Cowbee [he/they]

Famine was ended via collectivization and industrialization, well before “market incentives” were introduced. The market wasn’t necessary, industrial equipment was. Also, “empires,” lmao.

As for centralization, I’m 100% award that market economies trend towards centralization. That’s my point. I’m confused what you think I’m trying to say, here.

As for your adventure in Hong Kong, you’re incredibly defensive of British colonialism and see anti-colonialism as China going back on promises to colonizers. This is ridiculous, lmao.

As for the definitions you provided, they are woefully underdeveloped and simplistic. Imperialism and colonialism are predicated on extraction, not mere influence, and an empire is necessarily a country that does imperialism. Extracting resources is not colonialism or imperialism. The limits of your definitions are immediately apparent. What’s important is the elimination of sovereignty, and the extraction of surplus value. There is no cultural erasure in Xinjiang nor Tibet.

As for your lies about sterilization, they come from Adrian Zenz, Christian nationalist and professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does. Zenz’ work has been thoroughly discredited, yet is supported by western media for its utility in fearmongering. An example is lying about 8.7% of new IUDs as 80%, to back up claims of “forced sterilization,” from this chart:

You get onto me for providing a source that links almost entirely western news sources when available, and has fact checked information, while talking about claims from Adrian Zenz and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Hilarious. I recommend actually reading the UN report as well as (especially) China’s response to it, which eclipses it in size and detail. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz.

Please, be serious.

Okay? Touch grass, please.

You should in fact reread this thread. I referenced Chinese scholars, anticommunist western scholars like Kotkin, and more. The archival evidence of Stalin being unaware of the famine isn’t Stalin making shit up after the fact, it’s a documented instance of the Central Committee being kept in the dark by the Ukrainian Communists and needing to deal with the consequences.

I did in fact read it.

I did read it, it did not disprove the single source it was meant to counter, and moreover it said nothing of the other half dozen I listed.

No, it did not.

No, he is not.

Except it isn’t something that happened, though. Hasan has done plenty of things to critique.

How is advocating for the eventual abolition of private property count as being timid towards landowners? It involves sweeping collectivization of land, something easily achievable and already done at scale in most socialist countries.

Regarding increased specialization alongside human knowledge, this is true at the level of the profession, not at the level of the worker. Work is designed to be as readily replacable as possible, wherever possible. An RF engineer working at NASA may have a learning curve, but the underlying basics of how to perform their job can be transfered to similar roles elsewhere. Practice and proficiency is helpful, yes, but we must consider these socially, not individually.

You entirely missed the point on carpentry, smithing, etc. These are almost entirely performed by machines in factories. Artisinal creation is step by step being abolished in favor of automated and machine assisted labor in large factories. So too will this apply to engineering, medicine, etc.

The idea that an advanced communist society would be unable to outcompete a market-based society in standard of living is as laughable as the idea of a feudal society outcompeting a capitalist society. For starters, communism must be a global system. Beyond that, communism rests in highly advanced productive forces too large in scale for markets to function to begin with, so even if we had a hypothetical communism in one country, there would be no need to go to a market-based society just like there’s no need to go to feudal societies for a higher standard of living.

The necessity for these advanced productive forces is exactly why communism does not yet exist, just like nuclear fusion as an energy source at scale does not. It needs to be built up, not simply willed into existence at the stroke of a pen.

You have no clue what you’re suggesting, no matter how many times I state it.

I just said that people can make memes organically responding to drama started inorganically. The idea that absolutely no institutional play was involved is silly, considering the level of public attention up to and including Netanyahu’s mouth at the UN. Take off the tinfoil hat and touch some grass.

If only it wasn’t a systemic problem in southern Korea, where the majority of Presidents have been executed, imprisoned, or assassinated in a coup.

How on Earth am I arguing in bad faith? What do tanks have to do with Hasan?

Already have, you should.

People can willingly and unknowingly participate in psyops by being influenced, yes.

The USSR ended famine in the 1930s, after it collectivized and industrialized agriculture with combine-harvestors. Outside of wartime, there were no more famines. China went through a similar route, once they had industrialized agriculture, famine became a fact of history, not an active threat. Famine had been common to both regions under semi-feudal relations of agriculture, which is low in productivity and weak to adverse weather.

Regarding the tendency for markets to centralize, this is a fact. Scholarly research backs this up heavily with empirical data. This isn’t “gospel,” it’s how markets work. Of course economics is complex, and of course I have to simplify it for Lemmy comments, especially when you cannot even grasp the passing of time resulting in gradual change.

As for your adventures in Hong Kong, you deliberately referred to the colonial era as “cool,” and the part where China regained its sovereignty as bad. Tibetans and Uyghurs are Chinese. They are not Han, but Han people living in Xinjiang and Tibet are not colonizers. Immigration is not colonialism. Colonialism is a relationship between exploiter and exploited, and central China is not exploiting periphery China. Xinjiang and Tibet both have regional autonomy within the broader system of China.

As for the claims of forced labor, these are false. I already provided evidence of this. Annexation of land is not colonialism, just like the Statesian North annexing the Statesian South is not colonialism. Connolly would be upset that you make light of actual colonialism by listening to the propaganda of the actually existing imperialist and neocolonial powers, such as the UK and US, who still have Ireland under their thumb to this day.

Who knows!

Hasan can do wrong, he’s a reformist and in many ways a liberal, rather than a socialist. Him being attacked and slandered as a threat to establishment Democrats is not up for debate.

Yep, it was deliberate as a smear campaign.

Nah, he has his problems as a reformist but the endless drama and defamation surrounding him is already known.

Online is easier than real life, and I have to do that too, haha. I appreciate the kind words!