This is a documentary about Shenzhen, the biggest growing metropolis in the world, and it did so through the hardware market - the open-source hardware market that is.
Basically, Chinese employees from western tech companies exploiting their cheap labour, quit and 'stole' (i.e. justly appropriated the products of their own work) the designs of the stuff that they were producing and created their own companies where they made the same products cheaper.
Thus there are no patents in Shenzhen and no lawyers. If someone makes something, everyone can copy and improve it, which makes it so that any product that appears in the west (like the hoverboard) usually is available here a few good months in advance.
There are still bosses it seems, but most of the ones interviewed were engineers themselves, so they actually work and earn their pay.
Maybe i'm a bit naive, but this seems the closest thing to Communism I've seen in practice, much better than what Mao tried. The only improvement that I'd see would be turning all the companies into cooperatives and have a social safety net. With their technological progress you could see them even reaching local post-scarcity and abolishing money.
I watch it the other day, its pretty good, makes a case for certain theories within market anarchism
Robert Flores
I've been to these markets in Shenzhen. It's just counterfeiting, nothing new. I do applaud them for challenging exploitation, but the problem is these fake goods sellers will never innovate, they are purely parasitical.
Gavin Myers
The hoverboard was invented there, and they do exhibition fairs for people's inventions. And a team of engineers came there from Switzerland to develop their products because it is faster to create new stuff. Innovation doesn't seem to be lacking…
Michael Garcia
Then again, if the prices go down more people can enjoy the products, even if it's the older version.
This also makes me wonder if Western Porky will go looking for cheap labor elsewhere. For example, Africa. But in some African countries China is already there, and industrializing the crap out of them.
Cameron Ortiz
most of the innovation occurs in markets like these, you should watch the video
Easton Gutierrez
Intellectual property is the final stage of capitalism imo. Intellectual property is the easiest kind of property to challenge and all commie / socialist countries should abolish it.
Carter Jenkins
Yeah, China is already losing lots of FDI to even poorer Southeast Asian countries. Apparently a 12-13k a year income is too much nowadays.
Samuel Jackson
I'd like to believe that the CCP is playing the long con and through their thorough understanding of Marxism and historical materialism know that China was too technologically and ideologically backward to bring about socialism, much less communism, before mass industrialization brought about by capitalism.
But more likely than not they're just opportunists shamelessly enriching themselves while pretending to be communists.
Jason Watson
Deng Xiaoping basically says as much.
Kayden Cruz
global communism soon?
Josiah Myers
After the impending economic collapse it's very likely that people will have to adopt socialism or starve to death.
Nathaniel Morales
Technocrat poster being a retard again and being an apologist for capitalism, nothing new
Nathan Bailey
Yes, the lack of intellectual propety rights is definitely socialistic, but it's just a holdover from the Maoist past. The current rulers keep it because I think it's been an important part of their economic rise, as it essentially lets them steal all the Western tech they want while the Westerners take it like a bitch if they want that cheap labor. As Chinese technology improves, you'll see IP rights creep back in, little by little. It goes hand in hand with private property, which the Chinese definitely have nothing against. So I can't see this as socialistic at all.
Jason White
As if. China just wants to get rich, they know communism now would kill them and send them back 100+ years.
Elijah Scott
China is merely exploiting the African countries. They are going in and making it as beneficial for Chinese countries to get the resources that just sit there.
Joseph Perez
Will there be another uprising in China relatively soon?
Inequality there is endemic, and I've read that labour protests there are quite common but suppressed.
Owen Powell
This so much. I secretly hope that they are still commie, but it could be opportunism.
I know from Chinese people that they do get Marxist theory taught in middle school. I don't know if it's any good.
I can't argue that they are exploiting Africans, but frankly, they're history's most benevolent exploiters.
Jackson Rodriguez
Just ask the Dzungars how benevolent Chinese exploitation is.
Oh wait, you can't, they don't exist anymore! LOL
Christopher Reed
Well I meant contemporary chinks.
Asher Fisher
...
Angel Turner
I think you're not up on your grammar, user. I said contemporary Chinese are more benevolent than any exploiter from this or any other time, including imperial Chinese.
Alexander Phillips
50 cent army with horrific English detected.
Adam Taylor
No, its not communism. Its just not enforcing copyright, and as such information goods are not scarce and not commodities. The production of these products still is capitalistic, and there is still money involved.
Its definately a smart move on the end of the chinese, as they gain nothing substantial from enforcing copyright (companies go there for cheap shit to sell elsewhere) while the chinese themselves get products made by their own people in their own country for their own people, which gives them much more autonomy as a country and limits their import. This is amazing for their economy as they only export stuff, their infrastructure and capital gets build for their with foreign money, so they are booming hard as fuck.
Isaiah Lewis
not him, but there's nothing wrong with that grammar
not quite so much anymore
John Scott
Well its bound to slow down. With the economic crisis and their increase in wages its not surprising their boom is slowing down.
Say about chinas corrupt official anything you want, but the fact that they enforced a more mercantile approach to industrializing with capitalism is very much to the benefit of chinas population.
Levi Carter
I watched it now. It had more of an ancap vibe than anything else. Not communist at all. "If we just get rid of patents, everything will be fine."
However, the parts about lack of intellectual property and proprietary hardware were good.
Carson Lee
Opposed to regular capitalism of course.
Noah Turner
Thus there are no patents in Shenzhen and no lawyers. If someone makes something, everyone can copy and improve it, which makes it so that any product that appears in the west (like the hoverboard) usually is available here a few good months in advance. this makes me extremely happy
Isaac Baker
I would be happy to live in that kind of society I would still vote for the socialist/communist party there, but a society where all businesses are cooperatives and there was no intellectual property or monopolies, would be nice.
Julian Powell
what did he mean by this?
Landon Williams
China IS one of the porkies exploiting Africa. :^)
But yes, I think this is a positive development for Chinese workers. Nice to see them not being complete classcucks for once.
Jayden Lopez
Techno-entrepreneurial utopia. I hope this is not our future as well, although it increasingly looks like it.
Connor Kelly
From the video: Yeah, once you have a society where the meaning of life is to compete in producing more useless gadgets, the poverty looks like a problem of insufficient gadgets. What a world!
Nathan Rodriguez
one has to remember that 21st Century China is the same place that gave us "I would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle."
