one american pdf member ( peter c, i think ) had said that usa's system ( at least some of it ) is more socialist than china and russia... i can't say about russia because it is more involved in international affairs than china.
me and that american member were talking about housing and welfare system... and one chinese member recently surprised me by calling housing a commodity ( rather than as a free right )... also, some chinese members earlier have boasted about china having housing that are among the costliest in the world and some chinese cities being the costliest... a strange celebration for a nation governed by a communist movement !!!
Most western countries are for sure more socialist than Viet Nam amd China, especially the nordics and the commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, NZ). I think it comes down to the social ethos of those countries as well, right down to the individuals and not just the government that has “socialist” characteristics. From my personal experience, western people are alot more communitarian, kind and good hearted than VN and the east asian countries. Even just small things like a stranger holding a door for you, its common in western countries but rare in VN, hell, people will push you out of the way to get to the door first lol. Western people has a lot more empathy for strangers than Asian in general.
People say Asians are communitarian and Westerners are individualistic, but that is BS imo. Asians are not communitarian, they are “clannish”, meaning they only look after their family and friends. They will treat strangers in a dog-eat-dog world mentality, not communitarian at all. That’s why I’m not surprised that surveys show Viets and Chinese loves capitalism more than westerners. And I’m not surprised that most western countries have more socialist characteristic than VN or China.
Oh, did you know that in VN, workers can’t create their own union? The “unions”, by law, must be under the control of the govt. It ain’t a real workers union if the workers can not be in control. Here’s the funny bit, the US is now trying to pressure the VN govt to allow workers to run their own independent union. So a capitalist country telling a “communist” country how to run unions properly.
vietnam government has effectively put vietnam into a anti-china nato alliance, along with other regional players like singapore, india and australia... this is not so much a battle of ideologies as much a nationalist battle... you hinted to this.
I blame this on the PRC government. They pretty much pushed/scared the neighbourhood into the western camp.
so there is a chance to what you said may happen to vietnamese leftists, because it seems that, just like in china, the single-party governance is more for national unity rather than being in a east/south bloc.
by the way, does vietnam government have links with north korea??
Yes, I dont regard the the Viet government as a real communist government anymore. I think I am the only real Vietnamese socialist in this forum.
Viet Nam still has diplomatic ties with NK. There are NK resturants in Viet Nam, run by real NK people. I am not a fan of the NK regime.
maybe... because we don't hear of hardline communist members of cpc or the pla giving hardcore statement against western capitalism/imperialism..
hopefully, the chinese socialists will strive to louden their voice.
Ive never heard of any real Chinese socialists. All I see are nationalists. Even Bo Xilai was once hailed as a true Chinese conservative socialist/maoist. But we all now know what his true color is. So dont hold your breath.
Well written post!
Indeed it's interesting to observe these phenomenon in supposedly communist countries like China and Vietnam, where in practice except the form of government there is hardly anything socialist any more.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I think it depends on the social ethos, the individuals and not the govt. VN is not a communitarian society, it is a “clan” based society where your clan are your family, friends and business connections. Within your “clan”, it is “communitarian” I guess. But outside your clan, it is pretty much a dog-eat-dog world. This is not a kind of society where socialist/communist values can flourish. It is a perfect society for capitalism.
Would you say this is true for the Chinese society as well?
I suppose the neo-socialists, if I may describe them that way, are "angry" at income gap, and social divide. That's why a majority of them are young, and being the have-not's, since in an ideal socialist utopia everybody have equal wealth. In their perspective, NK and Cuba (that might be why Che is so popular) retain much more fundamentals of socialism, people are more "equal" (they ignore the fact of equally poor), than China & Vietnam.
Interesting. Thanks for explaining. So just like what I thought, they are not really real socialists, but just using some socialist/communist rhetorics to “get even”.
Comparing with China, I think Vietnam is moving faster in liberalism. While to some degree I see China is swinging back left or at least slowing its pace of liberalism especially since Xi took office.
I think sooner or later, they will both end up in the capitalist/liberal path. Cos if thats how society behave, then they will have no choice but to adapt in the long run, imo.
