Life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Footbinding was ended, industrialization rapidly expanded, and famine was permanently ended. China was a semi-feudal backwater before the communists took charge and began restoring the sovereignty of China.
For anyone curious, they are, according to themselves, a Taiwanese capitalist:
I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was well in my 30s. Prior to that, I worked at a very big retail bank and worked from a teller to a regional manager with over 220 stores under me.
You know what. I fucking hated every moment of that job.
I quit after my mom passed and they gave me 2 weeks off and then I was back into the grind.
I took 1 year off and decided to go into tech. The one place I enjoyed doing on my spare time.
I got my first tech job at 36. And since then have owned my own company and worked for big corporate companies.
You sorta have to try things and hate things before you know what you want.
It makes perfect, logical sense for OP whose background is in finance and has owned a business to despise socialism. This is their bias.
Even Wikipedia, which is biased towards western liberalism, disagrees with you:
Deaths by famine
The exact number of deaths by famine is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 15 million to 55 million people.[4][93][94] Because of the uncertainties which are involved in estimating the number of deaths which were caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine and because of the uncertainties which are involved in estimating the numbers of deaths which were caused by other famines, it is difficult to compare the severity of different famines. If an estimate of 30 million deaths is accepted, the failure of the Great Leap Forward caused the deadliest famine in the history of China, and it also caused the deadliest famine in human history.[95][96] This extremely high loss of human lives was partially caused by China’s large population. To put things into absolute and relative numerical perspective: in the Great Irish Famine, approximately 1 million people[97] out of a total population of 8 million people died, or 12.5% of Ireland’s entire population. If approximately 23 million people out of a total population of 650 million people died during the Great Chinese Famine, the percentage would be 3.5%.[4] Hence, the famine during the Great Leap Forward had the highest absolute death toll, though not the highest relative (percentage) one.
The ranges overlap, but no scholar actually believes the 70 million number, and actual evidence backs numbers closer to 15 million. The history of famines in China is heavily politicized in the west to discredit socialism.
Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” Liberalism only cares about the freedom of private property and the capitalist class, workers be damned and enslaved.
The truth is that life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Anyone saying life was made worse by the communists is either extremely ignorant, or purely looking at it from the perspective of the former ruling class.
Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” The benefits of socialism are immediately obvious when looking at the numbers:
Life expectancy from birth doubled under Mao, and the country was turned from a semi-feudal backwater ex-colony into a rising power.
Not evenly. China was emerging from civil war and semi-feudalism in 1949, it had no way to get mass amounts of insulin nor produce them until later. Addressing economic problems improved access to necessities for the majority of society.
Then why didn’t life expectancy increase under the ROC?
Yes, any country can reap large benefits from industrialization and modern medicine, regardless of the economic system. But communists were the only major faction in China pushing for those things. Communists always push for those things when they aren’t present, while for capitalists the record is much more spotty.
It was the communists that saw life expectancy dramatically rise as to what came before. You seem to have pivoted from the question of whether or not socialism is good to whether or not the same benefits could have been made without socialism, or in other words you have conceded that socialism was a positive.
Definitely too commie for them. But the question isn’t whether lib theory exists, but whether they actually read it.
The vast majority of liberals get their ideas passively, from cultural hegemony. They don’t read books on politics because they think they already have all the answers, that it’s all simple and obvious. Just support “freedom” and oppose “authoritarianism,” and there’s no need to actually deconstruct and examine those concepts, because it’s “obvious” what they mean.
It’s like, hell, I’ve even read shit by Giovanni Gentile, who laid out the ideological foundations of fascism, in the hope of finding a coherent formation of that ideology for the sake of knowing the enemy. But I did so knowing that actual fascists would never read that nerd shit. What they actually engage with are conspiracy theories, rage bait, incoherent rants, shit like that. It’s the same way, we can seek out liberal theory to try to grasp some insight of the latent assumptions liberals are operating under, but it’s only so useful when they themselves don’t read it, when they aren’t even consciously aware of those assumptions.
If you try to ask them something that exposes a hole in their ideology, they’ll just ignore it, refuse to answer, or change the subject. They never step back and actually think about what they believe. It’s not something they’re interested in. Instead, they’re immersed in the soup of current events, just reacting to the current thing, and their opinions are formed around a combination of ideas absorbed from cultural hegemony, and what the news tells them to think about them.
I’ve read quite a few books on communist history, and China is a particular area of interest for me given that they are the biggest currently-standing socialist country with the longest history of socialism. Do you have any recommendations? For what it’s worth, equating communists to the Nazis is a form of Holocaust trivialization, and is a core component of Double Genocide Theory. I’m not sure I put much stake in the views of someone that lets their hatred of communism trivialize the Holocaust, but I’m always interested in exploring dissenting views, if only to reinforce or sharpen my own existing views.
Sorry, I like to look at empirical evidence instead of random anecdotes shat out online. Empirically:
The Chinese government has one of the highest approval ratings worldwide
The Chinese people have immense trust in their democracy
The CPC has overseen massive improvements in QoL, life expectancy, literacy, and basically all measures of development
The CPC has overseen the uplifting of hundreds of millions out of poverty
Of course you will never engage with these facts because they conflict with the propaganda that has indoctrinated you from birth. You will never read a book or jump through hoops to do any research on your own, you will instead gladly believe every tale told to you about the horrible orient. You are no better than a nazi who fervently bays for another holocaust.
yeah ok man not like Denmark has a history of reprehensible shit like repressing the inuit on Greenland with sterilization and kidnapping children. A lot of Danish people get really possessive with Greenland whenever the locals want independence and it’s gross.
Not to mention how Denmark is a big supporter of “Israel” and love being a spy network against other European countries for the CIA.
Because it has private property in the marketized sectors of the economy. The CPC takes a Marxist view of economics that sees markets as progressive with respect to decentralized, underdeveloped production, and regressive with respect to large scale production. The commanding heights of the economy are overwhelmingly socially owned, while developing sectors are marketized to accelerate the process of socialization, which speeds up the effective rate of collectivization.
You don’t need them for progress, sure, but marketizing underdeveloped sectors sure benefits workers more than dogmatically treating planned economy as the most effective in all cases at all levels of development. China already tried your approach under the Gang of Four, and this was seen as a misstep.
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Life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Footbinding was ended, industrialization rapidly expanded, and famine was permanently ended. China was a semi-feudal backwater before the communists took charge and began restoring the sovereignty of China.
For anyone curious, they are, according to themselves, a Taiwanese capitalist:
It makes perfect, logical sense for OP whose background is in finance and has owned a business to despise socialism. This is their bias.
Well, then it’s settled!
Communism killed a few members of your family, while capitalism kills half a million people every year (lowest possible estimate).
Clearly capitalism is the best we’ve got.
Oh no did somebody take away your egg monopoly?
Yeah? And I’m the Queen of Spain. Anything is possible when you just make shit up.
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Even Wikipedia, which is biased towards western liberalism, disagrees with you:
This actually corroborates john_save_america’s comment, because the ranges overlap.
The ranges overlap, but no scholar actually believes the 70 million number, and actual evidence backs numbers closer to 15 million. The history of famines in China is heavily politicized in the west to discredit socialism.
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Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” Liberalism only cares about the freedom of private property and the capitalist class, workers be damned and enslaved.
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Your author is a propagandist with bad data, that’s the point. You referenced a contributor caught lying.
Because your source was caught making up claims in it?
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The truth is that life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Anyone saying life was made worse by the communists is either extremely ignorant, or purely looking at it from the perspective of the former ruling class.
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Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” The benefits of socialism are immediately obvious when looking at the numbers:
Life expectancy from birth doubled under Mao, and the country was turned from a semi-feudal backwater ex-colony into a rising power.
its funny that all the life expectancies shot up in the 1940s, as thats when penicillin went into mass production and was widely implemented
Not evenly. China was emerging from civil war and semi-feudalism in 1949, it had no way to get mass amounts of insulin nor produce them until later. Addressing economic problems improved access to necessities for the majority of society.
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Then why didn’t life expectancy increase under the ROC?
Yes, any country can reap large benefits from industrialization and modern medicine, regardless of the economic system. But communists were the only major faction in China pushing for those things. Communists always push for those things when they aren’t present, while for capitalists the record is much more spotty.
It was the communists that saw life expectancy dramatically rise as to what came before. You seem to have pivoted from the question of whether or not socialism is good to whether or not the same benefits could have been made without socialism, or in other words you have conceded that socialism was a positive.
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Accusing communists of not reading books is very funny. We’re like the only ones that read books.
The last time I pressed a lib on recommending theory, they just said, “a text book” lmao.
Does Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners count, or is it too commie?
Definitely too commie for them. But the question isn’t whether lib theory exists, but whether they actually read it.
The vast majority of liberals get their ideas passively, from cultural hegemony. They don’t read books on politics because they think they already have all the answers, that it’s all simple and obvious. Just support “freedom” and oppose “authoritarianism,” and there’s no need to actually deconstruct and examine those concepts, because it’s “obvious” what they mean.
It’s like, hell, I’ve even read shit by Giovanni Gentile, who laid out the ideological foundations of fascism, in the hope of finding a coherent formation of that ideology for the sake of knowing the enemy. But I did so knowing that actual fascists would never read that nerd shit. What they actually engage with are conspiracy theories, rage bait, incoherent rants, shit like that. It’s the same way, we can seek out liberal theory to try to grasp some insight of the latent assumptions liberals are operating under, but it’s only so useful when they themselves don’t read it, when they aren’t even consciously aware of those assumptions.
If you try to ask them something that exposes a hole in their ideology, they’ll just ignore it, refuse to answer, or change the subject. They never step back and actually think about what they believe. It’s not something they’re interested in. Instead, they’re immersed in the soup of current events, just reacting to the current thing, and their opinions are formed around a combination of ideas absorbed from cultural hegemony, and what the news tells them to think about them.
Oh fully agreed! Common sense is just ruling class ideology, and this applies to capitalism and socialism alike.
I’ve read quite a few books on communist history, and China is a particular area of interest for me given that they are the biggest currently-standing socialist country with the longest history of socialism. Do you have any recommendations? For what it’s worth, equating communists to the Nazis is a form of Holocaust trivialization, and is a core component of Double Genocide Theory. I’m not sure I put much stake in the views of someone that lets their hatred of communism trivialize the Holocaust, but I’m always interested in exploring dissenting views, if only to reinforce or sharpen my own existing views.
Sorry, I like to look at empirical evidence instead of random anecdotes shat out online. Empirically:
Of course you will never engage with these facts because they conflict with the propaganda that has indoctrinated you from birth. You will never read a book or jump through hoops to do any research on your own, you will instead gladly believe every tale told to you about the horrible orient. You are no better than a nazi who fervently bays for another holocaust.
yeah ok man not like Denmark has a history of reprehensible shit like repressing the inuit on Greenland with sterilization and kidnapping children. A lot of Danish people get really possessive with Greenland whenever the locals want independence and it’s gross.
Not to mention how Denmark is a big supporter of “Israel” and love being a spy network against other European countries for the CIA.
China wasn’t Communist
China has been socialist since 1949.
how come it has billionaires then
Because it has private property in the marketized sectors of the economy. The CPC takes a Marxist view of economics that sees markets as progressive with respect to decentralized, underdeveloped production, and regressive with respect to large scale production. The commanding heights of the economy are overwhelmingly socially owned, while developing sectors are marketized to accelerate the process of socialization, which speeds up the effective rate of collectivization.
its just the “for progress” excuse.
You don’t need billionaires or exploitation of workers for progress
You don’t need them for progress, sure, but marketizing underdeveloped sectors sure benefits workers more than dogmatically treating planned economy as the most effective in all cases at all levels of development. China already tried your approach under the Gang of Four, and this was seen as a misstep.