The world is healing
As Stalin correctly explains here, there will be surplus product in a socialist economy and, similarly, the commodity form doesn’t die overnight. Thinking that communism involves slamming a button titled “END CAPITALISM NOW” is just romantic idealist-slop.
China’s spent 75yrs in primary stage and has challenged the US economic method better than Stalin ever did. Now they’re poised to overtake it and have the upper hand in establishing the new terms on which the global economy works. If this opportunity is not a next step in dismantling capitalism but rather seizing the market for the sake of control, is the higher phase even a goal because it can always be a lofty aspiration on the horizon that “now isn’t the time for”. The nation in control of the market controls the process of exchange. Money can disappear if the products of labour cease to be commodities.
The PRC is already in the process of eliminating the commodity form, requirements for doing so include breaking the international system of imperialism, and the establishment of socialism in countries China does trade with. Imperialism still exists, the periphery is breaking free from the domination of the core, but this does not happen overnight. The countries China trades with are largely not socialist either. Much of China itself is underdeveloped, and if the PRC is not indisputably ahead of the rest of the world then this will be turned against it if it makes any larher movements.
In other words, China cannot end the commodity form at the present moment, but that does not mean it is not working at the present moment on fulfilling the requirements to do so.
What are the milestones you’re looking for as it does so? What do you expect to see as that economy becomes the dominant force behind global trade?
De-dollarization, expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative, a transition from fossil-fuels to renewables, energy independence not just in China but in the periphery, revolution in the imperial core, a decrease in marketization and an increase in public ownership by ratio of the economy, etc. All of these are important milestones, but they do not happen overnight.
Are they in the process of occcuring?
Sure.
Actually existing socialist states exist under constant threat from the US empire and until the empire is well and truly over it will not be possible to achieve actual communism. The fall of the USSR was a tragedy, and not one I’d like to see repeated.
What threats to China that the US once had remain? They’ve destroyed their education system. They’re people live on credit and increasingly own none of the classic benchmarks of capitalist success, like a home. Their military spends its time blowing up fishing boats and while it starts a lot of war and leaves trails of bodies, it only picks wars with presumably outmatched opponents and then loses. Their closet allies (other than Israel) are drifting away from them. They’re terrorizing their populace and stoking flames of bigotry. Their infrastructure is crumbling and they’re embracing 19th century energy standards while the rest of the developed (and a lot of the underdeveloped) nations move on. Their oligarchs hoard most of the monetary wealth (as well as the physical) and are converting that to crypto and foreign currency to enrich themselves before the collapse they’re helping fuel cripples the plebs. Aside from their nuclear capability, once the dollar ceases to be the global standard, what threat is the US to China?
Aside from their nuclear capability
That’s a pretty big ‘aside’.
Aside from the means to end life on earth, what power do they even hold??
Yes, that’s the question. If you call the US’s bluff on nuclear war, which it has consistently shown it won’t do even while losing to nations incapable of that level of retaliation much less a nation fully capable, what do they have left other than financial leverage, which is currently in rapid decline?
Aside from their nuclear capability
That is a hell of an aside.
Most Americans own their home btw https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/homeownership-stats/ the US capitalist empire still exploits the rest of the world and has vassal states in their hemisphere and abroad that they have financialized and steal their profits.
Is it? The US routinely avoids direct conflict with other nuclear capable nations due to the potential retribution being one of the few things (other than a terror attack) that has the physical capability of damaging them at home. And you’re correct, the US does use global financial leverage over other state, because they have been the global financial power. But as this article points out, that once mighty flex is currently teetering on phasing out. Their deficit is larger than their GDP and the oligarchs are playing the stock market like a fiddle while double-dipping on profiteering by gambling on their manipulation on betting apps. Techbros are aggressively pushing for the elimination of large sections of the human workforce, not to liberate people from tedious, dangerous working conditions so they can seek life fulfillment, but because it’s cheaper. They turned to global exploitation of resources in order to preserve their own wild spaces but are now looking inward again to privatize and profiteer by carving up what public lands are left. Decades of racism meant that the backbone of their most unappealing jobs were performed by exploiting migrant labor; they are gutting their workforce. At what point does the US cease to be viewed as powerful empire versus called out as a wounded animal lashing out as it succumbs to it’s self-inflicted injuries?
Only about 26% of Americans own their homes, 40% are paying towards eventual ownership through a mortgage even though they are called “homeowners”. Because of the nature of this system the demographics of who outright owns their home is skewed heavily towards Boomers and Gen X. Millennials are more likely to be drowning in a mortgage, and Gen Z is rapidly falling behind in their ability to gain entrance as elder generations refuse to downsize into homes better suited for their needs, turn their properties into passive income generators, and when housing does reach the market is purchased by private equity.
Let’s not forget that USSR also saw astonishing levels of development under Stalin. The stagnation started after Khrushchev reforms. However, as I noted earlier, China can’t just flip a switch and create some sort of a moneyless society. Dismantling capitalism start with worker ownership of the means of production, and there will be a a prolonged socialist stage where existing relations have not yet been abolished, and the only thing that’s different is which class holds power.
The meme is a hyperbole because it’s a meme, we know there’s no single switch. However, I point out again, China has had a long running developmental, implemental, transitional, and establishment phase and will have significant power as it continues to digest the American economy on multiple fronts. The United States gutted its industrial capacity, diluted its education, and is leading the way on ass backwards energy. It’s priced its own citizens out of ownership of land and as a substitute they embraced consumerism of low cost goods as a proof of “success”. What is owned by Americans is largely in the hands of a handful of oligarchs that for all their anti-China rhetoric are also more than willing to enrich themselves at a loss to their poorer fellow citizens because unlike the Gilded Age elite, they don’t give a shit about their legacy, only what they can achieve in their lifetime. Even without the current regime, the US was in massive decline, they’re just speed rolling it because they’ve found a way to profit.
China doesn’t have to flip the switch of “let’s start phase one socialism” nor the switch of “death of American capitalism” because both those have been flipped already. Dismantling capitalism is not an on/off, it’s a dimmer. The idea that the first phase would take time was rooted in the idea that poor or underdeveloped countries would struggle to transition from illiteracy/subsistence farming to a industrial capable state, that they’d have to do as Russia/China did and have their own industrial/technological revolutions and developments possibly over decades to centuries, as well as deal with adverse global conditions. But it is temporary.
America is in decline and its infrastructure crumbling, but it has the core amenities of a developed nation. China has been a global power for quite some time. Neither has to have industrial or technological revolutions. The biggest hurdle the Chinese supremacy has been that the US had been the relatively stable global finance standard for years and has used that adversarially. If that’s finally removed, why not begin the process of elimination of money? Prolonged is a good word because when you have all the cards but refuse to play your hand, you’re prolonging the game.
You’re completely ignoring the contradictions present within China itself here. China still has a capitalist class, and it is still in the primary stages of socialism with the workers having established a class dictatorship over capital, but China is far from abolishing existing relations right now. The collapse of the west is certainly a prerequisite for the transition to any higher stage of socialism, but it will be a long time before relations start meaningfully changing with China itself, let alone the rest of the world.
So when can we expect it to start, 2050?
So when can we expect your revolution to happen, 2040?
If it doesn’t happen by then can we declare the western proletariat counter revolutionary?
Or is it possible putting arbitrary timelines on things of this nature rather than examining the material conditions and trajectories of change is idiotic and only serves to demonise progressive forces for not being as perfect in reality as one imagines in their fantasies?
It’s already started, there’s no such thing as a static system, and China has been advancing steadily along the socialist road already. Once imperialism falls, China’s strategic place within the global markets will change character and will accelerate socialization of production and distribution. China doesn’t have private property for the sake of it, but as a strategic concession to both help develop underdeveloped sectors of its economy, and to become something the west relies on and therefore cannot risk attacking.
It’s an ongoing process that’s currently happening.
Was it because of Krushchev’s reforms?
Stagnation started right after the petrodollar scheme and SWIFT coming online.I’d argue Krushchev set the stage because he abolished artels which led to all the problems USSR had with light industry. Had USSR retained a mix of state industry and cooperative driven market economy, it would’ve developed in a similar way to China today except without a capitalist class.
what could have been
indeed
I mean, North Dakota uses dollars since it’s a US state, Russia is just getting ready for the same once it’s a Chinese vassal state.
Vassalage is when strategic partnership rooted in complimentary economic fundamentals
when you definitely understand how bilateral trade works
