a question about Vietnam

Ive heard mixed opinions on Communist Party of Vietnam or the nation of Vietnam. Some may say it slanders the name of communism, but Ive also heard that communism works well there, people are happy, economy is fine, ETC. ...............SO does it slander the name of communism or is a great communist nation?

Well, in recent years they have been collaborating with the US military in Asia so that the US can “maintain a presence in the Western Pacific and the South China Sea as we have for decades, and we have no intention of departing from that kind of activity.”, if that's saying anything about their commitment to communism.

Well, first of all, nobody here would call Vietnam "communist". I don't want to explain the whole thing, but basically it's in the same situation as the PRC.

Anyway, you could say Vietnam was always less left leaning than people like to assume. After the war, there was a brief nationalization drive to move towards a planned economy, but it didn't work. Their infrastructure was so heavily destroyed, and for various other reasons, they just weren't able to make the shift successful. So from the late 80s onwards, it's been guided by state capitalist principals, very similar to China and Laos.

Right now, if I'm correct, health and education are slightly better than it's neighbouring countries. It's a fairly rich nation, but still relies on foreign investment and cooperation with the west.
The state capitalist model does provide some benefits for it's citizens, like large infrastructure projects, good quality immunization programs, efficient educational system etc.
These things would be harder to find in neighboring countries such as Cambodia or Bangladesh. So yeah, materially, life is slightly better, but they're run by ardent capitalists.

Vietnam offers international capital a region of exploitation that is along the lines of the post-1978 Chinese variety (they have Special Economic Zones-SEZ's), but offer even greater levels of hyper-exploitation and economic liberalism that Vietnam effectively undercuts the hyper-exploitation of China to be attractive to international investments.

There is nothing in the least informative or positive in the Vietnamese liberation war, the Hanoi regime, the CPV. Unless you think the industrial conditions of 18th century Manchester are a stop on the road to communism.

Isn't that basically what Marx argued?

Vietnam is a state capitalist regime which initially had some social welfare. However, poverty there is increasing rapidly and the ruling regime is collaborating with imperialist blocs more and more. They even took some initiative to train foreign forces to combat Maoist revolutionaries elsewhere.

This just reminds me of when my brothers were in high school and I had to tell them their homework assigned was wrong, and that Vietnam, China, and North Korea are a distant cry from socialism. That, and that communism is stateless, which people get wrong all the time.

150-160 years ago, when the productive forces were not very well developed at all, particularly on a global scale.

It's absurd to argue that communists should be proponents of further centralization of capital, further development of the productive forces, further penetration of the law of value when the capitalism we live in is not only ripe for revolution (providing the basis for a society of material abundance), but is decaying and senile from its internal contradictions after having completed the pre-conditions for a communist world a century ago.

The Vietnamese suffered millions killed and maimed and their country was devastated after 25 years of violent revolution and war. If they have decided on a mixed economy as the next stage to socialism, as Marx argued they should, then that is their decision.

Imperialist war is always a horrific crime; but that doesn't mean there is socialism in Vietnam, or anything near it. I doubt the poor peasants and hyper-exploited proletariat in the SEZ's would call it socialism.

Vietnam is a socialist country. You can read more about it here. The fact that they use markets to develop their productive forces doesn't change the fact that the CPV still controls the commanding heights of the economy. Those who say otherwise are idealists who deny the material reality that many countries have built socialism. As a friend put it, they're like people offering mathematical (and theoretical) proofs for why a human cannot run a 4-minute mile; that's interesting because people can, have, and do to this day.

Here's this commanding heights rubbish again - I find myself wondering, are you a Spart? I've only seen Sparts use the "commanding heights are nationalised ergo socialism prevails"-argument. Makes me think of a certain so-called Marxist historian. In reality, though, you're the idealist, who accept the claims of this party because its name has "communist" in it at face-value. Although I've heard this little tangent of yours about the English mile in a 4-minute run, it has little relevancy to the discussion. In fact, your insistence on believing modern Vietnam to be "socialist" is essentially a leap of faith. What do you have to support your position? Is the Vietnam government actually interested in developing world communism, as opposed to managing their own capitalism, developing their trade relations with other capitalist nations, such as China, the United States, so on so forth? Are they just waiting for the perfect moment when all the world has realised that they are finally capitalist, after China corporatised its railway ministry to provide more stock market playthings, and jump out from behind some bush and say, got you all! And suddenly there's revolution? Am I supposed to believe that they were just acting directly contrary to socialism for all these years... for what? Breeding their capitalism? They aren't managing it very well, then !

I actually took the time to read that article. Vietnam is clearly a model social democracy, I would say even more admirable than the constantly praised Sweden or Venezuela, however despite the fact that the CPV cares for it's own lot, allows civil liberties, and has a vibrant welfare state, this does not reflect it's socialist nature. It only reflects the fact that social democracies have become so rare in the modern era that we have forgotten what they look like.

Idealism, I don't think it means what you think it means. Apparently, we change the mode of production by managing it in the same manner but with different intentions. The material reality in Vietnam is wage-labour and commodity production, monopolised (private and state) ownership of productive resources, and market allocation. This is capitalism. And your "analogy" is a sort of false equivalence.

France, too, has indicative planning, which would make it socialist. It's even run by the Socialist Party, which must make it true.

That article is terrible, claiming there is workers' control over the state, which is, of course, ludicrous. But, unfortunately, such claims are quite common from delusional Leninists.

Vietnam is not communist, but it also not quite a modern capitalist state. Vietnam probably has the most developed and reasonably successful welfare state in developing Asia. It is also one of the few countries where the state sector's share of the economy has actually grown in the past few decades.

One thing that makes Vietnam unique, certainly compared to basically all other south east asian countries (with the possible exceptions of Brunei and Singapore) and even China, is that the communist party has very carefully made sure that rising national prosperity is shared largely evenly among as large a group of people as possible. There has also been enormous transfers of wealth from the south to other parts of the country, in a way that has not happened in China from urban centers to rural regions.

This has not quite worked with respect to minorities in the mountanous center, and there are flagrant inequities, but it is striking how mild these are compared to Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. Vietnam has also used its state sector industries to drive the engine of development, although this is strategy that China also shares. However, I think unlike China, most alternatives to the Vietnamese state sector remain quite small (for now).

Completely disagree with Yet Another Boring Marxist, but I appreciate that s/he took the time to read the article!