Comment by cynesthesia@hexbear.net on Income inequality in Russia over the period of the USSR

Source: Piketty’s World Inequality Report 2022

I shared this deep in a dunk thread earlier and figured there’s probably many comrades who haven’t seen this data. I think it’s very good rhetorically because a lot of libs have an incredibly vibes-based impression that the Soviet Union was just an Animal Farm old-boss-same-as-the-new-boss situation.

Instead, this demonstrates that Russia underwent one of the most dramatic inversions of income inequality of any country in recorded history.

For comparison here is the US over the same time period:

China:

And the UK:

It’s disappointing but necessarily surprising tbh. China has been doing state capitalism for a while now.

As for your question these statistics aren’t necessarily contradictory to the idea of extreme poverty being reduced/eradicated. As this is basically a measure of wealth inequality, and while it might be worse than pre revolution, the standard of life is undoubtedly much higher. This is a result of China’s explosive economic growth, there is simply way more wealth in China than ever before. So a higher wealth inequality isn’t necessarily a good indicator of poverty. It is however an apt representation of the CCP’s economic policies over the past two decades and is a good indicator that poverty will rise once China’s growth slows down if wealth inequality isn’t addresed.

“State capitalism” is not an inherently bad thing and is or can be depending on the situation necessary along the road to socialism or communism. Here’s a good essay from Lenin 1918, speaking regarding the Soviet Union but a lot of the conceptual stuff is relevant to China as well. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm

I am well aware, I am a Marxist and Leninist I just disagree about whether or not china is a socialist state using state capitalism, or if its a capitalist state doing state capitalism

In my opinion, China is not a socialist state, it is a removedd workers state which uses state capitalism and has the good sense to plan for the future.

That said, I don’t really go after china that much because it 1.) doesn’t matter if I don’t like china, I can’t affect it and its destroying my country (good) 2.) its in second place on the “least bad global superpowers” list

I do hope I’m wrong and owned and china saves the world, though

edit: for context for the part that got removed was the opposite of generated, though I do approve of it being in the slur filter this is the actually descriptive use of the word

For what it’s worth, I agree with you. I think Hexbear could stand to take two stances at the same time: one that appreciates what China has done as a pragmatic and forward-planning nation, as well as one that recognizes that in a lot of ways China diverges from what the Marxist ideal is. Most of us do understand this, of course, and recognize that many of these points of divergence were necessary for modern China to survive, but I still think a critical lens could generate some good discussion.

If you’re an ML, you should understand that state capitalism abhors having a genuine, independent capitalist class running private industries. If we need to put a precious label on it that isn’t one China uses, “market socialism” makes more sense.

As Lenin explains in that text, state socialism in the proper sense (as a dominant mode of production and not just a nascent or vestigial element) is oriented around the monopolization of the means of production by the state and the use of careful, deliberate planning of production, which independent profiteering interferes with.

I disagree with this model as anything but a wartime measure, and Lenin himself turned on it somewhat. It is apparent from Soviet history that it produced bureaucratization in the state, however much it kept down inequality prior to the market reforms, and I think China’s system of having a private capitalist class is in that way better for avoiding bureaucratization because it separates industrialists from the levers of state power in the case of private industries.

Now, is China compromised anyway? It’s honestly more likely than not, but the question of why is seemingly much more complicated than what has been said here so far and I frankly don’t really understand it.

Who’s in first place?

I’d also be curious about the data the graph is drawing from and how large and diverse of a pool it’s pulling from year-by-year

Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.

No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer

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Dunk posts in general go in the_dunk_tank, not here

Don’t post low-hanging fruit here after it gets removed from the_dunk_tank

Income inequality in Russia over the period of the USSR(hexbear.net)

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