PCB fabrication requires managing large factories to produce mining equipment, shipbuilding to build ships to transport the mined components, processing facilities, the industries refining raw materials to create these facilities and their outputs, logistics chains of supertankers to transport raw materials, highly advanced semiconductor facilities with clean rooms that need to be produced to incredibly detailed specs and with no outside contamination, and all of this to be done safely, on expected timelines.

In this entire process, much of these facilities are too large for a node, too time-critical to not have some degree of management and a common plan, too safety critical to leave decentrally organized, or a combination of all of these. With a communalized society, production of PCBs becomes impossible without Star Trek replicators.

Management is not exploitation, it's the coordination of labor. Exploitation in its economic sense refers to stealing surplus value, managers do not do this but instead perform necessary labor for speeding up or even enabling production to be possible. Not all structures that have been formed over time have been made "evil," many of these structures exist because they are necessary.

Even anarchists in Catalonia recognized the necessity of hierarchy and adapted their tactics to their existing conditions at wartime, and became more effective for it. It was their reluctance to do so at first that partially contributed to their loss in the Spanish Civil War.

It's related to the subject of fascism and censorship

Also, all those brands of shampoo are owned by one or two firms.

Nope, my main criticism is from the perspective of a historical materialist. Communalization of production goes against the direction society is heading in in such a fashion that it would completely eliminate key industries like medical production beyond what can be manufactured in small communities or a couple linked ones, nothing comparable to modern mass manufacturing. It would be a dramatic loss in productive capability, and would further give rise to capitalism once again as these communities begin to compete.

So your main criticism is that anarchism isn't feasible because it cannot reproduce mass manufacturing?

That's part of it, yea. The next mode of production is built on the foundations of the existing mode of production, this has happened every time a change in mode of production has occured. The modern era of mass manufacturing has built the bedrock of socialism, of a coordinated and collectivized system of production and distribution with the working classes on top of society.

Anarchism has no such basis in modern society, and every time it has been attempted it has either been extremely small, extremely short-lived, or both. We cannot simply build a society by imagining it, we have to examine historical trajectory. This is what turned socialism from utopian to scientific, and enabled the establishment of long-lasting socialist states that dramatically improved the world.

You don't need hierarchy to have a common plan, but I'll get back on the bits relating to management and time-critical aspects mentioned here later.

Not convinced on hierarchies not being exploitative. The higher up you go in the corporate ladder, the more room the person has to exploit those beneath him. You say managers do not steal surplus value, which I'm not sure is the case. Additionally, I wasn't solely referring to economic exploitation. Workplace conditions are often highly toxic and higher-ups are routinely able to get away with their abuse of those under them because of hierarchy. Hierarchy not only enables, it attracts power-hungry people who abuse it. Patriarchy is another good example of hierarchy directly causing abuse.

If you ask me, these are evil.

I'm trying to summarize your primary criticism into one line here.

I don't really think you can, my problems with anarchism are multi-layered and comprehensive, not something simple to be summarized into a single line. I've given more than enough to work off of if you want a discussion on that, I feel.

Regarding the necessity of hierarchy for a common plan, you do need it at the scale I am referring to, to coordinate all of these moving parts. Horizontal communication works best for when 2 parts of the supply chain interact, but having a plan on top of them coordinating even the disconnected links is necessary in many cases, and helpful in nearly all.

You're turning your fear of potential for abuse into a reason to abandon an incredibly useful and necessary tool. Do you also argue against fire, because it can spread if we aren't careful and wary? Is fire "evil?" Hierarchy does not attract "power-hungry people" either, people typically work to better their own conditions.

As for patriarchy, it isn't something that exists in a vacuum, it's directly related to class society and its problems. Marxists have studied the origin of the form of the family and the role of women since Marx and Engels, and some of the founding Bolsheviks were women, such as Alexandra Kollontai.

Ok so the points coming to mind areas follows: The censorship in the USSR.

This doesn't seem to align with my understanding of the USSR. Didn't the USSR fail horribly, leading to its collapse? Bureaucratic corruption, inefficiency, not being able to compete internationally, and the oppression of marginalized populations (such as queer people ) had been my impression of the USSR's legacy.

As for the last point, that comes off as hypocritical since communist countries do the same thing. North Korea has executions and Cuba throws journalists in jail.

I'm not trying to unravel your entire outlook, just respond to your best argument. Is there one you'd put at top?

To put it in the simplest terms possible, and in a single sentence:

Anarchists reject historical materialism, and this rejection leads anarchists to idealist analysis that manifests in the form of utopianism, whereas Marxist advancements in philosophy led to the development of dialectical materialism and its application forming the aforementioned historical materialism and modern scientific socialism.

It's not merely "potential" or a "fear" thereof, it's a historically established pattern. If I were to describe it the way you do from historical perspectives, I'd frame it as "the necessary and natural outcome".

Apples to oranges analogy with fire. Fire doesn't subjugate people, fire doesn't put people in positions where they can belittle, abuse, or otherwise coerce others beneath them.

Again, you're not engaging with the reasoning I gave for this.

Patriarchy would not exist without hierarchy. Female Marxists existing doesn't change that.

So yeah, hierarchy is "evil". I just used that phrasing for brevity, it can be explained scientifically.

I do believe hierarchy attracts power hungry people.

Coercive domination and subjugation requires hierarchy, but I'm not sure if that is a concern for you.

...Anarchists don't reject historical materialism? Historical/scientific cases for anarchism exist.

The fire analogy absolutely applies, you're turning your fear of abuse into the belief that abuse is omnipresent. The fear that fire could spread does not mean we cannot overcome this and account for it, same with administration and management.

Patriarchy does not exist because of nebulous "hierarchy," it exists as an established part of how class society evolved over time, relegating women to unpaid domestic labor to maximize returns on paying a single male laborer, and this arrangement too is gradually shattered by capitalism as women are simultaneously proletarianized while also expected to keep up with their feudal and early capitalist roles.

Coercive domination and subjugation doesn't require management and administration either. Abuse can happen between peers who share the same societal position. Management can absolutely abuse its position, but just like fire, it does not mean that this has to happen, or that it cannot be safeguarded against.

What matters to me is that we build a better world, where we collectively produce and distribute to satisfy the needs and wants of all, along a scientific plan. Ideologies that are ultimately unworkable go against the progress towards this goal, and I believe anarchism falls into this. Anarchists are certainly better than liberals, in that we both share capitalism as an enemy, but anarchists do ultimately take a position I believe weakens the movement.

A good example is what happened to anarchists in Russia. Anarchism is not an exclusively proletarian ideology like communism is, in fact many bourgeois and many, many petite bourgeois anarchists exist. In Russia, after the revolution, the proletarian and peasant anarchists overwhelmingly joined the communists, while the petite bourgeois and bourgeois anarchists rebelled against the socialist state. The reason for this is that proletarian and peasant power was uplifted by socialism while the position of the petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie were weakened and oppressed.

For more on that last bit, see Gramsci's An Address to Anarchists, describing this process.

Anarchists necessarily reject historical materialism. There is no basis for anarchism as it arises from capitalism, as I explained earlier. When I say scientific socialism, I do not merely mean a scientific case for socialism. That's why I linked the articles for terms, so that I can be more clear in my point without having to explain what I mean by each line.

You're still not engaging with my reasoning. I gave you reasons as to why fire is nothing like it.

Patriarchy is literally a type of hierarchy, if all hierarchy was abolished, patriarchy would too by nature of it being a type of hierarchy.

Just because coercive domination and subjugation can occur outside of hierarchy, doesn't mean hierarchy isn't the primary cause of it. As stated earlier, this is historically well-established and is a necessary outcome of hierarchy.

As for the last point, that comes off as hypocritical since communist countries do the same thing.

Killing and repressing fascists and other reactionary forces is good actually. Progressive forces being killed and the masses oppressed is bad.

The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.

Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.

The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.

When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.

Death rates spiked:

And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:

Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.

When you look at the US Empire and western Europe as having higher quality of life than the USSR, you are looking at the benefits of imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism and wishing the USSR also practiced this, instead of helping liberate colonies and the global south. Russia in particular was a semi-feudal backwater in 1917, and made it to space 5 decades later. The USSR was not the picture of wealth, but was for its time the picture of development and rapid progress.

The USSR was stable by the time it dissolved, it was dissolved from the top-down. It did not fail horribly, it was killed by a corrupt wing that had taken hold since Khruschev. It remained socialist until the very end, but by no means was it an inevitable failure, and modern socialist states have learned from it.

Regarding it being "hypocritical" for communists to oppress fascists, no, it isn't at all. The working classes oppressing their fiercest enemies and preventing them from taking power is for the same reason the bourgeoisie oppresses their fiercest enemies and prevents them from taking power, the communists are the most effective anti-fascists.

I engaged with your reasoning, I just disagree and explained why. Fire is alike in all the ways that matter for my points: a potentially dangerous but also immensely useful tool that we can learn and study to more effectively and more safely use. Just like we can create procedures and fire-resistant equipment, we can organize administration in such a fashion that corruption and abuse are nearly non-existent and directly accountable. They are not literally the same, but for the purpose of comparison serve a similar role.

Patriarchy is indeed a form of hierarchy, but you don't get rid of patriarchy by eliminating some nebulous concept of hierarchy in general. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one. You abolish patriarchy by eliminating the material basis of patriarchy in particular, and the social basis of patriarchy in the modern era is in capitalism and class society. Management and administration existing does not imply patriarchy, even if present administration is male-dominated. In all socialist societies, the role of women in administration and women's rights in general have exploded.

Hierarchy is not the cause of abuse. Hierarchy can help facilitate abuse if we are not careful, but just like wildfire, fire and management are not the cause.

Lots of countries tie basic rights like health to your job though

You don't need to convince me that capitalism is bad, I am already convinced of that— though obviously I disagree that socialism is the only path forward for Russia.

Based on what you've said, the USSR appears to have done well while it was still up and running.

But:

• The repressed groups I was talking about were queer people, not just "capitalists".
• If you're trying to say that the reason why West Europe (especially Scandinavia) is a much safer place for queer people is "imperialism", I would consider that a non-sequitur.

So long as communism leads to queer oppression (and historically it has in all of them — except Cuba which is the progressive anomaly in this regard), I will oppose it as I do not see it as "liberation". We also have very different views on what is acceptable in terms of censorship and hierarchy (which I'm not debating in this thread), so I do not see communism as offering people liberation.

What I don't understand is why the USSR just flatlined after all the success you've mentioned.

I see it as hypocritical but I digress on that.

From a communist standpoint, sure.

Queer rights in the soviet union were more progressive than peer countries, and queer people saw an expansion in rights as compared to Tsarist Russia. In fact, Kollontai was a bisexual woman and one of the first women in a government administrator role. The USSR did re-criminalize homosexuality after decriminalizing this, and this is seen as an error. The reason the USSR became more socially regressive in regards to queer people than in the beginning was due to the constant crisis and siege. Over time, queer rights improved, with the GDR even providing free gender affirming care.

The process of queer liberation goes hand-in-hand with the rise of socialism. In every existing socialist state, queer rights have been improving over time. This is easiest to watch in Cuba and China. In the west, the percentage of queer communists outweighs the standard population, meaning queer people are more common among communists by ratio than the standard population. It isn't at all that socialism leads to queer repression, it's much the opposite.

I never once made the point that queer rights come from imperialism, and I consider that deflection a non-sequitor. When I am talking about the standard of living in imperialist countries, and the social progressivism on the backs of absolute terror of the global south, I am not blaming queer people for this. I am pointing out what is called "Herrenvolk democracy," or "democracy for the master race alone." The progressive, good change in social views in the west coincided with increasing plunder and torture abroad, and then the fact that many of these colonized and imperialized countries are lagging the west in queer rights is used as justification for regime change.

So long as communism leads to queer oppression

It has not. Queer rights have improved in socialist countries compared to what they had before. You're comparing their improving queer rights with the west. I could be just as dishonest and say anarchism leads to queer oppression and antisemitism given the views and actions of Bakunin, Makhno, and other existing anarchist societies, but I don't because there's no direct link between the two.

What I don’t understand is why the USSR just flatlined after all the success you’ve mentioned.

Because starting with Khrushchev, reforms that went against the socialist system and enabled the rise of bourgeois power existed alongside a deliberate blindness to these problems. This allowed the Yeltsin faction to take hold and nuke the system from the top, allowing for immense profits. It wasn't socialism that became exploitative, it was a failure to safeguard it that allowed capitalism to return.

To stress this further: even as corruption built up in the USSR, the system still worked for the majority, the problems came when corruption overtook the system and changed it. Socialism therefore was not the problem, a failure to safeguard it was. Your critique mandates that socialism be exploitative as well, but it wasn't even as corruption began to take hold.

Elaborate, my standpoint is generally the communist standpoint, with the communist critique. Can you refute my point?

I've just realized that this is much like having multiple identities.

A way to deceive market reputation mechanisms.

Should be made illegal, there should be one main brand seen on everything, then whatever secondary brand they want is possible, but you should clearly see that those 3 niche-optimized goods are from one corp.

So that the choice were, eh, real.

That's not the only time it's a problem. It's mainly a problem because these privately owned platforms control so much communication.

Not a communist, so no, I can't.

You said you could, though. I explained my problems with anarchism, can you refute the concepts of historical materialism, etc. or alternatively explain how anarchism indeed does follow these concepts?

Either the concepts I agree with need to be refuted, or anarchism needs to justify itself as adhering to them, both are potential avenues for overcoming my strongest and simplest argument.

How come Scandinavian countries are miles ahead of literally all communist countries w.r.t. queer rights (Cuba excluded)?

Simply because progressivism coincided with imperialism, doesn't mean it's because of it. Correlation does not equate to causation.

You say queer rights have improved compared to what they had before, but homosexuality is something that remains to this day significantly stigmatized outside of urban centers (Beijing, Shanghai etc which are more accepting)— when it wasn't stigmatized as much before. Though perhaps that is more owing to Christianity, I'm more privy to Japan's history than China's if we're going beyond the last century.

What's wrong with comparing them to the west? Is the west a nebulous "evil"? (See above, I don't believe it's better there due to imperialism)

How come Scandinavian countries are miles ahead of literally all communist countries w.r.t. queer rights (Cuba excluded)?

I explained this a bit already, but to rephrase and simplify, when your country is under the threat of imperialism, colonialism, settler-colonialism, or neocolonialism, social progress is stunted. Imperialist countries like Scandinavia have had more time benefiting from imperialism, and as such have a form of "Herrenvolk" progressivism. In Scandinavian countries (and imperialist countries in general), social progress itself is allowed as a concession to workers and as a way to justify imperialism, not out of the kindness of the ruling class.

Further, Scandinavian countries are not miles ahead of literally all socialist countries. Queer rights are gradually improving in all socialist countries, which are still under siege but ultimately progressing faster than peer capitalist countries. As the aging populations die off, much of their social conservativism does too, which is why in China for example queer rights have been rapidly improving.

Social progress happens not in a vacuum, simply due to having better and better ideas. Ideas are formed from our material conditions, and alongside economic development comes social progress. The fact that Scandinavian countries have been able to develop earlier due to relying on imperialism is what has allowed their proletariat to struggle for queer rights more effectively, as they aren't struggling against siege. That's also why socialist countries have brought positive momentum to queer rights when previously they were more oppressed.

This gradual process of improvement comes from a long struggle towards liberation. Comparing countries with entirely different historical contexts directly is a metaphysical analytical error, which is again an example of why dialectical materialism is so important.

To borrow from Gramsci, who I've been reading lately:

To judge the whole philosophical past as madness and folly is not only an anti-historical error, since it contains the anachronistic presumption that in the past they should have thought like today, but it is a truly genuine holdover from metaphysics, since it supposes a dogmatic thought valid at all times and in all countries, by whose standard one should judge all the past.

The method of anti-historicism is nothing but metaphysics. That past philosophical systems have been superseded does not negate the fact that they were historically valid and served a necessary function: their obsolescence should be considered from the point of view of the entire development of history and the real dialectic; that they deserved to perish is neither a moral judgment nor sound thinking issued from an “objective” point of view, but a dialectical-historical judgment. One can compare this with Engels’ presentation of the Hegelian proposition that “all that is rational is real and all that is real is rational,” a proposition which holds true for the past as well.

This doesn't just apply to past philosophy, but also to past ways we view social rights, gender, sexuality, and more, and this development is not flat and even across all of humanity but often restricted by dialect, language, and level of development.

You have a not in the first sentence, I think shouldn't be there.

Thanks! I goofed that one up, sorry!

Which shareholders are majority Black Rock and Vanguard group so it doesn't matter what company because they have the same owners anyway and that goes for 90% of all publicly traded companies globally so yeah

That’s the socialist definition of class, that is not how I understand class.

I can decide to understand gravity as a color if I want to, but it doesn't make me right.

Calling bureaucracy “nebulous” doesn’t invalidate any of the reasoning I provided

I'm calling the term you're using (beauraucrats) nebulous, because it is, because you haven't defined it. You haven't provided any "reasoning", you've just said "I think this happens" with nothing at all to back it up.

Suggested approach: anarchism.

That's cool, but some of us feel like living in a society that doesn't get rolled over by a capitalist military whenever they feel like it. Some of us enjoy functional supply chains, too.

I didn’t disregard the importance of understanding class, merely that I disagreed with the reductive socialist definition of class.

Yeah I'm not saying you don't think it's important, I'm saying you don't understand it. Please tell me what you think is reductive about the definition of class used by the people who have radically transformed multiple feudal societies into world powers, because your own track record does not make a compelling case for abandoning it.

1. many of these countries have not been under the attack of imperialism for the better part of a century, if not a century atp.

2. when has Scandinavia engaged in imperialism?

3. re: correlation ≠ causation w.r.t. imperialism and progress occuring together

4. They are quite literally miles ahead. Apart from Cuba— no socialist countries have marriage equality for gay couples, no socialist countries have discrimination protections rights for gay people, legal recognition as the gender opposite to the one assigned at birth is contingent on undergoing surgery. The majority of gay people in China do not feel comfortable to coming out to their parents. Scandinavia outperforms socialist countries on all these accounts.

You are severely downplaying how staggered they are in this regard. The etiology of social backwardness aside, these are still facts.

1. If imperialism is what you are equating to what leads to social progress, then china should be at its forefront because it has had a fairly imperialistic history itself. So what is the distinguishing factor?

You are severely misreading my point. Imperialism does not lead to social progress, social progress accelerates alongside development and the lack of siege. Imperialist countries got to develop faster due to plundering wealth from the global south.

1. Incorrect, every single socialist state has been under siege by imperialist countries, either through embargoes like Cuba or through constant trade wars and propaganda, like against the PRC.

2. Scandinavia is engaging in imperialism now, and has been. Imperialism is an epoch of capitalism, characterized by the domination of finance capital and monopoly. Western countries all play into this system of imperialism.

3. Already answered earlier, I never made the point that imperialism itself causes social progress, just that development and lack of outside pressures provides a better environment for social struggle.

4. No, Scandinavian countries are not "miles ahead." At a legal level, Scandinavian countries are ahead, but discriminatuon is still found. Using China as an example, younger generations are more progressive and open, and since China is a democratic country, it's more of a conflict between generations, rather than a policy caused by socialism. You're also ignoring that the USSR, for example, was more progressive in its time than western countries, that the GDR was providing free gender-affirming care, and that Cuba is more progressive than Scandinavian countries. All socialist countries have gradually been improving in queer rights over time, which goes directly against your nonsensical idea that socialism causes LGBTQ oppression.

5. Imperialism does not lead to social progress. Again, you're entirely butchering my point. Imperialism provides western countries with more resources and no outside threat, so social struggle was easier. Imperialism itself is not the driving force for queer rights, this is the argument made by imperialists. As for China, it hasnt ever been at the imperialist stage of capitalism, and the last time China was a world power was hundreds of years ago. Queer rights in China went down during the Century of Humiliation, the adoption of socialism presented an incredible expansion in women's rights and new avenues of social progress.

Overall, two things are clear: you haven't been checking out any of my links, and you haven't been paying actual attention to my points, given how much you've twisted them, such as the idea that imperialism causes social progress. Nobody made that point, and yet you made it the focus of this comment.

I highly recommend reading the article LGBT Rights and Issues in AES countries. It will give you a far better understanding of the real issues faced in socialist countries, and what direction the struggle is heading in, what's blocking it, etc, without imperialist narratives and pinkwashing getting in the way.

I want you to grapple with a single question, and answer honestly: what do you believe the best path forward is for the LGBTQIA+ activists in, say, China, right now: rebelling against socialism, or fighting for reforms within socialism, as they already are and are presently progressing?

I have to ask this before I can answer that question: Is reformism acceptable under socialism, when it is otherwise looked down upon?

I'd like to focus on one point at a time.

I didn't say socialist countries haven't been under siege, I said there are ones that haven't been in a long time. When was China last under siege? There's always drama between it and US sure but the US depends on China too and it's not like Cuba where it's being obliterated because of the US.

Without being significantly attacked by imperialism in a long time, and with clearly being an economic superpower, what is China's excuse for not performing on the same level as Scandinavian countries?

Granted China engages in imperialism itself— and I hope you can recognize that and not disregard imperialism when it occurs under socialist countries/China.

Reforms aren't a problem in capitalism or socialism by themselves, the issue arises when those with socialism as a goal believe you can establish socialism via reform, without the conquest of political power. Ie, the problem of reformism or revolution. The capitalist state will always work in the interests of capitalists.

The economic basis of socialism is in large-scale industry, as this is best suited for collective planning. In this way, capitalism aligns the small manufacturers and stitches together all of the disconnected forms of old production into a new system. It socializes production while keeping profits privatized.

The political basis of socialism is in a dictatorship of the proletariat, a worker state. Capitalism will never create a worker state by itself, its contradictions will heighten and this increases the revolutionary potential until people overthrow it. The belief that capitalism can smoothly change into socialism is where social democracy and reformism comes from, but this is a dead-end. Revolution is necessary.

The necessary first step in the establishment of socialism is the conquest of political power, destroying the old capitalist state, and then establishing a worker state. With this, the existing large industry can be immediately or near-immediately folded into the public sector, and heavily state-managed markets can help fill in the gaps (as we can see in China and Vietnam quite well today, and the NEP in the USSR).

Both economy and politics are intertwined, forming the base and the superstructure. Without siezing the state and the commanding heights of industry, however, any revolution can be ruthlessly overturned, such as in Chile with Allende.

As for China, it's still at siege, and threatened by imperialism. China is a developing country, much of it is underdeveloped in rural areas. It's easy to look at the achievements of China and assume they must be a developed country, but in fact they still have a great ways to go. Further, China is not imperialist, while Scandinavian countries are.

China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principal aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes and the state, run along the lines of a common plan, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:

The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn’t been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.

Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.

In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized.

Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.

China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.

Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.

In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.

Perhaps most obvious is the fact that trade partnerships with China have resulted in dramatic development for the global south, while imperialist countries have underdeveloped countries in the global south. The change in the trajectory of the global south towards rapid improvements was brought about by anti-colonial movements and beneficial partnerships with other developing countries like China, resulting in a multipolar world. China is absolutely not imperialist, this is mainstream socialist consensus.

You say that the global south is accelerating in its development because of China, can you give me data/graphs for this claim?

Land-grabbing and seizing other resources unethically also constitutes imperialism, though. China keeps trying to bully the countries that have broken off from China (i.e. Taiwan and Hong Kong). I hope you can recognize that without blind support for China and asserting the secession of some of its parts was/is "invalid" (or "never happened").

There's also the sea-grabbing china has been doing in the sea below it where it's got conflicts w the phillipines, Malaysia/Indonesia and other countries in the area where from what I last remember china was conducting unauthorized operations in the area despite nobody in the region recognizing the area as China's— though this may be off.

you say china isn't imperialist by "socialist consensus" but that's not really relevant here; of course supporters of XYZ party/ideology aren't going to criticize a member. I am not a socialist, outside of socialism it seems pretty clearly to be imperialist.

For starters, BRI has lifted 40 million people out of poverty, has built thousands of infrastructure projects, and increased billions in bilateral trade. Further, I didn't say the global south developing was soley because of China, but also due to anti-colonial movements and anti-imperialist movements, as well as partnerships among the global south that do not necessarily include China, I just said that China is playing a positive role in undermining imperialism.

Secondly, however, "land-grabbing" isn't inherently imperialism. For example, Hong Kong was a British colony stolen from China and recently given back, ans the majority of Hong Kongers are happy with that (something fans of the western-backed rioters neglect to say). The majority of people in Taiwan want neither independence nor to be folded more fully into the PRC, they want the status quo, and the CPC is willing to wait it out even though the Kuomintang fled there and massacred local resistance in the White Terror after they lost the Chinese Civil War.

Border disputes are not inherently imperialism either. Some nations recognized the ROC as the legitimate government of China for a time, and it claimed different areas, which caused the modern border nonsense.

All in all, I gave a short synopsis of imperialism and a link to a good article explaining it so that we could hopefully be on the same page. If you mean to say that any and all acquisition of land that was not immediately your territory prior to doing so is "imperialism," then I'm sorry but I don't agree that this is bad in all cases. Imperialism is an epoch of international monopoly finance capitalism, it's a specific stage in capitalist development at a world scale, and the imperialist countries are generally western countries and their vassals.

If China can respect Taiwan's desire to maintain the status quo I have no issue with that. Its been on the news that China has been using the Iran war as cover, partly to prepare for an attack on Taiwan with the ships being equipped with military missiles and the sort. I haven't looked into that claim, however.

If you're saying all western countries play into imperialism by means of capitalism, then there's two things to say here:
1- China hasn't fully transitioned to complete communism yet, even if it is transitioning over time. Meaning China also engages in capitalism. This makes china involved in the same process of imperialism, even if to a smaller extent. Do you recognize that?

2- In the socialist framework, Communism is seen as the natural end consequence, and countries will naturally transition from capitalism to communism. By that reasoning, according to socialists, isn't it "only a matter of time" before the west also communizes? So why demonize the west? Are the west simply imperialistic because they are inherently "evil" like that, or does historical analysis on the etiology of current conditions / diamat not apply when analyzing the west?

If China can respect Taiwan’s desire to maintain the status quo I have no issue with that. Its been on the news that China has been using the Iran war as cover, partly to prepare for an attack on Taiwan with the ships being equipped with military missiles and the sort. I haven’t looked into that claim, however.

Correct, it has been on the news because this is what western media does. In reality, Kuomintang leaders are meeting with Xi Jinping to avoid the US turning Taiwan into Ukraine 2.

If you’re saying all western countries play into imperialism by means of capitalism, then there’s two things to say here: 1- China hasn’t fully transitioned to complete communism yet, even if it is transitioning over time. Meaning China also engages in capitalism. This makes china involved in the same process of imperialism, even if to a smaller extent. Do you recognize that?

China has elements of capitalism, but has a socialist economy and a socialist state. Western countries have capitalist states and capitalist economies. Capitalism itself is not imperialism, imperialism is a stage in capitalist development. Global south countries are largely capitalist, and yet are on the plundered end of imperialism as a global system. China is a developing, socialist country that is not under the control of a financial oligarchy nor driven by the profit motive as the primary aspect driving development.

2- In the socialist framework, Communism is seen as the natural end consequence, and countries will naturally transition from capitalism to communism. By that reasoning, according to socialists, isn’t it “only a matter of time” before the west also communizes? So why demonize the west? Are the west simply imperialistic because they are inherently “evil” like that, or does historical analysis on the etiology of current conditions / diamat not apply when analyzing the west?

Socialism does not develop from capitalism, capitalism prepares the conditions for transition to socialism. Capitalism still has to be overthrown, and the biggest obstacle to revolution both in the imperial core and in the imperialized countries is imperialism. Imperialism is what bribes the working classes in the core into siding with capitalism over the global south, and imperialism is what keeps global south countries underdeveloped and at risk of coups, sanctions, and genocide by the west if they fight back.

The west is not imperialist because they are evil. The west is imperialist because they developed that way. Capitalism was first developed in Britain, which then progressed to the underdevelopment of African countries via trading more advanced British goods for slaves. This kickstarted colonization of the Americas and Africa, where Europe leveraged its developmental head start to completely suck Africa dry of labor and resources to continue widening the development gap.

This transitioned from full colonialism to imperialism, as bank and industrial capital ballooned in size and merged to form financial capital, and markets became over saturated domestically and needed to expand. This became the basis of exporting capital, the era of imperialism, and after colonialism was "ended" came the more subtle neocolonialism. The US Empire rose and overtook Europe as the world hegemony following World War II, as Europe was forced to rebuild while the US profited immensely.

China is not a part of that in any capacity. It is facilitating trade along more equal lines, and this is why China is the country of choice for the global south to turn to as a partner. The super profits from imperialism and neocolonialism are drying up in the west, which is why there has been a wave of fascism. China is dominated by state capital, in the hands of a working class state, not finance capital by a capitalist state. See State Capital vs. Finance Capital: Why China is not -- and Cannot Become -- an Imperial Hegemon.

You have continuously either ignored resources I have provided or seemingly deliberately ignored key points to try to form a strawman of my views. It's a repeated behavior of yours.

Which countries, specifically, has Scandinavia conducted an imperialistic campaign over? Please specify the countries. So far you have kept it nebulous.

or is it exclusively through this indirect mechanism of end-stage-capitalism imperialism that it occurs just generally/globally?

Imperialism is a stage in capitalism, not an individual action, just like there's no such thing as a single company in a vacuum, as the existence of companies implies capital markets, labor markets, and commodity markets all in general the company is operating within. Imperialism is a material process where the imperial core exports capital to the global south, taking advantage of development gaps and hard/soft power to super-exploit them for super-profits.

Scandinavia plays a bloody role in imperialism:

In 2008, Norwegian communications multinational, Telenor — partly owned by the state — was exposed for partnering with a Bangladeshi supplier that employed child labour in horrendous conditions.

A report revealed that the children were made to handle chemical substances without protection and one worker died after falling into a pool of acid. The plant also ruined the crops of farmers in the surrounding area with the waste it produced.

Like other Western multinationals that deliberately go to the developing world looking to save money on labour and operating costs, the company washed its hands of the accusations — denying knowledge about its partner’s inhumane practices.

Similarly, Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil, also partly owned by the state, has been involved in multiple corruption cases around the world — especially in underdeveloped countries — where they have bribed state companies and government officials to obtain licenses for extraction.

Their involvement is not only limited to these aggressive economic practices, Scandinavian nations are also deeply involved in the West’s military exploits. Norway dropped 588 bombs on Libya, but is scarcely mentioned as being part of these imperialist operations. Statoil has since started joint extractions operations worth millions in the ruined country.

Sweden’s foreign policy record is no better. Technology firms like Saab, BAE Systems and Bofors compete with the US and Israel in their development of a large variety of weapons that are sold to 55 countries around the world in deals worth billions. It seems that Sweden, like its Norwegian neighbour, actively participates in denying human rights to millions across the globe, especially in underdeveloped nations.

The Swedish clothing giant H&M can sell affordable products in rich nations and make huge profits only because it exploits and underpays workers in impoverished nations such as Bangladesh.

As John Smith points out in his book Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, only €0.95 of the final sale price of an H&M T-shirt remains in Bangladesh to cover the cost of the factory, the workers, the suppliers and the government. The remaining €3.54 goes for taxes and transportation in the market country, with the bulk going to the retailer.

In other words, Western nations capture most of the profit, although it is the poor workers and nations that have put in most of the labour and resources.

The Danish-British firm G4S is the world’s largest security company and is known for its long list of controversies. It has supplied services to Israeli prisons and checkpoints, and been accused of mistreatment of immigrants in detention centres. It has also played a huge role in protecting Western imperialist interests, such as oil refineries and the territory around the Dakota Access pipeline on Native American land in the US.

However, since Britain is known as the most aggressive of the two nations, the Danish component is frequently swept under the rug, despite the fact they were the founders and developers of the company.

It was for these reasons that I linked resources on what imperialism actually is, and why capitalism necessarily evolves into it. Imperialism is also why socialist revolution has largely happened in exploited countries, rather than more developed ones as initially predicted by Marx. Capitalism may pave the way for socialism, but not in an even manner like social democrats would have you believe.

Hmm, that reads the same as British East India Company-era colonialism tbh.

On the sale of weapons: doesn't china sell weapons, too, though? A brief answer will do.

China sells weapons, selling weapons is not imperialism inherently. It matters to whom weapons are sold, for what purposes and ends. Scandinavian countries largely sell weapons the same way the rest of the west does, in service of retaining imperialism (such as selling to Israel).

Regarding colonialism, it's in many ways similar to imperialism as a stage of capitalism. They are often linked.

China doesn't sell weapons to the US and Israel?