“Lol China will never catch up”
Outsources everything to China
China catches up
“Yeah well China will never become eco friendly”
China starts producing cheap eco friendly tech
Yellen: “Hurr durr muh overproduction will hurt the oil compa- i mean global market”
“We already benefited from slaves so now slavery is bad, We dictate what civilized world means”
and
“We polluted the whole world for our industrial revolution, so now pollution is bad, we protec environment”
Outsources everything to a country without any labor rights or environmental protection
feels good man
also
“We enabled our big tech to create a global surveillance system and international monopolies”
Tiktok bad because it reports to CCP
Pointing out any of the hypocrisy means you’re a tankie (i’m yet to know what it actually means).
As far as I’m concerened, one does bad things without any filter, one uses the media, tech and its hegemony to project a positive image while severely downplaying and ignoring their atrocities.
Sooner or later, China is also going to learn to do the same with their big tech and media companies.
What you said is all true. And most of the tankies I’ve come across seem to hold their beliefs mostly due to learning about and needing to confront the hypocrisy that you’ve outlined.
But in my opinion, they come to some strange conclusions. For example, it seems to me that many hold Russia and especially China up as some kind of shining beacon of hope, and miss that they are just as bad as the US, if not worse, just in different ways.
I think it’s out of the false dichotomy of The West vs China and Russia. While in fact there is no dichotomy, every large political actor will only try to bend everyone else, not benefit humanity.
It’s not a capture the flag, it’s more of a death match, but many think they are too big to fail, have too much upper hand, or can outsmart others. Too bad the people are the losing side
If it helps, probably not
A tankie is a kind of communist that is disliked by other communists. So you know if someone calls you a tankie, that person is a leftie and they agree you’re a leftie too, but the bad ones.
It comes from the invasion of socialist Hungary (?? Not really sure here) by Soviet tanks. There were people for and against it. The ones in Hungary defending Soviet point of view, that is, supporting tanks imposing social order, were called tankies.
Western Economists: What China really needs to do is stop investing in production, promote domestic consumption, and start spending foreign reserves on goods rather than bonds.
Because China can outsource everything to India, while India can outsource everything to Africa…
makes me wonder what would happen when we run out of cheap labour in third world countries
but I guess, no one will ever let all the (other) countries develop enough for that to happen 😠
The impending climate/water crisis is likely to make us find out! As conditions worsen it will effect “third world countries” the most (and highly dense countries), forcing an unprecedented wave of immigration. Our systems aren’t built for this, and we seem fully unwilling to change anything until it is actively on fire.
China closed the gap for sure, but they haven’t caught up yet. Their demographic issues and deflation over the next decade is likely to hinder their progress in closing that gap
Not that I oppose other economic systems from prospering, just I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’ve caught up. For example, they still can’t manufacture chips at as small a scale as US companies can. That’s a very significant manufacturing component to be dependent on
What “other economic system?” China is a state capitalist command economy – They can call themselves “communist” all they want but at this point it is in name only and we all know it. They left behind any shreds of actual communist philosophy in the late 1970’s and conveniently kept only the Soviet style authoritarian parts.
The entire country is run as one giant business for the purposes of profit, and although major swathes of their business sector may be state-owned, they’re still driven by a capitalist profit motive, and they keep said profits for themselves to no benefit of the teeming masses who make up everyone who isn’t already at the top.
I work for a company that manufactures environmental testing chambers. We also have operations in China, but they mostly sell to the Asian and European markets. They make one specific model at that plant, 4-5 units at a time, very rapidly, but they can’t do custom work, like the plant I work at in the US does. We specifically make chambers that are outfitted to meet specific needs of our customers, our Chinese plant can’t do that yet.
Yeah it’s non-stop laughs here
I’d laugh, but I lost the ability to in an asbestos mine and don’t have health insurance to fix it.
And Canada, too. Thanks Mulroney.
Privatized oil, privatized Air Canada, privatized Via Rail. They would’ve gone further if they could’ve.
Because Karl Marx said socialism is good, and they determined Karl Marx is bad, therefore socialism must be bad.
Other way. They determined socialism is bad first since that gives a real alternative to capitalism.
It doesn’t need to be an alternative. It’s a really effective way to regulate capitalism by standardizing and socializing private industries like education, police, fire, roads, internet access, healthcare, etc.
Socialism is the workers collectively owning the means of production, everything else is just details. (Well, the anti-heirarchy bit is important too, especially to keep the means from falling into something that isn’t just capitalism with extra steps, but complicated)
It is innately opposed to capitalism as a result. What it isn’t innately opposed to is a market economy.
Sweden also stopped investing in infrastructure in the 1980s but not because of privatisation. It’s just very expensive. Now everyone one is blaming each other when everything breaks down, especially politicians that are no longer in the government. There is no “accountability” for the government.
The child in me takes some twisted pleasure in hearing of Scandinavians suffering from similar problems to us over here who seem to be unable to right the ship. Maybe it’s a misery loves company thing. Maybe it’s because I think the more of us suffer, the quicker we can all work together on a larger scale to come up with a fix. Just feels a bit hopeless at times, and I guess it’s by design.
And I wish the best for you in Sweden, I don’t mean to suggest I am hoping for your failure at all. I just see a picture painted here and on Reddit so frequently of a bustling utopia, and it can be a little demoralizing at times.
Maybe it’s because I think the more of us suffer, the quicker we can all work together on a larger scale to come up with a fix.
I’d love to share that line of thought, but then I remember the COVID response and that initial plan for a patent free vaccine.
Same shit different day it feels like. I just don’t know what it’ll take for a full on workforce strike. Whoever is pulling the strings does a great job balancing taking away our liberties with working us to the bone.
You’re absolutely right though, and it just leaves me feeling like what now, what do we do? And then we fight over stuff amongst each other.
Do guerrilla rail, figure out the nearest land contiguous place with a smart grid, and the nearest place with coherent train signalling. if their system isnt shit, adopt the standard. If it is shit, look up whatever the Japanese are using and rip off their shit. Block by block. Just appropriate a traffic lane, say the outside one.
Its not the best way, but I do genuinely think people could fund construction and maintenance of rail lines on their streets. Making them IT and electrical arteries as well (you’re already running communication and high voltage lines, possibly small wireless solar setups for signal redundancy) makes sense. Get rural broadband and really good fucking economical transit.
I wish there were a community of extremely obsessive online rail nerds that could be tapped to plan something like this, down to the level of a proper network (with like the tiny tolerances you get in modern rails), so we could just, like, look up our blocks and order the necessary parts off a list and start building.
‘Us’ starts with u.
Love the energy but cant understand how it would work or what it would achieve.
I find it depressing/reassuring in equal measure because whilst Scandinavia is better in many respects, it’s still no escape from the dominance of neoliberalism.
One of the forces that drove neoliberalism is globalisation, so it feels intuitive to me that neoliberalism itself is a global problem. Like all economic paradigms, it’ll be unseated by something else, hopefully sooner rather than later. A post-neoliberal US would look quite different to a post-neoliberal Scandinavia, and I can’t imagine either of those, but when change happens, I reckon it’ll be a global thing.
I remember when driving from Finland to Sweden, the road quality markedly dropped when we crossed the border. I found that funny, because I was sharing a car with some friends who had had an unfortunate time in Sweden and they joked that the sudden dip in road quality was more evidence of Sweden being cursed.
Any source for that?
Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted, just wanted to verify that.
Stories like this will always by its nature opinionated. There will have been expenses made but who can say it was enough? That was kind of my point in the original posy though, that it’s very easy to blame someone or something. Here are some pieces that may paint the picture of Swedish rail. I will leave translation to the reader rather than trying to do that myself.
Everyone seems to agree that investments are needed but no one wants to invest:
-
Opinion piece (2024, Left), “Everyone is blaming anyone else”: “I Sverige är järnvägen ett virrvarr där alla skyller på andra och ingen tar ansvar för att tågen kommer fram i tid.” https://jarnvagar.nu/det-kravs-storre-satsningar-pa-jarnvagen/
-
Government statement 2022: “Behoven inom infrastrukturen är stora och en satsning på höghastighetsjärnväg skulle tränga undan andra nödvändiga investeringar.” https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2022/12/regeringen-lagger-om-vaxlarna-for-jarnvagsinfrastrukturen/
-
Opinion piece 2014, blaming the creation of SJ 1988 [Wikipedia says SJ was founded 2001, weird]: “Järnvägssystemet har brutits sönder och fel bannedläggningar gjorts under mer än 50 år.” https://www.dagenssamhalle.se/samhalle-och-valfard/infrastruktur/tagexperter-den-svenska-jarnvagen-har-havererat/
-
Wikipedia, citing a lot of dates. Excerpt: “Denna nedläggningsutveckling påbörjades strax före andra världskrigets utbrott (bland annat nedläggning av linjen Lund–Bjärred våren 1939), stannade av under kriget, accelererade på 1950-talet, nådde en topp kring 1965, gick sedan nedåt för att nå en ny nedläggningsvåg i mitten och slutet av 1980-talet.” https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_järnvägshistoria
*Opinion piece (2023, Right): “Det bedrövliga tillståndet för den svenska järnvägen är ovanligt tydligt just nu. Decennier av bristande underhåll har skapat ett järnvägssystem med stora – och växande – brister.” https://www.di.se/ledare/lyssna-pa-wallenberg-och-storsatsa-pa-jarnvagen/
But I was told that Sweden is a socialist utopian paradise where there is no right wing, all the cities, bridges, and sidewalks are clean, new, and shiny, you can walk or cycle everywhere 365 days a year, free healthcare and lollipops are offered on every street corner, and everyone is happy and productive all the time!
Did the internet lie to me???
You can just look at any objective metric of wealth or wellbeing and notice Sweden very often near the top of the list. You don’t need to invent some theoretical internet opinion in your head to be mad at.
It’s thoroughly capitalist, but most people pay hefty taxes so public funding is in a much better place than most countries.
But no right wing is wild. There’s quite a hefty following down south and historically Sweden was “neutral” in WW2 which included selling to the Nazis and transporting their troops around.
