• Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Why are those the only options in everyone’s head. China is a mercantilist nation. Why is it capitalism vs communism and no one talking about how Chinese classic mercantilism seems to be doing pretty OK right now.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Why are those the only options in everyone’s head. China is a mercantilist nation. Why is it capitalism vs communism and no one talking about how Chinese classic mercantilism seems to be doing pretty OK right now.

      Jesus fucking Christ.

      No, China is very much a capitalist country.

          • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            That’s what mercantilism is. A promotion of trade with state control. Which is different than the free hand of capitalism.

              • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                1 day ago

                Is it? I mean it’s clearly working well enough that the other capitalist nations are saying their capitalism is unfair. But really it’s a totally different system, and we’re not going to understand it if we just call it capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

                • Nay@feddit.nl
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                  1 day ago

                  I honestly don’t know enough about the Chinese economy to have much of an opinion of it. I was just trying to make a joke because what you described is still authoritarian capitalism to some level, even if it’s working.

                  • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                    1 day ago

                    It’s not capitalism though. Economists have even given it it’s own name. It’s called mercantilism. It doesn’t help when we just make everything binary.

    • Wren@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      China doesn’t even allow its citizens to freely discuss their opinions on its historical military operations.

      So unless you only mean they are doing pretty OK by a financial standard, that is NOT okay from the perspective of a citizen that would like to publicly say that do not support what happened at Tiananmen Square, The Great Leap Forward, and other “speak-nots”

      They are essentially exempt from even being considered as examples.

      • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Do you know what mercantilism is and why it’s working well for China? Nothing you said has anything to do with mercantilism.

        • Wren@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Do you always insert irrelevant shit into discussions to distract from the topic?

          The discussion is how both communism and capitalism are ineffective forms of socioeconomic policy and that both seem to only benefit those that enforce them.

          China won’t even be considered until its citizens are free to disagree with their current dictator. So for now it’s:

          • Capitalism/Communism
          • everything else



          • China.

          • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            I’m talking about mercantilism. China just happens to be the biggest country that does it. Just like the US is the biggest one doing capitalism. Communism isn’t really even on the board so not sure why people like you keep bringing it up.

            • Wren@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Okay. Well. When someone posts about mercantilism, you’re free to discuss it there. But injecting it into a discussion specifically about capitalism vs communism?

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                1 day ago

                But injecting it into a discussion specifically about capitalism vs communism?

                A hugely ironic comment from the person who injected talk about communism into a discussion of capitalism.

              • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                1 day ago

                Because in the modern world it’s really a competition between capitalism and mercantilism, and self congratulating the capitalist nations on beating communism seems like masturbation to me.

                • Wren@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  Constantly trying to inject a topic into a discussion that it doesn’t belong in comes of as far more masturbatory to me. It’s almost like you just learned what it means and you want to talk about it with anyone willing to listen.