Comment by m_f@midwest.social on Hard to swallow pills

What do you mean that mechanic doesn’t exist in the same way for China? Are you talking like China has achieved a classless utopia situation?

No, the arms manufacturers just don’t have the same level of influence over the government and armed forces that they do in America, and the people in the government who decide whether to drop bombs won’t personally get rich if they buy more bombs.

That isn’t something unique to China btw but basically almost every country except USA and a few others.

Do you think that dynamic wouldn’t exist for any country, including China, that had as much world influence as the US does now?

I mean- yeah, the birdcage model has been supplanted by majority public ownership at this point, the same incentives that create the military industrial complex don’t exist- if you’d like, i would recommend reading “Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism” which can be a handy reference point for the US military complex.

Saying that China doesn’t have a MIC is a non-sequitur. The incentive is power. If acquiring or maintaining power in China requires military expansion, it will happen.

Except imperialism is actually incredibly inefficient in the long term. Western nations become imperialist due to the contradictions created by capitalism.There is a reason why China’s foreign policy is centered around mutual advancement.

If you want power over another country, attacking them is a very inefficient path. You will take losses, and you won’t be able to take their resources intact. The easier and cheaper method is to just bribe their leaders into selling you whatever you want.

The US starts wars even when it doesn’t need to, because there are a handful of companies that stand to make a lot of money selling weapons. No other country has such a large and influential military lobby, so other countries tend not to start wars for private profit.

Can you be more clear in your question?

My point is that the real hard-to-swallow pill for people like OP is that China is not a magical place where everyone just sings kumbaya all day. China is just like any other country comprised of humans that has existed ever, and would do the same things the US is doing now if they could. The only reason this meme is in any way accurate is that China can’t realistically drop bombs like that, otherwise they would. Tankies like OP will defend imperialism all day long, as long as the imperialists say “Death To America!”. If the US poofed out of existence today, there would be a power vacuum quickly filled by exactly the same sort of people that are dropping those bombs in the meme.

So I guess my question is “What’s the point of pretending that China is any different?”

China is just like any other country comprised of humans that has existed ever, and would do the same things the US is doing now if they could.

Yeah, except they’re different countries, made up of different people, with a different culture, with a pretty much fundamentally different kind of organizational structure governing them. I don’t think “well, they’d probably do it too, if the US were gone” is a super convincing argument in favor of the US dropping bombs on people.

To be clear, I’m not in favor of dropping bombs on people. My argument is that saying “China isn’t dropping any bombs” is silly. They would if they could and it would achieve a goal.

Human nature doesn’t change just because you go over to the other side of the globe. History shows us that the wars over there haven’t been any less bloody. Why are you proposing that human nature is fundamentally different now?

Your kind of reasoning is called “projection”. You are actually choking on that pill.

That’s not projection, that’s basic human behavior. Do you think modern China just magically poofed into existence, or were there maybe a few bloody imperalist wars involved? Why would things be different now?

That’s just a thing you made up to justify not feeling bad, there is no reason to believe that anyone else would act the same way.

To be blunt, have you read a history book? People have been killing the outgroup in brutal struggles for power since time began. Are you aware of the phrase “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”? It comes from the Siege of Melos in 416 B.C.

I don’t like it, but that’s the way the world works, and has worked forever. Criticizing people in power for their actions is good. Saying “if only this other country was in power, things would be different” is foolish.

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