The Chinese elite has recognized and acknowledged that the CCP has a corruption problem. Western elites, not so much.
There is another interesting point made in the article.
During the 19th Party Congress last month, Yang was asked about the anti-corruption drive and how to achieve a balance between human rights and party discipline. Yang replied that, having worked in the Tibet Autonomous Region for many years, human rights was an “interesting question”. He recounted a conversation he had with a US assistant secretary of state where he likened Abraham Lincoln freeing slaves in America to China’s actions in Tibet.“I said in the hearts of Chinese people, Lincoln is a hero, because he freed the slaves.
On this point the Chinese people and the American people have the same understanding – this is a human rights issue.
In turn, we freed the serfs in Tibet, how come American friends cannot understand this? From Lincoln’s perspective, he should have supported China’s overturning of the serfdom in Tibet.”
No matter that the Central Tibetan Administration, usually called the “Tibetan Government in Exile” has a starkly different view….This is really the crux of the issue between capitalism and socialism.
According to its proponents capitalism is the economic aspect of democracy and therefore integral to achieving freedom and human rights globally.
According to the proponents of socialism, the first step of liberation was freeing the slaves, the second step was freeing the serfs, and the third and final stage will be freeing workers from capitalists as the owners of the means of production.
It all depends on one's point of view.
Zero Hedge
Corruption In China Risks A Soviet-Style Collapse - Party's Graft Buster
Tyler Durden
The libertarians use the word Liberty a lot and they might call their programs things like Liberty Now. But as a worker I know how oppressive the work situation can be, but libertarians support the freedom of individuals to suppress everyone else. It isn't liberty at all. Government regulation in the UK makes it hard for a boss to be unreasonable and employees have employment rights. We also have public health care and although underfunded, we don't have to worry about all the paperwork and the small print, or make a choice of a home or health cover. But public health care creates more freedom as we don't have to worry about it and we can just get on with our lives, and we can be less fearful of the boss if we don't rely on him for our health care. So socialism, or liberal social democracy, brings more freedom to people than libertarianism ever could.
ReplyDeleteAs for individual freedom, thank god for ' Planning Permission'. Imagine having a beautiful view from the back of your house but a neighbour decides to extend his house back which will block the view. It's his land and his liberty, but thank god the council will make him knock it down if he goes ahead with it.
and the third and final stage will be freeing workers from capitalists as the owners of the means of production.
ReplyDeleteOnly to re-enslave them via a "Job Guarantee" rather them truly liberate them with genuine reform and restitution?
Please Progressives, if you don't even recognize the need for honest accounting then why should you be entrusted with anything else?
Only to re-enslave them via a "Job Guarantee" rather them truly liberate them with genuine reform and restitution?
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the JG doesn't meet the socialist standard of worker control of the means of production and the end of rent extraction by an ownership class as a consequence of ownership of property rather than productive contribution.
Restitution involves recognizing and acknowledging primitive accumulation through violence or the threat of violence and the rent extraction it involved subsequently based on ownership of private property and extraction of economic rent through power resulting from class privilege.
Genuine reform would involve a total reorganization of society in a way as dramatic as the transition from feudal society to industrial capitalism.
This would only be possible through a similar transition in the means of production that would bring about a revision of the relations of production. Technological innovation grounded the transition from feudalism, which is an economic characteristic of an agricultural society, to capitalism based on machinery and factory workers, where the former slaves and serfs became factory workers. For genuine liberation a similar technological advance would be required and digital technology could be it. In fact, the handwriting is arguably on the wall already.
For genuine liberation a similar technological advance would be required and digital technology could be it. In fact, the handwriting is arguably on the wall already. Tom Hickey
ReplyDeleteNo technological advance is necessary to have honest accounting - paper, ink and a decent mail system is adequate. And IF we had had honest accounting instead of a government-privileged usury cartel, imaging how much more equitably* the means of production would be owned today?
But somehow the need for ethics eludes some - as if it were some nebulous religious concept they've outgrown.
*Literally since companies would have been forced to "share" profits and perhaps ownership with their workers instead of steal from them via the government-privileged usury cartels.