Source: Piketty’s World Inequality Report 2022
I shared this deep in a dunk thread earlier and figured there’s probably many comrades who haven’t seen this data. I think it’s very good rhetorically because a lot of libs have an incredibly vibes-based impression that the Soviet Union was just an Animal Farm old-boss-same-as-the-new-boss situation.
Instead, this demonstrates that Russia underwent one of the most dramatic inversions of income inequality of any country in recorded history.
For comparison here is the US over the same time period:
China:
And the UK:
Comparing China negatively to the USSR makes sense, but comparing it negatively to the UK shows how people on this board are still very capable of being birdbrained and taken by a single, specific data set without considering the broader context. While the UK is making strides in austerity, China is continuously building [back] up from the gutting by Deng and making advancements in socialization. Show me where in the UK they build entire modern apartment complexes for dirt-poor villages living in rustic conditions and turn them over for free. How many hospitals do they erect, how many miles of new rail do they lay to provide infrastructural support?
Of course the UK, being so small and having spent so long as the industrial center of the planet (though those days are long past) already has some of this infrastructure rather than needing to build it . . .
Long live the Soviet Union
Wow, looks like something bad happened in 1991 that caused inequality to get even worse than under Tsarist Russia.
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The USSR in its prime was able to challenge the USA on a lot of moral issues that would have never been brought up by other powers. For instance, I’m pretty sure that civil rights was not able to progress as it did without the ability for the USA to be shamed into action.
That said, both China and Russia seem like they are near pre-revolution levels of income disparity right now. So, I don’t know who would be the standard bearer pushing for economic equality now.
both China and Russia seem like they are near pre-revolution levels of income disparity right now.
Uhhhh China’s life expectancy pre revolution was 33 years old. There is absolutely zero comparison between China of today and the humiliation years of hyper exploitation by the British, Americans, Japanese and so on.
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It’s disappointing but necessarily surprising tbh. China has been doing state capitalism for a while now.
As for your question these statistics aren’t necessarily contradictory to the idea of extreme poverty being reduced/eradicated. As this is basically a measure of wealth inequality, and while it might be worse than pre revolution, the standard of life is undoubtedly much higher. This is a result of China’s explosive economic growth, there is simply way more wealth in China than ever before. So a higher wealth inequality isn’t necessarily a good indicator of poverty. It is however an apt representation of the CCP’s economic policies over the past two decades and is a good indicator that poverty will rise once China’s growth slows down if wealth inequality isn’t addresed.
People here miss the main reason for the Chinese graph. Due to rapid modernaziation and urbanization China is at a point where it has two countries with different levels of income within itself. One with some 200-300 million people in the big cities earning basicaly European level salaries and incomes and one of some 200-300 million rural residents that make 2-3 times less at least (and then various stages in between).So in the process of massive urbanization in a very short period of time a shitton of people have been uplifted to high income status while a shitton are in the way and a shitton are still not uplifted but most likely will. That creates a very unique impact in inequality metrics without context
Also that doesnt translate to equaly huge disparty in quality of life or purchasing power since in rural or small town China life ,even beyond rent, is indeed much cheaper compared to urban ereas in a degree not seen in the vast majority of countries . That particular configuration is very specific to China. For example the median US “rural” income is just 20% lower than the median urban one and despite that income inequality is so immense nationwide
And all that ignoring the particularities that arise if you try to make a wealth graph for China instead of income. With 90% home ownership rate, very large savings compared to other countries, an ever present in kind welfare state and a “at least on paper” people’s state that can be argued to actively control most of the wealth in various ways . Even for a “de formed” workers state how can you really make a wealth graph that accounts for the non capitalist particularities of ownership and control
Also how can you even compare stats like that between different modes of production. The bottom 50% in 1930s China were landless peasant serfs slaving on feudal warlords and living till 33 years old. What does them having 25% of Chinas income share even mean or even matter? How can you compare it to the situation I described above. How is it even calculated in such a context ?
It’s nothing like comparing and calculating the stats in Western capitalist countries now vs in the 30s or 40s
Yeah China has more people living in rural areas than the EU or the US has people. It’s a current massive undertaking to modernise or urbsnise further
The graph also doesn’t take imperialism or colonialism into account, how amerikkka’s global south vassals are vastly poorer than the vast majority of Americans living within the USA’s borders. Income also doesn’t always equal class. Labor aristocrats in the USA can make more money than the petite bourgeoisie, for instance.
I absorb all my China info 3rd hand or worse from internet communists, but word on the street is that the CPC had explicitly stated that the primary contradiction of this era is uneven development between rural and urban areas, and resolving this contradiction is now a primary focus.
Good points, but rich mfers in China are still really rich. There’s a big delta between tech bros and Foxconn workers living in Shenzhen or whatever. Still, even the folks on the bottom of the ladder are afforded life’s necessities, you won’t see tent cities for example
Do these graphs also include the disperity of their colonies?
No, they’re just income within the borders of the country
How unfortunate.
Not every piece of data can represent everything comrade
sometimes simpler is better
China was cool for a second there but it looks like they’re going cringe. We need another purge, Xi.
Yeah they need some socialist roaders back in power, probably won’t happen any time soon though.
One things for sure, Xi isn’t the man for the job.
We’ll see, he’s been doing a lot of rooting out corruption and ending food insecurity and extreme poverty while building up the infrastructure of the country and contending with the endless hostility from America, but he has recognized that inequality is a problem which needs to be addressed over the next several 5 year plans.
Personally, I’ll defer to the hundred million members of the CPC to determine whether he does a good enough job at it or if somebody else needs to take the reins.
Deng stans on life support after this comment
i think this exchange pretty much nails the discourse around this issue
https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/166d1239-6808-46ef-b5d9-5153c7d92b65.png
spoiler
as a certified deng beetle i am refraining from spamming deng emojis at you
Im mostly just goofing but yeah it’s going to be a deeply crucial problem that needs to be solved, and the way it is solved will determine whether good or bad things are possible in the future for this world. Please don’t fuck this up, China.
Ahh so the US has always been shit and continues to get worse
The US getting worse correlates with the destruction of the USSR. The ruling class saw the exact moment in time they had won and began to exploit harder knowing they no longer had to put up anymore pretence to compete with the socialist threat.
Ugh, they wasted no time too… literally a straight line up and hasn’t slowed at all ☹️
Not to worry. Income inequality in the USA is at similar levels to France in the pre-revolutionary era. These two times and places are vastly different, of course, but if you were a member of the bourgeoisie, would you feel secure? I’ve been feeling lately that the relentless sinophobia in the corporate press is a kind of proof that the monster is indeed afraid. If they were unafraid, they would have no problem with occasionally allowing communists to speak in public. But even on the internet, outside of a few niches like hexbear, this is strictly forbidden. Even the American masses are not actually that stupid and are perhaps not even so evil. Given the right circumstances and education and leadership, they could become just as radicalized as people in China during the revolution.
Unlike Feudal France, The US exercises complete control over media and other propaganda spreading tools. Add an overbloated military and police force and a population brainwashed to fight amongst themselves for “Good” vs “Evil” where both sides are owned by the same people, there is zero chance to see anything similar to the French revolution in the US.
It is an imperfect comparison. But, despite the things you listed off, the basic contradiction still exists and revolutionary moments will begin to present themselves as the system becomes increasingly untenable. I think the “decoupling” from China and loss of the petro-dollar could easily undo a lot of brainwashing as peoples lived experiences continue to become discordant with media narratives. When the chips begin to fall, and where things go (in the US) will ultimately be up to revolutionary organizers in the US. The Paris Commune only lasted a few months before it was washed away in blood. Revolution would be shaped by the forces within the context it develops, so leftist in the US should be working very hard to shape them
I know everyone here is doing China discourse here but the honestly not insignificant inequality that remained in the USSR is kinda interesting to see.
can a smart person tell me what cool thing happened in the 60s in the soviet union?
fuckin margret thatcher
I mean, the soviet union devalued currency and instead valued political power, and you can see how fast its political elites were able to convert one to the other in 1991.
its political elites were able to convert one to the other in 1991.
Are you aware of how many people’s lives that destroyed? It was the single biggest reduction in living standards for the largest number of people outside of war time in history.
And Yeltsin and his gang of capitalist robbers were hardly representative of the soviet union. They were US-backed compradors. Yeltsin’s fucking campaigns were even planned by the americans.
Americans cheered for Yeltsin when he bombed the parliament.
They would do the same for China as they plunge 1.7billion people into destitution and a living hell.
“its political elites” You mean the handpicked American compradors.
Just bought some bonds in political power, but turns out they’re locked in for 70 years
Dude source
like any
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Image from the American Eagleburger institute
Be interesting to see this for wealth in addition to income
Yeah it definitely would be. If you follow the link for the source you’ll find some data but it’s not as exhaustive. One of the refrains in Capital in the 21st Century is that wealth inequality is always more dramatic and extreme, and another is that it’s incredibly irresponsible for states to not be recording and publishing data about wealth so citizens can make informed decisions. (You can already hear the libness coming out - it’s a good book if you can get past that)
for a second I thought you were talking about Das Kapital and were calling marx a lib and I was genuinely impressed
Wonder if the cpcs internal metrics confirm this
It’s probably true. Liberalisation fucked up China until Xi came along and started curbing the billionaire menace to a degree Greater than many of his predecessors.
It didn’t “fuck up” China, their metrics were still amazing before Xi
I think the biggest mistake before Xi was not being very diligent about corruption
Billionaires had far more leverage over the government before Xi came in. Add corruption to that and you had insane scandals in China every now and then.
