Capitalism is defined by which class holds power in society, and in China it's demonstrably the working class. The reason the economy works in the interest of the poor is a direct result of that.

All the core economy in China is state owned, and the role of private sector continues to decline https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/chinas-private-sector-has-lost-ground-state-sector-has-gained-share-among

You might want to learn a bit about the subject you're attempting to debate here.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today -4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

What your data shows is that the share of state in the economy has partially recovered in 2020's from ~30 to ~50%, after falling from 80% to 30% in the previous decade. Impressive, indeed, and way ahead of most capitalist countries - but China is home to numerous giant private megacorporations, and allows many companies from abroad to build in the country.

"Who holds power" is very abstract and is not part of definition of socialism or capitalism. Even still, we just talked about homelessness - if workers held all the power, would there be homeless? Would there be any poor at all? Would there be overheated markets, including housing, which is one of the craziest in the world? Would there be Tencent, Alibaba, etc.? Would there be billionaires? Etc. etc. What defines "workers holding power" for you?

What is it about some leftists desperately trying to put socialist label on capitalist China - a desperate attempt to demonstrate a mighty socialist economy in the modern world? Socialist countries have lost the Cold War and are mostly not on the map anymore; there are objective reasons to that, including the fact most of the world never moved away from socialism and capitalist forces had greater capital to work with, and this does not mean socialism is bad, but currently, socialism is not represented by any large economy. That's just the fact.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

“Who holds power” is very abstract and is not part of definition of socialism or capitalism.

Power isn’t abstract, and who holds it is definitional to socialism and capitalism, and to feudalism before them.

if workers held all the power, would there be homeless?

Not for the most part, no. In your imagined “capitalist” China, did you just assume that they have a homelessness crisis, without even checking? Because you’re unintentionally making our case for us.

Would there be any poor at all?

You can’t go from one of the poorest, least developed countries in the world to universal wealth overnight. But they have made unprecedented progress.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I did not say of a severe crisis, I just highlighted both homelessness and inflated housing prices are a thing. And under the rule of the workers, neither should be true.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Homelessness isn’t really a thing, though. As to the recent housing bubble, the Chinese state intentionally popped it and left the capitalists out to dry.

“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.

Compare that to Obama, who bailed out the private banks at the expense of people with home mortgages, banks that knowingly wrote those bad mortgages. Michael Hudson, 2023: Why the Bank Crisis isn’t Over

The financial sector is the core of Democratic Party support, and the party leadership is loyal to its supporters. As President Obama told the bankers who worried that he might follow through on his campaign promises to write down mortgage debts to realistic market valuations in order to enable exploited junk-mortgage clients to remain in their homes, “I’m the only one between you [the bankers visiting the White House] and the mob with the pitchforks,” that is, his characterization of voters who believed his “hope and change” patter talk.

The Federal Reserve is just the cartel of the US private banks, whereas banking in China is predominantly state owned. The Chinese state both runs these banks and has fiat monetary sovereignty, so it’s not captured by the private finance capitalists like the US state is.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago

You have an infantile understanding of what capitalism is. I recommend reading this article to get a bit of a perspective https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/