Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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The comment identifies several features of SWCC that warrant close analysis. But the criticisms are very abstract, which may distort things.
I assume the comment is about China? I think to unpack the challenges that China is facing and it’s successes and failures on the road to socialism, the criticism needs to be more specific. Otherwise, the risk is making conclusions that don’t follow from the argument. For example:
The conclusion suggests the CPC isn’t aware of the issues and doesn’t have a plan for them. That might be the case. But it might not. We need to know more to say for sure.
Starting with such an abstract view of the country misses any safeguards, contingency plans, restraints, even faults, etc. Is it faith in rich capitalists or faith in a socialist system of socialist checks and balances?
Additionally, the level of abstraction kind of obscures the what, the why, and the how. Consider the following:
What does it mean to be a socialist state in a majority capitalist world? What has China done to navigate that world and control it’s domestic capital? Why and how?
I also think I’d frame it the other way – I’d start from a more positive position, that China’s officials deserve praise for building socialism. They haven’t simply survived. Many other paths would have meant simple survival for the ‘state’. It just seems a bit strange to frame China’s development potentially deserving blame and as doing the bare minimum that it took to survive. Again, I think this stems from the level of abstraction.
Abstraction is useful but it follows from concrete analysis of detail. Otherwise, I agree that China’s rise is unconventional and I look forward to seeing how it deals with the latest contradictions.