The Chinese credit system is western propaganda there is nothing like it as described in western media.
False dichotomy. Both of these things suck.
False equivalency, one of these things is fictional
The popular conception of China’s system doesn’t actually exist, though.
China’s social credit score system exists because after their rapid urbanization the business community started complaining that they needed a way to know who can be trusted to pay back loans. At the same time the cities were full of people who were used to knowing all their neighbors and were now surrounded by strangers that they didn’t trust. The Chinese government framed both of these problems as the same thing - a crisis of trust - and presented the social credit score as the solution. It was just a copy of the United States’ credit score system but dressed up in socialist buzzwords to make it more palatable to the people, so it was really just meant to solve the first problem while pretending to solve the latter. The “social” aspects of the social credit score (subtracting points when someone commits a crime, public disturbance, etc.) are inconsistently applied across various localities and practically vestigial, most Chinese are not even aware that they exist. It’s ironic that this socialist coat of paint on one of the most capitalistic elements in the Chinese economy makes Americans think it’s dystopian, while in reality the most dystopian parts of it are the ways that it’s identical to our credit system.
China IS authoritarian.
I’m not a liberal, I’m a libertarian socialist/communist.
libertarian socialist/communist
When your socialist / communist group arms and starts defending themselves and their class interests, what prevents someone labeling them as authoritarian for doing so?
Socialist countries like the PRC lived through a hundred years of imperial exploitation by foreign powers (Britain, the US, and Japan), and fought a decades-long civil war against feudal reactionaries to finally liberate themselves from these oppressions. Do you know something they don’t, about how to establish socialism, “non-authoritarianly”?
It’s a good thing for the working classes to wield state authority against capitalists. Not sure what you mean by “libertarian socialist/communist.”
I donno anything about China, but whoever made this meme certainly doesn’t know anything about the USA. The idea that “liberals” or anyone else (??) are high-fiving themselves over a credit score. lol
The only ones celebrating credit scores as a concept are lenders, the true capitalists
Removed by mod
No? I’m an ML and I live in a capitalist country. Further, liberals are absolutely worse than anarchists.
I’ll stand corrected on the anarchist comment. But if one lives in a capitalist country, one inevitably supports capitalism, right? Even if it’s against their will.
This sounds more and more like Original Sin.
Existing within capitalism does not mean you cannot work to overthrow it and must ideologically support it by espousing liberal talking points.
Profoundly wrong statement.
First because that’s not how Marxist-Leninists use the word ‘liberal’, that’s a definition you just made up while ignoring decades of literature. Second, because it implies that is not what the word actually means to literally everyone, not just Leninists or even just socialists, everywhere on the planet with the exception of the US liberal duopoly.
Third, because it mistakenly assumes people are calling you a liberal because of your instance, and not because of your shit takes.
The ML usage of the term liberal comes from Classical Liberalism, right? Please correct me.
Also I hate how y’all think I’m personally evil because I haven’t Read Theory. Y’all are my first exposure to MLs and I don’t have any control over what my society has taught me. (I’m not defending what my society has taught me, I’ve been deconstructing for a long time and not stopping.)
Is naivete a sin?
Is naivete a sin?
No investigation no right to speak is a core part of MarxistLeninist thought as it has evolved. Naivete is not “a sin” but if you haven’t researched a topic you shouldn’t speak on it.
As Chairman Mao put it:
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
“liberal” denotes adherence to bourgeois democracy and capitalist property relations, (pro bourgeois democracy and private property)
The critique of certain “anarchists” is that they guise reactionary politics in radical language, which aids capitalism.
Removed by mod
This is nonsense. Communism has not been achieved, but socialism absolutely has. Communism has not been achieved not for lack of trying, but because it is a post-socialist system. There’s no psyop.
First, let’s be precise about terms: capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production, profit-driven accumulation, and wage labor; socialism is defined by social ownership (state, collective, or cooperative), planning mechanisms, and the subordination of remaining market forces to developmental and social goals. They are distinct modes of production, not a binary where anything short of stateless communism “counts” as capitalism.
Second, “Western capitalism” isn’t a universal default, it specifically describes the Euro-Amerikan core and its integrated vassals (NATO, Five Eyes, dependent economies). That system is hegemonic, but it is not total. Russia, for instance, operates a distinct sovereign-capitalist model: not socialist, but explicitly de-linked from Western financial architecture and actively contesting unipolar dominance.
Third, China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam are explicitly in the early stages of the socialist transitionary period. Their frameworks (especially China’s “primary stage of socialism”) theorize that underdeveloped socialist states must develop productive forces, utilize regulated markets, and engage globally while maintaining proletarian state power and public ownership of commanding heights. This isn’t “capitalism with red flags”; it’s a materialist strategy to build the basis for higher-stage socialism. Dismissing these distinctions because communism hasn’t been “achieved” yet misunderstands dialectics: transition is a process, not an event. You don’t call a bridge under construction meaningless because it has yet to reach the other side.
Americans:
“praise the supreme leader!” - wow, brainwashing much?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag…” - Yup, this is fine.
nowadays it’s more accurately the same statement for both
people are praising the supreme leader in america
Okay, but tbf, pledging allegiance to the flag/country is much better than to the self alleged dictator.
Who knows one day you might get it and see they are the same motivators to for gullibles to go to war.
It doesn’t matter if it’s for their leader or the country.
It’s always for the owners of both.Is it though? We are currently seeing the forced nationalism be weaponized.
That’s because people confuse nationalism with patriotism. I love my country, which is why I want it to be better. Others love their country because it gives them permission to be worse.
To be clear, it’s still not good. I support any kid that wants to sit out for the pledge or sit or kneel for the national anthem. It should always be non-obligatory. In fact, I don’t love the word “allegiance” to begin with.
But it would be significantly worse if the pledge of allegiance was to Donal Trump. Ultimately, that’s what many people are following, but it’s not default in schools to pledge allegiance to him or anything.
I just cannot understand why somebody living in a colonial country can truly say they love their country unless they’re brainwashed or completely ignorant to its history.
I’m from Canada and we are not better, there’s just not as much of an issue of rampant nationalism disguised as “patriotism”. Our countries were built on the graves of the native inhabitants, by the hands of slaves. At no point in the history did they stop abusing natives and the descendants of slaves, they just found new ways to hide it and new names to call it (how does a prison make a profit, anyway?).
I love and am proud of my community, but that is the extent to which my pride reaches. I cannot feel proud of a country that was built on the blood of the innocent.
I love my country,
Not even sure how to respond to this kind of vague emotional ideology. When people say this to me in person, I back away slowly.
I want America to prosper and I want to protect American values from right-wing radicals that are in charge. I’m very passionate about it. In fact, I live in a red state and I want it to just be better and no longer radicalized by lies and hate.
I very passionately want America to heal from this illness of hate and apathy.
If that makes me a bad person, then fuck me I guess.
The US Empire is a genocidal settler-colony. It cannot be rescued from itself, it needs to be overthrown.
Not an American or a liberal, and yes, china is authoritarian. Is america better? No. The credit score system in the US is also bad.
Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative.
The social credit score isn’t real.
You ain’t wrong about the social credit thing! There was only one municipality that tried to implement it in any way that even vaguely resembles how mainstream media hysterics portray, and that city’s administration was punished for it on the national stage.
The only thing the “social credit” system was meant to do is make major public figures accountable for corruption. It was never aimed at REGULAR people!
But yeah nah fuck anyone and anything that opposed democracy especially the two faced single political party of the United States of America. If they actually gave a shit about democracy for real instead of just consuming lives to pay for their pedophilia addictions, we’d have ranked choice voting by now.
Unfortunately I don’t think ranked choice voting will save you. You need to clear the board so to speak and get some options that actually represent people over corporate interests.
As good as preferential/ranked voting is. Compulsory voting would have a much larger positive impact on US’ democracy
Ideally both
How will compulsive voting improve anything? Now you’re dragging even more uninformed dopes to vote, a lot of them will vote for spite. Far more than you realize, I think
Trump was 100% the vote-for-spite-burn-it-down candidate. That’s how they get you, the old switcheroo
Now you’re dragging even more uninformed dopes to vote, a lot of them will vote for spite.
uninformed defines almost all american voters and the last election showed that 30 million people who voted in 2020, chose not to vote in 2024 instead of spite voting.
Neither can fix the systemic problems caused by capitalism though, democracy in capitalism is democracy for capitalists.
Well then use that amendment that children keep dying for or stop complaining. So pathetic
Please stop financing and enabling the USA, also, and stop using the US dollar for international trade. So lame that you haven’t done that
I already organize with a communist party, I have no intention of simply complaining alone.
What good is complaining amongst a communist org, if your democracy and elections a rlcapitalist?
Removed by mod
Go back to 4chan obergruppenfuhrer. Or provide some evidence/analysis but I doubt you have that capability.
Re: authoritarianism— your opinion.
Some of us aren’t in favour of oppressive regimes that aren’t transparent, surveil, and censor.
“Authoritarianism” is meaningless because all it means is “uses state power.” It doesn’t acknowledge which class controls the state and who it uses state power against. In China, the working classes control the state, and use state power against bad actors and capitalists more than anything else. China is oppressive to capitalists and liberating to workers.
I haven’t much evidence for the claim: “In China, the working classses control the state”
sure you will say that is my western bias from living with china bad propaganda, but you could actually provide something to me read on topic if possible
You can debate whether the system works well, but it isn’t accurate to say there’s no evidence for the claim that the working classes play a central role in the Chinese state.
China’s constitution explicitly defines the PRC as a socialist state “led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” with state power exercised through the National People’s Congress (NPC) system. The NPC is the highest organ of state power, with nearly 3,000 deputies drawn from provinces, the PLA, and different social sectors.
The makeup of the NPC is not just party bureaucrats or business elites. In the 14th NPC there are hundreds of deputies from workers and farmers and large numbers of grassroots representatives, along with 442 ethnic minority deputies covering all 55 minority groups. Most deputies in China’s people’s congress system (about 95%) serve at the county and township level, which are directly elected and involve hundreds of millions of voters. Higher congresses are elected from these lower levels. This structure is what China calls “whole-process people’s democracy.” Sources explaining the system include CGTN’s Who runs the CPC and the State Council white paper China: Democracy That Works.
You can also look at how the state treats capital. China has private capital, but it is clearly subordinated to state goals. When Jack Ma tried to push an aggressive fintech model through Ant Group that would massively expand lightly regulated consumer credit, regulators halted the IPO and forced restructuring under stricter oversight. That is a case of disciplining capital when it conflicts with social stability and the broader economy.
Likewise, China has pursued policies like eliminating extreme poverty and building massive infrastructure networks (including projects that are not monetarily profitable) because they are treated as long-term public development goals. That kind of large-scale, socially oriented investment is difficult to sustain in systems where private capital dominates the state.
So you can disagree with the Chinese model, but there is actually a large amount of Chinese material explaining how their system is supposed to function and why they claim it represents working-class political power.
Sure!
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
The working classes in socialist countries are the ones dictating the state and its direction.
Removed by mod
China is a socialist country, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state. Child labor is illegal in China, you may be thinking of the US.
Removed by mod
There is no genocide of Uyghurs. Uyghur genocide atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China’s response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn’t going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Removed by mod
“the world”
Do you have any proof? The OISC disagree with you. And even the UN doesn’t call it a genocide because that’s not what happened.
Please explain how what I said is “bullshit,” I even included the UN report. Why do you like Adrian Zenz?
I’m using the term to refer to suppression of people (which isn’t restricted to workers) in politics, media, etc.
Except by “the people” you seem to mean capitalists and fascists, not the broad majority of society that are uplifted and support the system.
This!
Still better then the baby eating pedo elite
It is possible to oppose all three things. It is possible to simultaneously oppose the Social Credit System in China, the Credit Score system in the United States, and the elites connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Is it? You need to think more pragmatically, you are a laborer. Your only bargaining chip is your labour, decide who gets it. Personally, I don’t want to be part of any helping them live their best life.
I am curious, who is “them” in your statement and how does opposing all three of those things inherently cause me to give up my bargaining power?
The social credit system that you know of doesn’t exist.
Interesting phrasing. A phrasing that assumes assumptions on my part. So … what social credit system DOES exist.
I am a Chinese minority living in China. You really don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to China. You very clearly have done 0 research beyond maybe reading RFA. You should be quiet until you have done some proper research.
Ad hominem, ad hominem, and mmm, ad hominem. Yeah, nothing to see here.
Least insufferable redditer
It isn’t an ad hominem fallacy to point out that doing little research on a topic and repeating easily disproven talking points isn’t a sound basis of argument.
And I have, and my responses were given little in return from them.
You have not, considering everything you’ve said has been easily debunked, and when encountering hard numbers you reflect to dogmatism.
“Homnum Homnum”- Liberal chimps.
Not an adhominem. You’re not wrong because you’re stupid you just happen to be both wrong and stupid.
Well in the comment I said that you didn’t explain why I was wrong and simply resorted to making a string of ad hominems.
So I’ll reiterate: ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem.
Saying you should shut up if you haven’t researched a topic isn’t an adhominem.
There is no social credit system
Im gonna say it, I’m sick and tired of hearing people talk about “evil Chinese authoritarian social credit system” when its inherently a good system that works. In the west when a corporation commits mass fraud and abuse they pay a minimal fine (sometimes they don’t even pay) and then they literally just get away with it. Chinas social credit system on the other hand actually holds businesses accountable.
I’m willing to say I’m not happy with either system. Corporations should pay and be held accountable but citizens should have a right to privacy and not have the sum of their actions turned into a number.
You should be happy to know then that the social credit score only applies to corporations and individuals who do business with the government as contractors, it doesn’t apply to private life and doesn’t make anything illegal that wasn’t already legally punishable (even then minor crimes aren’t covered).
Corporations should pay and be held accountable
No. The board and the directors should be personally responsible, and should be punished in addition to the corporation paying money at the minimum.
citizens should have a right to privacy and not have the sum of their actions turned into a number.
That “number” isn’t real. China does not have a single nationwide “social credit score” that rates every citizen.
What actually exists is a set of legal blacklists, the most famous being the court judgment defaulter list (失信被执行人). It applies to people who refuse to comply with a court decision, usually things like unpaid debts.
If you ignore a court order, the court can place you under a high-consumption restriction (限制高消费). That means you can’t spend money on certain luxury services (first-class train tickets, flights, five-star hotels, or other high-end purchases) until you comply with the judgment.
You can still travel normally, stay in regular hotels, work, shop, and live your life. The restriction is specifically designed to stop people who refuse to obey court rulings from enjoying luxury spending while ignoring their legal obligations.
The popular idea in the west that everyone in China has a constantly changing personal “score” based on everyday behavior is simply western fantasy.
God the more and more I hear about China the more based it is.
President Xi Jinping save us all
Yeah the made up system that doesn’t exist in the real world is really fucking scary OMG.
Noone actually forces you to live in debt. It should be last resort, but people in US finance everything
but people in US finance everything
Damn I wonder why they do that. Must have nothing to do poverty. /s
Noone actually forces you to live in debt
Oh damn I didn’t know they made housing and healthcare free, that’s dope as fuck
No you don’t understand you can just become homeless and then let yourself die of preventable causes.
No you don’t understand you can just become homeless
Isn’t that illegal in the US
I wouldn’t be surprised but I am neither amerikkkan nor have I looked into that.
Only if you insist on sleeping.
Come on like half of car sales in US are financed.
You know that Healthcare and housing is the last resort I’m talking about - where you have no other option.
The US is reliant on cars, but many people cannot afford buying them outright or low-interest loans. This is by design, not choice.
Bullshit. Used car market exists since the invention of a car. If you need a vehicle that will drive your ass from point A to the point B you absolutely have no need to buy a brand new one.
The used car market is volitile, regional, and often close to new in price. Stop blaming systemic issues on actions of individuals. I’m not saying that it’s impossible for one to make poor financial decisions, but instead that the very system is designed around maximizing profits squeezed from the working classes.
Two kinds of people in the comments: those who think credit scores are bad, and those who think social credit systems are good
Reminds me of the anime PsychoPass.
When will Westerners realize that the common characture of the brainwashed, thought controlled, information controlled, constantly surveiled citizen that we attribute to China/The USSR/etc… IS US?! You clutch your pearls at people in other countries potentially being treated like that but are inclined to do nothing about OUR OWN countries treating US like that.
A Russian is on an airliner heading to the US, and the American in the seat next to him asks, “So what brings you to the US?” The Russian replies, “I’m studying the American approach to propaganda.” The American says, “What propaganda?” The Russian says, “That’s what I mean.”
Snowden showed they realized but didn’t care
and the epstien files have shown us how little americans care about anything besides themselves.
You can be against US and Chinese fascism simultaneously.
In what way is China fascist? It’s a socialist country, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state.
Authoritarianism, violent oppression of minorites and dissenting movements, deeply ingrained surveillance state with state censorship.
China does not violently oppress minorities, and wielding state authority, censorship, and surveilance against capitalists and fascists is necessary for a socialist state, and doesn’t make it fascist. Fascism is capitalism violently defending itself from decay and solidifying bourgeois control, not proletarian.
Surveillance and political suppression for one. Media, journalism, etc.
That’s not what fascism means, especially when these are used against capitalists most of all, and not against the working classes nearly as much. Fascism is capitalism violently entrenching itself when it finds itself in crisis, it isn’t when a socialist state uses state power to keep capitalists under control and expropriate their property.
That’s not what fascism is either lol
I wouldn’t call china fascist, though doubtlessly authoritarian. But I don’t have nearly as much info on china, it seems to me the persecution of minorities is less of a central political scapegoat and more some weird side thing. But without speaking chinese, I might be wrong. The US had plenty of fascist characteristics at this point and is rather open about the persecution.
The US is fascist because it’s in crisis. Imperialism is decaying and austerity is being brought inward.
I’m not trying to fuss over what to call something. My intended point stands.
It doesn’t, though. Socialism is not fascism, and all socialist states need to exert authority against capitalists and fascists to continue to exist. Class harmony is a lie.
My point is that the forms of oppression that occur in China aren’t exclusive to the capitalist class, and remain something I oppose.
Which stands.
Chinese fascism
Just say you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Nice argument.
You didn’t make one you just stated something wildly incorrect so why should I take the time to give you a well thought out response trying to explain how truly idiotic is?
I did make one, that you can oppose two things at the same time.
I could explain, but wait, you already said that authoritarianism was meaningless to you. If it doesn’t matter to you, well, seems pointless to try to convince that it is actually fascist.
You have to be a troll.
You can appose 2 things
Sure not what I took issue with. I took issue with you calling China fascist which is just an untrue statement.
Authoritarian is a pejorative. All countries and states in class society are “authoritarian” by necessity. Fascism is a specific thing arising from the tendency for the rate of profit to decline in capitalist society.
You can keep insisting I’m a troll if it helps you deal with not being able to engage with arguments.
China is authoritarian, but authoritarianism doesn’t matter to you, so that shouldn’t matter to you. Consistency, please.
And no, countries aren’t “authoritarian” by necessity. Even if some amount of policies etc that would be considered such exist everywhere, you have countries that are freer and countries that have more political suppression, censorship of media outlets, etc etc.
China does censor it’s media—political and entertainment— heavily. Just one small example.
Per Wikipedia:
The program first emerged in the early 2000s, inspired by the credit scoring systems in other countries.
It’s almost the same thing but a different name, and is nationalized to a state system instead of like 3 or 4 companies lmao
Right wingers fear the word “social” for some reason ig
It’s also not applied at a national level, but in some areas, from what I’ve read, and is used largely against companies that try to skirt the law.
I mean, that’s also pretty awesome that there’s decent regulations as part of it(at least nominally, I don’t live there so can’t say for certain), but it seems to be primarily a banking/lending thing similar to in the US which is what a lot of jingoistic fearmongering types either completely miss or purposely ignore.
It’s decidedly not a surveillance thing, which is the funny part.
The Misconceptions section of that page is really funny. It just keeps on going with the same thing over and over but with different people and dates, it feels like a bit
