this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism
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Pure versions of each have their flaws. Mixed-economics yields the highest quality of life according to the top ranking nations on the World Happiness Report. Nordic nations have the blueprint. We just need to adopt it.
Nordic nations is still exploitive capitalism.
There are a few problems here.
All economies are "mixed," ergo it isn't a meaningful distinction. What is more useful is recognizing which aspect of the economy is the principle, ie which has the real dominant power, over large firms and key industries. Socialism is when the public sector is the principle aspect, Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect. That's why the PRC is Socialist, and the Nordic countries are Capitalist.
Judging which system is correct purely by looking to which countries have the highest happiness scores is myopic. We could use the same logic to say that Jeff Bezos has the most comfortable life, so we should all copy him. The problem is that we can't. The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South, and because Private Ownership has domination over the state, worker protections and safety nets have been gradually sliding.
This is why having a good knowledge of theory and taking everything within a large context, rather than with harsh boundaries, is important to draw correct conclusions.
I'll never understand people who insist China is 'State Capitalism' but Nordic countries are ideal socialism, somehow.
There are a few different reasons that give rise to these (false) conclusions, and different reasons manifest in different degrees. Ie, not everyone will have all of these reasons, but most have at least one.
Chauvanism. Intentionally or not, there is often a superstructural element to western thought derived from being a beneficiary of Imperialism that discredits the achievements of non-Western Leftists. The fact that a western revolution has failed to materialize leads to some westerners being defensive and thus discrediting the achievements of the PRC.
A lack of real analysis at what the PRC is economically structured as. It's easy to not understand the makeup of the PRC's economy if you don't engage with it.
A lack of reading Marxist theory, and thus not being able to properly analyze structures from a Dialectical Materialist perspective.
In my opinion, those are the main 3 reasons for such conclusions.
I imagine the next deflection is something like 'but china has the second largest number of billionares', but as soon as you sort that list by per-capita it suddenly tells a very different story.
Especially since that number is decreasing in recent years while GDP growth is still solidly positive.
I'll give you a hint: it's about race.
May I ask an honest question? Is your account run by 5 people? How do you find time to write thorough, well written responses to so many posts? We don't always agree ideologically, but I really respect your methods.
Haha, it's nothing like that. My job works more in spurts and waiting periods, so it largely depends on what's going on in my work life. Plus, not every comment is bespoke, I usually draw from prior comments I've written if applicable and tweak if needed.
Thanks for the kind words!
Workers rights in Denmark, an Imperialist country that is firmly under the control of Private Capital, are declining. Safety nets are eroding and unions are weakening, disparity is rising. The opposite is the case in the PRC, a rapidly developing country where Public Ownership is in control of the economy.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can't just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn't to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism. Analysis of China's economic makeup affirms this method as true:
Further, China is democratic. It doesn't have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%? The material conditions of Chinese citizens have dramatically improved, along with their faith in the government:
Further, China is not Imperialist. Rather than using financial Capital to provide large loans with clauses requiring countries to privatize industries for foreign capture, they focus on building up trade infrastructure and industrialization. This is because they need to create more customers, they don't have an import-driven economy nor does private financial Capital control the state.
I recommend you check out this introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list I made, if you want to judge Marxists on their application of Marxism, then you should familiarize yourself with Marxism.
They may be doing certain things right but do other totally wrong like forced conscription. Keep also in mind that they exploit third world countries like everyone else, their goods are made in china.
I'm not sure what other sensible alternative there is for Finland than conscription. You can't get around the geographical issues so you have to have some sort of sensible and credible defence. That's why it has a very wide approval, even when the moral issues of it are recognized. NATO seemed promising as a guarantor of safety, until it lost that credibility (and Finland got in a bit unwillingly, after some recent events). Voluntary military was what Sweden did and it didn't work well for them.
Actually funnily enough people are surprisingly supportive of expanding the conscription to include women. And that's on equality grounds, which to many who abhor the idea of forced conscription must seem pretty wild.
What's the alternative to slavery? How do we get our food without a slave forced to farm 14h a day?
So supportive that if they refuse to go they go to jail.
if Nordic countries had to stand on their own, they would collapse, they can only get by because they're the beneficiaries of a global system of worker exploitation.