what kind of capitalist future will come about can be seen by the capitalist present around the world - geriatric bloodlessness or fascism seem to be the two frontrunners so it'll be interesting to see how the cookie crumbles i think the problem with a modernist kind of outlook of like "these contradictions will inevitably resolve themselves" kind of thing is that it turns out you can just sit in quiet misery as a country for a long time without really collapsing or anything -things just kinda get worse and if you're able to tune out you do it - only big shocks can get you awake I'm thinking fukushima daiichi reactor accident on 3.11 in japan and then the abe assassination. the LDP are truly awful but they're bloodlessly awful in the same way that cancer is awful and heart attacks are awful - what can you do? to return to the topic: no matter what your outlook on china is like, everybody can see the contradictions, but it's down to interpretation whether they're pulling together or apart
I think the thing people aren't willing to accept is that society is an oscillator, not a steady-state. Sometimes it gets in a feedback loop and shoots out of control, sometimes it just hums back and forth a bit around a zero-state. China was never capitalist and will never be capitalist. Russia was never capitalist and will never be capitalist. Europe is capitalist because there's a basic level of self-determinism that's ingrained in the culture - it's more capitalist and less capitalist and there are problems in either extreme but by and large, some form of individual determinism and some form of top-down control are always on the ebb and flow. There's a really good argument for alternative energy right now from a national security standpoint, I don't care what country you are. You can't have those discussions around a fully free market so the socialists get a leg up. Maybe they'll overreach, maybe they'll never have the chance but I think the pendulum is slowing, if not starting to swing back. And it got pushed pretty far this time.