The “Party” sits above the “Money” in their power structure, unlike most of the Capitalist countries nowadays were (after 4 decades of Neoliberalism) Money is a power above that of the State (and remember, the State is what the voters supposedly control in Democracy, so that means that Money is a higher power than Democracy, which is why many have pointed out that countries like the US are Oligarchies not Democracies).
And, for reference, in Fascism too (or, in fact, all other Autocratic systems) the State sits above Money, so I’m hardly saying that by itself that is enough to make that system good
The real hypocrisy of tankies, IMHO, is that the “Communist” nations they support in a tribalist way still have elites, they’re just not chosen via Money but instead via ability of climbing up the Party ranks (so Cronyism and Sociopathy) whilst genuine Leftwing thinking is about Equality, the very opposite of there being people who get privileged treatment for any reason other than need (that reason being money as in Capitalist system or something else is quite irrelevant in Leftwing thinking)
If you just see them as tribalists wedded to an ideology shaped by a specific kind of elites who use a specific kind of slogans around Equality to support the continuation of the structure that maintains their elite privileges, (which is parallel to what’s done in Capitalism which similarly has the whole bullshit about how wealth is the product of merit to justify discrimination based on wealth) you can understand why tankies would think what they do about China.
They’re still mindless simpleton tribalists, but it’s interesting to understand how using as foundation for ones own judgement an ideology controlled by somebody else without doing at the very least some analysing of it just as easily yields a tankie, a Fascist or a (Neo)liberal depending on which ideological bundle of slogans they’ve unquestioningly adopted.
The “Party” sits above the “Money” in their power structure, unlike most of the Capitalist countries nowadays were (after 4 decades of Neoliberalism) Money is a power above that of the State (and remember, the State is what the voters supposedly control in Democracy, so that means that Money is a higher power than Democracy, which is why many have pointed out that countries like the US are Oligarchies not Democracies).
And, for reference, in Fascism too (or, in fact, all other Autocratic systems) the State sits above Money, so I’m hardly saying that by itself that is enough to make that system good
The real hypocrisy of tankies, IMHO, is that the “Communist” nations they support in a tribalist way still have elites, they’re just not chosen via Money but instead via ability of climbing up the Party ranks (so Cronyism and Sociopathy) whilst genuine Leftwing thinking is about Equality, the very opposite of there being people who get privileged treatment for any reason other than need (that reason being money as in Capitalist system or something else is quite irrelevant in Leftwing thinking)
If you just see them as tribalists wedded to an ideology shaped by a specific kind of elites who use a specific kind of slogans around Equality to support the continuation of the structure that maintains their elite privileges, (which is parallel to what’s done in Capitalism which similarly has the whole bullshit about how wealth is the product of merit to justify discrimination based on wealth) you can understand why tankies would think what they do about China.
They’re still mindless simpleton tribalists, but it’s interesting to understand how using as foundation for ones own judgement an ideology controlled by somebody else without doing at the very least some analysing of it just as easily yields a tankie, a Fascist or a (Neo)liberal depending on which ideological bundle of slogans they’ve unquestioningly adopted.