It is capitalist, but it’s also socialist, which won’t be in the article, because a teardown can’t reveal those cost savings:
- Not having to pay for workers’ health insurance, because the state provides healthcare
- Not having to pay workers for hugely overpriced housing because of neoliberal asset price inflation
- Not having to pay people extra so they can pay their student loans, because education is free/cheap
- Not having to pay into pension funds or 401(k) matching.
Etcetera. I think there are also various infrastructure costs that are cheaper thanks to being state run, rather than privatized and for-profit.
Edit to add: Another angle from which to view this is that late stage/neoliberal/finance capitalism has priced many capitalist countries out of the market, because the Finance, Insurance, Real Estate (FIRE) economy has buried both the working class and the real economy under onerous debts. They can’t compete with an industrialized planned economy that isn’t run by the capitalist class.
You really just said housing prices were not overly inflated in China? You guys gotta talk to some Chinese people for real.
Over-inflated compared to where? And China’s problem—while it does exist—is improving.
- Reuters: China Evergrande ordered to liquidate in landmark moment for crisis-hit sector
- Bloomberg: China Reiterates Stance That Homes Are Not for Speculation
- CNBC: China’s housing minister says real estate developers must go bankrupt if necessary
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“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.