this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
167 points (85.2% liked)

Memes

49478 readers
1574 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (19 children)

Just the fact that financial crimes over a certain amount are punishable by death in China (and people have actually been executed for them) says a lot. It's a law that literally applies only to the rich because a normal person would never even get to glimpse the amount of money required for execution to be on the table.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (7 children)

The fact that rich people are routinely executed in China is one of the clearest indications that dictatorship of the proletariat has been achieved. And this is precisely why China terrifies the west so much.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

George Carlin skit about executing corrupt bankers on live TV

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

He was right, too. A few bankers and politicians get the wall and, what do you know, suddenly being very rich is good enough for a bunch of these corrupt fucks.

load more comments (17 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not gonna lie, china felt like the enemy a few months ago. Now they feel like the sane alternative to being allies with the us. Not saying they are the good guy, but certainly better than the us is.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

China = USSR USA = N@Z Germany

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Starting to look this way

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (6 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Wish we had the communists.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

"can i run the government?"

yes, just place your head through this hole and we'll pull the big lever that makes you god-king

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

It's really about what's more important to you and where you set your priorities. Or maybe it's actually about being short-sighted or far-sighted.

The US seems to believe that having "rich" people and a poor-rich divide will somehow foster or speed up technological development. I would say that is an almost religious belief. I don't really agree with it too much personally, and also i don't like how they approach their population as "wave slaves" who are threatened with starvation and homelessness if they don't work; but also i'm not gonna interfere with US internal affairs.

I really do think that all the "corporation" things are short-sighted, and it is wise to take the "long-run" perspective and ask what will be in a 1000 years, in a billion years.

I do think that being a bully like the US is is short-sighted, an in fact disadvantageous in the long run, because it makes people distrust them, and that's a thing that puts you in a disadvantageous position in general.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I think the key difference is that Xi has a very strong vision for China and is actually practicing what he preaches; enriching the nation rather than enriching himself. Like a strict father, head of the family.

While the debacle that is the US government is all about enriching themselves and their associates rather than the nation. Like goblins in a mine.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

That's less a consequence of specific individuals in power and more the systems at play that lead to differences between those in power. "Great Man Theory" largely takes away from actual Materialist analysis.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Like a strict father

Is politics just the spectrum of daddy issues an individual might have?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Power and wealth control governments ... every government.

Once humanity figures out how to provide more equitable power and wealth to every person everywhere, then we might be able to evolve beyond jungle rules.

In the meantime, it doesn't matter what you want to call it ... communism, socialism, capitalism, liberalism, whatever ... as long as we allow unlimited wealth and power to flow to small groups of people, any system will always end up with the same results.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Inequality absolutely needs to be eliminated to have a truly equitable society. That said though, it's pretty clear that China does have a dictatorship of the proletariat in place. If it didn't then same things we see happening in capitalist societies would be happening there as well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I don't support the CCP, but I do think about these things. How do you create an open system like a democracy that leverages some of the benefits of capitalism, while also insuring economic inequality is minimized and every citizens basic needs are met, without gradually seeing the rich gain influence in that system over time, corroding the protections that make it work? I think as long as the system is open, the rich will use their power to gradually gain advantage and then destroy the system itself. I think the only real shot at it would be for wealth to be seriously capped. Like, no one person can have more than 100% more wealth than the bottom 1%. Anything above that should be taxed away. Also, corporations are not people and corporations should not have shareholders that are not workers.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Honestly I’m not the biggest fan of everything in China but these are the types of problems the Chinese government seems to try to figure out a lot more than our governments do.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

The PRC largely keeps their bourgeoisie in line by holding almost all of Heavy Industry and large firms in the Public Sector. The owner of a rubber ball factory has far less influence over the economy than the Rubber Factory. In the PRC, banking, energy, steel, infrastructure, and many more critical industries the Private Sector must rely on are held in Public hands. That's the basis of SWCC.

Time will tell if this was the "correct" choice, but so far the gamble appears to be paying off. There's a long way to go, but the path forward is open and not closed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm not living in USA but I think people got exactly what they voted for, didn't they?

Now the question of it being an educated vote and people being equipped to navigate modern media with modern disinformation techniques is another subject.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Not really. The people get only two choices of candidates who are selected by campaign popularity. Those candidates have to raise the money for it by themselves, which means making truthful private campaign promises to their donors while making false promises to the public.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

I mean, if you count the (registered) non-voters, which I think is more than fair considering the fact that Harris and Trump only represent a fraction of the (electorally viable) politics expressed in the US, Trump only scrapes about 46%.

The American political system has been designed to disenfranchise as many people as possible. Some ways are overt, like disenfranchising and deregistering black, ethnic, and imprisoned citizens (the latter don't even count towards that 54%!). How about the ways democrats and republicans explicitly outlawed "third" parties such as PSL, Greens, Libertarians on some state ballots?

Less overt ways are how most of the American electoral process is carried out during the working week, with zero affordance to workers to vote unless by post (inherently less secure) or by the altruism of their bosses. Disabled and elderly people are simply ignored if they wish to vote in person.

Then the final way Americans are disenfranchised is the simple act of alienation of the political class from the working class. No matter who won in November, most of these crises would be playing out in some form.

Elon may accelerate some of the rot, but oligarchs have had direct control of the American political system for its whole existence. American bombs would still be raining across the middle east, the Ukrainian war would be unjustly spilling blood in the name of empire, abortion would still be illegal across most of the US, and the govt would do nothing to challenge spirally costs of living for workers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I mean, the electorate is definitely unqualified to pick their own leaders, but that's what decades of gutting education funding with absolutely no public pushback gets you. An unqualified electorate elects unqualified representatives.

load more comments
view more: next ›