| ▲ | skrebbel 10 hours ago |
| I know little about China, but every so often I meet someone who's rather fond of it (usually a passionate hardcore leftie¹), and says stuff like "in China nobody is unemployed, in China nobody is homeless" because apparently somehow the state provides (bad, but existing) work and housing for everyone. This seems to directly oppose your comment that China has no welfare state. Who is right? ¹) for context, here in NL "America good China bad" is a bit less clear-cut than in the US, where I assume most people read this comment from. That said at least the "China bad" part is still the majority opinion by far. |
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| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I’m a moderate American who lived in China for 9 years. China is a mixed bag, they do some things right (their transit build out, their investments in green energy/tech, healthcare, employment) and some things bad (real estate bubble that makes 1980s Japan blush, environment was in tatters until recently, autocratic, youth job opportunities kind of suck right now, 996, welfare doesn’t really exist). As far as the simplistic “X good Y bad”, those are never right anyways. |
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| ▲ | legacynl 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I consider myself on the left, and I don't think any of those things. Not everybody on the right or left think all alike. YOu can't just assume somebody who is right or left thinks exactly the same as those few interactions you personally had with people from a certain group. To be clear China certainly has homeless people. There actually is some form of welfare state, but often it is not sufficient, especially if you're not party related, and you can only get it in your assigned city/home town. If it's not enough to pay for housing and there aren't any jobs available in your region you're shit out of luck. |
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| ▲ | skrebbel 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I consider myself on the left, and I don't think any of those things. Not everybody on the right or left think all alike. You can't just assume somebody who is right or left thinks exactly the same as those few interactions you personally had with people from a certain group. I'm not sure what you're on about. I was referring to specific unnamed people. I never suggested that their opinion is representative of the left, just that some lefties somehow, to my surprise, seem to think that today's China is a dream state that we should strive to emulate. FWIW, I consider myself to be on the left as well, and I do not think that the China model is widely celebrated on the left (or anywhere in Dutch politics really). |
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| ▲ | Ericson2314 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| As a "softcare leftie", my understanding is that China does in fact have a weak welfare state. I think it's better for pensioners than working-age poor — typical gerontocracy. I think some healthcare stuff exists on paper but it sucks. |
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| ▲ | Fade_Dance 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They also have the hukou system, and migrant workers often do not have the same benefits as native residents. I think that much of the misunderstanding comes from the perception that China has a highly centralized authoritarian government which is all powerful within the state, which is true to some degree, but the regional governments are what effectively "run" most of the state, including things like infrastructure initiatives that most people would assume are state controlled. The big bold State planning also is in fact implemented in different ways by different provinces. Then people put that framework into a western context of states and national government, which isn't right either. There is a lot of power balancing and interplay between the provincial and national governments, and the binding force is the CCP itself which doesn't have a clear western parallel either. | | |
| ▲ | Ericson2314 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Devolving social services to provinces is indeed very American! More than European. | | |
| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | You can move to a new state or city to look for services. If you become homeless anywhere in the USA, you are more likely to wind up in a west coast city eventually looking for fair weather and services. In contrast, in China you can’t just move from your poor village to Shanghai and expect help and to not be harassed by police. They at best will just put you on a bus back to your poor village. Even worse, you could have been born in Shanghai but are still considered an illegal immigrant because your parents didn’t have Shanghai hukou. You can be deported to a poor village that you’ve never been to before. | | |
| ▲ | Ericson2314 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah agreed. I just meant having the provinces operator the services is like here. Hukuo is not like here. (Though there is a funny internet joke that American NIMBYs want hukuo at home.) | | |
| ▲ | seanmcdirmid 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Living in Seattle, I have to admit that I’ve thought of wanting hukou before. We will never solve our homeless problem if the more local resources we apply to it and the better we do, the worse the problem gets (because who doesn’t want to show up to get that free housing). | | |
| ▲ | Ericson2314 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is an advantage of pursuing cheap market rate over insatiable section 8 and LIHTC subsidies, yes. |
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| ▲ | skrebbel 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Appreciate your response, thanks for the clarity. I think whoever downvoted me thought I was being insincere but I really wasn't - it's not a weird idea to expect a country that calls itself communist to have something resembling a welfare state! | | |
| ▲ | Ericson2314 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | A lot of people like to say "China is actually a lot like America" with a big smirk - plenty conservatism - weak welfare state - big - diverse-ish, but with single dominant ethnic group - aging gerontocracy (but that's everywhere) - real estate fetish | | |
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| ▲ | markus_zhang 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| China has very little to do with left except in the names maybe. |
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| ▲ | prewett 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The Chinese State hasn't provided jobs and housing for decades. Their own statistics shows youth unemployment at 19% (August 2025). The struggles of migrants in the cities is well-known. I personally witnessed homeless people in Beijing. Your leftish interlocutors haven't updated their information since Mao Zedong died; Deng Xiaoping starting undoing Communism in 1979 [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| During the rule of the Communist party in Czechoslovakia, not working was a crime, so "nobody is unemployed, nobody is homeless" was trivially ensured by chucking such people into prison. OTOH you had a lot of state-sponsored jobs where you just had to show up, but not necessarily work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense) The Czech offence was called "Příživnictví", which is just "Parasitism". https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C5%99%C3%AD%C5%BEivnictv%C3%... |
