Thomas_More
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Unlike the caste system in India, in which caste is rigidly determined by birth, in China there was no inheritance per se. The sons of officials had to earn the post and thus the wealth their fathers had had, via the scholastic examination system. This system was theoretically open to everyone, including peasants. Many mandarins were peasants’ sons.
Of course, when China was occupied by the Manchus, Manchu birth was favoured at all levels, but the examination system functioned as it had for two thousand years, except during the brief era of Mongol rule.No, peasants are not necessarily serfs. The peasants of China were free farmers. Of course, they were prey to corrupt tax-collectors, and prey to the elements.
You cannot generalise about the Asian lands. China had a unique system.
How can you equate any with Soviet state-capitalism, which was capitalism nonetheless?That’s Lenin’s conclusion (privately), and simplistic, but yes.
But factors could also impede capitalist development, for instance Mao’s megalomania in China.
(Which, by the way, hadn’t been feudal for two thousand years).Resorting to sexual innuendos is one of the lowest forms of verbal abuse. TS does it constantly, which reinforces my belief that he is young.
The SPGB does know more about Russian history than Putin. We are historical materialists. Putin is a politician, and a nationalist.
You might as well say Boris Johnson knows more about British history than we do.
We’ve been about a lot longer too, and analysed the nature of the Russian Revolution, knowing already by 1918 what it was.
State-capitalism was often held back by ideology, in the case of Mao especially.
After the Mao-made famine of the late fifties, Mao was squeezed out of politics for a few years. He was ignored, and his articles for the press were left unpublished.
During this time, capitalist development revived and progressed. Then Mao, desperate, attacked the CPC using the teenage Red Guards imbued with his cult, and both schooling and production again suffered. These are prime examples of state-capitalism being retarded in its purpose of capitalist development by the whims of the head of state.
“like a boomerang, I am running circles around you.”
He is definitely running in circles. Seems that he is the one who’s bitter and running about. Where to, I don’t know. Running in order to avoid answering any questions.
I doubt very much he knows anything of social history and Marxism, and very little of philosophy in general. I also suspect he is young, reliant on sloganeering and conspiracy-“theory.”
I think threads are bound to digress. It’s normal conversation.
Locke invited his readers, let’s throw the ideas about; we’ll assemble them later.
In June 1966 all teaching stopped in Chinese schools. Instead, pupils had to gaze at a portrait of Mao every day.
You’re a Holocaust-denyer?
Re: manufacturing consent, isn’t that also the role of the Russian state? If not, why are opposition journalists and news stations silenced?
Yes, we are free of ideology. We are people who have come together because of points of agreement about society. We don’t sing from any songsheet handed down by a leadership.
But TS is revealing here a conspiracist trait. Conspiracists have no discernment. We socialists can read, watch or listen to anyone, and we use discernment to separate what is likely or unlikely, true or false. Conspiracists don’t have that ability, which is probably why TS isn’t paying attention to any substance here. Like a conspiracist, he is simply an ideology-follower, with everything simplistically black and white.
