Ironic, that socialist/communist regimes always win power on the idea of giving control and ownership of assets back to "the people"

The reality, of course, is that the people end up giving control and ownership to a one-party state.

The four remaining Marxist-Leninist states are China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxi...)

In 2024, their Freedom Indices (out of 100) are:

China: 9

Cuba: 12

Laos: 13

Vietnam: 19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices

China isn't Marxist-Leninist - the CCP split from Marxist thinking and Comintern early in the PRC's history.

It's become it's own thing because anything "communist" is just lip service at this point. Public veneration of past Chinese empires and dynasties is way more common than some idealized view of a proletariat state.

Same with Vietnam (basically a crony capitalist country) and Laos (basically a buffer between Thailand, VN, and China where all three meddle)

You might want to edit Wikipedia's list of Marxist-Leninist states, in that case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxi...

Also the page on China, which states the government is a "Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd be interested to see how that edit would be received by other editors of the page.

> Wikipedia's list

It's basing "Marxist-Leninist" on national constitutions, which themselves are de facto useless when the Politburos in China, Vietnam, and Laos make drastic policy changes every decade (eg. 10 years ago it was expected for Chinese Premiers to step down after a 10 year term). Also, that list doesn't seem to actually link sources to assertions.

The CCP's charter calls itself "Marxist-Leninist" but every single "thought"/ideology pushed by the CCP's leadership when a new Premier arises is de facto diametric to Marxism-Leninism, and it has always been this case since Mao.

I recommend reading "The Chinese Reassessment of Socialism, 1976–1992" by Yan Sun , "A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism" by Suisheng Zhao, and "China: Development and Governance" by Yongian Zheng and Gunwu Wang if you want to actually understand the ideological underpinnings of Chinese governance.

I have Chinese language sources as well I'd recommend but that's a whole other issue.

> I'd be interested to see how that edit would be received by other editors of the page

Just like they taught all of us from elementary school to college - Wikipedia IS NOT a reliable source.

Wikipedia should always be used to spark conversations, but it is up to you to actually use Primary and Secondary sources to validate whether content on Wikipedia is valid or not.

Wikipedia as an editorial organization has a lot of issues, internal rivalries, and astroturfing (especially w/ regards to highly controversial topics such as Asian politics).

As such, it's best to use Primary and credible Secondary sources.

Those "freedom indices" come from countries that are all located in the Western sphere of influence, it's like relying on the opinion of an Arsenal supporter when talking about Tottenham (and vice-versa).

> Freedom indices all come from free countries!

Wow, what a shocker. Next you're gonna tell me that the democracy indices people use come only from democracies.

You're equating "freedom" with "democracy", which as a far from established fact.

I can access Xinhua without using a VPN in the US, and cannot be prosecuted for using a VPN.

I cannot access BBC in China without using a VPN, and can potentially be prosecuted for either action.

I can say Biden/Trump are horrible and need to rot in jail, and my comment with not be deleted by a censor. If I say "Xi dada needs to step down and Li Keiqiang should have been Premier instead, and HK was never an integral part of China" it will get deleted on Sina, and if they really had it out for me prosecute me under NSL.

I can Google for Jan 6th photos without censorship. I cannot Baidu search photos of the Tiannamen square protests and subsequent massacre.

The freedom house index does have issues, but China is absolutely unfree.

Authoritarian states aren't completely unfree (it's organizationally impossible), but China is definetly fairly unfree compared to other authoritarian states like Russia or even Vietnam (though Vietnam is trending towards a more authoritarian future now that Tô Lâm is almost assured to be the next leader)

Students in the US are now getting their bodies hurt (not to mention the legal and career-ending consequences) by hundreds to thousands of policemen for the simple crime of protesting a genocide happening half-way around the globe, let's cut the charade, it doesn't help anyone.

No they're not. They're being removed by police for setting up encampments on private property. You can't just start setting up tents wherever you want on private land and taking over the area.

It might still be a bad idea to remove them, but if they were just doing standard protests in public areas, it'd be much less of an issue.

So you're saying the Chinese authorities were right in evacuating the Tiananmen Square, after all you cannot forcefully block public places without the proper authorization either. Like I said, let's cut the charade and look at the facts.

lol, "evacuating". Come the fuck on.

Merely arresting people and forcing them out of the square would've meant it would be a blip in history. The Tiananmen Square massacre is famous because it was a massacre. Even official figures said that hundreds of people died.

Absolute freedom exists nowhere.

Absolute unfreedom also exists nowhere.

Still, some places are more free than others. alephnerd made a number of comparisons of the US to China; you have refuted none of them. You merely complain that the US is not absolutely free of consequences for your actions. Well, that's true, but if that's what you're looking for, try an uninhabited island (and you may not even find it there).

Yea, and what does Chinese police do to protesters? Be it the White Paper protests in Shanghai and Beijing in 2022 [0], the wave of ethnic Mongol protests in 2020-21 [1], etc.

Police will inevitably crack down on protests everywhere, yet protests continue to happen on a daily basis in the US with minimal long term ramifications.

Also, none of what you pointed out actually refutes my points above about internet censorship, and as such clearly shows an attempt at whataboutism.

P.S. Both HRW [2] and Amnesty [3] have unequivocally voiced their support for the right to protest in the US, and as such if you try to say "oh human rights organizations are a tool of the west" it's complete bullshit.

[0] - https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/26/china-free-white-paper-p...

[1] - https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/3086/2020/en/

[2] - https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/26/us-universities-should-r...

[3] - https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/amnesty-internatio...

Impressive, countries that are not capitalist, or not entirely capitalist, do not perform well on capitalist metrics, like "market freedom", or "economic freedom". Who could have guessed...?

If you have no opportunity to own the fruits of your labour, you are not free. You are a slave.

Economic freedom is freedom.

Workers do not own the fruits of their labor, in capitalism the fruits go to who owns the means of production.

In capitalism, any worker is able to own the means of production. Anyone can start their own business or purchase a share of someone else's business if they want to benefit from its 'fruits'

In socialism and communism, only the state can own the means of production.

Which is plainful wrong. Why the supermarket employers work as employers if they could own their own supermarket? Most people cannot own the relevant means of production, otherwise salaried work would be impossible and capitalism would not exist. Your comment about socialism is also plainful wrong. In Yuguslavia, cooperatives did not owned the means of production?

Under capitalism, if you work for a supermarket and want to own some of company and share some of the profit, you buy some of the stock (there are often generous deals to encourage this). Alternatively, if you want to start your own business selling goods, you can - at any scale, whether it's a market stall or a supermarket - usually you'd work your way up from small to big, provided you have the work ethic to do so.

You mentioned cooperatives. This is tangential to the discussion as cooperatives are neither socialist nor capitalist, per se. They can freely exist in capitalist societies, and also in some socialist societies (although they are often tightly controlled by the state, and may be seized by the state).

Bullshit. A full share of an equity stock is much more than what a regular worker can afford. Here where I live a supermarket worker earns around 1500$, a full share of wallmart stock is around 2000$ (in local currency). Sure, there are incentives to buy fractional shares: a regular person who does so will not earn much, is not a real owner, will need to keep working for all her life, but the important is that she bought not the stock, but the ideology that she is as capitalistic as the supermarket owner that leeches her work and do not need to work.

Cooperatives are a socialist proposal. A country run solely by cooperatives is not a capitalist country.

Obviously we wouldn’t expect people doing menial work with low responsibility to be able to own a large share of their employer. But under capitalism any worker can start a company and own 100% of the stock in that company. This is a unique opportunity that is not available under socialism, where the state owns the means of production, and everyone is basically working for the state, with no hope of profiting from the growth of the thing they’re building.

You say the owners are “leeching” from workers. Sounds like they have it easy, right? So - become an owner! I think you’ll find building a company, employing people and taking on all the financial risk of doing so is harder than you thought. Perhaps if you give it a try, you’ll understand why company owners get the rewards they do.

> But under capitalism any worker can start a company and own 100% of the stock in that company.

You confuse legal possibility with real possibility. By the law and social norms, nothing forbids me from levitating in the street. Likewise, nothing forbids a worker to become a bourgeoisie. Sorry, but most people cannot start their own company. And the few that can, will be just providing services for the margins of the market, where the real big companies do not operate because it is not profitable enough. Doing this, they will keep needing to work like any other worker, in contrast with the burgoisie.

> You say the owners are “leeching” from workers. Sounds like they have it easy, right? So - become an owner!

Again the confusion with "legally allowed" with "real possibility". Contrary to most burgoisie, I did not inherited a lot of capital and money. So I cannot become part of the burgoisie, except with negligible probability. Even if the law does not forbid me (likewise, the law is not forbidding me to transform into a dinosaur).

> employing people

This is not a favor. They employ so that they can leech the fruits of other people's labor, and pay for them less than what they produced. A slave owner also provides an "employment" for his slaves, do you think this is a favor? The owner cannot produce without the workers. But workers can produce without the owner (like in a cooperative). The workers are the ones that are doing a "favor" to the owner.

> taking on all the financial risk

This is ridiculous. In capitalism, both the owner as the worker are sellers. The first has its company and sells what it produces. The second sells his labor force. Both of them can fail to sell their products and face risks: if the worker fails to sell his product, he becomes unemployed, and face risks like suffering hunger, dying of sickness because cannot afford treatment, and living in misery. If the owner fails to sell his product, the company fails, and the risk is losing some money, but not all the money because it is invested in lots of different companies. The worker deal with much more financial risks than the owner.