"How to characterize the Chinese state (and USSR before it) has always been contested and based on differing conceptions of socialism and capitalism, but we can agree on the need to support working class struggles for democratic rights wherever they occur." - Marv The key words are "democratic rights" of which there is little in China, where workers cannot organize and withhold production for better pay and working conditions. That has contributed to the imbalance of trade between China and the US, where pay may be many multiples of what it is across the Pacific. Trade decisions do impact the American workforce, and our politicians have largely failed to consider the interests of our working class. The passage of NAFTA was a watershed moment in that regard, with many companies relocating production to Mexico. The US workforce now operates in a global competitive landscape that includes people from across the world who are virtually enslaved. The EV problem speaks to this phenomenon as US workers and Chinese workers have different legal abilities to control their working conditions. Without the ability to ask for more pay, Chinese auto workers are of course going to churn out a cheaper product from which only their bosses will benefit and that they will pay the price for. Military readiness in the US is very much a current concern, but if Chinese EVs are being blocked by the Biden administration for that reason, it simply means that we have allowed foreign countries to dictate labor laws on the backs of workers across the globe. Better trade decisions predicated on favorable working conditions and labor law would have ensured our factories kept humming and available for large-scale military reconfiguration without the need for an embargo. On Monday, May 20, 2024 at 06:27:32 PM EDT, Marv Gandall <marvga...@gmail.com> wrote: On Mon, May 20, 2024 at 12:37 PM, Charlie wrote:
China today is the first capitalist country to carry out most of its industrialization after a socialist period. Yes, that affects the form of Chinese capitalism. It is more vicious and more repressive than classic bourgeois democracies. It’s true that one-party states tend to be more repressive than the ruling duopolies in the most developed capitalist states, with the qualifier that the latter can become equally vicious and even morph into fascist dictatorships when the system is seriously threatened from within or without. Short of that, the long history of repression against militant trade unions, left-wing parties, and dissenting movements such as the one speaking out on behalf of Palestine today shouldn’t be understated. The comparative lack of mass action in China, however, has less to do with a more repressive state apparatus than with what surveys have shown to be a higher level of popular satisfaction with the political leadership and system than in the bourgeois democracies. This result is not surprising since working class living standards have risen sharply in China while having stagnated or fallen in the West in recent decades. How to characterize the Chinese state (and USSR before it) has always been contested and based on differing conceptions of socialism and capitalism, but we can agree on the need to support working class struggles for democratic rights wherever they occur. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30433): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30433 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106146595/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
