MelianPretext [they/them]

There’s the ideological reasons that all historically conscious leftists know about and while they were the pretexts for the split, I’ve come to the position over time that they don’t represent the core issue that initiated it. As such, there’s a fundamental relationship dynamic that should be clarified before anyone gets into studying the deeper weeds of the various grievances that propelled the split. This dynamic is also the principal lesson of value to AES and socialism today which to learn from in preventing such a catastrophic inter-fraternal relationship rupture from repeating itself under the same lines.

As a background, I would argue that the fundamental problem with the entire Comintern movement post-WWII was that it took the system of democratic centralism from the state level to the inter-state level. This was driven by the noble goal of finally breaking down the petty national divisions that bound human society for all of its existence through grasping the historic opportunity presented by the 20th century socialist revolutions and the historic atmosphere of internationalism.

The problem is that, in practice, inter-state democratic centralism led essentially de facto to the leadership of the socialist bloc by the first worker’s state, the USSR. This would not be so intolerable if it weren’t for the coincidence that nearly all socialist states that came into existence after WWII, with the sole exception of the DDR, were countries that had been the historic victims of colonialism and imperialist control where the indigenous populations had always yearned to finally take control of their own nations. This was true across the socialist world - of Poland, of Czechoslovakia, of Yugoslavia, of China and of the DPRK. The socialist revolutions were therefore also simultaneously struggles for national liberation. For these countries to win their independence and sovereignty - only to immediately be expected to subsume themselves under Comintern democratic centralism as led by the USSR - posed a serious tension that eventually snapped to catastrophic consequences. Comintern internationalism and inter-state democratic centralism were therefore arguably noble ideas, yet also ultimately idealistic, utopian and unfortunately ahead of their time. Implemented in the context of the mid-20th century, they could only end up clashing with the historical conditions of the USSR’s new fraternal socialist partners.

No Soviet leader seems to have truly ever grasped this contradiction, including Stalin. The split with Yugoslavia, through his quite heavy-handed attempt to depose Tito within the CPY and then expelling Yugoslavia from the Comintern, was one of Stalin’s actual and serious errors. Kate Hudson’s work “Breaking the South Slav Dream: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia” argues that this was all precipitated by Tito’s refusal to submit to Soviet supervision of its foreign policy under Comintern democratic centralism. MLs of the day largely sided with the USSR and denounced “Titoism” for its introduction of market forces as a horrifying betrayal. Tito’s refusal to submit to democratic centralism (i.e. the CPSU) was then portrayed as akin to Trotsky’s own actions. Obvious, given the conditions of AES today, principled MLs are more sympathetic to the aims of the CPY, but the Yugoslavs at the time were virtually ostracized. Yugoslavia was then isolated from the entire socialist bloc with all Soviet aid withdrawn and it is alleged by Hudson that the CPSU promoted several purges in the other Parties in Europe to remove “Titoist sympathizers.”

This inevitably forced the SFRY to turn to the West and exacerbated its experiment with market socialism, which the USSR denounced, into an outright submission to Western capital in many aspects in order to receive desperately needed assistance for its post-war reconstruction, introducing various institutional contradictions that would later culminate in the IMF debt spiral that the SFRY found itself in the 1980s. The refusal by the CPSU to allow Yugoslavia to propose a Balkan federation with Bulgaria was also perceived by the CPY as Moscow’s fear of an enlarged socialist state becoming a rival within the Comintern. The situation deteriorated to the extent that the West’s scaremongering tactic of the week became that of the “imminent Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia.”

The fracture between the CPSU and the CPY echo the later Sino-Soviet quite tellingly and this is likely by its nature indicative of a general defect in Soviet inter-socialist state policy. In 1989, Deng gave an extremely frank speech to Gorbachev during the latter’s state visit on the history of Sino-Soviet relations from the Chinese perspective and he himself characterized it like this:

I should say that starting from the mid-1960s, our relations deteriorated to the point where they were practically broken off. I don’t mean it was because of the ideological disputes; we no longer think that everything we said at that time was right. The basic problem was that the Chinese were not treated as equals and felt humiliated. However, we have never forgotten that in the period of our First Five-Year Plan the Soviet Union helped us lay an industrial foundation.

If I have talked about these questions at length, it is in order to put the past behind us. We want the Soviet comrades to understand our view of the past and to know what was on our minds then. Now that we have reviewed the history, we should forget about it. That is one thing that has already been achieved by our meeting. Now that I have said what I had to say, that’s the end of it. The past is past.

More contacts are being made between our two countries. After bilateral relations are normalized, our exchanges will increase in depth and scope. I have an important suggestion to make in this regard: we should do more practical things and indulge in less empty talk.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1989/196.htm

The Soviet policy of Comintern and socialist bloc leadership through a form of inter-state democratic centralism by design prevented the treatment of fraternal states as equals. There was already the power, resource and economic asymmetries between the USSR and every other socialist state that prevented any claim to equality on material grounds and all of that combined with such a policy meant counterparts like Yugoslavia and later China found it difficult to see the relationship as one between equals. Given that the USSR’s socialist partner states were nearly all countries with histories of national subjugation and thus had a particular desire to be treated as a sovereign and independent polity for once, the potential for relationship conflicts was, in a sense, inevitable and such a dynamic of “inequality” was what Deng himself identified as the actual root problem that defined the Sino-Soviet relationship.

To that end, it could be argued that the USSR carried through with such a mentality all the way to the very end with Gorbachev, who completely went over Honecker’s head to discuss the terms of selling out the DDR to Kohl and the US directly, something that Honecker’s memoirs written in jail (after being sold out by Yeltsin who allowed him to be extradited from Moscow to the former DDR in a perverse BRD orchestrated show trial on his “crimes”) bitterly recount.

This makes sense on multiple levels, both from an ideological level and also from a pragmatic standpoint.

This end of detente visibly began with the demolition of that Unification Arch a while back and pausing the reconciliation initiatives like the “unified Korea” Olympic teams since the 2010s. This recent turn away from the goal of “unification” is a rather important ideological step for the DPRK because that aspiration, while noble, had always risked putting the cart before the horse, as the history of 20th century socialism showed.

In the DDR, the desperation for “unification” highlighted by the reception to BRD Ostpolitik prevented the development of an independent national identity. This meant that when capitalist restoration succeeded, the DDR was unilaterally annexed into the BRD by Kohl, who infamously managed to warp the “We are the People” protests into a “We are One People” color revolution. Any semblance of bargaining power for these “one people” of the DDR disappeared with the state. There was then the disgusting phenomenon of BRD landlords swarming into the former DDR to reclaim their “old” property and land, a kind of “Nakba” narrative except the fascists were the ones holding onto the keys. The DDR is a cautionary tale that unification cannot be done at any cost. In truth, it would be better for the Korean peninsula to be permanently fractured for the foreseeable future if the only alternative for the DPRK is a DDR-style “unification.” As such, it wouldn’t hurt to ideologically de-emphasize the concept of “unification” within Korean society, which ending this detente will contribute towards.

From a pragmatic level, there is actually little benefit for the DPRK to maintaining relations with the current regime in South Korea. Its present leadership has completely embraced South Korea’s vassal status not just to the US but also doubly to Japan, surrendering unilaterally on longstanding issues like comfort women and just this week inviting Japanese troops to be stationed on Korean soil without requiring its legislature’s permission. This disregard for South Korea’s dignity is plainly to forcibly bind South Korean foreign policy to the US-Japanese military bloc in the New Cold War. Remarkably, this is happening under a Korean Milei who won the 2022 election by a mere 0.73% - who has eliminated any South Korean foreign policy autonomy through the stirring electoral mandate of a 247K vote margin of 32.5M.

Given this context, the DPRK faces minimal downsides in reducing relations. This opens the door for future engagement if a more reconciliation-focused leader, similar to Moon Jae-In, comes to power. In such a scenario, the DPRK could easily propose reconnecting severed ties, including these literal severed roads, which would generate positive headlines in South Korea for that counterpart’s approval ratings without making significant concessions.

Given the scale of what took place and the response from the West not just to dismiss it but to justify and even celebrate it; given that this act of terrorism occurred exactly a week from 9/11, I think it’s time to finally talk about 9/11 and though, yes, while inserting the two decade boilerplate about condemning terrorism and recognizing the innocent lives lost, to assess what it really meant.

Who “won” after 9/11?

It has been said endlessly in the two decades since 9/11 that the attacks that day permanently ended the unipolar euphoria of the US Cold War victory: it derailed the consolidation of US unipolarity by diverting it into two decade-long West Asian entanglements. Especially nowadays with the US unipolar status in complete disarray, you frequently see US policy makers and the Washington think tank blob cry crocodile tears about what a “gift” 9/11 was to China. This is not necessarily untrue, Bush had been priming for a confrontation with China even as he allowed its entry into the WTO. Then 9/11 happened and it wasn’t until Obama, exactly ten years later, that finally formalized the policy shift of the "Pivot to Asia,” which due the innumerable contradictions of US hegemony forcing it to react to Europe and (once again) West Asia, is still a “work in progress” in the present day.

The US fixation with its West Asian conflicts did allow China a breathing space for much of an additional decade until Trump finally took the US jumping with both feet into the New Cold War. Though there was always the Washington think tank cope as the US got bogged down that the puppet Afghanistan project was actually a 5D chess move that would allow a US presence right on the doorstep of Western China and meant the two decade occupation would allow the US to have its cake and eat it too, the total rout of the US with its 2021 Saigon moment nullified even that.

There used to be rather infamous op-eds from NYT and what-not, once the 9/11 self-censorship taboo faded a little, asking rhetorically if “Bin Laden won?” From the perspective of US unipolar hegemony, it does look like the attack did an incalculable damage not through the event itself but the US outsized reaction to it. However, is US hegemony really what matters most to the US political ruling class, “über alles?”

The specific attacks of 9/11 didn’t attack the elementary schools, they didn’t attack LGBT clubs, they didn’t attack parades; Americans would target those places themselves. They attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. If the other plane didn’t crash land in Pennsylvania, the consensus based on its DC bound flight path after two decades is still that It would have likely been flown into the White House or the US Capitol building. As such the targets were principally the financial elite, the military elite and the political elite.

There was supposed to have been a precedent set with Pearl Harbor that the United States was never to be attacked, or in Roosevelt’s own words in his “Day of Infamy” speech: “will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.” The consequence for Pearl Harbor was the two nuclear bombs and the permanent semi-occupation and vassalage of the perpetrating Japan to the present day.

Pearl Harbor: the previous attack on “America”

As Daniel Immerwehr wrote in “How to Hide an Empire,” in the eyes of the US political elite like Roosevelt, an attack on Hawaii, nearly 5000 miles from Washington DC, was more of an opportunity than a threat to themselves. Not only that, in the just recently forcibly annexed settler-colonial holding of Hawaii (still not a state) far from the continental US, there was a chance that the average American also would fail to see it as a threat. As such, Roosevelt’s draft edits allude to an anxiety that the American people wouldn’t get it at all:

[…] when it came to Hawai‘i, Roosevelt felt a need to massage the point. Though the territory had a substantial white population, nearly three quarters of its inhabitants were Asians or Pacific Islanders. Roosevelt clearly worried that his audience might regard Hawai‘i as foreign. So on the morning of his speech, he made another edit. He changed it so that the Japanese squadrons had bombed not the “island of Oahu,” but the “American island of Oahu.” Damage there, Roosevelt continued, had been done to “American naval and military forces,” and “very many American lives” had been lost. An American island, where American lives were lost—that was the point he was trying to make.

Roosevelt insisted: “Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.” Yet taken from the eyes of the American ruling class, Pearl Harbor, in comparison to 9/11, is respectively akin to someone setting your front lawn (which you just expanded in size by forcibly seizing from a neighbor) on fire compared to literally coming for your jugular with a knife. You can see someone setting your lawn on fire as the greatest possible threat to you only if you can never even conceive the possibility of someone being able to take a blade to your throat. The greatest threat to the ruling class was supposed to be just to their way of life, not to their very lives themselves.

The Unthinkable becomes Thinkable and the Impossible is actually Done

9/11 not only negated the historical meme that Americans propagandized themselves with that “they were geographically gifted” on their stolen continent and “untouchable,” buried under lines of defence from enemies with territorial meat-shields like Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Britain, Western Europe and West Berlin that would-be adversaries would be forced to chew through first like layers on an onion; it also struck at not principally the working class masses but the literal elite themselves. Generations of American imperialism was supposed to have created an utterly vast breathing space and this “lebenstraum” was meant to make the continental US on which the US ruling class inhabit untouchable.

Even in the scenario of “World War 3,” so long as it remains conventional, in the geo-strategic calculus of the US ruling class, those immense territorial meat shields that it set up (for China: the first island chain, then the second, then the third; for Russia: the former USSR territories like Ukraine, then the former Warsaw Pact NATO, then Western Europe) mean that it would take a “World War 4” for a conflict to conceivably reach the continental US, let alone threaten the elite themselves who could scurry into their bunkers in Cheyenne mountain if things get too hot.

9/11 cut past all of this calculus like a hot knife through butter and brought the truly utterly unthinkable to realization, not only was the US squatter state on occupied Turtle Island subject to attack but the ruling class themselves were the ones specifically targeted. It’s like the hierarchy of needs where you never realized, through your privileged material conditions, there was an even lower base on the pyramid of your needs that you had been always standing on and which could be pulled out from under you.

This is the reason for the overwhelming and psychopathic US military response and the two decade commitment to devastate West Asia. The lesson needed to be taught that that what was make thinkable and possible must be made unthinkable and impossible again. Of course, there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, but though the emperor was revealed to have no clothes, the world needed to be made to pretend he was still fully clothed - at gunpoint.

Through this, it didn’t really matter whether Iraq and Afghanistan could be built into stable client regimes to service US hegemonic interests, but that as much devastation as possible should be done so that every time someone glances at the misery of contemporary Iraq and Afghanistan, they would link it to the US and think that “this all happened because 9/11 attacked the US.” By such aims, the bigger the bloodbath, the better. Through this, the US ruling class really did achieve their goals, despite the ultimate failure of both invasions and occupations.

The Contradiction of Life and Way of Life

Does all this mean that the much bemoaned “wasted decade” for the US is actually a rare species of camouflaged victory if you look further into it? No, that would stretch the provided thesis too far. What the US reaction to 9/11 shows that there is a contradiction between the interests of US hegemony, which benefits all Americans through the dividends of its financial imperialism and the interests of the US ruling class, which benefit only itself and its preservation, which 9/11 was experienced as a startling reminder to them.

That there exists a distinction between the two, though in normal times both are aligned and in near perfect sync, is what 9/11 exploited and the US response has shown to exist more clearly than in any other moment in American history. The outsized retaliation by the ruling class to reassert their “untouchability” through the “counterterrorism decade” was actually a net negative for both normal Americans and for the system of US hegemony, but the ruling class did not care because 9/11 was what shown them that - when forced to choose - their individual life were more important than their way of life.

To put it in analogy, this is akin to a business owner unhesitatingly sacrificing the profitability of their own business, making it far less competitive to rivals, by a fire sale of assets and diverting earnings to pay for their own emergency surgical procedure. At that point, to that individual, there are bigger things at stake when made to realize they are forced to choose, even though what normally matters is their business and it suffers through this opportunity cost. Becoming cognizant of this contradiction is the most revealing lesson of the US response to 9/11.

I’d say this sort of ouroboros-esque argumentation that MMT proponents throw out arguing that people who disagree simply “don’t get it” and need to “read MMT theory” to “enlighten” themselves on the “logical” nature of it is certainly one aspect that propels me to the skeptic position towards the pitch. I have indeed read Hudson and actually I went out of my way to search for his ex cathedra comments about it. He seems personally supportive, from what I gather, and if so, you could ring that up as a right-hand constituent of his 70%/30%. Given his anti-Stalinist asides, I’m satisfied with having some disagreements with him.

His assessment of the global subsidization of US dollar hegemony shows that no currency is an island and this is something maintained by geopolitical coercion. This is the primary contradiction that makes a Gordian knot of any US currency sovereigntist schemes like MMT and the overall condition of US dollar hegemony. As it turns out, dollar hegemony is turning out to be a two way street turned single-way only by the traffic cop’s gun, and the implementation of domestic MMT-derived monetary policies will press upon further necessity for the US state to preserve the external status quo and coerce its involuntary creditors to further subsidize the American “monetary sovereignty.” To assert otherwise, that one can print as much as they want for the domestic market without external spillover is rather laughable as it maintains idealism over the materialist outlook, as this scheme under other names has taken place before. Reaganomics at home to rescue the domestic economy was ultimately paid by those economies abroad, to disastrous consequence for the likes of Japan.

However, the technical feasibility of MMT is secondary to my rejection of the pitch. It is, in plain terms, it is a new FDR style New Deal. Appetizing for your progressive liberals and your social democrats, but something entirely objectionable as a ML. It is to put a lipstick on a pig and to, once again, claim that an ever more perfect capitalism is preferable than socialism, suppressing the latter through material financial appeasement. This is why MMT proponents range from Trots like Hudson all the way to mainstream US economists like Kelton. The etiological base of support for an economic policy, the people that proponents stand beside and their fellow travelers says rather a lot. As for Marxists, I recommend reading “Modern Monetary Theory: A Marxist Critique.”

How MMT compares contra to neoclassical slop is something I care not for, as to that end, why not go one more step and compare how superior MMT is to feudal monetary economics or the currency price controls of Diocletian in the 4th century? How non-Marxist economics incestuously iterates upon itself to spit out its newest take is immaterial and in that sense, MMT is plainly the new rendition of Keynesianism, meant to plagiarize socialist theory to plaster onto a model of a “reformed, more humane and egalitarian” capitalism. Socialism is the alternative to which MMT must be compared to and in such a comparison, it’s the two century old Proudhon argument dusted off and brought out from the museum display: that the only real problem with capitalism is the monetary dynamics.

One thing I will concede is that I have no doubt that if exigent pressures, similar to that during the post-Depression era, were to resurface, this MMT would absolutely be very likely enacted as a concession to curb the winds of support for socialism. It would follow in those footsteps of FDR just as the New Deal followed that of Wilson’s “every American a homeowner” concession to sabotage the SPA of Eugene Debs.

You don’t have to look too far. It’s exactly what proponents of that “wunderwaffe economic miracle drug” MMT, unknowingly or otherwise, is advocating whenever it’s brought up here.

As I’ve seen it articulated, the problem with MMT is precisely that it’s the modern equivalent of 19th century takes like “This is how you can make the British Empire work to help you!”. It’s the contemporary “FDR New Deal” faustian bargain meant to co-opt the Western left and even the PatSoc chauvinists towards pursuing not any economic alternatives like socialism but an ever more perfect capitalism. There was a struggle session a while back when Roderic Day dunked on the Deprogram co-host JT for a pro-MMT video, which got the latter’s subscribers very upset. I’d actually recommend that JT video for a model representation of how MMT sells itself to the Western left. It’s “rational” and “logical.” All upswing and couched in enough Keynesian economic jargon that the only comprehensible issue with it to the general viewer seems to be just that “the greedy Western political leadership simply don’t want to share the pie,” thus blocking its enactment.

What goes unsaid is that the entire substructure which MMT rests upon is that of American dollar hegemony. The policies of MMT can only function in a jurisdiction where the imposition of such autarkic currency sovereignty can effectively ignore counter-threats of credit ratings downgrade, sanctions, divestment, IMF and World Bank condemnation and all consequential fallout with impunity. The only jurisdiction capable of that, perhaps even in the entire West, is the US alone, through the half century of work it’s done in solidifying its financial hegemony.

When non-imperial core (or wannabe imperial core) countries try to enact it, like Greece under Varoufakis era of the early 2010s, it was condemned by the ECB and the rest of the EU Troika. Greece succumbed to those political pressures, reversed its tracks and instead embarked on typical IMF-proscribed austerity SAPs. The standard of living has subsequently never recovered with current GDP per capita only approaching early 2000s levels.

As such, not only is MMT agnostic of its own basis on the bedrocks of American financial imperialism but it further advocates for the preservation of the current status quo of dollar hegemony through its proposal to trickle down some dividends of that system to the (exclusively American) working class. Therefore, its aim seems to be reeling in those of the tendency in the Western left that drifts towards the “socialism is the best way for gains to be distributed for me personally” in-it-for-myself sentiment rather than those of the anti-imperialist or socio-political bend of Western leftists.

Here’s a translation of the actual statute, which I would rather sift through than read the Western coverage take on this:

Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on the Implementation of a Gradual Delay in the Statutory Retirement Age

(Adopted on September 13, 2024, at the 11th Meeting of the 14th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress)

In order to thoroughly implement the Central Committee’s decision on the gradual delay of the statutory retirement age, adapt to the new demographic situation in China, and make full use of human resources, the 11th Meeting of the 14th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress decides as follows:

Gradual Adjustment of Retirement Age:

Men and Women: The statutory retirement age for male employees will be gradually extended from the current 60 years to 63 years over a period of 15 years. For female employees, the retirement age will be extended from the current 50 and 55 years to 55 and 58 years, respectively, over the same period.

Principles for Implementation: The gradual delay in the statutory retirement age will adhere to principles of incremental adjustment, flexible implementation, differentiated progress, and overall coordination.

Government Responsibilities: Local governments at all levels should actively respond to aging demographics, encourage and support employment and entrepreneurship, safeguard workers’ rights, and coordinate efforts related to pension and childcare services.

Approval of Detailed Measures:

The “Measures for the Gradual Delay of the Statutory Retirement Age” issued by the State Council are hereby approved. The State Council may supplement and refine these measures as needed.

Effective Date and Previous Regulations:

This decision will come into effect on January 1, 2025. The provisions regarding retirement age in the “Interim Measures on the Placement of Elderly, Disabled, and Sick Cadres” and the “Interim Measures on the Retirement and Resignation of Workers” approved by the 5th National People’s Congress Standing Committee at its 2nd meeting will no longer apply.

Measures for the Gradual Delay of the Statutory Retirement Age

Guided by Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and in deep implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Congress and the 2nd and 3rd Plenaries of the 20th Central Committee, and considering factors such as life expectancy, health levels, population structure, educational attainment, and labor supply, the following measures are enacted for the gradual delay of the statutory retirement age:

Article 1: Starting January 1, 2025:

For male employees and female employees whose statutory retirement age is 55 years, the retirement age will be gradually extended by one month every four months until it reaches 63 years and 58 years, respectively.

For female employees whose statutory retirement age is 50 years, the retirement age will be gradually extended by one month every two months until it reaches 55 years. National regulations will take precedence where applicable.

Article 2:

Starting January 1, 2030, the minimum contribution period for receiving basic pensions will be gradually increased from 15 years to 20 years, with an annual increment of six months. Employees reaching the statutory retirement age but not meeting the minimum contribution period may extend their contributions or make a lump-sum payment to meet the minimum requirement and receive monthly pensions.

Article 3:

Employees meeting the minimum contribution period may voluntarily choose flexible early retirement, up to three years before the statutory retirement age, provided that the retirement age is not lower than the original statutory age of 50 or 55 for women and 60 for men. Employees reaching the statutory retirement age may also choose flexible delayed retirement, up to three years, with mutual agreement from their employer. The implementation must respect employees’ wishes and cannot involve compulsory or disguised compulsory retirement.

Article 4:

The country will improve the pension insurance incentive mechanism, encouraging longer, higher, and later contributions for higher benefits. The calculation of basic pensions will be linked to individual contribution years and actual contributions, and personal account pensions will be determined based on retirement age and account balance.

Article 5:

The country will implement a priority employment strategy, promoting high-quality and full employment. The employment public service system will be improved, and lifelong vocational training will be enhanced. Support for youth employment and entrepreneurship will be provided, and job development for older workers and assistance for disadvantaged individuals will be strengthened. Measures against age discrimination in employment will be enhanced, and incentives for employers to hire older workers will be introduced.

Article 6:

Employers hiring workers beyond the statutory retirement age must ensure that workers receive fair wages, rest, labor safety and hygiene, and work injury protection. The rights of flexible employment and new employment form workers will be protected, and paid annual leave systems will be improved.

Article 7:

For individuals receiving unemployment benefits with less than one year until statutory retirement age, the duration of benefits will be extended to the statutory retirement age. During the period of gradual delay, the unemployment insurance fund will pay pension insurance contributions for these individuals as required.

Article 8:

The country will standardize and improve policies on early retirement for special occupations. Workers engaged in underground, high-altitude, high-temperature, or especially strenuous physical labor, as well as those working in high-altitude areas, may apply for early retirement if they meet the conditions.

Article 9:

The country will establish a coordinated pension service system combining home, community, and institutional care, and develop an inclusive childcare service system.

Obviously, the 60-55 retirement age has been one of the policies the goons at places like The Economist have long crocodile teared China on and that tantrum had been greatly memed on by leftists. Most 20th century socialist states maintained a retirement age around 55-60. This is a fairly sizeable clawback of a major worker’s concession, there’s no really denying it. The age increases to numbers like 63 and 58 for men and women respectively seem to be anticipating a further second increase to 65 and 60, whereupon the statutory age for white and blue collar working women might be even equalized at that stage (i.e. 55 to 60 for the latter). That is the game played in the West, where they seem to be gradually working their way to establishing the full pension retirement age at 70 with current “stretch-goal” numbers like 67 (US, Germany), 68 (UK).

The immediate one-two punch is the basic pension contribution period increase from 15 to 20 years (5 years) when retirement age increased only 3 years. Beyond the policy measures themselves, I would say that the promulgation of this statute indicates that the CPC believes that the demographic issue, and specifically, the decline in the overall working age population are real and rather serious if they would adjust the retirement age like this, a policy that affects the entire population and thus will have inevitable knock-on effects.

Of course, it’s arguable that this would merely be a bandage solution to artificially boost the working population numbers rather than addressing the root of the problem. If the CPC weren’t currently undergoing through the planned demolition of the real estate sector bubble, I would be seriously concerned at a lack of willingness in addressing, or even identifying, the base causes of the contemporary Chinese demographic issue.

The issue with studying the collapse of the USSR is that everyone has an opinion on it and very few are principled Marxist-Leninist assessments, as K&K describe in the first chapter.

I’d recommend Carlos Martinez’s Why Doesn’t the Soviet Union Exist Anymore? for a brief but updated synthesis of K&K’s work once you’re finished, it helps in hammering in the main points.