• @hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    17 months ago

    Working class executing CEOs that work against them

    Ruling class executing CEOs who don’t work for them

    Slight difference

    • @within_epsilon@beehaw.org
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      07 months ago

      Absolutely. Power is the difference. Vertical power structures all look the same. Call it communism, but those at the bottom are still ruled by those at the top. Instead give me some of that horizontal, bottom up power. No gods, no masters.

    • Dessalines
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      07 months ago

      There is never a case of a working class party conquering political power, that hasn’t been demonized by western anti-communist society.

      When the US and its media tells you that the leaders China or Cuba or Vietnam are just “dictators”, why do you believe them?

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      07 months ago

      That’s an anti-Marxist view of class. What is the “ruling class” you speak of in the PRC? Government isn’t class, but an extension of the class in power, so which class is in power?

      • 小莱卡
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        07 months ago

        the ruling class in china is the working class since its a dictatorship of the proletariat. So commentor is kinda right, tho im sure commentor doesn’t mean it that way.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          07 months ago

          Yep, that’s why I framed my question in that manner. If they said bourgeoisie, I would point out how that’s wrong, if they said Proletarian, I would ask why that’s bad, if they said some third class I’d show how that’s anti-Marxist.

          • @Windex007@lemmy.world
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            -17 months ago

            My point is you had no point. You responded to a FANTASTIC explanation of the difference by splitting hairs on what by your definition qualifies as a class.

            Instead of addressing the argument, you just threw a semantics argument, which I maintain is the terminally online version of pocket sand.

            • Cowbee [he/they]
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              07 months ago

              I addressed it entirely. The Proletariat executing Billionaires who go against the proletariat is perfectly in line with Marx and his concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The CPC has 96 million members, it isn’t a distinct class, it represents the will of the people and as such has a higher than 95% approval rate. Their implication is that the CPC is some third ruling class, and not the instrument of proletarian supremacy, which is why I corrected it.

              Your response doesn’t address any of how I analyzed their argument, by insisting I am “splitting hairs” by pointing out how the class dynamics of a bourgeois state and a proletarian state are fundamentally different, and that difference is that the proletarian state represents the real will of the people while the bourgeois state does not.

              • @Windex007@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                This is where I think the conversations always break down on ml.

                You fervently assert things like a 95% approval rating while selectively ignoring the “social credit” system that punishes people who don’t approve. You use large party employment to justify some kind of perfect overlap between the proletariat and the government. Where do you think the real decision making is done? Do you think it isn’t a tiny fraction of party elite? How would you view these things through the lens of manufactured consent?

                I don’t think it’s any better in a western capitalist system, but I’m not going to deceive myself into thinking that china is running fundamentally differently than any western oligarchy.

                • davel [he/him]
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                  07 months ago

                  I’m not going to deceive myself into thinking that china is running fundamentally differently than any western oligarchy.

                  You’re choosing to continue deceiving yourself that China is not fundamentally different from any western oligarchy, got it.

                • Cowbee [he/they]
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                  07 months ago

                  It’s more that liberals like yourself directly ignoring facts and statistics while blindly repeating vague and unsourced claims of “China Bad,” because it lets you remain comfortable in your pre-existing worldview. Communists do not have such luxury, which is why they seemingly always have endless sources on hand. In your comment here, as an example, you discredit the CPC’s approval with no source. However, if we ask Harvard themselves about the results of their study, they say “We find that first, since the start of the survey in 2003, Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. From the impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report increases in satisfaction. Second, the attitudes of Chinese citizens appear to respond (both positively and negatively) to real changes in their material well-being, which suggests that support could be undermined by the twin challenges of declining economic growth and a deteriorating natural environment.” This directly goes against your claims of “social credit” preventing this, moreover the “Orwellian Social Credit System” you hint at doesn’t even exist, at least not in the manner you imply it does.

                  You are directly decieving yourself because you license yourself to. If you actually looked at real sources and didn’t reject them reflexively, while accepting bourgeois media at face value, you’d sit much closer to where I do. You should read False Witnesses and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” Both are excellent examples of why people don’t change their minds when seeing indisputable evidence, they willingly go along with narratives that they find more comfortable. It explains the outright anger liberals express when anticommunism is debunked. That doesn’t mean Communists don’t do the same thing, but as we live in a liberal dominated west (most likely, assuming demographics) this happens to a much lesser extent because liberalism is that which supplies these “licenses” to go along, while Communism requires hard work to begin to accept. This explains the mountains of sources Communists keep on hand, and the lack thereof from liberals who argue from happenstance and vibes.

                • Dessalines
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                  7 months ago

                  The “social credit system” was made to hold financial and privately-run institutions to account, and prevent companies and organizations from committing fraud and polluting the environment. Even US capitalist mouthpieces like foreign policy agree with this.

                  The government does assign universal social credit codes to companies and organizations, which they use as an ID number for registration, tax payments, and other activities, while all individuals have a national ID number. The existing social credit blacklists use these numbers, as do almost all activities in China. But these codes are not scores or rankings. Enterprises and professionals in various sectors may be graded or ranked, sometimes by industry associations, for specific regulatory purposes like restaurant sanitation. However, the social credit system does not itself produce scores, grades, or assessments of “good” or “bad” social credit. Instead, individuals or companies are blacklisted for specific, relatively serious offenses like fraud and excessive pollution that would generally be offenses anywhere. To be sure, China does regulate speech, association, and other civil rights in ways that many disagree with, and the use of the social credit system to further curtail such rights deserves monitoring.

                  These are basic things the US used to do in the 1950s, but now stopped any pretense of doing. Any regulation against business is considered “authoritarian” now.

                  Meanwhile in the US, having a bad credit score can prevent you from buying a car, house, or even renting an apartment.

                  China uses these scores to hold financial institutions to account, while the US uses scores to prevent ordinary citizens from getting housing. One country is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the other a dictatorship of capital.

            • comfy
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              7 months ago

              You responded to a FANTASTIC explanation of the difference by splitting hairs on what by your definition qualifies as a class.

              A fantastic explanation? It literally isn’t an explanation, it’s a comparison of two statements. Which is fine, and so is the critique of those statements to examine their perceived contradictions.

              From the perspective of the CPC and Marxist-Leninist theory, their ruling party represents the working class, just like our ruling parties represent the owner class of CEOs. [wikipedia page: DotP] Obviously that’s a contested claim which not even all Marxists will agree with, but it’s far from splitting hairs. It’s the basic foundation of the comparison, the implicit claim that one is a working class act and the other is not.

              • @Windex007@lemmy.world
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                07 months ago

                This is the most concise rebuttal and I think you’ve highlighted well where the root of the perceived discord lies.

                If one accepts that the CPC represents the working class, then the critique of the unfair comparison via the meme would be viewed as legitimate.

                If one contests the original assertion, then it does not. To them, Xi memeing a CEO would look to them more like Musk offing Altman.

  • Cowbee [he/they]
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    7 months ago

    Any “leftist” that thinks the fact that China has billionaires and therefore isn’t actually Socialist needs to read Marx and Engels. There are many such liberals here in these comments. Marx predicted Socialism to be the next mode of production because markets centralize and create intricate methods of planning. As such, he stated that folding private into the public would be gradual. From the Manifesto:

    The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

    In even simpler terms, from Engels in Principles of Communism:

    Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

    Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

    That doesn’t mean billionaires are good to have, necessarily, either. It remains a contradiction, but not an uncalculated one. I highly recommend anyone here read China has Billionaires. As much as Marxists want to lower wealth inequality as much as possible, in the stage of developmemt the PRC is at this would get in the way of development, and could cause Capital Flight and brain drain. Moreover, billionaires provide an easy scapegoat that the USSR didn’t have, and thus all problems of society were directed at the state. It’s important to consider why a Marxist country does what it does, and not immediately assume you know better.

    • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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      17 months ago

      Bro but they did it dictatorshiply 😭 in a real democracy you’d yell at them online, get a visit from the FBI, and politicians give them another 500 million in subsidies and tax breaks.

      • Dessalines
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        07 months ago

        Not sure. But the US just executed an innocent man, Marcellus Williams, just a few months ago.

        Some more US legal system fun facts!


        • The US currently operates a system of slave labor camps, including at least 54 prison farms involved in agricultural slave labor. Outside of agricultural slavery, Federal Prison Industries operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories , where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies. 1, 2, 3
        • The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Even individual US states outrank all other countries.
        • The War On Drugs, a policy of arrest and imprisonment targeting minorities, first initiated by Nixon, has over the years created a monstrous system of mass incarceration, resulting in the imprisonment of 1.5 million people each year, with the US having the most prisoners per capita of any nation. One in five black Americans will spend time behind bars due to drug laws. The war has created a permanent underclass of impoverished people who have few educational or job opportunities as a result of being punished for drug offenses, in a vicious cycle of oppression. 1, 2
        • In the present day, ICE (U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement), the police tasked with immigration enforcement, operates over 200 prison camps, housing over 31,000 undocumented people deemed “aliens”, 20,000 of which have no criminal convictions, in the US system of immigration detention. The camps include forced labor (often with contracts from private companies), poor conditions, lack of rights (since the undocumented aren’t considered citizens), and forced deportations, often splitting up families. Detainees are often held for a year without trial, with antiquated court procedures pushing back court dates for months, encouraging many to accept immediate deportation in the hopes of being able to return faster than the court can reach a decision, but forfeiting legal status, in a cruel system of coercion. 1, 2
        • Over 90% of criminal trials in the US are settled not by a judge or jury, but with plea bargaining, a system where the defendant agrees to plead guilty in return for a concession from the prosecutor. It has been statistically shown to benefit prosecutors, who “throw the book” at defendants by presenting a slew of charges, manipulating their fear, who in turn accept a lesser charge, regardless of their innocence, in order to avoid a worst outcome. The number of potentially innocent prisoners coerced into accepting a guilty plea is impossible to calculate. Plea bargaining can present a dilemma to defense attorneys, in that they must choose between vigorously seeking a good deal for their present client, or maintaining a good relationship with the prosecutor for the sake of helping future clients. Plea bargaining is forbidden in most European countries. John Langbein has equated plea bargaining to medieval torture: “There is, of course, a difference between having your limbs crushed if you refuse to confess, or suffering some extra years of imprisonment if you refuse to confess, but the difference is of degree, not kind. Plea bargaining, like torture, is coercive. Like the medieval Europeans, the Americans are now operating a procedural system that engages in condemnation without adjudication.” 1
        • A grand jury is a special legal proceeding in which a prosecutor may hold a trial before the real one, where ~20 jurors listen to evidence and decide whether criminal charges should be brought. Grand juries are rarely made up of a jury of the defendant’s peers, and defendants do not have the right to an attorney, making them essentially show-trials for the prosecution, who often find ways of using grand jury testimony to intimidate the accused, such as leaking stories about grand jury testimony to the media to defame the accused. In the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, all of whom were unarmed and killed by police in 2014, grand juries decided in all 3 cases not to pursue criminal trials against the officers. The US and Liberia are the only countries where grand juries are still legal. 1
        • The US system of bail (the practice of releasing suspects before their hearing for money paid to the court) has been criticized as monetizing justice, favoring rich, white collar suspects, over poorer people unable to pay for their release. 1
  • @x00z@lemmy.world
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    07 months ago

    The difference is whether or not the CEO is working against the people or against the government.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      7 months ago

      Over 95% of people support the CPC, so it’s fair to say that the people approve of the way the CPC is handling billionaires that are highly corrupt or otherwise guilty of mass crimes. If we ask Harvard themselves about the results of their study, they say “We find that first, since the start of the survey in 2003, Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. From the impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report increases in satisfaction. Second, the attitudes of Chinese citizens appear to respond (both positively and negatively) to real changes in their material well-being, which suggests that support could be undermined by the twin challenges of declining economic growth and a deteriorating natural environment.” This directly goes against claims of “social credit” preventing this, moreover the “Orwellian Social Credit System” hinted at doesn’t even exist, at least not in the manner most think it does. Even more overtly, they state "Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being."

      • Traister101
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        07 months ago

        95% of the people in a dictatorship like the dictator! That’s crazy

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          7 months ago

          It isn’t a dictatorship, source on it being one please? Secondly, I outright bolded where the western study outlined that the biggest factor in approval was the real material improvements in their lives. Why do you think you know more about a country than the billions that live there?

          • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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            07 months ago

            You’re wasting your time, if living in that shit hole and having to pay out the ass whenever their bank, insurance, landlord, ISP, or utility company wants to pad out their margins while their politicians get bribed by them isn’t enough to convince them that they’re the ones living in a dictatorship, nothing short of total societal collapse will.

        • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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          07 months ago

          Ah, yeah, true democracy is when everyone fucking hates congress, the supreme court, the president, their senator, their cops and their prosecutors, but they have no choice but to accept them.

          Y’all get to be sassy on Twitter tho, good for you lmao

          • Traister101
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            07 months ago

            I have never and will continue to never use Twitter. It was a shit hole long before Eron Musk bought it and made it a haven for terminally online Neo Natzis. I love how the immediate reaction whenever anybody says something slightly not in favor of the CCP you tankies do this kinda stuff lmao. Believe it or not people can believe things simultaneously, like maybe CCP is not great and also US not amazing?

        • Dessalines
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          07 months ago

          They literally linked you a study from harvard, because we know you white supremacists consider any non-western source as being inferior, and would reject them out of hand.

  • @forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
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    07 months ago

    Many of the chronically online social media poster (read: western professional class) are closer to the CEO than they are to any other group. The temporarily embarrassed millionaires as they’re also known.

    Statistically a not insignificant number of them are millionaires by net worth. Especially when we consider demographics where it’s mainly tech workers. But of course that doesn’t count because of some indeterminate line between evil CEO and average Joe who worked hard.

    The cognitive dissonance is that they’re all part of the same system. Climbing the same ladder. In any other context these people are bragging about being executive of some random startup or whatever.

    • @Miaou@jlai.lu
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      07 months ago

      Non-westerners’ view on what life is like here always amaze me. Then they complain they’re not rich besides earning “a lot”, because they’re fed the propaganda that we’re all dirty imperialists exploiting them. No, most of us are not millionaires. Most of us can’t even buy a place to live without enslaving ourselves for half our life to bankers. But OK buddy

      • @MadhuGururajan@programming.dev
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        06 months ago

        Most of us can’t even buy a place to live without enslaving ourselves for half our life to bankers.

        It’s perplexing then, why people most likely in this situation claim that capitalism is the best system.

      • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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        07 months ago

        Which is why the rest of us is confused about why most of y’all so rabidly do the propaganda work for your oppressors. Y’all consistently get to the line of class consciousness and then do a 180 and sprint in the opposite direction whenever it concerns foreigners.

      • @forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I am a westerner. No other comment. You’ve already made up your mind. And I can’t be assed to talk over what ever incronguencies you have of mindset.

        we’re all dirty imperialists exploiting them

        Okay just one comment I’ll have to withold else I’ll probably get banned for insulting your intelligence

    • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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      07 months ago

      They’re not, they just think they are. They’re every bit as oppressed and the sharing of the imperial spoils hasn’t been a thing since at least the fall of the USSR, once there was literally no alternative. Now there is an alternative but the population has been so thoroughly propagandized that you mention any enemy of the State Dept and they start frothing at the mouth.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      07 months ago

      It really hit the right balance, it prompted discussion in what is (hopefully) a productive manner by highlighting mass support for violence against billionaires compared to the actions of AES states. Hopefully people start reading Marx after this.

      • @GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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        07 months ago

        Luigi’s alleged actions were an attempt at drawing attention to social issues. Xi Jinping’s actions on the other hand are attempts at violently suppressing opposition ergo authoritarianism.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
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          07 months ago

          Can you provide any support for your argument that the PRC executes billionaires because of opposition, and not, say, massive corruption? Because you again seem to be making up a narrative to suit your present biases without looking at any sources.

            • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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              7 months ago

              If only Adolf Eichmann had committed his atrocities 10 years later or so, all he had to do was say “the authoritarians are canceling me for wrongthink, literally 1984” and you liberals would have ate it the fuck up

            • Lunar
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              07 months ago

              so according to your own definition, luigi killed that CEO for committing wrongthink and is authoritarian.

              like davel just showed you, they’re doing the exact same thing, but it’s only bad to you when it’s law and not adventurism. anarchists or whatever you want to call yourself really are just vibes-based and it’s so fucking annoying and reductive. you will never accomplish anything because you instinctively oppose progress as “authoritarian” when it’s actually made. you just want to feel like a rebel no matter what kind of system you’re living in.

    • 小莱卡
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      07 months ago

      Taking a life is the most authoritarian act there is, the CEO certainly didnt consent lmao

    • comfy
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      07 months ago

      The authorization of CEO execution sounds like a good thing. People are clearly singing for it, so why not make it policy?

      • @Grapho@lemmy.mlOP
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        7 months ago

        bc when the gubmint do thing it makes it communist and that’s literally like that book with the animals at the farm