Capitalism, socialism, communism, democracy etc.

The last two generations of Chinese citizens have had the highest social mobility of anywhere in the world. That is one of the reasons that the CPC is so popular. I agree with laine lowe that economic well being is more important overall for a society. It is somewhat ironic that most Chinese are perusing the "American Dream" of upward social mobility with the expectation they can succeed, while in the US that has become an impossible dream for white working class people, the same as it always was for the majority of black people. 

The CPC has recreated itself and the Chinese state two or three times in the seventy years they have been in power. I wish that instead of vilifying China our media would report on it. Lets have decent translations of their plans and real coverage of things like their emerging labour laws and the evolving pension system. All those kinds of things are undergoing changes but all we get from Western media is the beating of the war drums and the wail of the pipes.

The other thing that China has used in the last two generations is a meritocracy system. Entrance in to their best schools and then the best jobs have been based on the Zhongkao, a national high school test. A truly horrible and stressful experience for many young people but a way to the top for the ones with the brains and drive. Both of those things lead to extreme differences in economic well being amongst classes. The generations that make it to the top always pave the way for their less talented off spring by changing the rules so meritocracy systems are inherently unstable. The US is an example of what happens with too much meritocracy. A working class black person with great marks cannot compete with anyone whose parents went to Yale or Harvard, especially if they can afford to endow various things on campus.

I don't necessarily equate economic well being with GDP per capita. I would prefer to measure something like social well being. A society needs both social mobility and economic well being that is shared reasonably equitably to be a just society. Those are very hard things to achieve and so far the Scandinavians have come the closest. They did it by unionization and mass social movements right after WWII, when their capitalists could not flee with their capital because nation states believed in capital controls between countries.

The human development index is often used to measure economic well being.

List of countries by Human Development Index.

Europe's social democratic countries dominate the list.

Well said JKR. I am fascinated by the progress in material well being at China has achieved. All the Asian countries after WWII had authoritarian governments and it can be argued that to one extent or another they still do. I am hopeful that China is becoming more open.

What I believe from ex-pats who live in China is that the Chinese social media is as free as it is in Canada to bitch about bad politicians and local leaders. There are red lines that cannot be crossed or the posts get deleted and the conversation ended. Sedition and treason are two of the lines that the CPC has drawn in the sand. What the Western media pushes is the idea that the NED and similar foreign agencies are not seditious and people who work with them are not committing treason. They cannot be freedom fighters because they are colluding with a foreign power.

In the US I cannot use the internet to plan a riot that is considered sedition. Imagine even a peaceful demonstration in DC where the Russian embassy helped in the planning and coordination, let alone a riot. Even if I work for the President I will be charged under their criminal code.

Its not so much that I think China is perfect it is more that it is not too bad when an honest comparison is done. Ask the Land Defenders in Canada how much freedom they have and whether or not they find the RCMP intimidating when they try to assert their rights.

They have also started controlling things like teenage sexual imagery on the internet. Depending on what the laws actually look like they might be a good thing.  FB doesn't allow pics of breast feeding mothers so clearly people who live in democracies are willing to be censored for the privilege of posting on line.

The Heritage Foundation is a very right wing American think tank. I suspect there is a lot of confirmation bias in their Index. Magically the numbers crunched into the Index produce an outcome where US friends are good and its enemies are not.

The Heritage Foundation formulates policies that promote free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Heritage does not support policies that deviate from these principles, nor are our recommendations ever influenced by donations or outside political pressure. 

https://www.heritage.org/truenorth

The Heritage Foundation's definition of economic freedom has at least two flaws. It equates weak labour laws and small government with economic freedom but economic freedom can flourish in systems with strong labour laws and a good sized government supported by a healthy level of taxation. The social democratic countries have high levels of economic freedom, strong labour laws, overall higher taxation, and large government presence.

No freedom is absolute. Rights and freedoms must be balanced against other rights and freedoms. Rights and freedoms must also come with responsibilities and obligations.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Kyklos
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The kyklos (Ancient Greek: κύκλος [kýklos], "cycle") is a term used by some classical Greek authors to describe what they considered as the cycle of governments in a society. It was roughly based on the history of Greek city-states in the same period. The concept of the kyklos is first elaborated by Plato, Aristotle, and most extensively Polybius. They all came up with their own interpretation of the cycle, and possible solutions to break the cycle, since they thought the cycle to be harmful.

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I also quite like the Left Values Test.

The test has 72 questions (statements) with a 5 point sliding scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Results provide a percentage score on 7 different axes, as well as the left-wing ideology with which we most closely align.

My results are as follows:

57.4% revolutionary, 42.6% reform
76.5% Marxist, 23.5% utopian
73.3% central, 26.7% decentral
67.9% international, 32.1% national
66.7% party, 33.3% union
19.4% production, 80.6% nature
35.9% conservative 64.1% progressive

My closest match: Eco-Marxism

Left Turn, I really enjoyed doing that 72 questions test. Here are my results:

Left Values Test

Results:

Your closest match: Democratic Socialism

Apparently I believe in something called Council Communism.

Here's mine- and apparently, I just HAD to be different:  

Having trouble pasting it in, but it listed me as "Eco-Anarchist".

Well...I do live in Olympia...

https://www.idrlabs.com/left-values-political/test.php

Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy.

....
https://libcom.org/thought/council-communism-an-introduction

quote:

The central (and simple) argument of council communism, in stark contrast to both reformist social democrats and Leninists, is that workers’ councils which arise in workplaces and communities during periods of intense struggle are the natural form of working class organisation. This view is completely opposed to reformist or Leninist arguments which stress that the working class are incapable of doing anything by ourselves and need to rely on vanguard parties, ballot boxes (and the capitalist state institutions that both of these entail) to sort out our problems.

These conclusions lead council communists to maintain very similar positions to those held by class struggle anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists with the main difference often, but not always, being a commitment to Marx and his methods of analysis. As such there are historical and present day instances of close cooperation between the two currents, even to the point of many inspired by council communism becoming members of class struggle anarchist and revolutionary syndicalist groups.

left victory in chile

quote:

A new generation

Boric represents a political generation critical of the super-moderate Concertacion parties – including the Socialist and Communist Parties – which managed the transition from Pinochet. The transition, though it ended Pinochet’s political role and brought positive democratic changes, did not purge the military nor fundamentally alter the anti-working class neoliberal economic model. 

In order to become the candidate of all the Left, Boric had to defeat the Communist Party candidate in a  primary. He has been in close contact with Podemos, the radical left group in Spain, since its emergence.

The current approach of Podemos, in coalition government with the moderate PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), probably reflects Boric’s general politics today. One positive feature of his approach is that – unlike some Latin American left forces – he firmly rejects the strongman model, like Ortega’s repressive regime in Nicaragua.

Boric’s victory will give confidence to millions of people that they can win a majority for social and democratic reforms. It will strengthen the morale of all those thousands of political activists who fanned out across the country to mobilise support for him in the second round. The progressive majority in the constitutional convention will have an ally in the president, boosting the Left in future votes on a new constitution.

The victory will have a positive effect on the whole of Latin and Central America. Left victories in Peru, Bolivia, and Honduras have preceded the one in Chile, and there is a hugely important election coming up in Brazil, where polls show that Lula could defeat Bolsonaro. A new ‘pink’ tide is rising....

"workers’ councils which arise in workplaces and communities during periods of intense struggle are the natural form of working class organisation." 

New York’s Winter Rent Strike Inspired Generations

From December 26, 1907, to January 9, 1908, ten thousand tenants, predominantly Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe living in New York City’s Lower East Side, took part in a historic rent strike. During an economic depression causing mass unemployment and grinding poverty, landlords tried to hike rents by 33 percent. With their cry to “fight the landlord as they had the Czar,” the tenants won a partial victory, with rents significantly reduced for two thousand households.

The movement established a tradition of militant working-class housing campaigns that eventually contributed to winning vital rent controls that still protect millions of the city’s tenants today. As the COVID crisis continues, New York City renters are again organizing against rapacious landlordism.

The 1907–8 rent strike was led by a remarkable woman, Pauline Newman, who had arrived in the United States from Lithuania in 1901, aged about nine (her birth certificate was lost along the way). She was one of 2 million Jews who arrived in the country between 1881 and 1924, escaping antisemitic pogroms. Still a child, she started work, first making hairbrushes and then in the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.....

Women discuss the rent strike, 1908. (Library of Congress)

..i am posting this in this thread because of it's relationship to the discussion we have been having here. 

..the left surrounding this election is quite fractured. and what can be accomplished remains to be seen as boric's hold on the state is tenuous. 

..what i'm hoping to see is a strong direct democracy coming from all those people that celebrated this election victory in the streets..plus more. chile has of history of this direct democracy so it is very possible. 

“Those Who Are Poor, Die Poor”

quote:

Scenes of elation on streets across Chile were as much a collective sigh of relief as a roar of triumph. Only a month earlier, momentum had decidedly shifted to the ultra-conservatives, with Kast coming out on top in the first-round with 27.9 percent to Boric’s 25.8. The simultaneous congressional elections also witnessed right-wing small majorities solidified in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.3 The hopeful possibilities unleashed by the insurrection of October 2019 were temporarily replaced by the fear that that cycle was coming to a close, to be replaced with a vicious, restorative reaction. From their antipodal vantage point, investors read November’s election similarly – Chile’s stock market leaped by 9.4 percent, alongside a 3.5 percent gain in the peso relative to the dollar.4

In another sign of left retreat, and reflective of the unsettled turbulence of contemporary Chilean politics, third place was occupied by Franco Parisi, a right-wing, anti-party populist for the newly-minted Partido de la Gente (Party of the People, PDG), whose platform emphasized securing the borders against migrants. Parisi is an economist with a PhD from the University of Georgia, whose previous positions include Vice Dean of the Faculty of Business at the Universidad de Chile and Professor of Economics and Business at the Universidad Andés Bello. He has since relocated to the US. After a stint at Texas Tech University, where a student accused him of sexual harassment, Parisi now lives in Birmingham, where he is an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama. He never set foot in Chile during the campaign, ostensibly because he tested positive for COVID-19, but perhaps more likely because he is in arrears for $249,000 in alimony payments and would not be allowed to leave the country if he returned until this debt was paid. A social media personality with a popular YouTube show called “Bad Boys Who Make the Elite Uncomfortable,” Parisi captured 12.8 percent of the vote (37 percent in the North, a traditional bastion of the center-left, where anti-immigrant sentiment has surged in recent years).5

Back in June 2020, Boric unexpectedly defeated Communist Daniel Jadue in the primaries of the newly-formed Apruebo Dignidad, and there were high expectations for his performance in the forthcoming presidential contest. But Boric was already viewed with suspicion by many social movement and left activists. This was the same person who had personally signed the congressional Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution in November 2019, without the support of his party, Frente Amplio, precipitating a split in the latter. That agreement, which set in place a restricted process for the renewal of the constitution, was severely criticized by large sectors of the popular movement, including initial opposition from the Communists.6 Boric then made a point of signaling “governability” to the political and business establishment in the lead-up to the first-round elections in November 2021, further alienating layers of the popular movement, and muting enthusiasm for participating in the election.7

Nonetheless, the bulk of social movements and left-wing forces in Chile, whether inside or outside of Apruebo Dignidad, rallied to bring out the vote for Boric in the second round. Above all, the priority was to defeat pinochetismo and to keep alive for another day the transformative cycle propelled by the revolts of October 2019.8 Marta Lagos, Chilean political analyst and founding director of the opinion research company Latinobarómetro, points to a remarkable parallel between the election of December 2021 and the 1988 referendum that formally ended Pinochet’s rule. The proportion of votes in 1988 responding “No” to continuing Pinochet’s reign was virtually identical with support for Boric in December this year, with the “Yes” vote in 1988 eerily matching the proportion backing Kast in December.9....

..completed the 1st speaker. this will be an excellent podcast if it continues at this level of discussion.  

..finally completed the podcast. the best of it i thought was when the speakers had finished. 

..my most important take aways were that kerala is not a model but a movement. a process. and that participatory democracy is chaotic which is also..as it happens..to be it's protection.