Your example of socialism is a common misunderstanding, one that sees petite bourgeois worker ownership as socialist. The problem is that you abstract an element from the whole. Those that do not work at said cooperative do not share in its ownership, and this creates the rise of class distinctions.

A society where all members collectively share in all ownership isn't a Socialist society, it's a Communist society, which is what we should be trying to move towards. Going from individualist, Capitalist ownership to a worker-owned model with direct worker democracy is Socialist. Of course ideally all workers everywhere would share equally in the fruits of the labor of the entire society, but again, that's Communism, not Socialism.

Thus, organizing in a way that undermines the socialist state undermines socialism. You try to justify it by saying independent organization is “healthy,” but you do not materially justify this. This becomes a moralistic argument, not a materialist one, and thus falls into idealism.

No it undermines State Socialism and specifically, that particular State's Socialist framework, not Socialism as a whole. The whole point of Socialism is to embody worker's rights to both the fruits of their labor, and the governance of their labor. Restricting that is antithetical to Socialist progress.

You try to justify it by saying independent organization is “healthy,” but you do not materially justify this. This becomes a moralistic argument, not a materialist one, and thus falls into idealism.

There is a lot of material evidence for this, I just don't feel like getting a ton a sources together and posting them in a comment section debate on Lemmy. That being said, it is easy to find studies on worker-owned cooperatives and how they outperform traditional firms on the whole. The entire open source software movement is a testament to the robustness of independent Socialist organization against Fascist and Capitalist interests.

You fall even further into confusion when you equate MAGA, a fascist movement within a capitalist society, with the CPC, a communist party within a socialist society. The problem is not political loyalty in general, but political loyalty to fascism or socialism! You equate fascism with communism as equal evils here based purely on the similarity in form being political loyalty to the system. Anyone can see that these are very different systems!

I don't understand what you're saying here at all. I never said MAGA and the CCP were the same. I argued that merely incorporating workers into a national union structure, especially under an Authoritarian State apparatus, doesn't make the society Socialist.

Next, “authoritarian rhetoric.” I support the authority of the working class. I do not support the authority of capitalists or fascists. The fact that I support worker states does not mean I support any and all states that support any and all classes. I support a particular form of state, that being a socialist state. Again, you confuse particular similarities in form abstracted from context for absolute similarities in total. This is a metaphysical error repeated.

Authority is not the same as Authoritarian. You didn't address my core point at all here, which was that the argument that the State must act in an Authoritarian manner in order to reduce the risk of itself being undermined by dissent, is the exact same rhetoric that the US and EU are using right now as they continue to roll out more frameworks for surveillance and control. Unless you are admitting that you have no problem with that, as long as the people you support are the ones who are doing it, which in that case, alright, fair enough. You're in the same rhetorical spot as MAGA supporters who cheer on ICE raids. They love seeing ICE roaming their streets because ICE is, (for now), acting in accordance with their worldview. Of course the actual critique ought to be structural, which if you analyze ICE through that lens, you quickly see that those same agents who are kicking in immigrant's doors and dragging them into vans, will eventually come for the MAGA supporters too.

I am against Authoritarianism because I understand the structural critique. I understand that when any entity, a State, a ruler, a group of workers, is granted a structural framework within their society to act with absolute power, it will always degrade and devolve into every form of abuse we see in the world today. I reject Hobbes's central thesis, humanity is on the whole, cooperative and constructive, not individualist and destructive.

Next, your confusion of marketization as capitalism. We already went over how cooperatives themselves are not socialism, because what matters is the context of the entire system. The capital that exists in China exists only in secondary industries, where marketization plays a progressive role. Critical and large industry is overwhelmingly state owned and planned. If China had a wealth cap, it would not fundamentally change that until production is socialized and collectivized afterwards, there will exist capitalists. However, as long as these capitalists exist within the birdcage set out by the socialist state, they cannot gain political power.

No, I understand that markets are not the same thing as Capitalism, obviously. China embraces Capitalist consumerism, Capitalist GDP growth, Capitalist sector dominance, Capitalist trade, Capitalist work ethic, Capitalist profit motives. They have managed it far better than the USA and most other western nations, but the same can be said for the Scandinavian countries, which are Capitalist. For this reason, I get frustrated watching China succeed so strongly, because it seems like a perfect counter-example to my worldview that Capitalism and Authoritarianism cannot produce long term societal happiness and prosperity. China seems to have figured out, (for now), how to make Authoritarian State Capitalism work. If that remains true in the years and decades to come, then it will be a massive blow against the viability of actual Socialism.

Further, you make completely unbacked and baseless claims of “neocolonialism.” You do not interrogate or substantiate this point. China’s position on the world stage undermines neoimperialism, which operates via IP monopoly, US cultural hegemony, the dollar as the world reserve currency, and US military dominance. Neoimperialism works through neocolonialism. China’s advance in IP destroys the IP monopoly of the west, undermines their military dominance, creates room for south-south trade, and undermines US supremacy, which is necessary for imperialism in the modern era. There is no neocolonialism from China.

China is Neocolonialist for sure, look at what they are doing in Africa. The difference is that China is smart, and understands how to exploit the poorest countries in the world without having to torture and massacre people, unlike most Western countries. I am happy that China is undermining IP monopoly, US and NATO military dominance, and so forth, I am against all those things as well. It remains to be seen if China will actually free people from the evils of IP law globally, I doubt it strongly, but I can dream, same with their military.

The USSR was also good. I will push back on the idea of a “political upper class,” such a term is not founded in Marxist understandings of class but the simple substitution of class for any category. Class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production, administrators in the Soviet Union had equal ownership to any other worker and were paid wages equivalent to skilled laborers.

I don't have the energy or interest to debate the USSR being "good" whatever that might mean to you. You didn't address my main point here either, which was that the USSR was a much better example of fighting the US and NATO on their own (The USSR's) terms, instead of trying to just do Capitalism but better. The USSR's leadership suffered from horrific corruption, especially at the local level, which is what makes it all the more impressive that despite that, they were able to accomplish what they did...the last true adversary to the USA. China isn't so much beating the USA as they are just watching the USA rapidly decay after 50+ years of Neo-liberal, Capitalist cancer. Not to take too much credit away from China, they are absolutely doing things no other nation has ever done in recorded history, which is impressive from a Humanist POV.

Overall, I defend China from a Marxist position, you are attacking it from, at most, an anarchist position.

Bingo, Anarchist here. That explains a large portion of our disagreements.