I'm having trouble finding the actual place in the video where he said that, but IIRC his argument was that the bourgeoisie have likely already made their way into the CPC, and once China becomes more powerful than the US, they will go more "mask off" with their activity in Africa since they won't have any competition in terms of making trade deals and agreements. China also clearly has more leverage than the African countries they do business with
Wow, I've seen you everywhere across lemmy! Thanks for the response, but I feel like there's a mismatch in how we define socialism. I've been using "worker ownership of the means of production" as my definition and I feel like the state being controlled by a communist party does not necessarily fit this, since what's stopping the state and bureaucracy from becoming its own ruling class (or being used/infiltrated by the old bourgeoisie), given it holds all the power? Doesn't the existence of private property whatsoever automatically contradict the fact that workers own the means of production? That's why council communism and direct worker democracy seems more appealing to me, although I guess it hasn't had the chance to be tested like leninism/vanguardism. The other thing is, it makes sense to me that public property can exist in capitalism, and that this is called mixed economy or social democracy. However, is vice versa really true? If private property exists in socialism, that means that there is a bourgeoisie, and if there is a bourgeoisie, it's in their interest to undermine the power of the proletariat, and they will slowly chip away at workers' rights. Haven't we reached social democracy, but with extra steps? I doubt that socialism "contains elements of capitalism and elements of communism" in the way you mention, socialism seems to me an entirely independent economic system with communism as its most developed stage, where the only elements it has in common with capitalism is the existence of the state and money. TBH, I'm still processing @pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 's comment, it feels kind of mindblowing lol
(Sorry this comment is kind of sloppy, I'm tired right now)
Part of the issue is that I don't know what news I can trust. Obviously mainstream western news is going to be biased against China, but I don't know where to learn about China in a way that stays "neutral" I guess, since I feel like reading Chinese media will only show me the good side of things, the same as any country's news would do.
This might be a good point to ask, why are ultras (and trotskyists, etc.) so universally disliked? I'm still learning the history and differences between all the groups of marxists, but surely having discussions and debates with people more skeptical of AES will allow those projects to find/fix their contradictions and improve themselves? Are there any other channels I should listen to over S4A?
They're just voting with their dollars, it's real democracy!