this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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GenZedong
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What I don't like about the PRC is that it didn't make into law that there can't be billionaires. Whatever you think of China, whether it's socialist, or state-capitalist, or capitalist in economy with socialist social relations run by a communist party, the fact that there are billionaires, even when they are kept in check by the government and do not control the state apparatus, I think it would have been an amazing precedent to say that billionaires should not exist. Every penny above 1 999.999.999 yen or dollar or euro (already a ridiculous amount but ok) should flow back to the people. It undermines the socialist project that I want to believe China is still building.
I know this has nothing to do with the article. I just wanted to say this.
They tax rich people more than the US does, its also in line with Dengs thinking here https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1987/133.htm
I think a better marker for China is, is poverty increasing? Do the poorest people get what they need? I would say thats yes they get everything they need (housing/healthcare) and there circumstances are improving too through investment. In cities larger than London rent is 70% cheaper on average like in Shenzen and quality of life is higher. It would be hard to care if billionares exist if you lived in a society that provided everything you needed, and also held said billionares accountable; which again I would argue China does as demonstrated by the high profile rich people they have executed or imprisoned in the last decade.
Is it perfect? No, but they seem to be willing to do more then we do.
Just because they seem willing to do more than us, ans I don't argue that thet do because they do, I can still criticize them for not taking that decision. Billionaires have no need of existing.
Unfortunatly, they sort of do. Neo-liberalism or state capitalism seems to be a required stage in the devolopment of an ecomony towards socialism and the Chinese model seems to be the best compromise existing today between socialism and state capitalism as it manages to provide 90% housing, modern standards of living, wide spread education, high speed rail & subways etc to billions of people while still retaining Marxist ideological reasoning.
The Chinese understanding of this means basically 'speedrunning' through capitalism while keeping the products of it on a tight leash, so far that seems to be working. Income gaps are widening in China though, but people still retain a much lower cost of living in comparable economies such as California. I dont think billionares should exist either but I dont think its the biggest issue facing China either.
Yes I understand the development of state capitalistism to build up production forces on the road to socialism. It's still not an answer qs to why billionaires should exist.
Part of building up production of forces is building up a surplus of profit that can be transferred to wealth, that means allowing private entities under state control. Allowing private entities means that said entities can now decide to pay people at the top enough they become billionares.
Its not the existance of them, every single devoloped country on earth has billionares, its how you manage them that matters; China executes and imprisons the ones that misbehave.