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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • On China’s heavily moderated social media platforms, many members of the public called for product recalls and greater industry oversight.

    Some also appeared to link the situation to broader issues in the country, where an economic downturn is driving social frustration and there are deep-seated concerns about the limits of accountability for powerful and government-linked entities.

    “Even the cooking oil essential to people’s daily lives has now become problematic… Ordinary people cannot be properly safeguarded… Now I just want to scoff at (phrases like) ‘rule of law’ and ‘serving the people’ whenever I see them,” read one comment on China’s X-like social media platform Weibo, that garnered thousands of likes.

    I thought China was heavily censoring criticism and you couldn’t voice your opinions publicly? lol

    Basically a food scandal has been uncovered by their media and the government takes action in the public’s interest. Something you’d expect a functioning government to do. And this article makes you think it’s a bad thing.

    Summed up:

    Despite rising living standards in recent decades, food safety has been an ongoing issue in China, where dozens of high-profile scandals have been reported by local media since the early 2000s, sparking tighter government regulation.

    Based.

    The entire article has so much coping and seething and was a really fun read. Thank you for sharing.




  • They don’t trust it, they just have no other figures to work off.

    That’s why they publish it. Not like there are (western adaptations of) the Li Keqiang Index

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-16/china-is-hiding-more-and-more-data-from-the-rest-of-the-world

    1. At least have the decency to post the archive link https://archive.md/sgBQK
    2. Youth unemployment in the article:

    Calculating the actual employment rate is complex and it’s plausible the government decided the changing nature of the economy and labor patterns means their current model isn’t accurately reflecting reality.

    Obtuse way to say that the category 16-24 olds are studying and not part of the labour force

    1. Landsales: Communists don’t like speculation with real estate and land. Shocker. Not like they’ve been announcing a shift away from real estate to EV/Solar Panels/etc.
    2. Currency Reserves, Bond Transactions, Academic Information, Politicians’ Biographies:

    President Xi Jinping’s ideological battle with the US has also motivated Beijing to ringfence data it believes could advantage the Biden administration.

    Based.

    A 15 year trend of growth on average no matter how you measure it: market cap, number of nodes, transaction volume, transaction capacity, etc.

    If you think that’s the critique of bitcoin then you have been blinded by techbros optimizim on the tech. Also it’s funny how you wave away bitcoin using up 1% of global electricity usage lol






  • There are some services in the economy you never would want to be privately owned. e.g. Firedepartment, healthcare providers, etc. These type of business are better run as a service for society, instead of these being subject to the profit motive. Look up what a privatized fire department looked like in New York. If you can’t understand that, then you havent been engaging with political theory enough…

    even vox

    Lol

    The guy that floated here was due to wanting freedom and the ability to not be owned by the state

    Castro brought freedom to Cuba. Looks like your friends understanding of freedom is the same as the average Americans: Being a wageslave for 8hrs a day on average lol


  • state owned firms just suck

    If you say so chief. Thank you for your valuable contribution.

    I think you are wanting the cuban model which is really really really bad, and there is a reason

    Strawmaning much here I see. Putting cuba in it’s context means obviously I want the model apply everywhere, because history taught us that context doesn’t matter obviously.

    I knew a guy that floated here on an inner tube to get away from it.

    What was his family business and his function in the batista regime?


  • Could you open this a bit more because I’m not sure I understand your perspective currently?

    Reading Marxist theory helps. Here’s a pretty good lecture of comparing the systems which gives a pretty good overview:

    The History of Capitalism, Slavery, Feudalism and Marxism Richard Wolff

    a weird perspective to things that at least I don’t know of

    Thank you for acknowledging that you might have a perspective missing (This is by design). Considering this, you could benefit exploring terms like “hegemony” and “ideology”.

    what else should they do?

    To me it seems that you think you’re asking a rethorical questions with no answer. If you engage with Marxist theory, play with the thought, you don’t have to adopt it. Doing so you might realize that there are answers to this.

    If, and only if, the mother could get a higher paying job in a different location which would raise the entire family’s life quality, they absolutely should move even if it would feel difficult at first. Some (capitalistic) countries even offer support for that (if they were unemployed at first).

    Again, you’re advocating for people relocating and adapting to the market. Meaning, people serving the economy and not the other way around. This doesn’t fix the systemic problem.

    Of course it does. I’ve done it, multiple times, and I can’t understand why someone would rather be stuck in a shitty situation instead of moving into a new location where they have opportunities to build a better life.

    How is someone who lives paycheck to paycheck to just move? Who rents to someone like that? Moving costs money. What if someone doesn’t have the social support for moving? You’re saying this form a very priviledged position. It’s not a free choice. It’s being forced on you, because bourgois politics doesn’t tackle the problem at it’s roots.

    Sure, cherry pick some numbers here

    You’re saying it like you don’t do it.

    China has made numbers out of thin air for a long time and it starts to show now that their real estate industry is in shambles

    With a liberal perspective it sure looks like that. This is not cherry picking, right? lol Most of your treats come from China…

    Cuba vs. US, well, given the list, cherry picking is cherry picking.

    Well considering one is the hegemon, the other being an embargoed island with restricted access to the global economy it’s impressive I would say. Show me another country with this many sanctions and that high of a life expectancy… Libs ignoring context, a classic duo…


  • If you really want to compare working to a company you can freely choose and you can leave whenever you like, sure. In that case I would make the argument to a slave, that they absolutely should find a kind master who treats them more like a human being than all the other scumbag slavelords do. It’s just that the slaves were actual slaves, they didn’t have any freedom of choice unlike you and I have.

    Yes, I’m comparing economic systems. Slavery is an economic system. While slavery allows you owning all aspects of a humans life, Capitalism and Wageslavery only allow you to own some aspects of a humans life (Mainly 8hrs lifetime/day on average).

    Also congratulations for arguing on terms of slavery and not rejecting it altogether.

    It depends. People from the poor countries are somehow moving without a dime.

    Thank you for your analysis.

    You are actually really privileged, if you already own so much crap that you think you need all that when you move somewhere. Realistically you only need yourself, your IDs and a one-way ticket to wherever you are going.

    I agree. People living in global north countries are definitely privileged on a global scale. But even among those privileged so societies you have exploitation. It doesn’t help telling a single mom raising a child on her own and living paycheck to paycheck, to just move.

    That’s a choice. It also tells more about your friends and family if they abandon you just for moving elsewhere nowadays when we are 24/7 connected to each other in multiple ways. New friends can also always be made in new locations - been there, done that. It is scary at first but loooots of people are doing exactly that all the time because otherwise they would have to work a shitty job for shitty wage and they would hate themselves and everyone else around them all the time for that.

    This says more about you and your social life than anyone else’s. And you advocating on forcing this experiment of a lifestyle onto others.

    There are alternatives, it’s just that maybe you wouldn’t REALLY want to live in that alternative economy? China is a slight alternative, there is this fake capitalism going on and it’s not looking too great. North Korea is a 100% different country and you can see how well they are doing. Pretty much all socialistic countries in the world are in a bad shape and people are fleeing into the capitalistic world people here in Lemmy so much loathe. I get it, there are lots and lots and lots and lots of really bad companies and bosses and co-workers around that only think of themselves, but in the meantime there are also lots of places that do care about their employees because they know they couldn’t exist without them and that people tend to work better if they enjoy what they do and where they work.

    What no theory does to a mf.

    China has been outperforming western countries on a variety of metrics. North Korea had more than 20% of their population decimated an forced into isolation. Cuba has higher life expectancy is way more progressive and the US, despite crippling embarings. There’s more than one interpretation, you know.


  • Your questions makes no sense to me, but assuming good faith on your part you seem to be asking:

    How else can you earn money, apart from stealing from another person, if being an employee makes you subject to exploitation?

    There are different ways to organize a workplace.

    The crux of this question however is the (undemocratic) relation between employee and employer.

    You’re only getting hired in any privately run company if you produce more value for the company than they pay you. (e.g. You earn X Dollar per month, but you make more than X Dollars per month for the company). This is true for every employee. While everyone contributes to the success of the company, noone has a say in how, when, how long, etc. the work can be done, and especially no say how profits (or “Surplus value” for marxists) are used and shared. It’s not necessarily a problem per say (any type of organization requires some form of authority), but it’s a problem when you entire or majority of the economy is organized in this way.

    Other forms include

    • worker coops: the management/bosses are elected by it’s employees, which decide how the firm is run; look into Richard Wolff; Mondragon; Huawei, etc. for examples of firms, and more macroeconomically: Emiglia-Romania which has a large portion of GDP created this way or JZD Sluzovice is another example

    • state-owned firms: Examples are United States Postal Service (USPS) and here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the_United_States best if you google it altogether.