For those who don’t want to go the full *arr or debrid route, using the qbittorrent client with its built-in torrent search is a low effort way to circumvent having to visit torrent web sites.

What? I love Arch, it’s so god damn stable and fast.

Did you know that Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all have laws against hate speech, harassment, and discriminatory expressions targeting protected groups. For instance, Norwegian law prohibits public statements that threaten or insult someone, or promote hatred based on factors like ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. At the same time they consistently top indices like the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom index. I’m not saying that your comment is threatening or anything, but it doesn’t seem very important to me to protect the right of someone to use a crude derogatory like “tankie” (a word with parallels to terms like “pinko” and “judeo Bolshevik”).

Last time I checked, there were other good ones as well. Any new kids on the block?

Could you perhaps share any authors, works, blogs or whatever in English that critique Chinese politics in the manner you’re describing?

Edit: Let me rephrase after having done some searching. If Marxists wanted non-Chinese government and non-CIA funded information about the conditions and struggles of Chinese workers, where would be a good place to find it?

Thank you for the interesting answer. But seeing as you had to actually live there to get this impression, aren’t you being a bit strict on who’s (adult) left? Between western and Chinese propaganda, and a lack of [access to] Chinese critical sources, I think it’s incredibly hard to know what’s what without actually visiting. I mean, you can read a lot of Marx, Lenin and Mao, as well as contemporary critical theory, development studies, political economy and so on, without feeling like you’re able to get a clear view. I know I don’t.

How are you so sure? How do you see beyond western and Chinese propaganda and get to a semblance of truth? Genuine question.

You got me. Nice one, funny person.

No, foreign bases does not an empire make. If that was the case, watch out for Bangladesh. This dick measuring between nation states is unproductive and serves to legitimize imperialism itself. Rather than comparing oppressions, our focus should be on understanding and opposing the global system that enables imperial powers to divide and exploit working people worldwide.

4 Chinese bases, as compared to 800 or so US bases. And what is the death toll of Chinese military interventions since the second World War? Not sure, but it certainly isn’t racking up to the millions upon millions killed by US foreign intervention. Like the other commenter is saying, don’t support nation states, good on you. But doing bothsidesism and false balances when talking about Empire is absurd. Like calling US empire ‘less problematic’ 🤡

Sorry for being snarky… Of course modern China is an empire. Just without overseas military bases. A soft empire, one might say.

The vile Russian Empire, with its Romanov dynasty, super problematic. If Peter is so great, why does he look so wimpy compared to Joe Rogan? Hah, those stupid tankies don’t even realize the Chinese empire has been abolished for over 110 years!

So true! All the peaceniks yapping about the a bomb, flowers and trees are just pinkos. I heard a guy call for ceasefire in Palestine the other day, and I screamed to him: “Fuck off to Iran, if you like it so much”.

How so?

All my friends fucking love slanted spiral channels with periodic contraction-expansion arrays.

Fuck bottoming for Biden and Trump. If you vote Biden, you’re enabling genocide. Kind regards, rest of the world.

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In the case of capitalism, we are actually speaking about coercion, though. The concept of “primitive accumulation” (or “primary accumulation”), as introduced by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy, refers to the historical process that led to the formation of capitalism by separating the producer from the means of production. This separation is what ultimately pushed people into the capitalist labor market, making them dependent on selling their labor to survive. The coercive forces that pressured people into capitalism and the labor market can be understood through several key mechanisms:

1. Enclosure of the Commons: In England and elsewhere in Europe, land that was previously held in common for collective use by peasants was enclosed, privatized, and turned into private property. This process forced many peasants off the land, depriving them of their traditional means of subsistence and making them dependent on wage labor.

2. Colonialism and Slavery: The expansion of European powers into the Americas, Africa, and Asia involved the appropriation of land and resources, often through violent means. Indigenous peoples were displaced or enslaved, and their resources were extracted for the benefit of European capitalist economies. This not only facilitated the accumulation of capital but also integrated various regions into the global capitalist system.

3. Legislation: Laws and regulations played a crucial role in this process. For example, the series of laws known as the “Poor Laws” in England were designed to coerce the unemployed and poor into working for wages. These laws restricted the movement of labor and made it illegal to refuse work, effectively pushing people into the labor market.

4. Destruction of Alternative Economies: Pre-capitalist forms of production and exchange, such as feudalism, communal living, or barter systems, were systematically destroyed or undermined. This was not only through direct coercion but also through economic policies and practices that favored capitalist modes of production and exchange.

5. Industrial Revolution: The technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution created a demand for labor in factories. The rural populations, already dispossessed by the enclosure movements, migrated to urban centers in search of work, further entrenching the wage labor system.

Marx argued that primitive accumulation was not a one-time historical event but an ongoing process that sustains capitalism. It involves continuous dislocation and dispossession to maintain a labor force that has no other choice but to sell its labor power. This process ensures a supply of workers for the capitalist system and maintains the conditions necessary for capital accumulation.

In essence, the transition to capitalism, fueled by these coercive forces, created a society where the majority must sell their labor to a minority who owns the means of production, thereby establishing the capitalist labor market and perpetuating the cycle of capital accumulation.

Gnomes, you say? There goes my night.

As a VIM user, I approve.