Don’t Hate the Playa, Hate the Game

The rise of China as a major global economic power has ruffled the feathers of Western imperialism as a whole, and particularly the United States. China’s ascendancy—a non-Western nation-state rising to world-power status—has posed a great challenge to the United States’ ruling-class foreign policy establishment, as noted in its most recent national security strategy document, which calls for ‘full-spectrum dominance.’ This document maintains that the U.S. armed forces will have the ability to operate unilaterally and in concert with transnational corporations and associated agencies to subdue any hostile foe by controlling various situations across the full range of military contingencies—be it land, air, water, or space.

China has exposed the notion of American exceptionalism—the belief, according to Danny Haiphong, author of American Exceptionalism and American Innocence, that the United States is an indispensable nation existing for something bigger than itself, one that values freedom, human rights, the rule of law, universal norms, and democracy. This is paired with the economic dictum that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ and the belief that America is ordained by God. American exceptionalism is entrenched in the notion of Manifest Destiny and, by extension, white supremacy, along with the notion that all military engagement is fought to promote democracy and free-market economics. However, this narrative of America obscures the exclusion and dispossession of land, the genocidal violence practiced upon Indigenous peoples, and the extreme class demarcation and racial antagonism endured by the proletariat classes.

American exceptionalism is also expressed in nationalistic, jingoistic slogans like ‘Make America Great Again,’ first used by President Ronald Reagan, echoed more recently by President Trump, and before that by President Barack Obama, who said in a UN speech, ‘I believe America is exceptional, in part because we have shown a willingness, through the sacrifice of blood and treasure, to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interests, but for the interests of all.’ China’s rise, however, poses an existential danger to the United States ruling class’ exceptionalist narrative and its unipolar control as the singular world hegemon. To combat and prevent China’s growing influence and power in the geopolitical realm, President Obama initiated the ‘pivot to Asia’ by implementing economic tariffs, followed by President Biden, and now President Trump, who has built on the template laid down by his predecessors by employing an even more extreme tariff of 145%. Under the Trump administration, tariffs have become weaponized and used capriciously, without forethought or rationality. This is apparent in the tariffs placed on Brazil over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro for an attempted coup. Lula has accused the Trump administration of interfering in a sovereign country's internal affairs.

The United States ruling elite—expressed through corporate/capitalist-controlled media outlets, its punditry class, and government officials—has been preoccupied with tariffs. What's interesting is that ‘tariff,’ a form of tax, has its origins in Africa. The Moorish governor of North Africa, Musa ibn Nusayr, sent 500 African Muslims into Spain, led by an African Muslim convert named Tariq ibn Ziyad. These Moorish forces landed at a port, which they plundered and named Tarifa, in honor of General Tarif, who imposed a special tax on ships and goods passing through the port—hence the name ‘tariff.’

China, the world’s largest economy and economic power when measured by GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), produces 35% of global manufacturing output—twice that of the United States, whose share of global manufacturing is about 15%, and the EU’s 14%. China’s tremendous economic growth and international influence have led the United States ruling class and its policy establishment to turn to propaganda, asserting that China is a menace and an existential threat to American security—a claim that is nothing more than believing the moon is made of cheese.

What has actually happened is that China, a country developing socialism based on its own particular historical characteristics, has bested America’s capitalists at their own game.Beating someone at their own game is what the African American cultural idiom ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game’ describes. The saying comes out of the Black proletariat and underclass drive to sustain a daily existence, by whatever means necessary, within a dog-eat-dog capitalist economic system. It reflects the Black proletariat’s ability to ‘hustle’ and prosper in the face of deteriorating material and socioeconomic conditions.As a cultural expression, it also reflects a behavioral response to the capitalist ruling class’ abandonment of Keynesianism in favor of a rightward turn toward neoliberalism. Neoliberalism holds that society’s institutions work best when they operate according to the principles of the market, argues Lester K. Spence, author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Spence adds that ‘hustling,’ or the ‘hustler,’ was viewed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as someone who tried to use as little labor as possible to meet their own daily sustenance needs, while trying to exploit someone else's labor power to meet theirs—hence the phrase ‘getting over on someone.’

However, with the capitalist ruling class’ shift to neoliberal economics, ‘hustling’ has been transformed to mean constantly working two or more jobs. Even imperialist President George W. Bush, in a televised town-hall visit, praised a woman who was working three jobs just to make ends meet. Sometimes these jobs are in the formal or informal economy, where one can employ business acumen and entrepreneurship to survive and get ahead. This behavioral response to dire economic conditions—‘up and grinding’ is glorified and popularized in rap, the African American musical genre, such as in rapper Rick Ross’ track ‘Every Day I’m Hustlin’.’

China’s ascendancy as a powerful economic alternative to the United States capitalist mode of economic organization gives the adage ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game’ significant import. This was lucidly expressed when a Chinese TikToker produced a video commenting on United States tariffs against China and putting the American public onto the game—meaning, of course, the prevailing rightward neoliberal economic system and its inner workings. The TikToker said the following:

‘They rob you blind and you thank them for it—that’s the tragedy, that’s a scam. That’s why I’m saying this right now: Americans, you don’t need a tariff, you need a revolution. For decades your government and oligarchs have shipped your jobs to China, not for diplomacy, not for peace, but to exploit cheap labor, and in the process they hollowed out your middle class, crushed your working class, and told you to be patient while they sold your future. And yes, China made money—but used it to build roads, lift millions out of poverty, fund health care, and raise living standards. We reinvested in our people; my family also benefited from it. What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, mansions with golf-course driveways; they manipulated markets, dodged taxes, and poured billions into endless wars.’

Can it be that this Chinese TikToker is on to something about America’s late-stage capitalism, its political governance apparatus, the declining material standards of its multiracial working class, and what Karl Marx called the ‘lumpenproletariat’—or, in America’s common parlance, the ‘underclass’—who are facing extreme penury? Contemporary China is not the China of 1949, nor that of the 1970s, when President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger undertook a visit to China as part of an ‘open-door’ diplomacy mission. These actions, along with Western financial investment and technology transfer to China, Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 reforms liberalizing portions of China’s economy, and China’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) under President Bill Clinton’s initiative, aided China’s meteoric ascent—from the ashes of war and an impoverished agrarian economy to a sophisticated, urbane, upper-middle-income major global power—an ascent also achieved through pragmatism, experimentalism, and strategic planning, according to Kaiser Kuo, author of How China Got Rich: A Deep Dive into China’s 40-Year History of Economic Transformation.

Through state planning and liberalization of China’s economy, in addition to Western neoliberal financing and manufacturing production—particularly United States manufacturers relocating to China—enormous wealth has been generated for China, along with a tremendous improvement in the material standards of its people. This wealth has allowed the government of the People’s Republic of China to lift 800 million people out of poverty in one generation and to invest heavily in its citizens’ human potential, in stark contrast to the United States capitalist-controlled Congress and Senate, who recently allocated 1 trillion dollars to the inappropriately named ‘defense’ budget—which should more accurately be called the ‘war’ budget.

According to Peter G. Peterson Foundation, defense spending accounts for nearly half—47%—of total United States discretionary budget spending.The United States spends more on the military than the next ten countries combined, while China spends only 14% of its budget on the military.[1] This allows the government of the People’s Republic of China to spend a significant share of its resources on human development and social uplift, under its version of socialism, termed ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ which is particular to Chinese history, culture, and philosophy. China’s economy grew from 1979 to 2023 at a rate of 8.9% annually, well above the global average of 3%. Moreover, China’s GDP in 2023 reached a high of 17.8 trillion dollars, accounting for 16.9% of global output and making the Chinese economy the second largest in the world by GDP. Conversely, when using purchasing power parity (PPP) metrics, China has the largest economy.

The astronomical growth of the Chinese economy was accompanied by heavy social investment in education and the development of human capital. The outcome of China’s educational commitment can be seen in the number of STEM graduates: China is outproducing the United States, producing 77,000 STEM doctorates compared to the United States’ 40,000. These comparatively low U.S. numbers are due to the intrinsic racial bias in the United States educational system and its inadequate funding structure, which produces a dismally low PhD rate for African Americans and lower enrollment for this demographic in honors and AP classes at the high school level—impacting, upstream, the number of African American students available to produce STEM graduates.

Furthermore, the number of United States STEM graduates would decrease if Chinese STEM students studying at American universities were excluded from the count. The increase in the number of STEM graduates for China is an indication of the country’s economic competitiveness. Meanwhile, the United States education system, while nominally public, has colleges and universities that are costly.

To attend United States colleges and universities, students and their parents must go into debt by securing loans backed by Wall Street. The United States educational system has fallen under the dictates of a neoliberal business model, adds Les Leopold, author of Runaway Inequality. Under this business model, education is commodified and packaged as an investment for hedge fund managers. With United States public education spending sitting at US$63 billion, and recognizing the huge profit potential, private equity has entered the charter school movement, arguing that public schools are failing because they don’t work—that they are obsolete, fractured, and have overly large class sizes.

The argument is that introducing a profit-seeking motive would spur competition and creativity. A Clinton-era tax break allowed wealthy investors to invest in charter schools in underserved areas, receiving a tax break on the investment itself, along with other tax credits and interest deductions on loans. These tax breaks starved the federal government of badly needed money to fund public education, thus reducing the number of STEM graduates needed for an advanced, highly technical economy.

In terms of healthcare, the Chinese government has a well-established, sensible, and sustainable healthcare system organized around a three-tiered structure based on a hospital’s ability to provide medical care, medical education, and medical research. In ‘Achievements and Challenges of the Healthcare System in China,’ Cui Chen and Mao Lin explain how the Chinese government’s healthcare insurance system covers 95 to 96% of its population—about 1.36 billion people. The system’s financing is composed of government and commercial health insurance, sustained by an array of companies, with over 95% of citizens covered by public insurance. China’s form of healthcare delivery has reduced the personal financial burden of medical expenses. United States policymakers, on the other hand, are engaging in what Les Leopold calls ‘health strip-mining.’

The United States, Leopold maintains, has the most expensive and byzantine healthcare system, with a tripartite structure composed of Medicare for elderly workers, Medicaid for poor workers and non-workers, and CHIP for children of the same demographics—all overlaid with the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which extends the privatization of for-profit health insurance by subsidizing it through public funds to help the multiracial working class secure healthcare by buying private insurance policies.

This hodgepodge network is inadequate, and its exorbitant cost has rendered poor outcomes for buyers of health insurance. The United States spends more, as a share of its GDP, than any G7 nation on healthcare, yet has a high infant mortality rate and lagging life expectancy. Healthcare strip-mining also occurs when health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays are high, and when certain procedures are denied—lining the pockets of CEOs and increasing investor profits. This healthcare inequality is seen along racial and ethnic lines: 20% of African Americans are uninsured, 30% of Mexican Americans are uninsured, and 15% of white Americans are uninsured. These are the grim statistical realities of the United States for-profit health insurance system.

Furthermore, China has embarked on intense infrastructure development. It has assembled the largest high-speed rail system in the world, connecting urban centers and significantly reducing travel time. In addition to instituting 5G networks and digital infrastructure, China has ambitiously pursued megaprojects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project, followed by the Belt and Road Initiative, connecting the ancient Silk Road with twenty-first-century trade routes. It has become the undisputed champion in industrial robotics installations; the ‘Made in China’ government initiative has transformed the country into a technology powerhouse. It is clear that the Communist Party of China, through its governmental policies, has made tremendous improvements in the living standards of its people—the same, however, cannot be said for the United States multiracial working class, given both ruling-class political parties’—Democratic and Republican—commitment to neoliberal economic policies.

In return, what the United States multiracial working class has been left with is the propagandistic jingoism of American exceptionalism—the belief that America is #1. This belief was truly exposed and eviscerated in the HBO drama The Newsroom, when journalist Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, was confronted with a question from a female student:

‘Why is America the greatest country in the world?’ The character Will McAvoy pondered and agonized over the answer, and with great frustration responded that America is not the greatest country in the world—there’s no evidence to support the statement that we are the greatest country in the world. America is 7th in literacy rate, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, and 4th in exports. America leads the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita; number of adults who believe angels are real; and defense spending—more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the “fuck” you’re talking about.

Ahjmau Makalani is a member of labor union SEIU local 1000, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and LA Hands Off of Cuba.

Notes

[1] See reports published by the National Priorities Project here: National Priorities Project .