Germany gets a lot of (well deserved) heat for the nazis, but it is a true testament to the efficacy of propaganda investments that the US does not have a worse reputation. Even hitler wrote about how he was inspired by the US to do the things he did.
I agree with you. The US is, and always has been, a cancer on the planet more malicious than any other.
China is a socialist country, it does not have the economic compulsion towards colonization and imperialism that capitalist countries do. China gains independence from the west and potential customers by facilitating trade outside the domination of the west, that’s what it gains.
China is an oligarchy, my man. They’re better than the west for now, but the same kind of greedy bastards run their country as do the rest of ours.
Regardless of that, though, they are still operating in the “country with the most doubly so” world. So they have the incentive to fuck over other countries to enrich themselves/ promote their ideologies.
Stop playing us vs them. Jumping in at the end of a conversation to declare yourself the victor on behalf of people you agree with is mastubatory at best.
I put my foot in my mouth and kept putting it back there. Doesn’t make you look better to point out how dumb I look. Trust, I know how badly I fumbled, my man.
As I suspected, this is just anarcho-cynicism: human nature is evil, there is zero difference between any nations, everything is the same, nothing matters, etc etc.
Human nature isn’t evil, it’s dumb. We can only focus on what’s in front of us because we’re inherently biased towards the self. That’s the source of billionaires, wealth inequality, and the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Humans are very much capable of overcoming this issue, but to do so we have to acknowledge that it is an issue. Putting your fingers in your ears and saying “my team knows the way” isn’t going to help anyone. Especially when it’s obvious that your team does NOT have a handle on these issues either.
I disagree that there is such thing as evil. It’s a distancing tactic for people to give space between the horrors they know humanity can do and what they believe that they’re capable of. It’s just a knock-on from tribalism and othering.
Pretending that my argument is about what you want to talk about instead of what I’m actually saying is cowardice. Like I said, China is next up which is why I’m using them as the example. But since you’re going to sit on an irrelevant thing in an attempt to make me appear like I can’t come up with an example, here are the concerning things about China right now.
They have massive income inequality. Second most billionaires of any country in the world.
They favor creating national cohesion by reducing differences between populations in their country, rather than creating a unifying national identity aimed towards some goal.
They create treaties with poorer countries that boil down to “we’ll develop the infrastructure to extract this resource in exchange for getting the extracted resource”, which is eerily close to early colonization tactics.
They have imperial ambitions on sovereign (or formerly sovereign) territories that they consider to belong to them (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
I don’t think these are unique to China or even particularly egregious, but they are signs that if China gets on top they’re going to do what every other country does when they get on top. Use it to benefit their citizens at the cost of everyone else.
Evil, stupid, whatever. You’re fundamentally misanthropic, and I have no interest in that shit.
As a Marxist I get to have revolutionary optimism. I can believe humans are better than this, and even though the hitherto history of the world is the history of class struggle, we can get past this dark age through scientific socialism.
You, meanwhile, are convinced that nothing is going to change when the US empire is inevitably defeated. I feel bad for you.
You mean to say imperial ambitions, not empirical ambitions.
E: also you’re not using that word right.
If you’re open to taking some criticism, it seems like you have a media based understanding of the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, we all internalize stuff from media, but you’re talking to people who tend to have an understanding that’s rooted in study as opposed to media and who have a communist perspective that reenforces their understanding because communists love writing books about stuff almost as much as they love reading books about stuff.
Once you get hit with the ol’ tankie wall of links, consider clicking on some of them. It’s easy to see someone posting a mess of links in response to you as an argumentation strategy, but it’s actually an education strategy.
disagree that there is such thing as evil. It’s a distancing tactic for people to give space between the horrors they know humanity can do and what they believe that they’re capable of. It’s just a knock-on from tribalism and othering.
I don’t think anyone is referring to evil as some sort of ghostly spectre that forces people to do things. It’s a descriptive word that is used to describe actions of people or groups of people.
That it is run by the same kind of people as the West? We know that the West is run by Capitalists to further their interests. China is actively hostile to capitalists, and observes some of the highest capitalist flight in the world.
No, China is a socialist country. The working classes are the ones that control the state, and as a consequence policy is directed towards their interests. Capitalists exist in a cage, used primarily for the beneficial socializing aspect markets have with respect to disconnected, smaller and competitive industries.
Secondly, I have no idea what you mean by “country with the most doubly so” bit. China isn’t dominated by finance capital and does not have the economic forces compelling imperialism that the west has. Imperialism isn’t just something people do, it’s economically compelled.
China has the second most billionaires in the world, man. They can call themselves whatever they want, economic inequality like that is a clear sign of oligarchy. Or do you have some other explanation on how someone can “earn” thousands of times more than others in a supposedly fair system? If the workers own their excess, why do you still have hoarders? How do you still have hoarders?
China has the second most billionaires in the world
How about you look at it by rate as opposed to using raw numbers when comparing a country of 1.4 Billion to much smaller countries (you might then come to realize by rate China is down near India while being far more developed).
economic inequality like that is a clear sign of oligarchy
No its not. Its a symptom of a private sector (and thus some private property) continuing to exist.
If the workers own their excess, why do you still have hoarders? How do you still have hoarders?
Because the trade off was refusing to make use of market relations and remain spreading equal poverty under the Gang of Four.
I was right you really have no idea what you’re talking about.
China has capitalists, yes. This does not mean they control the economy. As I already said, capitalists exist in a cage, used primarily for the beneficial socializing aspect markets have with respect to disconnected, smaller and competitive industries. To dogmatically collectivize even highly underdeveloped industry is a misstep, which was committed by the Gang of Four.
Socialist countries like the USSR and DPRK that have more tightly controlled economies are typically this way due to encirclement and needing to defend themselves, not because this is the most sensible course for development from a Marxist perspective. Even in the USSR, Stalin had the artels, which were essentially worker cooperatives, well after the end of the NEP.
Trying to centrally plan a bunch of small businesses would be a nightmare, but it’s much easier to plan large industry. That’s why the basis of communism is large industry, and why one of the most critical tasks of any socialist country is to develop the productive forces in the best way possible. China allows limited private property for the progressive role it plays in comparison to small businesses and other petty production.
How familiar are you with Marxism? China’s economy makes perfect sense when viewed from a Marxist angle, and they are Marxist-Leninists.
To be clear, this isn’t to minimize the fucked up shit, but to get people to realize that the fucked up shit is a result of the system, rather than some remarkable evil in the hearts of some “other”.
Thinking that evil is a thing that exists is a thing that we use to distance ourselves from what we’re all capable of doing. It’s better to be honest about that shit than to hide behind tribalism for comfort. “I could never do that because I’m [some in-group that’s really the same as most in-groups]”
But honestly, I’m having trouble parsing what you’re saying here. That I’m saying nothing or what?
Somewhat true, but all things considered, the US Empire is still far worse than any empire before it. There’s hardly a comparison.
As for China - I guess we’ll see soon enough. So far it’s been thousands of times better on its road to world leader status than the US has ever been. Unless it radically changes course once the US is gone, it’ll easily be a massive improvement.
And even if it does change course - it’ll still most likely be an improvement, just not necessarily a massive one. Honestly, I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to the level of attrocities committed by the US.
the US Empire is still far worse than any empire before it. There’s hardly a comparison.
Idk, there are a lot of western nations with a pretty long and brutal history. What criteria are we comparing?
I would say America is definitely the top dog in modern history, but it’s a pretty young country to win the most brutal empire in all of history. I mean the Romans were around for nearly a thousand years and had a slave economy for pretty much all of it.
There are some historical outliers in history, particularly the colonization of the Americas. Collectively the English, Portuguese, and the Spanish empire are ultimately responsible for killing over 100 million people.
The expansion of the Mongol empire, especially in China and on their way to Baghdad killed around 40 million people, an estimated 11% of the global population.
So while America is the reigning champion in our time, I don’t know if they really hold the title for worst in all of history. Hell even in ancient times the Romans were able to murder a million people in Gaul and enslave a million more.
I think the US gets to inherit some of the guilt for the extermination of the native population and the colonization of the Americas.
The expansion of the Mongol empire, especially in China and on their way to Baghdad killed around 40 million people, an estimated 11% of the global population.
For comparison, US sanctions have killed 38 million since 1970. That’s just from sanctions. There’s a tendency for more modern empires to kill more people, simply because there are more people to kill. I don’t think that makes the US some uniquely evil country or anything, it’s just another empire and it just so happens to be an empire when the most people have lived.
I think the US gets to inherit some of the guilt for the extermination of the native population and the colonization of the Americas
Yeah, I would say that’s fair. They have been the largest benefactor over time. I think my original point was a question like that is hard to really quantify in general. Any genuine answer would require a more specific question. I think there’s also a danger of either minimizing the brutality of the past or alternatively minimizing the scale of suffering happening today.
When I say the US is the worst, I don’t mean it’s unique. If any other empire happened to exist in a world with billions of people they’d have easily been as bad as the US is. The US is the worst simply as an accident of history, it’s not special.
Yes, because the US got to the top of the pile after most western nations were fully industrialized. We commit atrocities on a scale never before seen… because we have the capability to do so, not because we’re uniquely evil. Do you really think the British wouldn’t be doing the same shit we are if they’d been capable of it in the 18th century?
You make a good point here, and I hadn’t thought about it that way. China is quite scary, and their dominance is certainly understated in my declaration of the US being the worst of them. I can see how my statement is exceptionalism. Despite the US having some unique cruelties, It is the authoritarian state in general having a monopoly on violent control that is the ultimate disaster.
All of Africa has been the target of so much cruelty, and china has a role in that. I am certain there are nightmares on the horizon.
Because it is an authoritarian state, and to be clear I’m more afraid of the US because of where I live. I just find any non-horizontally organized states that have a lot of power, especially authoritarian ones, to be scary in general.
All states are “authoritarian,” in that all are monopolies on violence. The benefit of China is that the working classes control the state, so its authority is used in the interest of the people.
Germany gets a lot of (well deserved) heat for the nazis, but it is a true testament to the efficacy of propaganda investments that the US does not have a worse reputation. Even hitler wrote about how he was inspired by the US to do the things he did.
I agree with you. The US is, and always has been, a cancer on the planet more malicious than any other.
Removed by mod
China is a socialist country, it does not have the economic compulsion towards colonization and imperialism that capitalist countries do. China gains independence from the west and potential customers by facilitating trade outside the domination of the west, that’s what it gains.
China is an oligarchy, my man. They’re better than the west for now, but the same kind of greedy bastards run their country as do the rest of ours.
Regardless of that, though, they are still operating in the “country with the most doubly so” world. So they have the incentive to fuck over other countries to enrich themselves/ promote their ideologies.
Wrong. Here’s some sources:
Is China State Capitalist?
Lol, it’s so cute when you guys play world-weary badass with zero knowledge of the world to even be weary of.
Stop playing us vs them. Jumping in at the end of a conversation to declare yourself the victor on behalf of people you agree with is mastubatory at best.
I put my foot in my mouth and kept putting it back there. Doesn’t make you look better to point out how dumb I look. Trust, I know how badly I fumbled, my man.
Hey you know what , then I gotta give you credit. I’m used to people who double, triple, quadruple down
But like. What have they actually done that is so scary?
They are not white, reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaally scary!!!
Please don’t strawman. Thanks
Strawman of what? The blanks you left others to fill in for you?
Removed by mod
So you don’t have an example.
As I suspected, this is just anarcho-cynicism: human nature is evil, there is zero difference between any nations, everything is the same, nothing matters, etc etc.
Human nature isn’t evil, it’s dumb. We can only focus on what’s in front of us because we’re inherently biased towards the self. That’s the source of billionaires, wealth inequality, and the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Humans are very much capable of overcoming this issue, but to do so we have to acknowledge that it is an issue. Putting your fingers in your ears and saying “my team knows the way” isn’t going to help anyone. Especially when it’s obvious that your team does NOT have a handle on these issues either.
I disagree that there is such thing as evil. It’s a distancing tactic for people to give space between the horrors they know humanity can do and what they believe that they’re capable of. It’s just a knock-on from tribalism and othering.
Pretending that my argument is about what you want to talk about instead of what I’m actually saying is cowardice. Like I said, China is next up which is why I’m using them as the example. But since you’re going to sit on an irrelevant thing in an attempt to make me appear like I can’t come up with an example, here are the concerning things about China right now.
They have massive income inequality. Second most billionaires of any country in the world.
They favor creating national cohesion by reducing differences between populations in their country, rather than creating a unifying national identity aimed towards some goal.
They create treaties with poorer countries that boil down to “we’ll develop the infrastructure to extract this resource in exchange for getting the extracted resource”, which is eerily close to early colonization tactics.
They have imperial ambitions on sovereign (or formerly sovereign) territories that they consider to belong to them (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
I don’t think these are unique to China or even particularly egregious, but they are signs that if China gets on top they’re going to do what every other country does when they get on top. Use it to benefit their citizens at the cost of everyone else.
Evil, stupid, whatever. You’re fundamentally misanthropic, and I have no interest in that shit.
As a Marxist I get to have revolutionary optimism. I can believe humans are better than this, and even though the hitherto history of the world is the history of class struggle, we can get past this dark age through scientific socialism.
You, meanwhile, are convinced that nothing is going to change when the US empire is inevitably defeated. I feel bad for you.
You mean to say imperial ambitions, not empirical ambitions.
E: also you’re not using that word right.
If you’re open to taking some criticism, it seems like you have a media based understanding of the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, we all internalize stuff from media, but you’re talking to people who tend to have an understanding that’s rooted in study as opposed to media and who have a communist perspective that reenforces their understanding because communists love writing books about stuff almost as much as they love reading books about stuff.
Once you get hit with the ol’ tankie wall of links, consider clicking on some of them. It’s easy to see someone posting a mess of links in response to you as an argumentation strategy, but it’s actually an education strategy.
I don’t think anyone is referring to evil as some sort of ghostly spectre that forces people to do things. It’s a descriptive word that is used to describe actions of people or groups of people.
What leads you to hold this opinion about China?
That it is run by the same kind of people as the West? We know that the West is run by Capitalists to further their interests. China is actively hostile to capitalists, and observes some of the highest capitalist flight in the world.
No, China is a socialist country. The working classes are the ones that control the state, and as a consequence policy is directed towards their interests. Capitalists exist in a cage, used primarily for the beneficial socializing aspect markets have with respect to disconnected, smaller and competitive industries.
Secondly, I have no idea what you mean by “country with the most doubly so” bit. China isn’t dominated by finance capital and does not have the economic forces compelling imperialism that the west has. Imperialism isn’t just something people do, it’s economically compelled.
China has the second most billionaires in the world, man. They can call themselves whatever they want, economic inequality like that is a clear sign of oligarchy. Or do you have some other explanation on how someone can “earn” thousands of times more than others in a supposedly fair system? If the workers own their excess, why do you still have hoarders? How do you still have hoarders?
How about you look at it by rate as opposed to using raw numbers when comparing a country of 1.4 Billion to much smaller countries (you might then come to realize by rate China is down near India while being far more developed).
No its not. Its a symptom of a private sector (and thus some private property) continuing to exist.
Because the trade off was refusing to make use of market relations and remain spreading equal poverty under the Gang of Four.
I was right you really have no idea what you’re talking about.
China has capitalists, yes. This does not mean they control the economy. As I already said, capitalists exist in a cage, used primarily for the beneficial socializing aspect markets have with respect to disconnected, smaller and competitive industries. To dogmatically collectivize even highly underdeveloped industry is a misstep, which was committed by the Gang of Four.
Socialist countries like the USSR and DPRK that have more tightly controlled economies are typically this way due to encirclement and needing to defend themselves, not because this is the most sensible course for development from a Marxist perspective. Even in the USSR, Stalin had the artels, which were essentially worker cooperatives, well after the end of the NEP.
Trying to centrally plan a bunch of small businesses would be a nightmare, but it’s much easier to plan large industry. That’s why the basis of communism is large industry, and why one of the most critical tasks of any socialist country is to develop the productive forces in the best way possible. China allows limited private property for the progressive role it plays in comparison to small businesses and other petty production.
How familiar are you with Marxism? China’s economy makes perfect sense when viewed from a Marxist angle, and they are Marxist-Leninists.
Really showing you have exactly 0 (or in fact possibly a negative) understanding of China, and the Chinese state.
This is like a 6hrs documentary about
To be clear, this isn’t to minimize the fucked up shit, but to get people to realize that the fucked up shit is a result of the system, rather than some remarkable evil in the hearts of some “other”.
Thinking that evil is a thing that exists is a thing that we use to distance ourselves from what we’re all capable of doing. It’s better to be honest about that shit than to hide behind tribalism for comfort. “I could never do that because I’m [some in-group that’s really the same as most in-groups]”
But honestly, I’m having trouble parsing what you’re saying here. That I’m saying nothing or what?
Somewhat true, but all things considered, the US Empire is still far worse than any empire before it. There’s hardly a comparison.
As for China - I guess we’ll see soon enough. So far it’s been thousands of times better on its road to world leader status than the US has ever been. Unless it radically changes course once the US is gone, it’ll easily be a massive improvement.
And even if it does change course - it’ll still most likely be an improvement, just not necessarily a massive one. Honestly, I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to the level of attrocities committed by the US.
Idk, there are a lot of western nations with a pretty long and brutal history. What criteria are we comparing?
I would say America is definitely the top dog in modern history, but it’s a pretty young country to win the most brutal empire in all of history. I mean the Romans were around for nearly a thousand years and had a slave economy for pretty much all of it.
tbh population growth means the most modern empire will also be the most evil, simply as a matter of scale.
There are some historical outliers in history, particularly the colonization of the Americas. Collectively the English, Portuguese, and the Spanish empire are ultimately responsible for killing over 100 million people.
The expansion of the Mongol empire, especially in China and on their way to Baghdad killed around 40 million people, an estimated 11% of the global population.
So while America is the reigning champion in our time, I don’t know if they really hold the title for worst in all of history. Hell even in ancient times the Romans were able to murder a million people in Gaul and enslave a million more.
I think the US gets to inherit some of the guilt for the extermination of the native population and the colonization of the Americas.
For comparison, US sanctions have killed 38 million since 1970. That’s just from sanctions. There’s a tendency for more modern empires to kill more people, simply because there are more people to kill. I don’t think that makes the US some uniquely evil country or anything, it’s just another empire and it just so happens to be an empire when the most people have lived.
Yeah, I would say that’s fair. They have been the largest benefactor over time. I think my original point was a question like that is hard to really quantify in general. Any genuine answer would require a more specific question. I think there’s also a danger of either minimizing the brutality of the past or alternatively minimizing the scale of suffering happening today.
When I say the US is the worst, I don’t mean it’s unique. If any other empire happened to exist in a world with billions of people they’d have easily been as bad as the US is. The US is the worst simply as an accident of history, it’s not special.
Yes, because the US got to the top of the pile after most western nations were fully industrialized. We commit atrocities on a scale never before seen… because we have the capability to do so, not because we’re uniquely evil. Do you really think the British wouldn’t be doing the same shit we are if they’d been capable of it in the 18th century?
You make a good point here, and I hadn’t thought about it that way. China is quite scary, and their dominance is certainly understated in my declaration of the US being the worst of them. I can see how my statement is exceptionalism. Despite the US having some unique cruelties, It is the authoritarian state in general having a monopoly on violent control that is the ultimate disaster.
All of Africa has been the target of so much cruelty, and china has a role in that. I am certain there are nightmares on the horizon.
This is just “having a government” and unfortunately you’re gonna find it in every country for as long as class society exists.
How exactly is China “quite scary?”
Because red scare
Red scary 👻
Because it is an authoritarian state, and to be clear I’m more afraid of the US because of where I live. I just find any non-horizontally organized states that have a lot of power, especially authoritarian ones, to be scary in general.
All states are “authoritarian,” in that all are monopolies on violence. The benefit of China is that the working classes control the state, so its authority is used in the interest of the people.