China's Involution Crisis

[u/leharn8]

/r/TrueAnon/comments/1w3vzot/chinas_involution_crisis/

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[u/manicpxenightmaregrl]

This is pro china

[u/occasionalappearance → u/manicpxenightmaregrl]

Your post contains a lot of buzzwords that are used by concern trolls and Chinese liberals, this is not to say your analysis is far off given you pointed to several factual matters but I think you tried to cover too much in one take.

Involution and overcapacity are popular buzzwords used by non-marxists in China and abroad and reflect a desire that people have to imitate the western world which is perceived to not have problems with this. I agree that the CPC is aware of the problems and is in the middle of addressing the contradictions in the current market system.

They certainly would not capitulate to critics who don’t understand marxism, and who really just want China to be free market and unfair so that the competition can be eliminated through bourgeois class oppression and social darwinism, i.e. people who think it was a mistake to uplift millions of farmers at the expense of the rich.

But on the other hand they also likely don’t think that an immediate shift to higher socialism will resolve it since so much of the economy is tied up in private and foreign capital, a lot of which are really just crappy extractive business from the 80s-00s that are getting obsolete and don’t develop the country at all. Whenever they try to rein in these private enterprises that get too big and corrupt, it fumbles the bag for many people and local govts, and those economic shocks create more unrest and get blamed on the CPC and gives the pro-market members in the party more ammo.

Like you said, the short term direction seems to be a shift to a more developed higher-consumption domestic market and a bigger export market to compete with the west in markets that are still growing. and like some people said, the core principles remains that the CPC believes in marxism rather than infinite growth, so there is probably a lot of boring work being done already that we won’t see until years from now. and by then hopefully issues like involution and overcapacity will be seen for what they are which are basically the “uneven development” of rapid reform and millions of people getting rich and educated while the state is still catching up. There are tons of examples of rapid development being allowed to occur in chaotic and even lawless ways in many provinces, until the government pools enough resources to do the hard work of regulating and steering it in a healthy direction.

Anyways, no hate from me I just think if you’re interested in China there’s always too many obsessive outsiders’ opinions, even boring bureaucratic statements from within China can reveal more of what’s really going on since the CPC actually does what it claims to. like I’m not good at studying theory btw, just a Chinese dude who gets bombarded with white people’s opinions on China regularly in real life but also pays attention to what news and people say in China

I also think other countries and the global south should focus on socialist organizing at home…countries like Cuba are proof that even America can’t determine every country’s fate let alone China, and I hope every country is inching toward a better non-western path even without China’s help. Sorry for the long winded reply I’m pretty disorganized today

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/occasionalappearance]

I appreciate the inside perspective; i'm not entirely familiar with the state of the political struggle within the party or chinese cultural spaces but i think there's probably a better way to get my points across without using buzzwords that confuse the message. My reference to overproduction is more about marx's original concept than the liberal concept of overcapacity and i use the term involution to explain a term people hear frequently through a marxist framing, rather than to promote the kind of obfuscation that liberal media does with it

[u/occasionalappearance → u/manicpxenightmaregrl]

Oh I might have misread overproduction as overcapacity, I guess just shows the obfuscation liberal media is capable of lol. I do think it makes sense to address buzzwords and popular discourse using marxist theory, just sucks that people always latch on to terms to imply issues are just about socialism or chinese culture etc in general, like it sucks how “authoritarian” just makes people think about one thing and ignore everything else that could be said

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

I'm literally talking about how china should seize this opportunity to transition to a more advanced socialist mode

[u/leharn8 → u/[deleted]]

i'm saying? 😭

i think people just had a reactionary knee-jerk to the title "china's involution crisis" and thought this was some anti-china drivel

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/leharn8]

yeah i'm a little bit upset that people aren't engaging with it properly because i think it actually strengthens my confidence in china to see them build out a cybernetic system to manage this contradiction

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

Not even remotely what i said. This post is pro china

[u/VladimirLimeMint → u/manicpxenightmaregrl]

I realized that it was constructive critique you were making and I apologize for my actions comrade.

[u/leharn8 → u/[deleted]]

that's... not the content of the post?

[u/marioandl_]

Is this meaningless pablum even worth a takedown?

[u/aspensmonster → u/marioandl_]

I mean, reading through it, it doesn't sound like pablum or ultra nonsense to me 🤷 It's chewing through the possible choices that a political economy built on commodity-driven markets faces when the commodities start getting too cheap.

[u/marioandl_ → u/[deleted]]

Mr China Xi JinCCP you say you are an economic powerhouse but where are your slaves

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

My username on reddit isn't my username on insta/tiktok. sorry for being in self-hate spaces i guess but it really shouldn't affect anything and most of the people there are also socialists

[u/VladimirLimeMint → u/[deleted]]

I've deleted the post to respect your privacy. I apologize for misunderstanding your position comrade 🫡

[u/marioandl_ → u/[deleted]]

I didnt look into the account I just assumed it was one of those trueanon redscare neonazi crossovers

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

I have never been a nazi

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

i support china

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/[deleted]]

The post is pro china????? I'm literally talking about how china is a socialist country that should export its productive capabilities to create the conditions for worldwide revolution, and about the steps they can take to avoid counterrevolutionary crisis; because I support chinese socialism and I support dengism. This is just an analysis of the inflection point they've reached and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has put out work saying the exact thing I described

the falling rate of profit applies to capital whether it's under a socialist state or a capitalist state and a socialist state should respond to it. China is responding to it and responding correctly.

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/marioandl_]

Hi, i made the post. It's a pro china post about how china can manage its contradictions and potentially use them to spark global revolutions. I know the title is kind of contentious, i probably should have called it something else?

[u/jetlagging1 → u/marioandl_]

Nope. I regert reading all this.

[u/marioandl_ → u/jetlagging1]

 A typical country handles this by shifting into an imperialist mode

typical

this might be the most insane comment ive ever read

The Han dynasty alone has lasted longer than White Empire will and predates it by 1600 years.

[u/manicpxenightmaregrl → u/marioandl_]

I wasn't describing china. I was saying that capitalist countries do that. China has avoided doing this by various means, which i described (dual circulation, CKD exports)

[u/marioandl_ → u/[deleted]]

what got me was the fact Xi himself covered this over 20 years ago in his own writings and every 5 year plan highly educated scientists will go "we're 3 years ahead of our transition from market socialism to socialism by 2045 but we need to achieve X, Y, and Z before our next 5 year plan"

The audacity to regurgitate an economist article but coat it with trotskyist "perm rev" paint as if you knew more than literal PhD's who were democratically elected to the CPC and whos grandparents were part of the long march itself lmao

[u/leharn8 → u/marioandl_]

xi has talked about involution before and i am aware there is a plan to resolve it. OP's assessment, while i do not agree with all the points made did not strike me as trot

[u/marioandl_ → u/leharn8]

When Xi discusses involution he means avoidance of "innovation for innovations sake" and stresses purpose-driven innovation. When western thinktanks use the word they mean China needs to consume more. The latter pretends China does not have a dual-use economy where factories that currently assemble high quality charger cables cant be repurposed within months to produce long range ballistic missile components once the US decides its going to go through with attacking, which is inevitable.

The trot part was the false dichotomy between a ""natural"" (heavy on the quotes) evolution of being an oppressor nation and "inspiring revolutions abroad" by expanding globally. China has taken a different path altogether with belt and road. They've developed partners in both the AES model in Cuba, DPRK, and the Sahel and partners that will not take this path like Iran. They have become a "friend to all" in the global south.

[u/VladimirLimeMint → u/marioandl_]

This sub needs Torkil Lauesen because it's just World Systems Theory since the larp here rejected OG WST theorists like Samir Amin and Paul Sweezy. Multipolarity, involution, and decoupling are sub section of WST.

[u/leharn8 → u/marioandl_]

OOP acknowledges china has a "dual circulation model"

their currency system and capital controls are set up to serve this end and lead most private entities to compete in internal circulation while state entities are more monopolized and handle external relations

granted, they seem to be meshing the western definition of "involution" with xi's plan by talking about "expanding consumer spending in China". however, i interpret this more as the state spending on internal public development projects like building infrastructure, increasing connectivity, and continuously improving the standard of living and qol of the chinese people.

[u/leharn8 → u/[deleted]]

huh? what is a styl0?

[u/leharn8 → u/marioandl_]

yeah calling imperial core countries "typical" is dumb and reactionary. again, this crosspost was not an endorsement

[u/leharn8 → u/marioandl_]

did you read the post? also it's weird that people think i crossposted the original post because i agree with what is being said. i just found it interesting and wanted to see what people here would think about what OP said in the post. the main idea here is that china seems to be at an inflection point in the development of its productive forces and this "involution crisis" is potentially a good thing that pushes china into an intermediate stage of socialism or even accelerates a global shift to socialism internationally if china were to export its supply chains to the global south.

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[u/No_Structure_99]

The economic concerns are legitimate, but i guess they're also inevitable, periods of massive changes will always trigger some wariness even to thoses who want it, it can be painful. However i do trust the chinese goverment who seem stable and competent enough to foresee potential problems long before we do, and find solutions we often don't even think of. I'm not as knowledgeable as you seem to be on thoses matter but to me, i'm just under the impression that i'm watching the birth of a post scarcity society, and i'm rooting for it. (And i take their space program and their new Tiangong Kaiwu solar system exploitation plan into account)

[u/Steampunk_Willy]

For anyone interested, the Chinese refer to this problem as neijuan and it was making the rounds in headlines about China back in Summer 2024, when the CPC officially described it as a legitimate concern.