Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.

It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    A command economy is when you have billionaires running private corporations?

    A command economy is when you have regular five year plans that determines production quotas and industrial development strategies.

    Clearly, they have eliminated capitalist hierarchies

    Have you confused Communism with Anarchism?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        In their willingness to faithfully implement the central economic plan, just like every other economic participant.

        “Capitalism is when people have different amounts of money” is definitely a take, though.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          4 months ago

          Please do show me where in Captial or the Manifesto Marx approves of the existence of private owners of corporations to get extremely rich. You can just quote a passage or two. I don’t remember any of that from when I read them, but perhaps you can fill me in on how the workers are controlling his means of production.

          • viking@infosec.pub
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            4 months ago

            You might as well be talking to a wall. There’s no way in hell you’re going to change a tankie’s mind… I live in China and everybody here knows it’s a capitalist society. The five year plans exist mostly on paper. The government will implement it in the sense of making specific grants available for specific target industries.

            As a result you’ll have a ton of startups in that field popping up, and then slowly burning through the funds over the next 4 years, rinse & repeat. A few companies make it, most just take the cash and die.

            They also change the plans often enough, in reaction to the markets. You know, just like any capitalist regime would.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              4 months ago

              Am I supposed to read the whole thing to find the defense of the billionaires that didn’t exist when he wrote that or do you feel like quoting me a relevant passage rather than make me waste my time to see something that isn’t there?

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  4 months ago

                  In other words, you can’t quote the relevant passage where an ever-increasing number of billionaires who control the means of production is a feature of communism.

                  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    you can’t quote the relevant passage

                    The accumulation of labor power through central management of the capital stock isn’t something you’re going to understand or accept as a single sentence.

                    You want this to be like the Bible, where you can just quote John 3:16 and nod sagely, as though it should be revealed wisdom.

                    But the material is more complex than a bronze age scripture verse.

                    That said, capital accommodation is one stage of economic development. This is the chapter which covers the process of economic development. At some point, you do need a handful of central administrators to oversee productive use of capital. And these administrators will become rich as a result.

                    Marxism doesn’t refute this process, it leverages the process towards Socialist accumulation.

          • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Not explicitly, but implicitly it’s in the link from SSJMarx.

            Marx from the “German Ideology:”

            It is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse.

            And Engels from the “Principles of Communism:”

            Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              4 months ago

              You do know they wrote those passages in the 1800s, right?

              So how long, exactly, was it supposed to take to eliminate the multi-billionaires that didn’t exist yet and didn’t even exist in China until relatively recently?

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  4 months ago

                  Got it. As long as China eliminates the multi-billionaires and private companies within the next three billion years, it will not be a capitalist country.

                  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    Unironically, yes. It’s the INTENTION that matters. Are they striving for communism, or is it just lip service? Only by their actions can we tell.