Most countries have public options for services and private alternatives as either competitors, backups, or complimentary pieces. It’s very rare for countries to completely nationalize sectors, and it’s especially rare for them to national that many sectors.

Gotcha. So fascism it is then. How’s that working out for y’all? Lmao

This is going to be shocking for you, but there’s more to politics than fascism and marxism

Your comment doesn’t make sense. You say the US never nationalized and in the next sentence you say that they have.

My point was that the US never nationalized any sector permanently for the sake of making it public. It also temporarily nationalized portions of some sectors to stabilize them before making them private again.

Yes

Yeah, we’re not going to nationalize the entire economy because that’s really stupid. Our tax dollars reach every nook and carny of the economy, but that’s fine. Tax dollars are meant to be used in a way that makes the country operate safely, smoothly, and reliably. A lot of this is done by putting the money back into the economy in the form of subsidies, welfare, wages, and government contracts. It’s fine for the government to pay a business to provide as long as the business is offering fair market prices and they’re delivering an acceptable product or service. The tax money that goes into such a business doesn’t just go to the shareholders, it also goes to everybody else as well.

That being said, shareholders can be scumbags, I’m with you there. If they are clearly conducting unethical behavior or illegal behavior then they should be immediately cut off. This includes things like delivering unacceptable products and services by cutting too many corners or committing fraud to take more tax money than they should or trying to scheme to monopolize and so on. These types of shareholders should’ve receive bailouts or awarded government contracts, they should be thrown in jail. But we shouldn’t nationalize the economy because some shareholders are crooks.

You’re conflating Musk with his companies. He might be the one who founded them, but these companies run themselves. This goes for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. The leadership, research, production, and management are all handled by company employees.

But that’s besides the point, regardless of how you feel about Musk himself, there’s clearly a place for private companies in this area. NASA and other space agencies are not businesses, they’re research agencies. Their job is to expand scientific knowledge and innovate new technology. They can’t run a service like SpaceX, which btw doesn’t only serve the government by also other governments and the private sector. It’s better for them to just outsource shuttle launches entirely to the private sector which is why they’ve been doing it for decades. It just so happens that SpaceX provides this service at really good price reliably and safely, which makes them the best choice. It’s symbiotic relationship. It’s an ecosystem where one sector compliments the other.

This is a poor understanding of how the system works. SpaceX is company that provides a service. This service is open to anyone who wants to use it, but this happens to mostly be the government. The reason is because it’s services are cheap, safe, and reliable. SpaceX does what it does very well, and the government chooses their services because it’s economical.

NASA and other agencies provide a service, they’re not companies. They’re research agencies who’s job is to advance scientific knowledge and developed new technology. Their goal isn’t to create a sustainable business, but to conduct research that’s beyond the capacity of the private sector or individual researchers.

The public and private sector compliment each other. They do things that the other isn’t good at. It’s an ecosystem. Getting rid of one will cause the whole system to collapse… and that’s not a good thing.

This is such a childish take. The private and public sectors are not opposites and they don’t contradict each other. They serve different purposes in the economy, and they compliment each other quite well. It’s an ecosystem where one covers the gaps of the other. We need both.

Also, you’re focusing on the space agency of the most corrupt developed country in the world: the USA. Maybe compare the costs with those of the Chinese Space Agency?

NASA as well as the other American space agencies absolutely floor the global competition and it’s not even close. When it comes to China, they will always have cheaper prices because they are poorer country with a weaker currency, which means they’ll have a stronger purchasing power. In real terms, Chinese labor is much cheaper than American labor, Chinese materials are cheaper than American materials, Chinese manufacturing is cheaper than American manufacturing. China’s space expenditure is actually around as the US as percentage of GDP (both are around 0.5%), but China’s economy is smaller per capita and therefore they have a smaller budget to work with. This is why the US has the biggest, the most advanced, and the most flashy projects while China seems to be able to do a lot with less.

Tankies live in alternate reality where they think that nationalization is extremely common and is a magical solution to all of societies problems… even though this view is entirely delusional.

For example, only 3 countries have nationalized the entire ISP industry, and those are Cuba, Turkmenistan, and North Korea. All three of which are horrid tyrannical dictatorships with horrible internet. We should NOT be like them. Even when it comes to health insurance, except for 3 countries I just mentioned, every single country allows private health insurance, even if their system is public. Clearly nationalization is not what you think it is.

No, this is just pure ignorance. The US never nationalized any sector. The US has only used nationalization as a means to stabilize certain sectors from collapse temporarily, and even this happens very rarely.

Nationalization stable, growing industries would have devastating impacts on the economy. These companies are running just fine, and they’re providing their services reliably and at competitive prices, what would be the justification to nationalize them? If the government feels like it needs more control on these companies they can pass regulations, and if they want total control then they should launch their own public alternatives.

They also nationalized other sectors. They were actually quite centrist economically.

Marxist are genuinely dumb enough to understand why this would be an issue.

No, they’re fine remaining as private companies. If the government wants to better control over the companies then they can pass regulation and if they want total control then they can build their own alternatives. Nationalization of companies should never be used as a political weapon.

The term is pointless because it is only used to describe foreign countries.

The mental gymnastics of tankies knows no bounds, you get a gold medal for your disingenuous efforts. There’s nothing that you can do to twist the reality. By every single measurable and observable metric, China is an authoritarian country by the purest definition of the word. The word “authoritarian” has a very clear, well defined, and straightforward definition that is objective and is applied universally. If you are really trying to sit here and argue that China of all places is NOT authoritarian then you’re either too dishonest or too stupid to have this discussion.

What freedom does someone working for minimum wage, barely able to afford rent, and at the mercy of their employer to even be able to do that much experience? But also it’s impossible to separate any actual freedom in the west from the hyperexploitation of the global south; you are able to buy bananas or coffee with less than 10 minutes of labor because the dictators the US keeps in place in countries that produce them keep the price of labor and resources low

Three things:

1. Everything you said here applies directly to China. Every single word.
2. This analysis has zero basis in reality. It’s like you get all your information from idiots on 2013 Tumblr or lefypol and pretend that’s how the world actually works. By your logic, Xi Jinping is a American installed dictator since China is America’s biggest trading partner.
3. That’s not what authoritarianism means in this context. Authoritarianism is a system of government where power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small group, with limited political freedoms, strong state control, and little accountability to the public. It has nothing to do with how countries conduct foreign policy (and your understanding of modern American foreign policy can only be described as false, if you want to understand why then just ask).

You simply cannot argue in good faith that China today, under the rule of the CCP, is not authoritarian or is less authoritarian the US or the rest of the West. Doubling down on this take means that you’re arguing against actual facts, and that’s when you start crossing into clown territory.

I’m from a country with 2% of its population in prison or homeless. To call any other country (except maybe Saudi Arabia, Iran, some gulf states, and Russia)'s rules disproportionate is laughable.

Are you really that dumb or are you actually going to argue that poverty and crime = authoritarianism? If you don’t understand what the word means then look it up and actually try to grasp the concept. I mean I literally spelled out the definition for you multiple times, but if you don’t believe me, you can look it up.

It’s like a fish accusing another fish of being wet.

If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Seoul that says “Lee Jae-myung is a pig”, nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of DC that says “Trump is a pig” nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Paris that says “Macron is a pig” nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Beijing that says “Xi is a pig” you’re going to be arrested and punished. They are not at all the same thing, this is a false equivalency.

Read the wikipedia article.

Did you read the article? Because it doesn’t all say what you claim it says, in fact, it’s details are pretty in line with I and everybody else have been saying.

the evil communists needing to control everything and sending in troops to murder everyone who tries to ask for freedom

This is exactly what the article you posted says. Adding words to make sound absurd doesn’t change what actually happened. It seems like you don’t even know what happened.

You see the same short-circuiting of logic when you try to explain to a zionist why Oct 7th happened and they just go “They did it because they’re terrorists!” over and over.

You’re using the same moronic logic as them, actually yours is worse because you seem to lack the self awareness to recognize it. What Hamas did on Oct 7th are indeed terrorist attacks that are entirely unjustifiable. With that being said, what Israel is doing now is also unjustifiable. You know what this is called? Consistency. The idiots that try to pretend that the Hamas terrorist attacks were justifiable are evil parasites, and the idiots that say that defend what Israel is doing by saying that all Gazans are terrorists are also evil parasites. Multiple things can be true at once.

In your case, the CCP killed a bunch of people in a massacre in 1989. This is an objective fact that is undeniable. Instead of condemning this event for what it was like a decent human being with the bare minimum level of moral consistency, you choose to repeatedly try to justify it like the idiots described above by repeatedly droning about “MUH CONTEXT”… without actually providing real sourced context that supports your claims. In fact, your own source shows you’re full of shit. It’s like you don’t seem to understand that baseless accusing ignorance doesn’t make something wrong or you right, nor does it invalidate the objective facts.

Those facts show that the CCP on June 4th 1989 committed an atrocity against it’s own people. You can either be a normal, condemn it, and move on or you can be a scumbag who admits that you just straight up supports the atrocity, at least you’ll be honest that way. You can’t have it both ways where you pretending you’re against the atrocity while defending it.

See, the next step is where you go “well it’s still bad cpp ebil” instead of developing any nuance or researching the political impact within China or doing further research into the various student factions and how it got to lynchings and how the other factions reacted

Ah, there it is. You did the thing again. You made another baseless accusation of ignorance while providing absolutely nothing… you know other than you either showcasing your own ignorance or dishonesty. How can someone take you seriously when you’re detached from reality? How can somebody have a meaningful discussion with someone who thinks this atrocity is justified? How can somebody give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re arguing in good faith when you’re repeatedly dishonest about basic facts? The answer is that you can’t, and you’re clearly just a troll.

The issue with this take is that you assume that there is a direct correlation between kindness and civic engagement, which is not true. Someone can be genuinely kind but disengaged from civic duties due to a bunch of reasons ranging from personal to societal. Your take also equates passivity with malice, suggesting that if someone isn’t politically active, they’re morally flawed, which again isn’t true. The people who are the most politically obsessive, engaged, and vocal in the country are MAGA Republicans, and they are clearly not people who are kind… especially when you compare them to someone who’s apolitical but spends a lot of their time volunteering in their community.

But that’s the issue, your take is inherently flawed because you draw your moral superiority from two assumption. The first is that you assume that your views are objectively correct and are superior to others, and the second is that you assume people who are politically zealous or choose to be as such will end up having your views… Both of which are absurdly arrogant assumptions to have. Your views are neither objectively moral or superior, nor do politically active people share your views. In fact the vast, vast majority of people do not see things the way that you do.

There’s really no way you can justify your take because your digesting the world in absolutist terms. To you people are either politically active and share your views, thus are morally correct, or they’re inactive and are intentionally because evil or hostile. It’s such a polarizing and out of touch way to look at people and the world. If you are an example of the chronically online person who obsesses about politics 24/7, fine, but you have to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of people do not think about politics 24/7, and that’s perfectly okay. Not only that, but just because most people aren’t zealots that does not mean they’re morally flawed or inferior. This holier than thou attitude is shows that your worldview is quite myopic.

When the Maori invade england and start forcing their customs on the people there, then maybe you might come somewhere close to pointing out a double standard.

But the framing is wrong. If Maori invaded Britain 250 years ago and over time, the two peoples mixed and created a well run multi racial liberal democracy where all it’s citizens enjoy full rights, then the same standard applies. If a couple of politicians of British origin were being obnoxious and were disrupting the duties of the parliament, and the rest of the politicians decided to suspend them for their behavior, then I would be fully in favor of that too. Being of a specific ethnicity doesn’t get anyone a pass to be obnoxious.

also, berserker brits, lol what a concept

It’s not a concept, it’s actual history. The vikings were a big part of British history.

We don’t have Trump because people started behaving poorly, we have Trump because there’s been half a century of constricting living standards and a wealthy political duopoly that just doesn’t care. Obama bailing out the banks rather than the people that lost their homes did more to kill civility than anything Trump has done.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they go together hand in hand. Think about it, who focuses the most on useless shit like culture wars that are meant to stir fear and anger in people in our political landscape? It’s almost always either corrupt politicians or obnoxious idiots, often times it’s both. The point is that the people who are making things worse are also the people who have no manners, ethics, or morals.

They’re always combined together. They’re considered part of the same event.

Are you really dumb enough to not understand my point with the dates? You made the stupid argument that if there was a really a massacre then why isn’t the tank man dead. This isn’t the “gotcha” you think it is because it shows you don’t understand what happened. The Chinese government gave the soldiers the order to massacre the students protesting on June 4th, tank man and the picture of him happened AFTER the massacre on June 5th.

the myth that people died in the square.

So let me get this straight, your grand argument to justify this massacre is that the people weren’t killed in the square itself but right outside of it? Damn, you sure showed how innocent and glorious the CCP is with this zinger.

I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning.

You literally had one single relevant example. Even if we take all the other examples you gave and ignore their validity for a second, they still had less deaths combined than the Tienanmen Square massacre.

Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting.

No way somebody is dumb enough to think China, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, is newer than the US. China didn’t start in 1949.

And 1970 isn’t that much older than 1989. You act like it’s ancient history.

You don’t even know what the topic of conversation is, do you? If you scroll up this thread and read what the original point of contention is, then you’ll quickly realize that it’s about some idiot saying that the US TODAY is worse than China. You citing examples from 1791 to 1970 shows that you either have no idea what the conversation is about or your argument is so weak that you have go that far back to find anything.

Once again, Mao didn’t kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides.

Mao’s death toll is so high that his non famine deaths give the Holocaust’s death toll a run for its money. Let’s do some basic arithmetic:

• Chinese land reforms: 1 million - 4.7 million

• Government violence during the Great Chinese Famine: 2.5 million

• Anti-Rightist Campaign: 550k - 2 million

• Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries: 712k - 2 million

• Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns: 100k

• Cultural Revolution: 500k - 2 million

That’s bring us to: 5.362 million - 13.3 million

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China#People’s_Republic_of_China_(since_1949)

So even if we exclude the famine, which we shouldn’t because those deaths are direct result of his policies, his death toll is still either half of that of the Holocaust at best or even higher the Holocaust at worst. When we factor the Great Chinese Famine that he caused, then he’s well and away the greatest killer in history.

If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with.

Except we’re not going to say because that’s idiotic logic. First of all no, not a single American president comes even close to Mao’s death toll. Second of all, his death toll, like Hitler’s, is a direct result of his policies. These death toll figures don’t include deaths caused by wars. If we included the Chinese Civil war or the host of other wars that he involved in, then he might actually top 100 million death by himself. Thirdly, even IF we did include wars, what kind of clown counts every single death in wars, including the deaths caused be the enemies, as a part of the death toll? Not only that, but including subsequent events as well? That’s stupid.

Not to mention that the numbers you quoted aren’t reliable.

No, they’re extremely reliable. All the estimates are provided by independent research teams and well respected academics who’s full research, sources, and methodology are have been peer reviewed and are available to all who wish to see them. You just want to find any excuse to dismiss the figures because they don’t conform to your tankie biases.

Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Deng’s numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Mao’s legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.

Do you actually think successfully arguing that the death toll is “only” 16.5 million is some sort of win? Not only is it sad that you think that, but it’s also a losing battle because that figure is well below what most academics estimate. There’s another thing, simply putting saying “US” or “CIA” in front of everything you don’t like doesn’t discredit the validity or accuracy of those figures or statements whatsoever nor does it make the association inherently bad. These assumptions exclusively exist in the empty minds tankies who think the rest of the world thinks like them, well they don’t.

People understand that despite all it’s flaws, the US is still a liberal democracy that actually has freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This means that academics in the US are extremely reliable because they’re independent researchers who can publish all their research without fear of manipulation or censorship from the government regardless of how the government wishes the results were or how they make the government look.

This isn’t the case in China because it’s an authoritarian country, and so research on touchy subjects is inherently unreliable because it all goes through the great CCP filter. Not to mention that the research on Mao’s astronomical death toll isn’t exclusive to US researchers. Academics all over the world have studied the same material and came up with estimates that are largely in the same range. So no matter what excuse you come up with, they simply won’t mean anything because you’re defending a position that contradicts reality.

successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy

What monarchy lmao? China has been a republic since 1912. I know tankies are ignorant, but do you seriously not know who the communists fought during the Chinese civil war? Because that’s astounding levels of ignorance.

brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country.

Literally all of this is false. Mao’s policies were such massive failures that killed so many people and brought so much suffering that the country was actually on the brink of collapse. After he died, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, had to do a de-Maoization to help save the country. The Chinese economy under Mao was extremely small and stagnant, and China didn’t experience any real economic growth until Xiaoping started liberalizing the economy. In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, he introduced a series of reforms that allowed people to own private property, allowed foreign investment to flow into the country, created “special economic zones” where capitalism ran free, and allowed markets to exist again. Only then did China economic rise start to take off.

You can literally see this in GDP numbers:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product

And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.

The country went through a genocide that killed 30 million people followed by a civil war that killed 10 million people. The life expectancy in China in 1945 was 33.4 years. Literally any sort of stability would’ve seen a rise in life expectancy. We saw the same thing happen in Russia, Germany, and bunch of countries who exited eras of brutal war. With that being said, Mao wasn’t exactly good for the life expectancy, you clearly see in the country’s life expectancy graphs when the famine happened as well as when his brutal massacres started slowing down:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/

And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. That’s basically the checkmate of atrocities.

China is arming Russia’s genocide in Ukraine as well as committing their own genocides in TIbet and Xinjiang. So if we’re using mental gymnastics make the US indirectly supporting Israel count as enabling genocide, then China has a checkmate x3.

Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries.

These atrocities are historical facts, not propaganda, and recognizing them isn’t going to start wars. What kind of idiot thinks that recognizing and condemning an atrocity like the holocaust is propaganda to start a war? If you ever get the self awareness to wonder why nobody likes tankies, this is why.

It’s why China doesn’t celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War

Nobody is celebrating this massacre you dimwit. People are acknowledging and condemning it because, unlike the US, the Chinese government denies the atrocities it committed and pretends this massacre never happened.

They don’t have military bases all over the world and aren’t constantly invading and occupying other countries,

Yes they literally are. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, India, Tibet, and the list goes on and on.

And while China has a lot of negative points, that’s what makes the US worse that people in it don’t understand: it’s inperialistic nature.

Clearly, you don’t understand what imperialism is either because if you think China isn’t imperialist then you’re huffing something strong.

The context that the reason this is promoted multiple times a year as opposed to any particular atrocities committed by western media that this can be used to justify further hostile action against a foreign nation.

Here you are at again, this is NOT context. Context is when you add relevant information to a topic in a discussion. What you’re doing here is the tu quoue fallacy. Do you understand why the fallacy you’re using is just that? Do you even understand why fallacies are considered bad to begin with? We can’t have an honest discussion if you can’t comprehend this.

If you still use the word “authoritarian”, You’re not ready to have a meaningful discussion on the event anymore than a zionist screeching about “terrorists” is capable of discussing Oct 6th.

What other word would you use to describe it? You have a very big government that tries to control every aspect of society at the expense of the freedoms and rights of its citizens, it places a lot overbearing rules that are enforced very strictly, and those who break these rules receive punishments that disproportionately exceed the crime. In this case, the CCP is a tyrannical government that ordered soldiers to kill students for the crime of peacefully protesting. That’s the textbook definition of what authoritarianism is. How am I, or anyone, supposed to take you seriously, when you can’t even admit a basic fact like the CCP is authoritarian? Even they don’t deny it.

I don’t think you understand that norms and civility are a requirement for a peaceful, well functioning democracy. If you see them as a nuisance then you’re either an authoritarian or an idiot. Like seriously, do you think society is going to function if every self righteous politician start being obnoxious when something doesn’t go their way? That braindead mentality is literally how we ended up with Trump and MAGA in the US. It is THE first pillar to fall when on your way to authoritarianism.

These politicians can support or oppose whatever they want, it’s their job to do so. However, disrupting the duties of the parliament is not a part of their job, and they know that. If a couple of white politicians in New Zealand started doing berserker rituals every time something doesn’t go their way in parliament, will you still be making excuses? If not, then you hold double standards and you’re racist. They’re the same people, in the same country, and they should abide by customs that they set for themselves. The New Zealand parliament usually has 120, 117 members with vastly different opinions can conduct themselves just fine, 3 can’t. Those 3 got suspended.

Removed by mod

But you’re conflating two different things. Someone who doesn’t think about politics 24/7 isn’t necessarily politically unaware or politically inactive. It just means that they understand there’s more to life than politics. You can recognize that politics has more influence on your life than other things, but it’s not the only influence on your life nor is it everything in life. I mean you lived through it, you should know as well as I do that even during blackouts and war, people still find ways to do things life that isn’t politics.

Something this basic seems to be beyond comprehension for Lemmy users for some reason.