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[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/Any_Donut8404]

You have fallen into the “since the CCP is totalitarian, it is omnipresent” line of thinking. The CCP can’t force a factory to give workers lower wages. They can’t force a factory worker to be paid $1 per hour because it’s just beyond stupid and would cause mass protests.

Factories just give wages and rural workers arrive since they have poor education and factory wages are better than having no jobs to do. They can choose to opt out of work like many Chinese gen-z are doing but they choose to work instead. It isn’t the CCP forcing peasants to work but rather the peasants doing work themselves.

Also, the lengths they go to is testament to a powerful socio-economic structure. Not many totalitarian countries advance this far as China did. Strict controls don’t generate strong economies and there are many other factors that go into doing it. So in the end, there is nothing wrong with being totalitarian if it works

[u/GeekOut999 → u/Any_Donut8404]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, to be honest. What I'm saying is that China has managed to create a stable society based on devaluing the labour, and therefore quality of life and access to goods and services, of their own populace. What you are describing is corroborating my stance.

How exactly they did it is of course a much more complex issue that likely involves cultural aspects and historical context which I am not at all equipped to handle, but my point is that they did. As such, they take the worst aspects of communism and capitalism, as originaly stated. Your last reply provides nothing to contradict that claim, unless you're defining "worst aspects" differently.

Furthermore, if we're going to be this cynical as to claim "there's nothing wrong with being totalitarian if it works", what's even the point of this conversation? Are we just being full on utilitarian now and human costs, alongside the morality of doing so, be damned? If so, I'm not interested in entertaining the premise.

China is a dystopian authoritarian society based on exploiting their populace by driving the value of their labour as low as humanly possible in order to attract foreign capital and become the world's supplier. The USA is an imperialistic nation that's allowing itself to be hijacked by a billionaire oligarchy that makes itself richer at the expense of its own populace while hypocritically espousing personal freedom values. Both things are bad and can be true at the same time, but if we're willing to budge on our morals, both can be said to work on some level and "there's nothing wrong with being an asshole if it works".