But China is authoritarian.
Here’s some comparison:
- In both USA and china you can’t buy a ticket to a fast train if you’re credit score is bad. In china there is direct ban, in USA there is no fast Train.
- In china, this also applies to flight tickets. Basically if you have bad social credit, you are kinda fucked in almost anything in china including apointment to government services. USA it’s mostly tied to taking new loans or getting a new house or renting an apartment (?). Does not have actual effect on your ability to purchase flight tickets.
- In China they can check your phone (for images) and your online activity is quite accessible to the government. The checks can happen not only in international borders but also in inter regional borders. In USA, i know it’s a thing for foreigners during entrance to USA, not sure how is it for the citizens.
- In China you have to give away all your data (as a company), regardless of where that data is stored, if the government or the communist party requests it. They are technically different entities but practically the same entity. Failure to do so will fuck up your social credit. In USA you also have to hand over all your data (as a company) if the government asks regardless of where it is stored (since the CLOUD act), but hey at least you’re not handing over to the commies and it will probably not have any effect on your credit score.
- In china there is an app that notifies people of other people with poor social credit so they can generally avoid them. USA hasn’t invented that YET, although people from other political party are usually considered subhuman and beneath themselves and someone is looking.
The existence of this infamous app should be easy to prove. I have never seen anything but armchair reddit-tier experts making bold claims about.
I agree, and I would really want to know. The only “news” I found is the tests from Heinan province in 2019 but I couldn’t find anything after that. But testing of this system (introduced by the government), where you can see and report debtors itself feels quite scary and authoritarian to me.
You do know that social credit shit has been proven to be a lie, right?
Do you have sources for any of these claims?
I put some links in the comments below. But most of the ‘information’ I have is from news and documentaries about Xu Xiaodong. You can check the wikpeida article, but it’s just wikpedia.
I also know of someone who went to tibet as a tourist through Nepal. Their phone had to be surrendered for thorough checking, they apparently painstakingly checked all images. I don’t expect anybody to believe this as I can’t provide proof that it did happen.
Your main source is ASPI, a far right war-hawk australian defense industry think tank.
And your source is mintpressnews.
Also it’s not my main source. You just cherry picked one. Ok sure mybad on that, lets diregard that one. What about CIS, DHS, and NCSC?
Also BBC. Let’s also add wikipedia [1] [2] because why not.
And do we want to talk about censorship? Sounds like something an authoritarian regime does.
You’ve got nothing and you know it
I concede. There is no social credit, people not being allowed to travel in trains, rent or buy property, get government appointment is a myth. The Chinese government cannot compel any company to handover data. There is no censorship on china, no websites are banned there. You can criticize the government as much as you want without repercussions. People from Tibet have equal rights and citizenship of China. Ughyurs are not being oppressed, neither are the fallongongs who are just a cult
If anybody believes otherwise, it’s a hoax by the west.
Cheap sarcasm won’t bolster your case.
Let’s also add wikipedia
I am once again begging liberals to learn how sources work
This comparison mixes a few real policies with a lot of exaggeration. For example, the train and flight issue people always bring up is not about having a vague “bad social credit score.” What actually exists is a court enforcement measure. If someone refuses to comply with an effective court judgment (most commonly paying a debt or damages) the court can place them on the judgment-defaulter list (失信被执行人) and issue a high-consumption restriction (限制高消费). That mainly blocks luxury consumption like flights, first-class rail seats, and luxury hotels until the court order is fulfilled. The purpose is simply to pressure people to comply with the judgment and protect the creditor’s rights (why should sleazy business people who don’t pay their debts get to live lavishly).
Because of that, the claim that “if you have bad social credit you’re basically locked out of everything” is misleading. These restrictions target specific high-end consumption, not normal daily life. Even Chinese legal explanations make clear that they are meant to restrict non-essential spending such as flying, luxury hotels, expensive travel, etc., rather than basic living or ordinary transportation.
The surveillance point is also mixing separate issues. China does have strong state monitoring powers and extensive digital infrastructure, but that is not what the court enforcement blacklist system is. The travel restrictions and blacklists people talk about come from civil enforcement procedures in the courts, not from scanning someone’s phone or some universal personal “score.”
The same confusion shows up in the company data point. China has strict data and cybersecurity laws, but those are regulatory and national security frameworks. They are not the mechanism that puts someone on the judgment-defaulter list. That list exists specifically because someone ignored a legally binding court ruling, not because they refused to hand over corporate data.
And the idea that there is some nationwide app warning citizens about people with low “social credit” is another exaggeration. What actually exists are court databases of judgment defaulters, sometimes publicly searchable, similar to debtor registries in many legal systems. Again, the target is people who lost a case and then refused to comply with the ruling.
So the reality is much more mundane than the viral version. China absolutely has strong enforcement tools, but the famous travel bans people cite are mainly a judicial enforcement mechanism against people who refuse to comply with court judgments, not a universal social-credit score controlling everyone’s daily life.
Thanks for your post, your explanations are appreciated!
Don’t answer if annoying, sorry for rudeness, but do Chinese high-level officials openly live lavishly and flaunt their wealth like US leadership?
do Chinese high-level officials openly live lavishly and flaunt their wealth
How many Chinese high-level officials have you seen on yachts?
flaunt their wealth like US leadership?
The real leadership in the US isn’t the politicians; it’s the capitalists who own them.
Ahh I see. I read about and watched few documentaries about Xu Xiadong who criticized kungfu masters and lost social credit (among other things) and couldn’t rent, own property, stay in certain hotels, travel on high speed rail, or buy plane tickets. I guess that was not true then.
The bit about data handover. I guess the center for internet security is misinformed so is the australian strategic policy institute, department of homeland security, and NCSC.
About the app, BBC is probably where it comes from, it’s more for debtors and not with people with bad social credit but I suppose there is an overlap. So this didn’t make it pass the trial phase?
The Xu Xiaodong case actually illustrates the exact point I was making. He wasn’t punished for “criticizing kung fu masters” or for having the wrong opinions. What happened is that he lost a defamation lawsuit and the court ordered him to apologize and pay damages. He refused to comply with the ruling, and because of that he was placed on the judgment-defaulter list (失信被执行人). Chinese reporting describes the reason as “有履行能力而拒不履行生效法律文书确定义务”, having the ability to comply with a court judgment but refusing to do so. Once someone is on that list, courts can impose high-consumption restrictions (限制高消费), which include things like flights, certain high-speed rail tickets, and luxury hotels until the judgment is fulfilled. In other words, the trigger was refusing to carry out a court order, not some general punishment for speech.
On the data issue, you’re citing reports from Western government-linked think tanks and security NGOs, which obviously approach the topic from a national security perspective. China’s cybersecurity and data laws (like the Cybersecurity Law and Data Security Law) exist because the state wants control over critical data flows, infrastructure security, and cross-border data transfer. That approach isn’t unique in principle; governments everywhere are tightening control over data because it has become a strategic resource. But those laws are regulatory frameworks about data governance, not mechanisms that automatically “ruin someone’s social credit.” The think-tank papers you cited are describing geopolitical risk concerns, not explaining how the Chinese court enforcement system actually works.
On the app point, what the BBC article referred to were tools connected to the court defaulter database, sometimes nicknamed things like a “laolai map.” That’s basically a searchable database of people who have lost a case and then refused to comply with the judgment, which courts use to pressure them to comply. Many countries have debtor registries or public enforcement records; the difference here is mostly presentation. Western coverage often framed it as part of a sinister “social credit” ecosystem when in reality it was tied to a specific court enforcement list, not a universal citizen score. It’s good to have a database of those who have defrauded people. And to be honest, the BBC has a long history of framing Chinese policy in a particular narrative, so it’s not surprising that nuance tends to disappear.
The reality is that some of these mechanisms absolutely exist, but how they work, who they apply to, and what they actually do is often somewhere between heavy exaggeration and outright fantasy in viral discussions. What exists in practice is a mixture of court enforcement lists, regulatory blacklists, and sector-specific compliance systems. Turning that into a story about every citizen having a constantly changing “social credit score” controlling their life is a much simpler narrative, but it’s not how the underlying policies are actually structured.
I see, that was the result of not following court orders. So not complying with court orders will prevent you from these things (flights, high speed rail tickets, and luxury hotels?). Some institutes also report rent or purchase property, are those also restricted when you don’t comply with court order? What if you already own property? I am only asking to know.
I guess this questions are more about authoritarian rather than soical credits. How about xiaodong’s account being wiped 9 times was it (?) for having a viewpoint against the government. Is that somehow illegal and hence banned?
And about censorship. Wikipedia has a list of things that is banned from china including the marxist internet archive and Kanzhongguo, how much of that is true?
There is also one funny things that maybe you can shed some light on. There was this joke that if you get spam call from china, you can text them “Tiananmen Square and June 4, 1989 (1989年6月天安门广场屠杀)” or something about Taiwan being a country and their internet will be cut and they will be arrest or something x’D. I suppose it’s only a meme but is there some truth to it, memes do come from somewhere right?
On the property point, it’s the same principle as the other restrictions. When someone refuses to comply with a court judgment and is placed under high-consumption restrictions (限制高消费), the court can restrict certain forms of luxury spending, which can include purchasing additional real estate or carrying out non-essential renovations until the debt or judgment is fulfilled. The idea is that if someone owes money according to a court ruling, they should not be spending large amounts on luxury consumption before complying. Existing property is not automatically taken just because someone is on the list, although assets can be enforced as part of normal debt collection(just as in every other country).
As for Xu Xiaodong’s accounts being wiped, that situation was tied to the series of lawsuits and disputes he became involved in, along with platform moderation rules. That falls under content moderation and legal disputes on private platforms, not the court enforcement mechanism we were discussing earlier.
The blocked-website lists you see online are a very mixed bag. Some sites are inaccessible because of political or regulatory issues, but many cases come down to compliance requirements, such as rules around data protection, licensing, and the requirement for companies handling Chinese user data to host or manage that data within China’s regulatory framework. When companies choose not to comply with those requirements, their services often simply do not operate in the mainland market.
And that meme about texting someone “Tiananmen 1989” to get them arrested is honestly pretty ugly. It basically jokes about condemning random Chinese people to some vague punishment for the sake of a punchline, which is a pretty dehumanizing way to talk about an entire population. Fortunately it’s also just a meme, sending a phrase like that to someone does not magically cut their internet or get them arrested.
Thank you for taking time to answer.
One additional question; what do you mean by political or regulatory issue? You mean that is a grounds for something to be banned? Also who dictates that certain thing is ban-able from political or regulatory issue and what is the threshold?
I meant that internet content in China is governed by formal laws and regulations, mainly enforced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (国家网信办) and related regulators. Chinese rules such as the 《网络信息内容生态治理规定》 classify online information and require platforms to prohibit illegal content and prevent harmful content, including material that endangers national security, spreads rumors that disrupt social order, promotes extremism or violence, or infringes on others’ rights. Platforms are legally required to monitor and remove such content and regulators can order services restricted or removed if they violate these rules.
The consequences for what you’re calling “social credit score” in China is actually court orders issued on a case by case basis, not some automatic/bureaucrat-run all-encompassing system based on rating each citizen. I.e. it’s not a social score system.
Silly proletarian, that’s not even the credit score they use for home loans
Not to mention that western countries are the ones going towards 1984 with thier fucking age verification
Both are bad???
Exactly my thoughts. People just mass downvote into oblivion, no reasoning provided.
Reasoning has been provided all over this thread, including by users from instances you cannot see because Lemmy.world censored them from your view.
Where do you get your news from? Not going to continue to argue, but I’m just curious
No one place, I see the same mainstream western news as everyone, I just also read articles from outside the west as well, and non-mainstream sources too.
Yeah, I just wonder which sources are “from outside the west” since I’m trying my best to break my echo chamber
CGTN is pretty mainstream for news from China, they have English news. The Cradle is typically decent on reporting from the Middle East. For western and glonal news from a communist angle, BreakThrough News and Geopolitical Economy Report are both good.
one of them doesn’t even fucking exist
Sure, let’s say it doesn’t since I admittedly haven’t looked into this in painful detail. However, this meme seems to suggest that if it did exist, then it would be perfectly fine on the virtue that credit scores exist in America. Aka, whataboutism.
Since Germany made concentration camps under the third reich that it isn’t that bad when America does it. At least by this logic. Guess it’s impossible to be against two things at once. Though I hope I’m just misinterpreting the point
The meme is pointing out hypocrisy among those in America. Its common to hear them mock China for having a social credit score system, while apparently not realizing they have exactly that with credit monitoring companies.
This is all made more ridiculous by the fact that there is no social credit score in China as Americans understand it.
The joke is that Americans brag and call everyone else barbarians, when they themselves are the barbarians. Its pure projection to inflate the massive American ego.
I admittedly haven’t looked into this in painful detail.
You can stop right there and try shutting the fuck up then until you do lmao
You didn’t read the rest of the comment since I conceded that it doesn’t exist for that reason and why I still disagree with the meme
And you haven’t read anything about China’s so-called social credit system yet here you are engaging in debate perversion.
That’s not what “whataboutism” is. This isn’t a structured debate where we are limited to one topic, it’s a conversation… and we’re allowed to use examples and compare like to like, you do it, I do it, every human on Earth does it every day.
Sure, you’re allowed to call this and everything else ‘whataboutism’, I don’t think you should be given a “whataboutism score” wherein those with the highest scores are avoided by reasonable people.
I await your charge of gaslighting eagerly
Start editing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit_system
citing the natopedia article as if it’s an actual source lol
i’ve lived in china; i don’t need to edit shit.
They didn’t even read the first section of the article they linked.
There have been widespread misconceptions in media reports that China operates a unitary social credit “score” based on individuals’ behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low or rewards if the score is high.
Yeah, and the Big Bad Wolf is bad, but it’s also a western fairy tale.
Did this meme argue that social credit score doesn’t exist? Or is it whataboutism that argues that you can’t criticize the social credit system (real or not) because America has a credit score system. My point is, you can be against BOTH. That is all I’m saying here
The criticism is that westerners believe in something that both doesn’t exist (the popular “social credit” myth) and also is much closer to existing where they live.
No, you can’t criticize the Chinese social credit score, because it doesn’t exist.
And it’s not “whataboutism” to tell westerners to stop trying to “fix” other countries while living in a world ruled by pedophile billionaires and pretending they have “freedom”.
Your “solution” to everything is to invade, kill a bunch of innocent people, and install a worse, unelected government. So stop trying to analyze problems with other countries, real or fake. (In this case very fake)
When did I mention invading places? Apparently I’m the embodiment of America itself? God I wish because all I’d have to do is kill myself
No, you are a part of something much bigger than yourself. Again, I’m addressing you as a western liberal. If any part of that is wrong, feel free to correct me. But if you are using the term “whataboutism” and crying about policies in China that you have admitted you have no idea about, then you are pushing western liberal ideals, and are a part of the same problem. Also, I did not mention America at all. If you think what I’m talking about is limited to America, I don’t know. You need to read more.
I mean, if anything I’m going to become a political descendant in the west if things keep up so I’m by no means trying to be a propaganda machine for the west, if I came off that way I apologize. However, I assumed you meant America specifically though because you mentioned “pedophile billionaires” which would imply that I’m a MAGA Chud that backs up or at least turns a blind eye to pedophilia as they are right now. I imagine most people in the EU, Canada, etc aren’t doing that, but maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, at least we both agree that America bad
Pretty sure social credit actually exists tho. No? It’s a fairy tale? smh.
That article is actually a pretty great source on it being a fairy tale. What’s your disagreement? And if you disagree with the Wikipedia article, why are you linking it with no commentary?
Not an American or a liberal, and yes, china is authoritarian. Is america better? No. The credit score system in the US is also bad.
Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative.
The social credit score isn’t real.
Everybody disliked that
You can dislike it all you want doesn’t make it less true.
Re: authoritarianism— your opinion.
Some of us aren’t in favour of oppressive regimes that aren’t transparent, surveil, and censor.
“Authoritarianism” is meaningless because all it means is “uses state power.” It doesn’t acknowledge which class controls the state and who it uses state power against. In China, the working classes control the state, and use state power against bad actors and capitalists more than anything else. China is oppressive to capitalists and liberating to workers.
Tell that to the Uyghurs…
There is no genocide of Uyghurs. Uyghur genocide atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China’s response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn’t going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Quote all the bullshit you want Cowbee. The world knows the truth 🙂
Do you have any proof? The OISC disagree with you. And even the UN doesn’t call it a genocide because that’s not what happened.
Please explain how what I said is “bullshit,” I even included the UN report. Why do you like Adrian Zenz?
“the world”
I haven’t much evidence for the claim: “In China, the working classses control the state”
sure you will say that is my western bias from living with china bad propaganda, but you could actually provide something to me read on topic if possible
You can debate whether the system works well, but it isn’t accurate to say there’s no evidence for the claim that the working classes play a central role in the Chinese state.
China’s constitution explicitly defines the PRC as a socialist state “led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” with state power exercised through the National People’s Congress (NPC) system. The NPC is the highest organ of state power, with nearly 3,000 deputies drawn from provinces, the PLA, and different social sectors.
The makeup of the NPC is not just party bureaucrats or business elites. In the 14th NPC there are hundreds of deputies from workers and farmers and large numbers of grassroots representatives, along with 442 ethnic minority deputies covering all 55 minority groups. Most deputies in China’s people’s congress system (about 95%) serve at the county and township level, which are directly elected and involve hundreds of millions of voters. Higher congresses are elected from these lower levels. This structure is what China calls “whole-process people’s democracy.” Sources explaining the system include CGTN’s Who runs the CPC and the State Council white paper China: Democracy That Works.
You can also look at how the state treats capital. China has private capital, but it is clearly subordinated to state goals. When Jack Ma tried to push an aggressive fintech model through Ant Group that would massively expand lightly regulated consumer credit, regulators halted the IPO and forced restructuring under stricter oversight. That is a case of disciplining capital when it conflicts with social stability and the broader economy.
Likewise, China has pursued policies like eliminating extreme poverty and building massive infrastructure networks (including projects that are not monetarily profitable) because they are treated as long-term public development goals. That kind of large-scale, socially oriented investment is difficult to sustain in systems where private capital dominates the state.
So you can disagree with the Chinese model, but there is actually a large amount of Chinese material explaining how their system is supposed to function and why they claim it represents working-class political power.
Sure!
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
The working classes in socialist countries are the ones dictating the state and its direction.
I’m using the term to refer to suppression of people (which isn’t restricted to workers) in politics, media, etc.
Except by “the people” you seem to mean capitalists and fascists, not the broad majority of society that are uplifted and support the system.
This!
China is a capitalist dynasty my guy. What is liberating about 5 year olds making shoes in a factory?
China is a socialist country, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state. Child labor is illegal in China, you may be thinking of the US.
I am a Chinese minority living in China. You really don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to China. You very clearly have done 0 research beyond maybe reading RFA. You should be quiet until you have done some proper research.
You can’t possibly be a minority in China, what with all those intact organs.
Ad hominem, ad hominem, and mmm, ad hominem. Yeah, nothing to see here.
Least insufferable redditer
Not an adhominem. You’re not wrong because you’re stupid you just happen to be both wrong and stupid.
Well in the comment I said that you didn’t explain why I was wrong and simply resorted to making a string of ad hominems.
So I’ll reiterate: ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem.
Saying you should shut up if you haven’t researched a topic isn’t an adhominem.
It isn’t an ad hominem fallacy to point out that doing little research on a topic and repeating easily disproven talking points isn’t a sound basis of argument.
And I have, and my responses were given little in return from them.
You have not, considering everything you’ve said has been easily debunked, and when encountering hard numbers you reflect to dogmatism.
“Homnum Homnum”- Liberal chimps.
Still better then the baby eating pedo elite
It is possible to oppose all three things. It is possible to simultaneously oppose the Social Credit System in China, the Credit Score system in the United States, and the elites connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Is it? You need to think more pragmatically, you are a laborer. Your only bargaining chip is your labour, decide who gets it. Personally, I don’t want to be part of any helping them live their best life.
I am curious, who is “them” in your statement and how does opposing all three of those things inherently cause me to give up my bargaining power?
No don’t, you never will. You’ll always contribute what ever system you’re a part of. Just choose one and the chienese might do a lot of bad things but they aren’t the pedofile baby eating elites.
The social credit system that you know of doesn’t exist.
Interesting phrasing. A phrasing that assumes assumptions on my part. So … what social credit system DOES exist.
Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative.
Fucking kek
The social credit score isn’t real.
Ultra double fucking kek
Go back to 4chan obergruppenfuhrer. Or provide some evidence/analysis but I doubt you have that capability.
You ain’t wrong about the social credit thing! There was only one municipality that tried to implement it in any way that even vaguely resembles how mainstream media hysterics portray, and that city’s administration was punished for it on the national stage.
The only thing the “social credit” system was meant to do is make major public figures accountable for corruption. It was never aimed at REGULAR people!
But yeah nah fuck anyone and anything that opposed democracy especially the two faced single political party of the United States of America. If they actually gave a shit about democracy for real instead of just consuming lives to pay for their pedophilia addictions, we’d have ranked choice voting by now.
As good as preferential/ranked voting is. Compulsory voting would have a much larger positive impact on US’ democracy
Ideally both
Neither can fix the systemic problems caused by capitalism though, democracy in capitalism is democracy for capitalists.
Well then use that amendment that children keep dying for or stop complaining. So pathetic
Please stop financing and enabling the USA, also, and stop using the US dollar for international trade. So lame that you haven’t done that
I actively steal from the USA
I already organize with a communist party, I have no intention of simply complaining alone.
What good is complaining amongst a communist org, if your democracy and elections a rlcapitalist?
Many far right countries (australia, japan, south korea) use ranked choice voting… it doesn’t make a bit of difference. If capitalists control the political system, then they will stack candidates and fund the campaigns that support their interests, and the “democracy” there is nothing but political theatre.
Outside of Marxists, even the ancient greeks knew that representative government is just another name for plutocracy, because only wealthy / landed family have the money and prestige to fund campaigns to get themselves elected. Liberals still haven’t learned this simple lesson.
In what world is Australia far right? Center right/neoliberal today maybe. But not far fight, especially compared to other countries
Also I recommend compulsory voting.
In this world, the world where open support for genocide is bipartisan in Australian politics
How will compulsive voting improve anything? Now you’re dragging even more uninformed dopes to vote, a lot of them will vote for spite. Far more than you realize, I think
Trump was 100% the vote-for-spite-burn-it-down candidate. That’s how they get you, the old switcheroo
That doesn’t happen in reality
Now you’re dragging even more uninformed dopes to vote, a lot of them will vote for spite.
uninformed defines almost all american voters and the last election showed that 30 million people who voted in 2020, chose not to vote in 2024 instead of spite voting.
Unfortunately I don’t think ranked choice voting will save you. You need to clear the board so to speak and get some options that actually represent people over corporate interests.
You do realize that ranked choice voting is one of the simplest and least violent ways to push forward progressive candidates right? Because it makes people comfortable with voting options that with first past the post would be throw away votes
Alas, I fear the US might be too far gone for ranked choice to have an effect.
The problem is quality of candidates. Since Citizen’s United opened the door for unlimited corporate money in elections, literally 90% of candidates are on someone’s payroll. “Grassroots” is a thing of the past. Mass media and name recognition are everything.
Haha, you think the epstein class will allow you to vote away their fascism
It’s an important reform no matter what, even if we have to resort to other methods to take out the class first.
That makes sense, and then you look at Europe and realise the issues at hand are systemic, caused by material conditions and bourgeois democratic electoralism is never going to fix those issues.
Much of Europe already uses ranked choice or proportional voting, yet remains austerity-ridden and sliding toward the far right because it is still under the dictatorship of capital. The voting mechanism is secondary to the concrete material conditions: capital’s imperative to accumulate, the commodification of labor, and the state’s role as an instrument of class rule. Until that dictatorship is overthrown, electoral reform is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
The core contradictions at hand are:
Socialized production versus private appropriation:workers collectively create value, but capitalists expropriate the surplus
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: as organic composition of capital rises, profitability declines, forcing capital to seek new fixes
Overaccumulation and underconsumption: capital produces more than can be profitably sold, leading to crisis, layoffs, and austerity
The contradiction between capital’s global mobility and labor’s relative immobility, which fuels a race to the bottom in wages and protections.
As imperialism declines (neocolonial extraction becomes costlier, interimperialist rivalry intensifies, and the Global South resists outright plunder) capital can no longer rely on external superprofits to offset domestic falling rates of profit. The response is internal repression: austerity to slash social wages, union-busting to weaken labor power, surveillance to preempt dissent, and the normalization of authoritarian governance. This is capital’s logical reaction to crisis.
This dynamic mirrors Weimar Germany: economic crisis, delegitimized liberal parties, and a bourgeoisie that ultimately backed fascism to crush the organized working class and restore “order” for capital. Today’s far-right surge is the same phenomenon: capital’s emergency management when consent can no longer be manufactured through bourgeois democracy alone.
Voting under these conditions is not a path to liberation; it is a ritual that legitimizes the managers of decline. For voting to matter, you must overthrow the dictatorship of capital and reach the synthesis of these contradictions: a revolutionary transformation that socializes production, abolishes exploitation, and builds a state that serves human need, not profit. Only then does political power and thereby voting become meaningful.
Ranked choice and proportional voting are 2 very different concepts. You are falsely pretending they’re similar when they’re wildly different concepts. Only Ireland presently uses it from the eu, because they as well have an establishment, and ranked choice voting is anti establishment at its core.
Why are you trying to pretend they’re the same concept?
How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don’t agree with your viewpoint? And I say that as a socialist. Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.
Yes, they are different, but the point at the core of my argument is that it’s irrelevant as they serve the same purpose at their core.
Whether it’s s RCV or MMP, the outcome remains austerity, imperialist foreign policy, and rising far-right influence because the state remains an instrument of capital. Ballot mechanics don’t override class power. RCV isn’t “anti-establishment at its core”; it’s a procedural tweak that can just as easily stabilize bourgeois legitimacy.
How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don’t agree with your viewpoint?
In my country the revolution has already happened. We now conduct class struggle through party debate and socialist democracy, not bourgeois elections.
Also revolutionary consciousness isn’t a precondition you wait for, it is forged through struggle. The 90% figure is wrong for a start, even in the US communist sympathys are quickly growing, you also assumes static opinions under static conditions, but material crises radicalize people faster than decades of electoral gradualism. Reformism doesn’t build toward socialism, it manages capitalism more palatably and demobilizes movements by channeling energy into cycles of hope and disappointment.
Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.
History suggests otherwise. Social democracy produced the welfare state only under the unique pressure of postwar reconstruction and Soviet competition, then dismantled it once those pressures faded (and even that was built off massive exploitation and imperialism in the periphery). Capital concedes reforms only when forced and retracts them the moment profitability demands it. Waiting for electoral consensus while the climate burns, fascism rises, and imperialism massacres isn’t a strategy. Bourgeois democracy won’t let you vote through its own abolition. The task for those still under bourgeois democracy is to build dual power: organs of working-class authority that can confront and replace the dictatorship of capital. That’s how you can make voting matter.
China, under the murderous CCP and PLA (76+ million murdered), is authoritarian. Ask the folks in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong SAR, and Manchuria how they feel about the Han Chinese ruining their day. Taiwan is holding out with very good reasons. As for the USA, Krasnov said, Xi is great and we love each other.
Reminds me of the anime PsychoPass.
China institutionalized what USA prefers to make private.
Americans:
“praise the supreme leader!” - wow, brainwashing much?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag…” - Yup, this is fine.
Okay, but tbf, pledging allegiance to the flag/country is much better than to the self alleged dictator.
Is it though? We are currently seeing the forced nationalism be weaponized.
That’s because people confuse nationalism with patriotism. I love my country, which is why I want it to be better. Others love their country because it gives them permission to be worse.
To be clear, it’s still not good. I support any kid that wants to sit out for the pledge or sit or kneel for the national anthem. It should always be non-obligatory. In fact, I don’t love the word “allegiance” to begin with.
But it would be significantly worse if the pledge of allegiance was to Donal Trump. Ultimately, that’s what many people are following, but it’s not default in schools to pledge allegiance to him or anything.
I just cannot understand why somebody living in a colonial country can truly say they love their country unless they’re brainwashed or completely ignorant to its history.
I’m from Canada and we are not better, there’s just not as much of an issue of rampant nationalism disguised as “patriotism”. Our countries were built on the graves of the native inhabitants, by the hands of slaves. At no point in the history did they stop abusing natives and the descendants of slaves, they just found new ways to hide it and new names to call it (how does a prison make a profit, anyway?).
I love and am proud of my community, but that is the extent to which my pride reaches. I cannot feel proud of a country that was built on the blood of the innocent.
I love my country,
Not even sure how to respond to this kind of vague emotional ideology. When people say this kinda stuff to me in person, I back away slowly.
I want America to prosper and I want to protect American values from right-wing radicals that are in charge. I’m very passionate about it. In fact, I live in a red state and I want it to just be better and no longer radicalized by lies and hate.
I very passionately want America to heal from this illness of hate and apathy.
If that makes me a bad person, then fuck me I guess.
The US Empire is a genocidal settler-colony. It cannot be rescued from itself, it needs to be overthrown.
I don’t think it can be overthrown today; surveillance of means of communication is now total; their only restriction is the massive amount of data.
It CAN collapse in on itself, that is inevitable.
I would be delighted if I was proved wrong.
Not necessarily bad, but definitely indoctrinated, as many of us once were. The truth is a series of bitter pills, and the government and media aren’t going to offer them to you; they’re going to distract you from them. Which is easy to do, given how bitter the pills are.
I’ve been in the process of making a powerpoint-esque presentation to show to my friends who haven’t read any theory and the thought of framing and organizing it as “bitter pills” is super exciting to me. Starting out the presentation with definitions and history would’ve made them fall asleep.
American values
The values of the US settler-colonial project, are native eviction, and genocide.
The values of the indigenous peoples were not considered worthy to the european settlers, so they did their best to wipe out hundreds of peoples/tribes/cultures. You either don’t know that history, or worse, you are proud of it.
I highly suggest reading both An indigenous people’s history of the US by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, or her Not a nation of immigrants.
“American values” are freedom for a few selected individuals, this shit is ass.
The values that you probably want is incompatible with capitalism and never truly existed in America, you love the idea of it not the reality.
Who knows one day you might get it and see they are the same motivators to for gullibles to go to war.
It doesn’t matter if it’s for their leader or the country.
It’s always for the owners of both.Absolutely!
Ummm…how though?
nowadays it’s more accurately the same statement for both
people are praising the supreme leader in america
I donno anything about China, but whoever made this meme certainly doesn’t know anything about the USA. The idea that “liberals” or anyone else (??) are high-fiving themselves over a credit score. lol
Marxists-Leninists (as in, the ML in lemmy.ml) use the term “liberals” to describe anyone living under a Western capitalist system. Especially MLs on Lemmy, they consider any username not from the Tankie Triad to be liberal (or anarchist, which is somehow worse).
“liberal” denotes adherence to bourgeois democracy and capitalist property relations, (pro bourgeois democracy and private property)
The critique of certain “anarchists” is that they guise reactionary politics in radical language, which aids capitalism.
It’s really dumb, possibly even a psyop. Because according to militant left the true communism has never been achieved, therefore everyone on earth is under a western capitalist system
This is nonsense. Communism has not been achieved, but socialism absolutely has. Communism has not been achieved not for lack of trying, but because it is a post-socialist system. There’s no psyop.
First, let’s be precise about terms: capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production, profit-driven accumulation, and wage labor; socialism is defined by social ownership (state, collective, or cooperative), planning mechanisms, and the subordination of remaining market forces to developmental and social goals. They are distinct modes of production, not a binary where anything short of stateless communism “counts” as capitalism.
Second, “Western capitalism” isn’t a universal default, it specifically describes the Euro-Amerikan core and its integrated vassals (NATO, Five Eyes, dependent economies). That system is hegemonic, but it is not total. Russia, for instance, operates a distinct sovereign-capitalist model: not socialist, but explicitly de-linked from Western financial architecture and actively contesting unipolar dominance.
Third, China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam are explicitly in the early stages of the socialist transitionary period. Their frameworks (especially China’s “primary stage of socialism”) theorize that underdeveloped socialist states must develop productive forces, utilize regulated markets, and engage globally while maintaining proletarian state power and public ownership of commanding heights. This isn’t “capitalism with red flags”; it’s a materialist strategy to build the basis for higher-stage socialism. Dismissing these distinctions because communism hasn’t been “achieved” yet misunderstands dialectics: transition is a process, not an event. You don’t call a bridge under construction meaningless because it has yet to reach the other side.
Profoundly wrong statement.
First because that’s not how Marxist-Leninists use the word ‘liberal’, that’s a definition you just made up while ignoring decades of literature. Second, because it implies that is not what the word actually means to literally everyone, not just Leninists or even just socialists, everywhere on the planet with the exception of the US liberal duopoly.
Third, because it implies people are calling you a liberal because of your instance, and not because of your shit takes.
The ML usage of the term liberal comes from Classical Liberalism, right? Please correct me.
Also I hate how y’all think I’m personally evil because I haven’t Read Theory. Y’all are my first exposure to MLs and I don’t have any control over what my society has taught me. (I’m not defending what my society has taught me, I’ve been deconstructing for a long time and not stopping.)
Is naivete a sin?
Is naivete a sin?
No investigation no right to speak is a core part of MarxistLeninist thought as it has evolved. Naivete is not “a sin” but if you haven’t researched a topic you shouldn’t speak on it.
As Chairman Mao put it:
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
No? I’m an ML and I live in a capitalist country. Further, liberals are absolutely worse than anarchists.
I’ll stand corrected on the anarchist comment. But if one lives in a capitalist country, one inevitably supports capitalism, right? Even if it’s against their will.
This sounds more and more like Original Sin.
Existing within capitalism does not mean you cannot work to overthrow it and must ideologically support it by espousing liberal talking points.
Where are progressives on that scale? Oh, and do fascists, I definitely want to know how a fascist stacks up against a liberal!
The formula for a fascist is liberal plus time, multiplied by war
If you’re not anti capitalist and anti bourgeois democracy even if you’re “progressive” you’re just a flavour of liberal. Fascists are obviously worse than liberals although they tend to agree on a surprising amount of things when push comes to shove unfortunately. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds is a widespread phrase for a reason.
“Progressive” doesn’t really mean anything beyond “left of establishment democrats.” They range from liberal to socialist. Fascists are a twin of liberalism, worse but fundamentally connected.
WOOOSH!
They’re high-fiving themselves about being able to buy a house. DUR.
Under capitalism basic human needs are allocated only to the most privileged.
Many many libs celebrate their participation in this privilege, especially in terms of housing.
State-enforced privilege is basically the entire goal of liberalism.
People like thay exist. In the same way that 40 year olds high five themselves for still fitting into the pants they wore in hs.
The only ones celebrating credit scores as a concept are lenders, the true capitalists
Im gonna say it, I’m sick and tired of hearing people talk about “evil Chinese authoritarian social credit system” when its inherently a good system that works. In the west when a corporation commits mass fraud and abuse they pay a minimal fine (sometimes they don’t even pay) and then they literally just get away with it. Chinas social credit system on the other hand actually holds businesses accountable.
I’m willing to say I’m not happy with either system. Corporations should pay and be held accountable but citizens should have a right to privacy and not have the sum of their actions turned into a number.
Yeah the made up system that doesn’t exist in the real world is really fucking scary OMG.
You should be happy to know then that the social credit score only applies to corporations and individuals who do business with the government as contractors, it doesn’t apply to private life and doesn’t make anything illegal that wasn’t already legally punishable (even then minor crimes aren’t covered).
Corporations should pay and be held accountable
No. The board and the directors should be personally responsible, and should be punished in addition to the corporation paying money at the minimum.
citizens should have a right to privacy and not have the sum of their actions turned into a number.
That “number” isn’t real. China does not have a single nationwide “social credit score” that rates every citizen.
What actually exists is a set of legal blacklists, the most famous being the court judgment defaulter list (失信被执行人). It applies to people who refuse to comply with a court decision, usually things like unpaid debts.
If you ignore a court order, the court can place you under a high-consumption restriction (限制高消费). That means you can’t spend money on certain luxury services (first-class train tickets, flights, five-star hotels, or other high-end purchases) until you comply with the judgment.
You can still travel normally, stay in regular hotels, work, shop, and live your life. The restriction is specifically designed to stop people who refuse to obey court rulings from enjoying luxury spending while ignoring their legal obligations.
The popular idea in the west that everyone in China has a constantly changing personal “score” based on everyday behavior is simply western fantasy.
I’m impressed. The US legal system is incredibly anemic when it comes to punishing corporations for violating workers’ rights. I hope we really can achieve a multipolar world, one where a standard like this is upheld to emulate, and not the rotten neoliberal legal morass of the West.
That’s because the US like pretty much all the western world is a dictatorship of capital why would capital willingly discipline itself. China is a dictatorship of the proletariat hence the constant crackdowns on unruly capital and capitalists that is impossible in the west.
Of course. I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. I just hope CIA propaganda loses any appeal it may have outside of the imperial core. As for inside the core, it’s hard for me not to feel ‘doomer’ about the state of the working class. I think there would have to be a sudden, extreme change in material conditions before the working class would start to ‘wake up’ en masse here.
God the more and more I hear about China the more based it is.
President Xi Jinping save us all
I don’t care what other countries do to a degree where we need to intervene their governance with military or covert actions, I don’t understand their culture, their history, their people, their way of thinking to force democracy across the world. I only care about protecting our country, our people and leaving the world the fuck alone. I feel like that’s how most of the world works.
Two kinds of people in the comments: those who think credit scores are bad, and those who think social credit systems are good
Lmao Chinese can’t even move to the other cities of their own country.
