The simple answer is that “social credit” is a both a policy framework and broad initiative adopted by the Chinese government aimed at enforcing market regulations, implementing a corporate credit system, increasing institutional credibility, and ultimately becoming a building block¹ for the construction of a “harmonious socialist society”. It’s the evolving result of decades of (usually campaign-style) policies implemented to control and prevent corruption and corporate malfeasance. China’s growing domestic consumption market also created the need for a centralized financial credit system.

Scope of social credit

• Businesses
• Individuals
• Government institutions

Examples of corporate SCS mechanisms

• National Credit Information Sharing Platform (NCISP). Operated by the state planning agency, meant to integrate all national/regional corporate regulatory data. Here’s the website where you can search for specific entities and whether they have been penalized: https://www.gsxt.gov.cn/index.html. And here’s a web portal for more: https://www.creditchina.gov.cn/
• Unified Social Credit Code. Number assigned to corporate entities.
• Blacklists. These are produced by government agencies according to their jurisdiction. These cover a range of violations and infractions. To my knowledge, no national blacklist (or analogue) exists at the present.
• Punishment/reward system. The entity is penalized by agencies connected to the NCISP within their powers. Here’s a list of approved punishments (including punishments for individuals).

That should be enough for a basic overview of the current state of SCS. I didn’t go over the experimental pilot programs because those have only ever been implemented at a municipal level and it seems that their methods (such as point scoring system) have been rejected by the national government. There is no indication that the national government is interested in tracking the violations of social norms by individuals.

You can find more primary sources on Chinalawtranslate and Stanford’s DigiChina.

1. SCS planning document

Yes. Caleb Maupin is not a nazbol. He’s the contrived, horseshoe theory, productivist, neo-Dengist equivalent of a Bhaskar Sunkara demsoc, but he’s not a nazbol.

Caleb Maupin is a self-proclaimed communist and former member of the Workers World Party who believes in “Socialism with American Characteristics” - a system which in practice would resemble Britain in the 1970s. In SwAC, important parts of the economy (natural resource extraction, heavy industry) would be planned and state-controlled, large infrastructure projects would be carried out, and new welfare programs introduced. The consumer goods sector would be left to the market. Billionaires would be allowed and even encouraged.

His other activities include founding a left-wing(?) think tank which consists of six links to videos on his channel, giving lectures on his opinions, and having lots of debates with right-wingers and left-wingers alike.

I don’t take him seriously. He doesn’t seem to have a coherent understanding of socialism or Marx. He holds to the most superficial interpretation of the theory of the productive forces possible. He’s tone deaf and not particularly good at messaging. All of that said, I wouldn’t consider him a nazbol, but that doesn’t have to be true for me to consider him a detriment to the left.