• redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    World you participate in a mild, painless experiment? Would you carefully read Roland Boer’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and then come back here with an honest review? You don’t even have to agree with him. All I ask for is a fair treatment.

      • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Just in case they might read a few lines:

        … This whole framework and its usually unquestioned assumptions produces strange works that seek to analyse China as an emerging capitalist market economy, with a rising middle class that would demand its liberal ‘freedom and democracy’ were it not for a repressive Communist party…. It certainly leads to circular research ‘results’. A good example is the search for ‘evidence’ of ‘democracy’, focussing on grassroots democratic practices. Since the whole perspective for what counts as ‘democracy’ is the rather thin Western liberal notion, they typically fail to find ‘evidence’ and so must conclude that such an absence is due to an ‘authoritarian’ political structure that ‘represses’ such ‘democracy’. You cannot find what is not there, especially when you ignore the reality of a relatively mature socialist democracy.

        … For Chinese scholars, those who peddle Western perspectives and models fall into the trap of yixi jiezhong, seeking to understand China with Western eyes. …

      • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Out of interest, what’s the legality of that? It’s not the same as torrenting, but does anyone know whether there are implications for sharing links to databases?

        • rjs001@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Probably technically illegal but unlikely to result in any action beyond a cease and desist letter to the people running the site I’d imagine

    • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Roland Boer’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

      Thank you for this. I’ve only just read the first chapter, and it’s already eye-opening how it addresses the Western approach to discourse about China.

      • CountryBreakfast@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Its a huge book for me and after reading it I felt like I actually knew something and had a foundation to learn more. The sheer amount of sources and citations makes it possible to really expand your knowledge on these topics in ways many westerners simply won’t.

    • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      I think I’m going to read this next. Do you have any other recommendations on Chinese history, the revolution, socialist development or honestly anything China related?