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Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

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Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#11

Post by m0zg »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #4
shadilay wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Common Prosperity' seems to mean that there are too many rich people in China that are giving too little money to the central government as their wealth usurps the power of the CCP.

Yeah, Tax the Rich. This essay could have come from any given Twitter "intelligentsia" in America today with only a select few terms changed.

"Tax the rich" in the US is just a slogan. In 20+ years I've been in the US I've yet to see it actually yield anything concrete. Taxes on the middle class have grown substantially in the meanwhile (health insurance is 3x what it was 20 years ago, and it is a tax in all but name, real estate taxes are 4-5x, and you now pay local sales taxes on interstate online purchases, too).

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#12

Post by tonyedgecombe »

rsj_hn wrote: post #8
throwawaysea wrote: post #2

One thing I find difficult to reconcile is China’s apparent success in adopting capitalist, free market principles set against manifestos like this, which talk about building a great “socialist state”. Is that label meaningless intentionally? Is it a sincerely held (but misguided) belief? Is it simply a preview of how China plans to ultimately take (forceful) public ownership of the fruits of private industry and inn…

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

>Whereas Christianity kept society together for over 1000 years

Only if you ignore all the wars.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#13

Post by cromwellian »

rsj_hn wrote: post #8
throwawaysea wrote: post #2

One thing I find difficult to reconcile is China’s apparent success in adopting capitalist, free market principles set against manifestos like this, which talk about building a great “socialist state”. Is that label meaningless intentionally? Is it a sincerely held (but misguided) belief? Is it simply a preview of how China plans to ultimately take (forceful) public ownership of the fruits of private industry and inn…

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

Crackdown on capitalists didn't start recently. It's been going on for a long time, and often just amounts to a war among CCP factions, as invariably different guanxi networks are allied with different party bigwigs.

Prior to Deng's reforms, Mao was persecuting anyone with a hint of capitalist influence, often seizing family wealth and sending them for re-education to work in the countryside.

I don't buy this decadence angle, this seems like an argument from someone with a religious axe to grind. The reality is, China has serious systemic economic problems built up from mismanagement and corruption. They've got a population of 400 million migrant workers who used to make decent money with the construction boom, but now face an apocalypse as the real estate market may implode, many of them will resort to being delivery drivers, etc. They've got a looming demographic timebomb, as the one child policy is going to make China end up with a significantly older population than their competitors -- all of which will heavily impact surplus productivity need to take care of them. Then there's debt, China's "on the books" debt-to-GDP is 270% but no one knows the real figure. Then there's the education crisis, as China has been graduating far more advance degree candidates than they need, which has lead to high unemployment among college graduates, and the absurdity of people with masters degrees working on the assembly line in factories. There's also a huge "tofu-dreg" construction debt as a lot of buildings and infrastructure were built by contractors who scammed away money and used substandard materials. Who knows how much it will cost to fix this stuff.

Xi Jinping is aware of all of these looming crises, and so all of the recent control mechanisms are essentially an attempt at self protection for the CCP to prevent blame, because when the shit hits the fan, they want to write the story that the public reads about who is really at fault for bank failures, and real estate failures, etc. It'll be a nationalist populist -- fascist story that lays the blame on capitalists, international actors, anyone but party corruption and mismanagement.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#14

Post by cromwellian »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #12
rsj_hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

>Whereas Christianity kept society together for over 1000 years Only if you ignore all the wars.

Seriously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#15

Post by massn »

rsj_hn wrote: post #8
throwawaysea wrote: post #2

One thing I find difficult to reconcile is China’s apparent success in adopting capitalist, free market principles set against manifestos like this, which talk about building a great “socialist state”. Is that label meaningless intentionally? Is it a sincerely held (but misguided) belief? Is it simply a preview of how China plans to ultimately take (forceful) public ownership of the fruits of private industry and inn…

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

Christianity never kept society together unless you are totally oblivious to the number of wars fought on European soil during this so called 1000 years of stability.

There were periods of stabilty because rivals balanced each other out in terms of power that lasted a generation or two here and there but you will be hard pressed to find a Western Historian who says there is a 1000 year period of stability.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#16

Post by OneTimePetes »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #12
rsj_hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

>Whereas Christianity kept society together for over 1000 years Only if you ignore all the wars.

including the first known "world war"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#17

Post by randomopining »

rsj_hn wrote: post #8
throwawaysea wrote: post #2

One thing I find difficult to reconcile is China’s apparent success in adopting capitalist, free market principles set against manifestos like this, which talk about building a great “socialist state”. Is that label meaningless intentionally? Is it a sincerely held (but misguided) belief? Is it simply a preview of how China plans to ultimately take (forceful) public ownership of the fruits of private industry and inn…

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

Good deconstruction, but do you really think the CCP is against western decadence? If that was so, why did they allow Western media/social media to completely infiltrate for decades?

They just want economic control of everything. You really think if the US was this pure christian-type nation, they would be buddy buddy and let our audit-based economic system encroach and then take hold?

The autocrats can't exist in a world with checks and balances -- namely democracy and audit-based corporations.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#18

Post by yetihehe »

randomopining wrote: post #17
rsj_hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

Good deconstruction, but do you really think the CCP is against western decadence? If that was so, why did they allow Western media/social media to completely infiltrate for decades? They just want economic control of everything. You really think if the US was this pure christian-type nation, they would be buddy buddy and let our audit-based economic system encroach and then take hold? The autocrats can't exist in a…

> The autocrats can't exist in a world with checks and balances -- namely democracy and audit-based corporations.

Only until they actively destroy those checks and balances by "fixing old inefficiencies" by "helping those left behind". I'm seeing it unfold day-by-day in Poland.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#19

Post by prewett »

throwawaysea wrote: post #2

One thing I find difficult to reconcile is China’s apparent success in adopting capitalist, free market principles set against manifestos like this, which talk about building a great “socialist state”. Is that label meaningless intentionally? Is it a sincerely held (but misguided) belief? Is it simply a preview of how China plans to ultimately take (forceful) public ownership of the fruits of private industry and inn…

If you think that’s chilling, read the essay “Engineering the Human Soul” (https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in), by a long-time Australian China-watcher. He asserts that Xi Jinping though follows in a direct line from Stalin and Mao.

Re: Translation of Xi Jinping's "To Firmly Drive Common Prosperity" Essay

#20

Post by lm28469 »

massn wrote: post #15
rsj_hn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what China understands is that it is in the fight of its life against decadence. It correctly sees decadence as the product of liberalism, something that afflicts dying societies as they transition to some new illiberal regime. In that new, illiberal regime, the CCP will (most likely) not be in charge, and Chinese society as a whole may not survive as a united entity. Now liberalism starts by people who no…

Christianity never kept society together unless you are totally oblivious to the number of wars fought on European soil during this so called 1000 years of stability. There were periods of stabilty because rivals balanced each other out in terms of power that lasted a generation or two here and there but you will be hard pressed to find a Western Historian who says there is a 1000 year period of stability.

I'm not taking a stance here, I'm atheist myself, that being said:

> Christianity never kept society together unless you are totally oblivious to the number of wars fought on European soil during this so called 1000 years of stability.

Some people argue that it does to some extent. It gave people something greater than them, a community, traditions (church on sunday, &c.), a common set of rules to follow and a cohesive framework to "navigate" through life. It told you what was wrong, what was right, gave you a sense of spirituality and the sacred. Even the classical family values are christian concepts (Christianity didn't invent the family but theorised our modern take on it).

Now that we're past that a lot of people navigate life as atomized individuals without any moral compass, nothing is right nor wrong anymore, do whatever you want, be whatever you want, anything as long as you work and consume

People went to war for their religion, died peacefully knowing they'd go to some form of paradise, now we send kids to foreign deserts to fight for petrol, they're dying so that you can have the next iphone or a fill up your car, there is no transcendental greater good they could look for, the new religion is globalization and consumerism

The judeo christian civilisation lasted ~2000 years and clearly is on the decline, it's neither good nor bad in itself but you can't deny that it is a pillar of our current western world

> you will be hard pressed to find a Western Historian who says there is a 1000 year period of stability.

The fact that something existed for so long and that a lot of our modern philosophical and societal takes are direct descendant of it are good enough to prove stability, they've never been any era of "stability" if you define stability as "no war".

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