I know that he’s anti-imperialist and that people say critical support. But my question is what does he do? Not saying anything good or bad about him, I’m just saying from the libs I hear he’s bad and a dictator and he’s evil, people who are decently far left say “he’s far from perfect but worthy of critical support” and I can’t criticize or praise his actions as I know nothing of his policies or history and lord knows looking it up doesn’t help these days
Belarus hasn’t done the reforms that other post-Soviet states have, thanks to him mainly. They essentially still have a command economy, but there is no central planning involved. The public sector is large, many are employed by the state. Privatization hasn’t been done very much at all. The income and income inequality numbers are some of the best in Europe. The communist party has a decent presence in the state assembly too, 11 in the House, and 17 in the Council. The party leadership supports him. And he has made sure to kick out all western NGOs and the like, and keep them out. No subversive influences.
Putin may be better than most western politicians, but Lukashenko seems to be much better than Putin overall.
Also, just a little fun fact, the state emblem is the same as the SSR version, besides the hammer and sickle being replaced by an outline of the country borders.
I do wonder why Belarus is never mentioned as AES. I would say it may qualify.
I think we should differentiate between anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal, state capitalist, and actually socialist. Some overlap but not always, and there’s nuances (state capitalist in the socialist sense and state capitalist in the Keynesian sense, for example).
Good point.
What countries would be state capitalist in the socialist sense though? Many call China state capitalist, but from a socialist perspective, it isn’t.
State capitalist is kind of a meaningless term, what matters is which class holds control over the political and economic system.
So some of the nordic states might have a comparatively high degree of state ownership and employment (compared to other capitalist states
), while still having a capital stand above the politics and economy.
Whereas in China, Cuba, Vietnam, the communist party stands above the economy and directs it via X-year plans.
Lenin’s quote on the distinction is good, and probably the main reason we should ditch the term altogether.
Hm? I thought they qualified exactly as that, state capitalist in the Leninist sense (compare to NEP)
Right, I figured it was so, that would make sense. “State capitalist” is an odd term to me, so I never use it, but it can fit.
Yea I don’t like saying State Capitalist because righties think that I’m being hypocritical and US left think that it means something else entirely
Is it really the case, if around half of the workers work in the private sector? My source is a doc by National Statistical Committee of The Republic of Belarus, page 61.
Second column in that picture is number of people (in thousands) working in state-owned enterprise, first column is total working population.
Some Russian leftist channels claim that privatization has been done more slowly, without “electroshock therapy” like it was done in Russia, and that it still goes on, but it’s info from…2020? so idk how it’s like now.
Link: https://www.belstat.gov.by/upload/iblock/f2e/f2ea58074c86319b0a7542c87ff7a021.pdf
Well, I mainly meant compared to other states. But thank you.