> it's the rise of a new type of Totalitarian Fascism which is supplanting Totalitarian Communism
If the argument is "putting capitalism in a box and using it to motivate government hegemony" is "the rise of a new type" of "fascism" unique to China, that's not true at all. Avoiding comparisons to certain "western" governments, Germà Bel argues convincingly that Nazi Germany was deeply committed to this strategy [0].
It's the western party line that this is exactly what the post-revolutionary Soviet Union ended up doing sometime after Stalin, ultimately leading to its dissolution into what can only be called an Oligarchy.
And uh, I think it's at least worth debating if the US responded to the Great Depression by doing the same thing; essentially using the notion of "jobs" programs and "public works" projects to move lots of money into corporate government supporters rather than directly providing relief.
> , it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China
Maybe, but if that's the case than that's them simply noticing what various other economic projects the US in particular was already engaged in. I'm still not convinced "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Perkins is entirely made up.
> Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up.
Perhaps so. But any government is only a few leaps from fascism. See, for example, the Philippines. The US's response to COVID-19 and its current use of loyalist "border control forces" to "defend federal monuments" while violating subject Miranda Rights, States Rights, and arguably the US Constitution should remind us that it is not so long a fall for any organized nation.
Agreed on basically all points here. My criticism of the state of China is not a defense of the state of the West. It's merely intended to provide a clear distinction between the two, and to combat the rising pro-CCP shilling I see happening consistently on HN. It is very much possible for two different bad things to both be bad.
Well then allow me to extend a hand from the other side of the aisle and point out that articles like this off and read like love letters to a much more authoritarian era. Often containing words like "value" and "culture" which appear to be little more then a thinly-veiled rebuke of cultural liberty.
In the top posted article here, it's a depressing truth that it's impossible for us to tell what the author means to say until they write more about it, because words like "the west" and "Culture" I've been deeply co-opted by reactionary discourse.
So I'm keeping an open mind, but I definitely want to point out that there's nothing special about Western governments when it comes to a slow slide into fascism.
If the argument is "putting capitalism in a box and using it to motivate government hegemony" is "the rise of a new type" of "fascism" unique to China, that's not true at all. Avoiding comparisons to certain "western" governments, Germà Bel argues convincingly that Nazi Germany was deeply committed to this strategy [0].
It's the western party line that this is exactly what the post-revolutionary Soviet Union ended up doing sometime after Stalin, ultimately leading to its dissolution into what can only be called an Oligarchy.
And uh, I think it's at least worth debating if the US responded to the Great Depression by doing the same thing; essentially using the notion of "jobs" programs and "public works" projects to move lots of money into corporate government supporters rather than directly providing relief.
> , it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China
Maybe, but if that's the case than that's them simply noticing what various other economic projects the US in particular was already engaged in. I'm still not convinced "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Perkins is entirely made up.
> Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up.
Perhaps so. But any government is only a few leaps from fascism. See, for example, the Philippines. The US's response to COVID-19 and its current use of loyalist "border control forces" to "defend federal monuments" while violating subject Miranda Rights, States Rights, and arguably the US Constitution should remind us that it is not so long a fall for any organized nation.
Two bad things can be bad.
[0] http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf