem.

      sorry I’m late

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      Really, I think anyone considering themselves a Leftist needs to read False Witnesses and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” Both are excellent examples of why people don’t change their minds when seeing indisputable evidence, they willingly go along with narratives that they find more comfortable. It explains the outright anger liberals express when anticommunism is debunked. That doesn’t mean Communists don’t do the same thing, but as we live in a liberal dominated west (most likely, assuming demographics) this happens to a much lesser extent because liberalism is that which supplies these “licenses” to go along, while Communism requires hard work to begin to accept. This explains the mountains of sources Communists keep on hand, and the lack thereof from liberals who argue from happenstance and vibes.

      • davel [he/him]
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        55 hours ago

        Huh, I’ve come across this False Witness article before, years ago.

        In retrospect, this desperate, shotgun appeal to religious authority demonstrated why the dossier itself was probably futile. It was an acknowledgment that the people they were attempting to convince were beyond the reach of mere fact or reason — people who did not find reality compelling.

        This reminds me of the requisite Parenti quote:

        During the Cold War, the anti-communist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          45 hours ago

          Exactly. I read it for the first time this week, and it’s made a pretty big perspective shift. The Parenti Quote is evergreen as well, and tying it together with the conclusions of False Witnesses and Masses, Elites, and Rebels is a cool way to see people independently coming to similar conclusions of observed phenomena.

  • Dessalines
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    1213 hours ago

    Some resources for a lot of the people below claiming that China is just like any other capitalist country.

    Is China State Capitalist?

  • Cowbee [he/they]
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    Any “leftist” that thinks the fact that China has billionaires means it therefore isn’t actually Socialist needs to read Marx and Engels. There are many such liberals here in these comments. Marx predicted Socialism to be the next mode of production because markets centralize and create intricate methods of planning. As such, he stated that folding private into the public would be gradual, and by the degree to which industry would develop. From the Manifesto:

    The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

    In even simpler terms, from Engels in Principles of Communism:

    Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

    Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

    That doesn’t mean billionaires are good to have, necessarily, either. It remains a contradiction, but not an uncalculated one. I highly recommend anyone here read China has Billionaires. As much as Marxists want to lower wealth inequality eventually as much as possible (insofar as thr principle "from each according to ability, to each according to needs applies, Marx was no “equalitarian” and railed against them), in the stage of developmemt the PRC is at this would get in the way of development, and could cause Capital Flight and brain drain. Moreover, billionaires provide an easy scapegoat that the USSR didn’t have, and thus all problems of society were directed at the state. It’s important to consider why a Marxist country does what it does, and not immediately assume you know better. The CPC has an over 95% approval rate, you can’t just assume you know what’s best.

    The phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” is meant to depict higher stage Communism. Until that is possible, the answer becomes “to each according to his work,” because as Marx said in Critique of the Gotha Programme:

    these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

    At least take a consistent stance, if you believe the PRC to not be Socialist simply because it has billionaires either you disagree with Marx or you have flawed analysis. There are genuine Marxist critiques of the PRC that don’t rely on nonsense. If you consider yourself a Marxist, correct your study. I have an introductory Marxist reading list if you need one.

    • @LesserAbe
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      215 hours ago

      The original was funny to me because people thought the second guy was fine when the reality would be if a woman is calling human resources there’s probably something there. It’s a joke told from the perspective of someone who’s unable to see anything wrong and is only representing their side of the story. So I thought this was a riff on that idea, and viewed in that light this version is funny too.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      Oppressing the owners of capital is good, actually. If you don’t do it you end up like the US where everyone has to pay them for everything all the time and the police is only there to prevent you from doing anything about it.

      Chinese people don’t have to go out and get jailed for doming a mass murdering CEO out of desperation, the government gladly prosecutes and makes an example of them.

      • @[email protected]
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        4720 hours ago

        Except Xi Jinping is not oppressing owners of capital. China has lots of oligarchs that in some ways have a tighter grip on society than their western counterparts. He’s oppressing people that are “inconvenient” to him.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          1014 hours ago
          1. Quantity of bourgeoisie is not an indication of who runs the country or which is primary, public or private property

          2. China has the second biggest population in the world, period.

          The PRC saw what happened when you cracked down too hard on wealth inequality too early in the USSR, there was significant brain drain and people took what they could elsewhere. This eventually led to decreased growth and contributed to collapse. The PRC instead allows billionaires (so long as they don’t commit crimes), and as a consequnce they now have the largest economy by PPP and second largest by GDP. It’s a “boiling the frog” approach.

      • balderdash
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        1620 hours ago

        By this logic, a monarchy that keeps the aristocracy in line is better than the US democracy. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          814 hours ago

          In what manner is Xi a dictator? The fact that he has been reelected democratically and hasn’t lost to someone else?

          • balderdash
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            -614 hours ago

            I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but you’re missing the point

            • Cowbee [he/they]
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              714 hours ago

              I don’t believe you have a point. Your point rests on the PRC being a dictatorship, which it isn’t.

              • balderdash
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                The Communist Party is based in the Leninist principle of “democratic centralism”. This means “debate within the party, unity in action”. It is meant to make the party more powerful by allowing dissent and debates within the party, but when it comes to taking action, all members are expected to follow the consensus even if they disagreed with it.

                Since China’s Congress is primarily members of the Communist Party, this means that the decision of the president ultimately originates in the Communist Party itself. After they reach a consensus, the whole party will vote for that consensus in the Congress. While there technically are smaller parties in China’s Congress, they act more as advisors, since it is not practically possible for them to overturn the vote, since the CPC always votes in unity.

                Formally, China’s president is elected by the Congress. But the decision of who to elect largely comes back to the CPC itself before they come to a consensus. So the final decision largely originates in the Politburo and the Central Committee.

                The president in China is harder to shift on a dime than like in the US. The president is not elected by a nation-wide vote but by the Congress itself. To change who the Congress elects, you have to change the opinions of the largest party in that Congress, you have to change the opinions of the CPC


                Xi is not technically a dictator in the same way that Putin is not technically a dictator. He is in control of a governing body that could replace him on paper, but never will. And he has dictatorial powers without real checks/balances. And, to return to my original point, it may appear that this system is fine if it produces a good result, but the power of the government should come from the will of the people.

        • @[email protected]
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          The problem with a benevolent dictator is that they die eventually, and are replaced by a non-benevolent dictator, or a civil war, or both. Unfortunately it looks like the US democracy might have the same outcome.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          Brother the US has ONE FIFTH of the world’s inmates (in dire conditions that provide slave labor) despite having less than 5% of the world population.

          If y’all didn’t thoughtlessly and immediately internalize whatever outlandish shit your media tells you about the yellow peril you’d be envious of their living standards and, honestly? Their political freedom too.

          That’s the point.

    • Dessalines
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      610 hours ago

      Reposting my comment from below.


      The “social credit system” was made to hold financial and privately-run institutions to account, and prevent companies and organizations from committing fraud and polluting the environment. Even US capitalist mouthpieces like foreign policy agree with this.

      The government does assign universal social credit codes to companies and organizations, which they use as an ID number for registration, tax payments, and other activities, while all individuals have a national ID number. The existing social credit blacklists use these numbers, as do almost all activities in China. But these codes are not scores or rankings. Enterprises and professionals in various sectors may be graded or ranked, sometimes by industry associations, for specific regulatory purposes like restaurant sanitation. However, the social credit system does not itself produce scores, grades, or assessments of “good” or “bad” social credit. Instead, individuals or companies are blacklisted for specific, relatively serious offenses like fraud and excessive pollution that would generally be offenses anywhere. To be sure, China does regulate speech, association, and other civil rights in ways that many disagree with, and the use of the social credit system to further curtail such rights deserves monitoring.

      These are basic things the US used to do in the 1950s, but now stopped any pretense of doing. Any regulation against business is considered “authoritarian” now.

      Meanwhile in the US, having a bad credit score can prevent you from buying a car, house, or even renting an apartment.

      China uses these scores to hold financial institutions to account, while the US uses scores to prevent ordinary citizens from getting housing. One country is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the other a dictatorship of capital.