Horrifying read. I recently read a book about a girl who was pressed into prostitution, and this reads much the same. [1] Before I was convinced that slavery was mostly a thing of the past, how awful to find out this isn't true.
> [US] Federal prosecutors have seized $15 billion from the alleged kingpin of an operation that used imprisoned laborers to trick unsuspecting people into making investments in phony funds, often after spending months faking romantic relationships with the victims.
> China has executed 11 people involved in criminal gangs in Myanmar, including online scam ringleaders. Their crimes included "intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment"
> Chen's case might prove more complicated since the US had seized a large amount of his cryptocurrency assets, but he was now in custody in China.. "If China doesn't cooperate, it will be extremely difficult for the US to investigate Chen."
Yes, I know, but the intended audience can't read 大海.
The chart and the article are both created by Wired; it's strange for them to refer to him one way in the chart and another way in the article.
I'm curious about the ethnic makeup of the "team leader" level. One of them is called "Ted", and seems to also be called 特德 ["te de"]. The 特德 could just be because everyone in the upper levels is Chinese, but the English-language post from Ted shown in the article doesn't really suggest a native English speaker.
Amani doesn't sound like a Chinese name or like the English name of a Chinese person.
As opposed to capitalism, which as we all know works flawlessly. The free hand of the market keeps everything running smoothly. There’s always competition for the benefit of the customer, never collusion. There aren’t just a few bit players controlling everything, everyone has equal opportunity. And of course who can forget trickle down economics, where giving more money to the richest people made every one of us richer.
Capitalism’s most outstanding feature is that no matter how hard it tears one’s asshole, it keeps people begging for more with the false promise that they too one day will have their turn as the selfish oppressors doing the pounding, and that’s a good thing for everyone actually, for some reason.
Is there any ideology applied societally at the scale of those two which hasn’t failed to deliver?
Capitalism doesn’t preach to be a solution for monopolistic behavior of actors that accumulate too much power. It’s a known downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state.
Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. It hasn’t “failed to deliver” in any of those places.
So in other words, communism pretends to solve the problem of power accumulation but doesn't, while capitalism doesn't even claim to do so (and only occasionally even sees it as a problem at all)
> Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc.
Ah yes, the “massive success” where people can’t afford a place to live, struggle to cover basic necessities, are increasingly lonely, radicalised, unhappy, depressed… But hey, at least you can look at cat videos and listen to podcasts all day about how women don’t want to fuck you because of immigrants, all the while enriching a small number of individuals who humiliate you daily and don’t even afford you the dignity of not having to piss in bottles as you’re making them more money they will never spend. Fantastic example of success.
Thank you for demonstrating my point. No matter how much mistreatment there is, we can always count on the defenders coming out of the woodwork to ask for more.
But in this case this is not about politics, it's about local power and local control, and Laos government have very little of either of it. Laos communism and Vietnam communism are very similar, but you don't here the same about Vietnam, because Vietnam is easier to control due to geographical terrain and investment by USSR and china after the vietnam war. Laos still have areas with unexploded personal mines and ammunition (the "joke" there is that US pilots couldn't aim for shit, the reality is that vietcongs used Laos jungle path to encircle US soldiers, and so the US made those path unusable). Laos have way less roads, rougher terrain, and mines. You have basically local feudalism. Imagine colombia, but ten time worse.
Laos is a pretty odd state. I looked up their official news site once expecting to find North Korea style propaganda, but it was instead surprisingly straightforward about a lot of day to day problems.
I also had some contact many years ago with their one Linux/Free Software enthusiast.
My impression is that it's a fairly weak state, and the main reason the communists are technically still in charge is that nobody really wants the job of ruling Laos particularly much.
this really has little to do with communism. after all the vietnam war etc concluded, that area kind of got left to itself by the powers that be.
It's a small country that was given a political system to be a client-state of a hegemonic regional power, and then the hegemon abandoned them, they don't have valuable resources like crude oil or gold, and they end up with underdeveloped state institutions. they aren't really failed states, but more so "unfinished" states
similar examples include belize, papua new guinea (abandoned by australia), East Timor, vanuatu, djibouti, maldives etc. some marxist, some british, portuguese, french, etc
in many of these countries you really can do what you want. belize is not much more than a forestry plantation with 19th century english corporate law and a few bars in the capital ("Belize City").
No, capitalism is about capital owners having control about what is produced and how it is produced, and we have exactly that, especially since Friedman "shareholder primacy" theory, which, at least to me, looks like the ultimate form of capitalism (capitalism != liberalism, which is about markets and exchange, not about production methods).
Communist countries however are never about communal ownership of production method. I think there is reasons for that: communism is not only about production methods, but also about the "march of progress" and other philosophical theories that are more or less dumb (some are very effective analysis tools, some are very less so), and communist leaders pick and choose what they want from it.
It's not. But that the system we're currently under. In a better world, you'd have employees, local government, consumers as well as obligation owners on the companies boards.
Because they created the production; it they couldn't control it then they'd have no incentive to create it and there'd be no non-state-owned businesses, exactly as happened when China was fully communist and still happens in North Korea today. Capital doesn't grow out of thin air just from "working"; the only people who think it does are those who've never tried to build a successful business.
of course people are also resources in this framework, and "something stupid" could be providing insurance/healthcare/pension etc - unless a tyrannical (/s) government forces them to do otherwise
Horrifying read. I recently read a book about a girl who was pressed into prostitution, and this reads much the same. [1] Before I was convinced that slavery was mostly a thing of the past, how awful to find out this isn't true.
1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6515858-slave-girl
Why would a criminal organization that trafficked you into a place where you have no legal recourse ever stop exploiting you?
China executes 11 members of Myanmar scam mafia
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2gdrvy9gjo
China executes four more Myanmar mafia members
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4e9eqz4rxo
They are Ethnic Chinese who were operating scam centers in collaboration with junta at northern area Laukkai.
There are more at shwe Koko area.
Real slavery. The kind I wish the American Left focused their DEI on.
https://archive.is/mCEHR
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/feds-seize-15-bi...
> [US] Federal prosecutors have seized $15 billion from the alleged kingpin of an operation that used imprisoned laborers to trick unsuspecting people into making investments in phony funds, often after spending months faking romantic relationships with the victims.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-29/china-executes-online...
> China has executed 11 people involved in criminal gangs in Myanmar, including online scam ringleaders. Their crimes included "intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment"
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/3184205/why-china-was-so-k...
> Chen's case might prove more complicated since the US had seized a large amount of his cryptocurrency assets, but he was now in custody in China.. "If China doesn't cooperate, it will be extremely difficult for the US to investigate Chen."
I wonder what kind of stories one'd hear from scam-centers in India.
Complementary movie on this topic: "No More Bets" from 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Bets
> The more senior boss, who went by the name Da Hai
Weird. In Wired's own graphic of the org chart, this person appears, but he's labeled "SEA" instead of "DA HAI".
In the chart, it says 大海 (dàhǎi, lit. big sea) above "SEA", which means 'ocean'.
Yes, I know, but the intended audience can't read 大海.
The chart and the article are both created by Wired; it's strange for them to refer to him one way in the chart and another way in the article.
I'm curious about the ethnic makeup of the "team leader" level. One of them is called "Ted", and seems to also be called 特德 ["te de"]. The 特德 could just be because everyone in the upper levels is Chinese, but the English-language post from Ted shown in the article doesn't really suggest a native English speaker.
Amani doesn't sound like a Chinese name or like the English name of a Chinese person.
"Amani" is an East African name
For context, the main setting is in Laos, a communist state.
It never ceases to amaze, the difference between what this ideology preaches and what it actually does, every single time.
This probably has more to do with a power vacuum in which lawlessness arises instead of the ideology that is at power.
As opposed to capitalism, which as we all know works flawlessly. The free hand of the market keeps everything running smoothly. There’s always competition for the benefit of the customer, never collusion. There aren’t just a few bit players controlling everything, everyone has equal opportunity. And of course who can forget trickle down economics, where giving more money to the richest people made every one of us richer.
Capitalism’s most outstanding feature is that no matter how hard it tears one’s asshole, it keeps people begging for more with the false promise that they too one day will have their turn as the selfish oppressors doing the pounding, and that’s a good thing for everyone actually, for some reason.
Is there any ideology applied societally at the scale of those two which hasn’t failed to deliver?
Capitalism doesn’t preach to be a solution for monopolistic behavior of actors that accumulate too much power. It’s a known downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state.
Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc. It hasn’t “failed to deliver” in any of those places.
So in other words, communism pretends to solve the problem of power accumulation but doesn't, while capitalism doesn't even claim to do so (and only occasionally even sees it as a problem at all)
> Capitalism has still delivered with massive success in China, the US, India, Europe, etc etc.
Ah yes, the “massive success” where people can’t afford a place to live, struggle to cover basic necessities, are increasingly lonely, radicalised, unhappy, depressed… But hey, at least you can look at cat videos and listen to podcasts all day about how women don’t want to fuck you because of immigrants, all the while enriching a small number of individuals who humiliate you daily and don’t even afford you the dignity of not having to piss in bottles as you’re making them more money they will never spend. Fantastic example of success.
Thank you for demonstrating my point. No matter how much mistreatment there is, we can always count on the defenders coming out of the woodwork to ask for more.
> downside of capitalism that has to be actively managed by the state.
And all governments in the world seem to be doing a great job at this! /s
But in this case this is not about politics, it's about local power and local control, and Laos government have very little of either of it. Laos communism and Vietnam communism are very similar, but you don't here the same about Vietnam, because Vietnam is easier to control due to geographical terrain and investment by USSR and china after the vietnam war. Laos still have areas with unexploded personal mines and ammunition (the "joke" there is that US pilots couldn't aim for shit, the reality is that vietcongs used Laos jungle path to encircle US soldiers, and so the US made those path unusable). Laos have way less roads, rougher terrain, and mines. You have basically local feudalism. Imagine colombia, but ten time worse.
>Laos communism and Vietnam communism are very similar
No they're not; Vietnam scores much higher than Laos on any measure of economic freedom/property rights.
Laos is a pretty odd state. I looked up their official news site once expecting to find North Korea style propaganda, but it was instead surprisingly straightforward about a lot of day to day problems. I also had some contact many years ago with their one Linux/Free Software enthusiast. My impression is that it's a fairly weak state, and the main reason the communists are technically still in charge is that nobody really wants the job of ruling Laos particularly much.
this really has little to do with communism. after all the vietnam war etc concluded, that area kind of got left to itself by the powers that be.
It's a small country that was given a political system to be a client-state of a hegemonic regional power, and then the hegemon abandoned them, they don't have valuable resources like crude oil or gold, and they end up with underdeveloped state institutions. they aren't really failed states, but more so "unfinished" states
similar examples include belize, papua new guinea (abandoned by australia), East Timor, vanuatu, djibouti, maldives etc. some marxist, some british, portuguese, french, etc
in many of these countries you really can do what you want. belize is not much more than a forestry plantation with 19th century english corporate law and a few bars in the capital ("Belize City").
Is there anything that capitalism did that is different from what it preaches?
No, capitalism is about capital owners having control about what is produced and how it is produced, and we have exactly that, especially since Friedman "shareholder primacy" theory, which, at least to me, looks like the ultimate form of capitalism (capitalism != liberalism, which is about markets and exchange, not about production methods).
Communist countries however are never about communal ownership of production method. I think there is reasons for that: communism is not only about production methods, but also about the "march of progress" and other philosophical theories that are more or less dumb (some are very effective analysis tools, some are very less so), and communist leaders pick and choose what they want from it.
Why is capital owners controlling production desirable?
It's not. But that the system we're currently under. In a better world, you'd have employees, local government, consumers as well as obligation owners on the companies boards.
Because they created the production; it they couldn't control it then they'd have no incentive to create it and there'd be no non-state-owned businesses, exactly as happened when China was fully communist and still happens in North Korea today. Capital doesn't grow out of thin air just from "working"; the only people who think it does are those who've never tried to build a successful business.
Because of incentive alignment. They are the only ones incentivized not to do something stupid with their own resources.
of course people are also resources in this framework, and "something stupid" could be providing insurance/healthcare/pension etc - unless a tyrannical (/s) government forces them to do otherwise
Why though? The essence of communism is banditism