this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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When you say "top of the world," the US is the world hegemon with the greatest amount of wealth and plunder. It distributes it very poorly because it's a dying capitalist empire, of course. Nordic countries are in some ways behind China and in some ways ahead even if they fare better than the US, but that's because of imperialism still, and not an example of capitalism working. China shows that, despite developing far later than the imperialist west (take your pick on whichever one), it has managed to develop far more quickly and for the benefit of all, rather than an elite few.
Don't insinuate that I'm a bot. Dehumanization is bad. Either explain what you mean by "best in class" or accept that it's possible that someone would interpret it as I did.
Why do you say the US is dying? Seams to be imperialising and monopolising better than ever to me.
It's lashing out more violently, sure, but the global south is actually developing thanks to increased south-south trade and an erosion of western tech monopoly. The rise of China is contributing greatly to this.
Can you point me towards some resources?
From what I know big tech companies are going incredibly well and achieving lots of growth.
Look at the rates of electrification in the global south, and the sluggish economies in the US and Europe. The AI bubble is just that, a bubble.
What I said:
The topic was about people living paycheck to paycheck and social safety net... So take top ones in that category from both systems and compare them to find the overall winner.
But that doesn't make sense, you compare among peers in development timeframes where you can, as well as size and location. Nordic countries tend to have good safety nets, but they also fund them from imperialism, and they've been developing for a longer period of time. China isn't imperialist, and it's only recently been developing. If you're trying to compare capitalism and socialism as systems, you have to compare their trajectories and where they've come from, not static snapshots.
We're trying to find the best countries right now. You'll never find good comparable enough countries anyway, there's always big meaningful differences that can be argued over endlessly.
Right now there's capitalist countries beating all the socialist ones at what we're talking about. Like said, theoretically at some point they will be best than every capitalist country. It's just not right now.
This was the original claim:
Which is true, and requires analyzing them in context of their peer countries. Imperialist countries have inflated living standards due to taking huge amounts of super-profits from the global south, therefore comparison isn't going to be even anyways. Comparing Cuba with other Latin American countries makes a lot of sense, trying to grab "the best" of each like history is just a static snapshot and doesn't matter is horrible for trying to see which is better.
I'm just saying that right now the best of capitalist countries beat the best of the socialist ones, at least if that best example is China (which isn't great tbh). In theory in the future etc. but like right now.
Why would that make any sense for a kind of comparison between capitalism and socialism? Why not compare peers? And additionally, China does have good quality of life, and again is rapidly improving.
Well you'd want to see what's currently best available. At this time, there's countries that are doing better than best of socialist countries. Maybe it'll change at some point, I know theoretically it should. But we don't want to go into wild speculation
Saying that socialism is a more effective system than capitalism and that socialist countries provide better for the working classes than capitalist ones is the statement I made, and is true. Comparing "the best" (whatever that means) capitalist and socialist countries doesn't actually answer that. It doesn't take into account length of time, history, level of development, trajectory, and more, and it especially doesn't take imperialism into account.
Those best in what we have been talking about the whole time lol. Right now those are capitalist countries. I bet socialism is great and gets better and better but it's just not at the top yet in this. Unless there's a better example than China ofc.
You are saying that socialism is better at this particular aspect but all I'm saying the best in it are still capitalist.
No, you pivoted the conversation to that direction. Originally we were talking about capitalist and socialist countries, and how socialist countries take better care of their working classes than capitalist countries. I gave good examples of this, but then you decided to erase context and try to compare "the best" with "the best." This is a terrible idea for reasons I've already explained, doing so erases historical context, geographic differences, geopolitical tensions, and historical trends.
The only capitalist countries that have it better than China are the Nordic countries, and that's only in some ways, not all. Further, the Nordic countries have been developed for longer, are imperialist and thus use the spoils of imperialism for their safety nets, and have not been targetted by other countries. To compare the quality of life for a worker in China vs a worker in the Nordics without taking those factors into consideration tells us nothing about the effectiveness of capitalism and socialism for the working classes.
I'm just saying it doesn't seem like you need socialism to achieve better result in what we're discussing. You can do it within capitalism and as it stands some capitalist countries are doing even better than the best of socialist countries.
And funny to speak about China as some new civilization with little time to develop, especially compared to Finland for example. But it's whatever, if that feels like the answer to you then I'm fine with it. I just thought China was a poor example since rural people only got welfare in 2014 onward and whatnot.
I'm sure there's other, out of scope things where they're amazing.
If your safety nets are funded through underdeveloping the global south and stealing from it, and these same safety nets are eroding rather than strengthening, then it isn't a legitimate comparison in the slightest. You keep ignoring imperialism when I bring it up, and that's akin to saying that you can have a good quality of life in capitalism by being a capitalist.
The PRC was founded in the middle of the 20th century. Prior to its existence, China had been colonized by Britain and later Japan, and was kept as a semi-feudal backwater. The great states of China of the past had all but decayed into a shadow of their former selves through the century of humiliation. China did not truly begin its era of rapid development until it became socialist. The Nordics were beneficiaries of imperialism even prior to the founding of the PRC.
You've erased the scope and are trying to compare static snapshots rather than trajectories and systems. This erasure of context is the kind of vulgar materialism of pre-evolutionary biology that saw each animal as permanent and fixed, unchanging, rather than interrelated and constantly changing.
I mean we can't really talk about future without it being just speculation, so right now is furthest we can go with actual numbers. Like said, theoretically China will be the best at some point but until then...
Finland got their independence in 1917, before that it was a colony and under foreign and imperialist rule. Finland went through a civil war and WW2 too. I wouldn't call Finland old compared to the millennia spanning civilization that is China lol. Finns were sleeping in caves when China was already an empire conquering shit.
We can absolutely analyze historic trends to see where countries are heading, and to refuse to do so is again the same type of vulgar materialism that pre-evolutionary biologists were guilty of. History is not a series of static snapshots.
Finland in particular was largely agrarian in the beginning of the 20th century, but had become entrenched within the imperialist core by the time the PRC was founded, and was still more developed than China at the time of the PRC's founding.
I have no idea why you keep dodging the imperialism point and acting like it doesn't exist, that should disqualify a country from being included. If your cushier lifestyle is dependent on the immiseration of foreign countries then that isn't a meaningful way to tell if capitalism works as a better system. Further, safety nets in Finland and the Nordics in general are eroding as imperialism is faltering. China isn't imperialist, its gains come from its own working classes and not foreign plunder.
I mean you're free to speculate about the future. Economists do it all the time and I don't really trust that much, personally. Let's talk when that speculation is actually true and China does beat the Nordics imo.
You're taking a vulgar empiricist approach and denying the ongoing material processes and trends that point to decay in imperialist countries and the rise of socialist countries. If you only trust what you can directly see with your own eyes, then you deny evolution, geographical shifts, and other phenomena that require observation over an extended period. Again, you're also choosing to ignore imperialism, that's like saying capitalism works great because capitalists live great while ignoring the necessity of worker exploitation.
I'm sure your theory and methodology is fine. I just don't trust much in that sort of speculation tbh.
Are you denying evolution, geographical shifts, and the process of imperialism, or are just taking an agnostic stance while doubling down on ineffective methodology?
Like said, I'm sure it's a good theory and all. I'm just cautious about trusting that sort of predictions. They don't always pan out quite as predicted.
The fact that some predictions are wrong doesn't mean we can't analyze trends and trajectories, nor does it mean taking the opposite approach and focusing on static snapshots is better. Again, vulgar empricism denies evolution, geographic shifts, and imperialism. Are you denying evolution, geographical shifts, and the process of imperialism, or are just taking an agnostic stance while doubling down on ineffective methodology?
I didn't say you weren't allowed to do your predictions. I'm sure they're good predictions. I just don't put much faith in them.
Are you allergic to giving a clear answer? Being extremely vague about your claims and refusing to address points I've made isn't helping your case here.
You said according theories you believe in that socialist countries will be best of the best and so on. I'm not concerned about the future and don't really trust these sort of predictions, so what else can even say really. I wanted to be nice and agree that yeah maybe at some point.
I'm just not very interested in speculation, that's all
I said that socialist countries are better at providing for the working class now. This statement requires isolating variables and taking differences into account when making a comparison, not looking at static and arbitrary comparisons. Further, the decay in imperialist countries and the rise of socialist countries are already ongoing, not processes for the future. You've been explained this before and haven't responded to it, or justified why your arbitrary comparison is better than comparing peer countries and trajectories.
Same goes with not giving a clear answer on geographical shifts, evolution, and imperialism. Your static snapshot method is wrong.