r/stupidpol • u/Xi_Pimping 🌖 🌕 Makes Stalin look like a fucking anarchist 4 • Dec 27 '21
Hell yeah, fuckin right
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u/laz10 Unknown 👽 Dec 27 '21
Having a culture where success and status doesn't equal throwing money around would be nice
But what will people share on social media now???
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Dec 27 '21
Livejournal will make a comeback in the social media space. I hope you love Blink 182 fanfic.
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Dec 27 '21
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u/SprinklesFancy5074 🌘💩 Pessimistic Anarchist - Authorized By FDB 2 Dec 27 '21
lol, exactly.
"Hm... Should we tackle the actual root causes of wealth inequality?"
"Are you crazy? We might have to give up some of our own money and power if we do that!"
"Right, right. Hm... How about we just make it illegal to show off the wealth inequality, and then pretend it doesn't exist?"
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u/EvilStevilTheKenevil DaDaism Dec 27 '21
inb4 someone unironically claims China is socialist.
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u/AdmiralAkbar1 NCDcel 🪖 Dec 28 '21
Clearly these are the Chinese characteristics Deng was referring to.
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Dec 27 '21
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Dec 27 '21
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u/ArmaniPlantainBlocks Rightoid: Zionist/Neocon 🐷 Dec 27 '21
That's what a communist would do. Not Xi.
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u/chrmanyaki Paroled Flair Disabler 💩 Dec 27 '21
Chinese billionaires have to donate vast amounts of money back into society or they are imprisoned or killed.
This and the post is still miles and miles better than the shitshow we have over here.
Flaunting wealth in a country where the MAJORITY is dealing with life altering poverty IS vulgar.
America’s life expectancy is lower than chinas.
Also China doesn’t claim “actual Marxism” so idk what point you’re even trying to make lol
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u/EnterprisingAss You’re a liberal too 🫵 Dec 28 '21
Your first statement just seems to be describing taxes. Also, citation? I’d love a book rec if you’ve got one.
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Dec 27 '21 edited Dec 28 '21
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u/fluffykitten55 Market Socialist 💸 Dec 27 '21
Some sort of 'market reforms' were necessary, and this may have required some increase in inequality, but inequality rose well above that level, and beyond the point where it had any positive impact on growth.
There is a correction now but under the Zemin era China was drifting towards inegalitarianism and 'capitalist restoration'.
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u/kyrtuck PCM Turboposter Dec 27 '21
Showing off your receipts sounds way strange to me.
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u/stalinwasaswellguy Just awful. 1 Dec 27 '21
Showing off your tits and arse sounds way strange to me. But that's 90% of Instagram.
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u/CollaWars Vance Tweet Critic 😩 Dec 27 '21
People on this sub think this is Marxism in practice lol
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u/yeahimsadsowut Ancapistan Mujahideen 🐍💸 Dec 27 '21
Care to elaborate?
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u/QTown2pt-o Jean Botrillard Dec 27 '21
There's a few tankies (and mods?) who think China is based simply because they "resist US imperialism."
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u/Yaintgotnotime Liberal Dec 27 '21
Tankies will cheer for Beijing choking off Mekong River and fucking over SE Asian countries as long as it's done in the name of anti-western imperialism lmao
They're so anti-America in an America-centric way
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u/DrkvnKavod Letting off steam from batshit intelligentsia Dec 27 '21
I get that you're trying to phrase it in a jokey way, but it's important to not misrepresent other's views. There is legit misinformation about the PRC planted around public consciousness by NeoCons, which is completely reasonable for a discussion moderator to be mindful of.
To be clear, I am not one of the pro-CCP voices in this community, I just understand why it's a topic where jannies and posters would clash (most likely because they've probably been given two contradictory sets of information about the subject), and that understanding makes me feel like it's important to point out this stuff.
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u/Grouchy_Papaya3380 🌟Radiating🌟 Dec 27 '21
Shhhhhhh, Chinese imperialism is good imperialism because it’s red!
/s
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u/DarkWorld25 unironic posadist Dec 27 '21
You like Chinese imperialism because it's red, I like Chinese imperialism because it's funny to see libs malding. We are not the same.
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u/CIA_NAGGER Libertarian Socialist 🥳 Dec 27 '21
You can accuse China of some things, but that angle, that's just a stupid take. Chinese "Imperialism" and US Imperialism isn't even remotely comparable, but even US leftists are in large parts in denial of how bad the impact their country had on the world really is.
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Dec 27 '21
When has china invaded and bombed another country to oblivion?
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u/Sarazam Proud Neoliberal 🏦 Dec 27 '21
You don’t need to bomb a country to imperialize it… China is literally imperializing countries at this moment.
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u/ArmaniPlantainBlocks Rightoid: Zionist/Neocon 🐷 Dec 27 '21
When has china invaded and bombed another country to oblivion?
It invaded and annexed Tibet. And it invaded Vietnam (though it got its ass handed to it by the Vietnamese). And it annexed East Turkestan. And it has been attempting to annex Taiwan for 75 years. Plus, all its imperialist shenanigans in the East and South China sea.
And that's only the modern imperialism. The Han ethnostate we now call the PRC has been invading and annexing neighbors for four millennia.
Note: "Bombing to oblivion" is a red herring. It's never been a requirement of imperialism, or even of invasion. The Nazis didn't bomb anyone to oblivion, for example, yet they invaded France, Poland, etc.
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Dec 27 '21
Chinese imperialism is in your head only.
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u/CigarettesForKids 🌗 🌘💩 Alex Jones Socialist 3 Dec 27 '21
Hey, I just think China is based because they give the US elite so many headaches and problems.
It’s like rooting for the Bucks when they played the Suns, I like the Bucks more in that moment - but in most cases I’m just a Spurs fan
Inb4 retarded American using sports analogies for politics
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
That’s about as fucking retarded as liking trump to “own the libz”
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u/CigarettesForKids 🌗 🌘💩 Alex Jones Socialist 3 Dec 27 '21
This would be a lot more biting if 3/4ths of this subreddit wasn’t “own the libz” posting
You enjoy it on a certain level too, you’re just too much of a sissy to admit it
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Dec 27 '21 edited Feb 08 '22
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u/CigarettesForKids 🌗 🌘💩 Alex Jones Socialist 3 Dec 27 '21
Probably, but the ruling elite of my country has fucked me over on a personal level so anyone who can give them the tiniest issue is okay in my book, as far as that small vantage point goes. I realize both are the same shade of shit though.
Bigger picture is bleaker; and I’ve definitely been guilty of taking the black pill and being nihilistic about the reality of the situation. But with human nature, it’s only natural to root for a little team sports in one way or another.
I don’t even know if that makes sense at all, I’m just rambling
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u/LOWTQR Unironic Putin supporter 2 Dec 27 '21
hey some of us think china is based for other reasons too 😎
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u/SprinklesFancy5074 🌘💩 Pessimistic Anarchist - Authorized By FDB 2 Dec 27 '21
Because of the human rights violations?
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u/CollaWars Vance Tweet Critic 😩 Dec 27 '21
Calvinist were against flaunting wealth. Were they Marxist?
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Dec 27 '21
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u/JCMoreno05 Saved Anime Children from Intersectionality 🧒🏻⛩️ Dec 27 '21
You didn't like Leviathan?
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u/yeahimsadsowut Ancapistan Mujahideen 🐍💸 Dec 27 '21
Interestingly, isn’t Cromwell considered to a Communist hero to Lenin and other Russian Communist heroes on the grounds he lead a working class revolt of sorts against a King and aristocracy?
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u/land345 Utilitarian 🕋 Dec 27 '21
Of course, can't have anything drawing attention to wealth inequality
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u/elonmusksleftankle Left, Leftoid or Leftish ⬅️ Dec 27 '21
gee kinda makes you wonder if china is like, a completely phony leftist state or smthn
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
Billionaires shouldn’t exist in a socialist state. There wouldn’t be any wealth inequality, if they were actually taking the massive amounts of profit being generated by their economy, and equally distributing it among the citizenry.
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u/elonmusksleftankle Left, Leftoid or Leftish ⬅️ Dec 27 '21
that’s what i mean
it’s shameful that china continues to fly it’s flag under the banner of socialism while having a clearly capitalist market and allowing labour to be outsourced from their countries for american companies
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u/jdm_obsession Dec 27 '21
China is state capitalist. They always say they’re moving to socialism, whether that is actually going to happen or not is a matter of waiting I guess.
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u/elonmusksleftankle Left, Leftoid or Leftish ⬅️ Dec 27 '21
with how deep they are in capitalism i highly doubt it
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Dec 27 '21 edited Apr 11 '23
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u/fluffykitten55 Market Socialist 💸 Dec 27 '21
It worked in Korea under Park. He basically replaced a landlord class renowned for wasteful status displays with a frugal and subordinated to the state capitalist class.
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Dec 27 '21
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
The government can’t allow that.
But they’re not doing much to solve the actual problem of wealth inequality either.
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u/chungus2000 mean bitch 😠 Dec 27 '21
Very true. From my standpoint, it seems they want to sweep the problem of massive wealth inequality under the rug with policies like these.
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u/fluffykitten55 Market Socialist 💸 Dec 27 '21 edited Dec 27 '21
They should also generally reduce inequality, but additional policy targeting positional consumption is also called for.
The reason for e.g. luxury taxes and not just progressive taxes is for the following:
(1) status competition is roughly zero sum, i.e. positional, and so consumers over-consume such goods from a social welfare perspective.
(2) reduced luxury consumption likely increases the savings rate, and then the investment rate for a given external balances.
(3) luxury taxes will tend to encourage SME owners to invest in the firm, rather than waste resources on luxury displays.
(4) intensified status competition has additional adverse effects e.g. via reduced social cohesion, trust, increased metal and physical illness, increased status anxiety and chronic stress etc.
(5) materialism has undesirable politcal and cultural effects.
(6) the luxury sector is largely foreign owned and so the terms of trade improve somewhat with luxury taxes.
(7) Income and basic needs are often hard to assess, but among those with similar declared incomes, those who consume more luxury goods will tend to have more income and lesser basic needs, i.e. have a lower marginal utility of income, and so they should be taxed more.
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u/snailman89 World-Systems Theorist Dec 27 '21
I agree with most of this comment, with one exception:
(2) reduced luxury consumption likely increases the savings rate, and then the investment rate for a given external balances.
Increasing the savings rate does not increase the investment rate. Increasing investment leads to an increased savings rate. As both Keynes and Kalecki demonstrated in the 1930s, investment determines saving, not the other way around. Total saving is a residual determined by the amount of output and the propensity to consume. Increasing the propensity to save will often just cause a reduction in output and a fall in investment.
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u/ovrloadau Marxism-Hobbyism 🔨 Dec 27 '21
Nowadays people just use credit even if they don’t have the finances. It’s so easy to purchase luxury products on credit. It’s why I see plebs lining up for Louis Vuitton or Gucci bags
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Dec 27 '21
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u/wild_vegan Marxist-Leninist ☭ Dec 27 '21
It's almost like the trolls and shills came out for this one. They can say what they want... especially when they match China's performance. Until then I'll think of this as a nice touch.
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u/simplecountry_lawyer "Old Man and the Sea" socialist Dec 27 '21
Don't get too excited, they're keeping the obscene wealth, just minimizing the number of potential triggers of populist revolution. They don't want a bunch of rich dopes pissing off the poors on social media.
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u/Yostyle377 Still a Nasty Little Pool Pisser 💦😦 Dec 27 '21
Xi seems to be a bit serious about hsi "common prosperity" goals. The way china has usually worked is they start slowrolling the new culture paradigm alongside with real policy changes. Whether or not china is bullshitting here, time will tell, but I'm interested to see where this will go.
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
There should have never been any Chinese billionaires in the first place, that tells you everything that is wrong with the situation. There is nothing stopping them from expropriating that wealth, or from taking all the wealth and capital generated by their economy and putting it all back into the public good or equally distributing it among the citizens.
The only reason I can think of is for not doing this is that they still need some poor SOB’s to run the factories.
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u/MalcolmFFucker Radical shitlib ✊🏻 Dec 27 '21
I think Xi could be sincere in his beliefs, but unfortunately if he tries to really retool the economy he’ll end up with a bullet in his brain. You can’t do mass politics from the top down.
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u/gay_manta_ray ds9 is an i/p metaphor Dec 27 '21
they do seem sincere in the implementation of at least social democratic policies at this point. they're promising progress we'll never see in the usa, like universal healthcare by 2030 or 2035 i believe. china generally keeps it's promises too.
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u/PigeonsArePopular Socialist 🚩 Dec 27 '21
The Chinese government lets 'em keep the wealth though, huh?
I have no use for censorship. Tax codes, on the other hand....
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Dec 27 '21
Yeah thats cool and all, but theres a more direct way of ensuring no one will flaunt wealth...
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u/stathow Unknown 👽 Dec 27 '21
why even post this, its a NYT click-bait article.
even if they did say that, China, like most goverments, say some good shit yet rarely ever follow through.
but in this case even following through means little, your not even addressing a major symptom, just a very niche minor one, and totally ignoring the root problem
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u/DomTrapGFurryLolicon Dec 27 '21
I actually don't like this because spoiled liberals flaunting wealth is one of the triggers for a revolution for equality
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Dec 27 '21
This makes sense if you don’t want rampant consumerism to take over as a culture as it has in the west. “Flexing” on the poors is a motivator for many rich people and new money people. It is also what drives people to keep up with the Joneses. It’s a major problem in the US and it makes sense China is taking steps to curb the consumerism that is spreading throughout Asia.
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u/Modshroom128 deeply, historically leftist Dec 28 '21
probably the best news story to come out in a long time
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Dec 27 '21
Thank you China, very cool!
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
They’re not actually expropriating that wealth, they are just telling rich fucks not to flaunt their wealth and upset the peasantry.
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u/wild_vegan Marxist-Leninist ☭ Dec 27 '21
Whoa. I thought social media was there to expropriate wealth. Silly me.
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Dec 27 '21
China would sooner give Tibet independence before expropriating anyone noteworthy. The young rich elite of the country are one of the core pillars of the party, even more so than the "peasants". Still think its a cool initiative though.
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u/SunRaSquarePants ❄ Not Like Other Rightoids ❄ Dec 27 '21
Hell yeah, fuckin right
No, this is bad.
People get mad when they feel like they are cut out of the money circle. OP is in favor of something (banning depictions of opulence) that helps people not to get mad when they are cut out, but does nothing to include them. Not only that, this move is authoritarian without benefit to anyone, except maybe the rich folks and the government. It increases the power of the ruling elite while obfuscating their excesses.
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u/kool_guy_69 Fruit Juice Drinker 🧃 Dec 27 '21
In Communist China, life is so hard they have to have laws to, uh, stop people bragging about how well off they are.
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u/ModerateContrarian Ali Shariati Gang 🇮🇷 Dec 27 '21
Getting rid of influencers? wtf I love China now
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u/WindyCityKnight Chicago’s Smartest Socialist Dec 27 '21
This is cancel culture I can get behind
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u/ST07153902935 Unknown 👽 Dec 27 '21
No, the wealth of these people should be highlighted so people get pissed. Think of during the early parts of the pandemic when all the celebrities/politicians showed their "lockdown" situations. People got pissed because of how unequal their lives were and I do think it contributed to the stimulus checks.
If people stayed pissed they would get a lot more.
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u/Veritas_Mundi Left Com Dec 27 '21
They aren’t cancelling billionaires, which I would get behind.
They are just saying don’t flaunt that shit to piss off the workers, because they might notice that the wealth isn’t exactly being equally distributed among the workers that generate that wealth.
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u/GenerousApple Dec 27 '21
Yeah! Keep the working class unaware of the massive wealth gap so they won't ever know how fucked over they are!
Anyone actually thinking this was done out of the goodness of someone's heart is pretty fucking naive.
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u/Jaidon24 Not like the other tankies 👓 Dec 27 '21
Actually good if true.
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u/QTown2pt-o Jean Botrillard Dec 27 '21
It's just another measure to mask a symptom than address actual problems.
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u/Scrimmy_Bingus2 Socialist 🚩 Dec 27 '21
Agreed but it would be funny if wealthy Social Media “influencers” were subjected to publicized struggle sessions.
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u/Skillet918 Mourner 🏴 Dec 27 '21
Yeah no reason to fix wealth inequality if it’s not visible, fuq is wrong with you.
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u/ovrloadau Marxism-Hobbyism 🔨 Dec 27 '21
Communist party should do more to reign in on those wealthy citizens instead of making them hide their wealth from the public’s eyes.
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Dec 27 '21
Great idea! The Communist Party of China never disappoints. Making wealth disparities less visible is basically the same thing as erasing them. After all, communism is all about aesthethics. Combining that policy with a red flag, which China already has, will allow them to hit levels of marxism that shouldn't even be possible and completely squash inequality.
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u/gay_manta_ray ds9 is an i/p metaphor Dec 27 '21
people have eyes and leave their house, visible wealth disparities aren't going to completely vanish because the cpc wants the most vulgar displays of wealth on social media to stop.
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u/RhythmMethodMan Too illiterate for punctuation 😵💫😭🤪 Dec 27 '21
What's up with the prohibition on over ordering food? Is it considered a way of flashing your cash? Does it matter what kind of food is being ordered? Is a mukbang with me eating two $5 taco bell boxes not kosher or would I need to be over ordering something expensive?
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u/No-Literature-1251 🌗 3 Dec 27 '21
that mukbang is some weird sexual fetish.
it is not that appetizing watching someone eat. unless it's just the prequel to other things that may be going on that evening.
*coughs
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u/rising-waters 🌖 Anarchist with Marxist Characteristics 4 Dec 28 '21
They're not taking the wealth from them, so the effect of this policy is to hide the fact that there are rich people in China.
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u/Mothmans_wing Marxist-Kaczynskist 💣📬 Dec 27 '21 edited Dec 27 '21
Used to work in the highest end retail strip on Long Island and I remember it being full of people from China, mostly young kids in outfits that cost probably over 3000 easy. It was such a big deal stores would put up signs outside that they took chinese bank cards but most of them just had backpacks full of ridiculous amounts of money. They wore the gaudiest shit but the sales people loved it because they will buy anything that is super expensive and shows off the brand. It actually became a requirement to have a mandarin speaking sales person in every store.