• segabased@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Genuinely curious, why are there rich people in China? Or why are the rich allowed to exist?

  • Rowan Thorpe@lemmy.ml
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    19 days ago

    I think I would extend it thus:

    In America, the rich controls the government - to screw everyone else in the country (and sometimes those outside). In China, the government controls the rich - to screw everyone else in the country (and sometimes those outside).

    …and with a bonus few:

    In Russia, the top of the government controls the rich who control the rest of the government - to screw anyone they can get away with screwing while waving the “just remember we have nukes” flag. In Europe, the leaders keep flip-flopping about who they should be screwing so they just take turns footgunning while announcing “I meant to do that”, and then slapping each other on the wrists for appearances. In the UK, the rich and the government take turns visiting the pawnshop with anything that isn’t screwed down, then acting shocked when swathes of the government end up effectively owned by other governments.

  • Bogasse@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    I’m not living in USA but I think people got exactly what they voted for, didn’t they?

    Now the question of it being an educated vote and people being equipped to navigate modern media with modern disinformation techniques is another subject.

    • folaht@lemmy.ml
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      20 days ago

      Not really. The people get only two choices of candidates who are selected by campaign popularity. Those candidates have to raise the money for it by themselves, which means making truthful private campaign promises to their donors while making false promises to the public.

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    Just the fact that financial crimes over a certain amount are punishable by death in China (and people have actually been executed for them) says a lot. It’s a law that literally applies only to the rich because a normal person would never even get to glimpse the amount of money required for execution to be on the table.

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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      19 days ago

      Nobody deserves the death penalty. It’s just cruelty with no benefit for the society. Studies show, time after time, that it has little to no deterrent effect. Its only purposes are either narrow-minded vengeance or preventing a person from being freed once the current government fails.

      That said, I’m all for confiscating all wealth from anyone worth over a billion dollars and placing them under arrest until they can effectively demonstrate they are no longer a parasite on the society.

      • lorty@lemmy.ml
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        19 days ago

        What usually happens in China is that, if the accused cooperates, their death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. Otherwise they are indeed executed.

        • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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          19 days ago

          That’s a bit better, I guess? But then China still executes the most people in the world every year, most of them not even billionaires. How many of them are innocent working-class people framed for something they didn’t do? (Hint: historically that percentage is alarmingly high if you look at other countries). Fuck that shit, countries should abolish executions after their socialist revolution succeeds.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      20 days ago

      The fact that rich people are routinely executed in China is one of the clearest indications that dictatorship of the proletariat has been achieved. And this is precisely why China terrifies the west so much.

      • SirActionSack@aussie.zone
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        19 days ago

        dictatorship of the proletariat has been achieved.

        I think it’s a strong indicator that the political class hasn’t been completely bought (yet) but it doesn’t at all look like a dictatorship of the proletariat even a little bit.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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          19 days ago

          Do tell how Chinese system doesn’t look like a dictatorship of the proletariat even a little bit this ought to be good.