It was something you said a while ago that led me to write this; regarding the societal/cultural pressures of socialism (I think it was in relation how the same politicians would be progressive under socialism but become reactionary in capitalism). Here these would potentially emphasise the collectivist aspects of various chinese cultures while de-emphasising potentially more destructive individualised and reactionary parts; socialism acting as a sort of cultural sieve.
Why is it very expensive? Monopoly rent practices? Supply-chain constraints? Something else?
It was an interesting video to watch and I can see similarities in user interface design in other parts of the world. I will likely be watching the other videos in the channel. Thank you for sharing.
However, it still feels like a liberal understanding; maybe the youtuber was trying to avoid using the word socialist or aiming for brevity but if that is the case the analysis still feels incomplete.
For example, the idea of user interface design because individuals in China are inherently “collectivist” but why? Saying indviduals choosing design principles that are “collectivist” in their environment and therefore choose this in their phone UIs is a lack of an explanation; this just amounts to a type of a circular logic. What has happened over the past century to promote this “culture” (even if we pretend the presumption is true that design principle aesthetics is homegenised across china)? It appears ironically an individualised take on collectivist culture.
I do agree there are collectivised cultures in socialist nations but if you look at say the special economic zones - there are plenty of chinese liberals in these centres and their preferences for western individualised aesthetics. However what is, let’s say the culture-system, that promotes collectivism? (Answer: socialism)
It appears that a large portion of analysis from the west considers collectivism as some sort of inherent individual trait belonging to come exotica of peoples rather than maybe a phenonemon borne out of political economic systems and their interactions with other politicsl economies. There is an idealism it is an individual trait that is more inherent in some ethnicities than others. For example, does India have “collectivised” cultures? And where they do not, why not? I put collectivised in quotes not because it is not real but because it feels like a western explanation for hordes of others acting in a borg-like manner. We are individual but they are a collective.
Another area that the video explored; the idea that chinese people preferred leapfrogging technology to mobile over desktop. Again, why? What was going on in their material conditions that they could not afford the desktop/laptop to begin with? Again the answer purported is an individualised take; indvidual preferences backed up by a supply-demand explanation.
This is not a comment on the technology provided, in a socialist country all-in-one apps are amazing (in a capitalist country this would just be another monopoly for rentier extraction).
A more dialectical approach would do wonders. My critique is essentially a criticism of orientalism. It should be noted the youtuber concludes that designers watching this should be more empathetic in their design choices for their audience/clients.
Serve the People - The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China (80 min read): https://thetricontinental.org/studies-1-socialist-construction/
Understanding China: socialism with chinese characteristics, from Geopoltical Economy Report (under 30 min if watched in 2x speed): https://youtu.be/mgcyqkEOhQc
Why Socialism by Albert Einstein (20 min read): https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
A condensed summary of Marx’s Capital (20 min): https://redsails.org/capital-v1-summary/
Why Marxism (30 min): https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
These were interesting reads; thanks!
I did not they were implicated in manufacturing consent for racheting up the cold/hot wars against Russia.
These lot appear to have made a name for themselves running imperialist propaganda about threat of certain “state actors”:
GT Voice: CrowdStrike outage calls for reflection on who is real threat
For those who may have further questions, it is important to note that as one of the most important cybersecurity companies in the US, CrowdStrike has made almost no attempt to expand its business in the Chinese market. Instead, it has often made baseless attacks and accusations against China and Chinese companies. Because of this, many Chinese companies don’t use CrowdStrike’s software.
For instance, the company said in its latest annual cyber threat report that last year, “China-nexus adversaries continued to operate at an unmatched pace across the global landscape, leveraging stealth and scale to collect targeted group surveillance data, strategic intelligence and intellectual property.”
However, the company’s strategy of smearing and excluding China has unexpectedly made the country one of the least affected major economies in the latest tech outage.
*Liberal scientists (half-joking)
Thanks for sharing!
Reminds me of this hilarious but good paper (available at sci-hub):
Explaining high external efficacy in authoritarian countries: a comparison of China and Taiwan
ABSTRACT: We examine the puzzling phenomenon that authoritarian governments are perceived to be more responsive than democratic governments. By comparing China and Taiwan by both large-N statistical analyses and in-depth case studies, we show that the answer lies in the differences between democratic and authoritarian institutions. First, failing to elect one’s preferred candidate in democracies predisposes voters to critical assessment of government responsiveness. There is no such predisposition in authoritarian countries where elections are nonexistent or nominal. Second, elections incentivize democratic leaders to over-respond to certain groups. There is no such mechanism in authoritarian countries. Third, the solid and clear legitimacy established by electoral victories shield democratic leaders from particularistic demands made through unconventional channels. Without such legitimacy, authoritarian leaders are compelled to cement legitimacy by increasing responsiveness.
(Good because of the analysis despite the liberal perspective; hilarious due to the mental gymnastics in language by the writers grappling with the fact that “authoritarian” China is more democratic than a liberal democracy)
Democrats are more keen on being complicit in a genocide than beating Trump. Bourgois electoralism at its finest.
My whole life, I’ve only had one client: the people.
Which people?
Mao: “no investigation, no right to speak”
A suggested reading list:
Transgender Liberation: A Marxist View https://redsails.org/transgender-liberation/
The Problem of Recognition in Transitional States, or Sympathy for the Monster https://redsails.org/the-problem-of-recognition-in-transitional-states/
The Woman Question https://redsails.org/the-woman-question/
Fascism at Home and Colonialism Abroad https://redsails.org/fascism-at-home-and-colonialism-abroad/
Really Existing Fascism (2021) https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism/
On Democracy https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Democracy
Rather than breakdown everything you said which will not be fruitful and will look like a personal attack, instead I am just going to pick out one thing.
I know, Elon Musk is akin to Thomas Edison, clearly not Nikola Tesla. But i don’t have an answer to the argument that “his” many discoveries would have happened many years later without him. Hence why i can only feel grateful.
For the sake of your personal growth you need to figure out what is wrong with that sentiment.
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EM is a reactionary transphobic white supremacist filth parading his version of crypto-eco-fascism. His main inadvertent highlight is saying the quiet bit out aloud and exposing liberals (including “left-liberals”) for what they really are. His admirers include fascists around the world from South/central American gusanos to the Indian hindutva cowards. He is also a proud amplifier of the genocide against palestinians to boot.
Ok, i don’t want to annoy anyone here, sorry if i did, and thanks for not banning me, this sub doesn’t like contradictions very much.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Communism
If his past successes don’t make you believe in his ability for more successes in the future, then you’re entirely free to believe so ! As i wrote in the selftext : let’s wait until China does its own androids, perhaps only then will Lemmygrad begin to praise this technology.
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The US has some of the most advanced technology in the world. Do you think therefore it is the closest to achieving communism? If you don’t then why not?
Furthermore, is a billionaire’s “successes” his to appropriate? Who created his capital? Why does he own others’ labour to exploit?
The “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” dream, embraced more by pundits with cushy lives than working people, also reveals a dark truth: western “socialists” have some awareness that a more equal world will mean losing first-world privileges. They cannot conceive of things getting better steadily and slowly, with hard work. And so they are forced to denigrate the Chinese road of self-sacrifice in favour of leisure-driven utopianism. The reality is that the victory of the working class over the capitalist class will usher in an era of hard but rewarding work, as opposed to hard work without reward.
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
I am not asking you to answer these questions here. This is not a debate-bro gotcha. This is an invitation for exploration, further reading and potential self-reflection; giving you the benefit of doubt you are sincere (I’m ignoring your last comment).
I thought this was a parody too.
Maybe OP needs to do more reading and if they are a labour aristocrat maybe should further develop their class consciousness?
Further reading to consider:
https://socialistmag.us/2024/01/07/producerism-socialism-and-anti-imperialism-for-fools/
I am not sure if these are currently (ongoing inflation woes aside) competitive enough from a western market perspective given the built-in sinophobia; they have to be exceptionally good value for quality or have no meaningful competition for a chinese name brand (security cameras such as Dahua as an example amongst others, and another tangent example would be Polestar which though is owned by Geely is considered “swedish” ). However, I don’t think that’s the point; like you said these may be the beginning of much more competitive products given track records in all other fields.
If one takes a less eurocentric view; the above board/cpu bundle is nothing short of amazing. A middle income country while undergoing military seige, sanctions and hybrid wars is able to produce and sell a consumer product higher in the tech-chain in a market that openly declares the producing country a national enemy is market strategy all of these MBAs could not concuct in their wildest dreams. And obviously this is not the only - let alone first - example of this.
It’s almost as if marxists know how to play in the game of capitalism better than liberals through a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the system.
Ironically one of the best investor’s handbook over the past century still remains to be Das Kapital.
Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for the concept that famines don’t happen if there’s a “free press” because the public finds out and demands action. He didn’t understand Israel and its supporters, who see starvation and demand action - to make starvation worse
https://x.com/justinpodur/status/1801661762883764296
Focus on the fact that propaganda exists, yes. But also focus on the fact that people probably put up a lot of hostile resistance to any propaganda if it goes against their pre-existing wishes. Ask more questions about those.
https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1799409826029810176
One’s loyalty to one’s own superior material conditions even if it means denying the humanity in oneself by gleefully participating in the butchering of others while maintaining cognitive dissonance to the memories of the subjugation of their spiritual ancestors is one of the defining traits of liberalism - and its child fascism - that the Europeans have bestowed to the rest of the world.
As you may know: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/desperation-migration-why-thousands-indian-workers-want-to-go-israel
‘Migration from desperation’: Why thousands of Indian workers want to go to Israel Israel wants to fill a labour shortage with workers from India, but unions there say they are uncomfortable with being complicit in genocide
in November, the Israeli Builders Association asked the Israeli government to approach India for workers and said it would require around 50,000-90,000 to replace Palestinian workers. It is estimated that 72,000 Palestinian workers were employed in the construction sector before 7 October.
The desperate scenes around India of thousands of labourers queueing up to work in Israel is the surest sign yet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted economic policies have failed to meet the needs of his people, economists and trade unionists in India have told Middle East Eye
In the last week of January in India, recruitment efforts took place in Rohtak in Haryana and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, where thousands of Indian workers arrived to be screened and interviewed by Israeli recruitment officials.
“The scenes at the centres are a direct reflection of the very, very poor condition of workers. That is why they are queuing up to go to Palestine. There’s no two ways about it,” Pulapre Balakrishnan, a former economist at Ashoka University, outside New Delhi, told MEE. “It is a migration from desperation. People are being pushed. It is not a pull factor,” Balakrishnan said.
I would argue most “economic migrants” - to use the parlance of the anglophone anti-immigrant media - have this “push factor”; this is the norm not the exception.
The effects of uneven development via capitalism with purposeful underdevelopment for the majority of the population:
Since becoming prime minister of India in 2014, Modi has projected the country’s economy and global influence to be on the ascendency.
“At a time when the world is surrounded by many uncertainties, India has emerged as a new ray of hope,” Modi said at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in January.
Economists like Balakrishnan say that India’s economy has grown tremendously. This is no myth, but this growth has been neither inclusive nor has it benefited a large chunk of the country. He says the data indicates that real wages for more than 30 percent of the country have not increased since 2014.
Despite projections by the Indian government that the economy is scheduled to become the third-largest in the world by 2027, its inability to absorb as well as provide a living wage to its most vulnerable is leading the country to a precipice.
India’s economy grew 7.2 percent in 2022-23, and 8.7 percent in 2021-22. In January, India’s finance ministry forecast a growth rate of 7.3 percent for the fiscal year ending in March.
According to Reuters, this is the highest rate for any of the major economies. Yet economists note that India’s growth is fuelled by very specific sectors such as the financial services and the information technology sectors, which create limited employment and have a marginal impact on the vast majority of the country.
The internationalism of the bourgoisie in their cooperation of fascism and proleteriat exploitation, and the resulting murder of the oppressed, is plain to see.
It should also be noted that though I have highlighted “economic” classes here that it should be stressed that other class structures should be considered such as those involved in liberation struggle.
I would even add critical support should be given to those in the subjugated class in national liberation including the bougoisie or petite-borugoisie that make up this subjugated group, and that this support supercedes the oppressors who engage in their subjugation even if they are the proleteriat of the imperialist/fascist nation. After liberation we can then take on our own bourgoisie. (Lenin said it better)
[Edited to clarify my thoughts and formatting]
Ultimately the defence of anti-communism is the defence of fascism. That is the road this takes. The volunteer nazi safety advocates must be getting desperate to be triggered this badly; I wonder if they are cognizant at some level of that tap of superexploitation slowly turning off and their economies imploding.