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Why do so many defend capitalism?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
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That's why I wrote "if done right".
A truly social market economy also has to make sure that workers along the whole supply chain have to get similar rights and treatment as local workers.
Besides that, centrally planned economies (being the opposite to plain free market capitalism), also don't really shy away from exploiting the resources of poorer countries.
(Looking e.g. at imperialistic China here).
China isn’t exploiting anyone. You really need to start questioning what your own empire accuses its enemies of. Previously:
Total Imports 2025 EU / China:
Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products $467.75B / $442.95B
Plastics $68.38B / $56.48B
Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins $56.12B / $118.02B
Articles of apparel, knit or crocheted $53.13B / $3.74B
Articles of apparel, not knit or crocheted $48.56B / $5.79B
Iron and steel $44.08B / $30.86B
Edible fruits, nuts, peel of citrus fruit, melons $31.17B / $20.69B
Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatics invertebrates $29.23B / $19.93B
Rubbers $26.46B / $20.57B
Footwear, gaiters and the like $26.30B / $5.70B
Copper $18.63B / $74.63B
Oil seed, oleagic fruits, grain, seed, fruits $18.63B / $57.02B
Pulp of wood, fibrous cellulosic material, waste $11.87B / $21.98B
So, looking at the absolute numbers, China is eploiting the world's resources in a similar fashion as the old style European Union, so I have to disagree.
I won't comment on the content of your provided reports and youtube videos (of which at least two look a little... juicy... at first glance), as me just providing you with a bunch of counter-reports and videos, whose reliability you would question in a similar way as I am questioning yours, won't change anything.
Country X importing from country Y doesn’t magically equate to country X exploiting country Y. Exploitation is a matter of unequal exchange, and not every exchange is unequal. Exchanges coerced through classical imperialism or through neoliberal debt trap peonage are unequal.
Looking at the top 3 exports of China (by a wide margin before anything else):
Electrical, electronic equipment $1016.58B
Machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers $603.82B
Vehicles other than railway, tramway $248.31B
That's all high price stuff.
Combined with its huge trade surplus, this is a classical "Buy cheap resources - sell expensive highly processed commodities back" scheme, the same as e.g. the uprising European industrializing nations employed as a strategy during their colony exploiting times (and to some degree still do in a similar fashion as China).
No, there is nothing equal here.
Somehow you’re still ignoring how those Euro-American exchanges occurred under duress, at the point of a gun.
Buying raw materials at a freely-agreed upon price, and then applying labor to them to create a finished good, is not exploitation. No one was coerced into anything.
Where are China’s guns? In China. The US has over 800 overseas military installations, while China has one, an anti-piracy port in Djibouti.
But that free international market argument applies to all (well, most of all...) countries, which is exactly my point. Modern China is as exploitative as any other highly developed modern country, independent of economic system.
Sure, as long as you insist on misdefining exploitation in that way, then by your self-serving definition, modern China is just as exploitative as the imperial core.
That’s the definition the imperial core wants to promote, because if they can’t look good, they can at least claim that their enemy is just as bad. But the majority of the world isn’t buying the hogwash that the always the same map minority is pushing.