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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Sorry, you can't have democracy without basic political agency. You can't have basic political agency without the ability to speak freely.
Picking between three party approved technocrats is not sufficient for political self determination.
In that case, democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world and likely could never exist.
There are plenty of places where citizens are free to engage in normal discussions about politics, and particularly the history of their own country.
But yes, nothing is perfect, the world is not your false dichotomy, and every system should seek to iteratively improve. China should seek to grant its citizens more individual freedoms as well, wouldn't you agree? This is very low hanging fruit for free society, and China has a lot more work to do than the west on this particular issue.
There's no false democracy. I'm simply pointing out what you clarified: there is no perfect. Speech will be restricted everywhere and claiming that democracy cannot exist without fully unfettered speech contradicts a fundamental tenet of liberalism—tolerance, and with it the dilemma of speech that harms and so interfere's with others' freedom not to be harmed. See Bentham, Mill, or Isaiah Berlin for more on this topic.
I suppose you mean first-generation rights (in the language of international human rights law) as these are the ones that flow from the enlightenment and cover the freedom of expression, for instance. While I agree that China should grant its citizens as many rights as possible, the level of our agreement depends on what we each mean by individual freedoms.
I agree with first-generation rights in principle but they are fundamentally contradictory and their experimental application around the world suggests they cannot be realised because the law cannot resolve those contradictions. There are political economic contradictions, too. Realising first, second-, and third-generation rights is incompatible with capitalism. It is simply not possible to uphold the right of private property and allow workers, for instance, a full right of free expression in the workplace, nor to allow moneyed lobbying in the legislature while granting the same voice to individuals. You can find a good explanation of the law underpinning this argument in International Human Rights by Philip Alston and Ryan Goodman (perhaps in Parts B and C).
China seems to be rather good at providing what are known as second- and third-generation rights, which are usually given less than lip-service in the west. If we are making a comparison, then China appears to accept a duty to implement these rights, while liberal democracies only accept that legislating for said rights is enough (including for first-generation rights). If we're talking about the US, it doesn't even acknowledge many such rights. The argument goes that the constituent states cannot legislate for the federal state and the federal state cannot legislate for the constituent states. There is a similarity with China but there the question is, how should these rights be implemented locally, not should they be implemented?
The west appears to have to go a lot further to go than China with regard to second- and third-generation rights but China appears to have a lot further to go than the west with regard to first-generation rights. I say 'appears' in both cases because neither party can go much further in the suggested directions under existing conditions. There are two insurmountable problems, one for each. The one for the west is explained above: capitalism and the guaranteed realisation of rights are incompatible.
For China, realising first-generation rights in the way that they are implemented in the west is incompatible with socialism. The text in emphasis is important because at a theoretical level, first-generation rights are needed to secure political participation. Socialists in China (not all – it is not a homogenous state) would argue that the way that first-generation rights are implemented in China is the only way to secure socialist political participation. Just as westerners often argue that the western model of human rights is the only way to secure bourgeois political participation.
At this point, the problem with relying on legal concepts to define 'free society' has been revealed. Law, which provides the language and the mechanism for securing 'individual freedoms', does not provide the full answer. A political view is needed instead. Pro-capitalists will argue that the mere act of legislating for individual freedoms is sufficient for a 'free society'. Socialists will argue that a society can only be free if those rights are realised.
Which side do you fall on? Is legislating for individual freedoms enough? Or should a state try to ensure that those freedoms are realised?
Somebody should let people like Assange, Manning, and Snowden know that they can speak freely.
Ah yes, real democracy is picking between parties owned by the oligarchs. 😂
Imagine believing there are no oligarchs in China.
Imagine thinking oligarchs control China 😂
It's like you don't even have a passing familiarity with Chinese politics. The local councils which the average person can actually vote for are notoriously corrupt. Easily as bad as anything you'll find in the west, and often far more so.
A major difference between China and the West re: corruption is that it's institutionalized in the West and called "lobbying." Because of this, it's easy for Westerners to point at China and say local councils are "notoriously corrupt" but not bat an eye at lobbyists, rich donors, and [super]pacs swaying Congressional votes.
It's like I linked a whole bunch of scholarly articles from institutions like Harvard explaining Chinese politics. The reality is that people in China have seen their lives consistently improve with each and every decade. Countless studies show that the standard of living in China is improving at an incredible rate, and that people see the government work in their interest.
And yes, China isn't perfect, there's corruption, but that's missing the point entirely. Corruption exists in every human society, the discussion is whose interest the government is working in. In the west the government works in the interest of the capital owning class, in China it works in the interest of the working majority.
Bro, I have family in China and have lived there for a few years. You are completely delusional about how this works in practice. I've also seen the real terror on the real face of a real person when you so much as utter some controversial political language in the wrong company.
It's actually insane to me that you will call the west brainwashed, and then quote satisfaction surveys of the CCP without a hint of self awareness. Come on. You want actual data? China is ranked lower than basically every other developed nation on the global corruption perception index.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022
Bro I have friends from China, and lots of my friends moved back to China after university. Weird how Chinese students keep returning to China because it's such a hell right. What's insane is that somebody could live in the west and not see the brainwashing.
Meanwhile, it's absolutely hilarious how you keep going on about corruption when countries like US have an entire government owned by the oligarchs.
Again, the fact you keep dancing around is that quality of life in China has been improving dramatically by practically every measure, meanwhile the opposite is happening in the west. That's the elephant in the room mr. transparency index.
So what you are saying is that you suddenly aren't interested in data? Because I was really looking forward to comparing stuff like rural educational attainment, PPP, various human development indices, freedom, democracy indices. There's like a bunch of stuff which basically backs up what is plainly visible to anyone - that the west has been raising people out of poverty for 200 years and is still doing a pretty decent job of it.
Look, we all know that western liberalism has a lot of really fucking dumb shit about it in the current iteration. And I will definitely acknowledge that there are a lot of good ideas in China. China's economic miracle is laudable, but - and I say this as a person with an actual stake in Chinese society - it's time for China to do better, and China doesn't get better when delusional tankies defend its many clear and obvious problems.
You mean data such as this? https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-richer-than-europeans-wealth-report-finds-2022-9
That's a false statement:
Western liberalism has resulted in some of the worst crimes against humanity in the past 200 years such as the slave trade and the genocide of the native population in America to name a couple.
Nobody said China couldn't and shouldn't do better or that China doesn't have problems. This is literally the case for every human society. However, what's being argued is that China is demonstrably producing better material outcomes than western liberal democracies are.
Again, compared to the west, China is still a poor country. Yes it is growing, and that growth has been very impressive, and there is much we can all learn from it. But to claim that China has surpassed the west in terms of eliminating poverty is simply incorrect.
You are making a moral argument, to which I am marginally sympathetic, and backing it up with bad information.
The numbers say that people in China are now better off than people in Europe. And this is with China having to rebuild itself after a civil war and the destruction in WW2. Meanwhile, the reason the west is rich is because the west colonized the rest of humanity and has been brutally exploiting it. Claiming that the west is rich because of liberalism is factually wrong. The west is rich because it enslaved billions of people across the globe plundering their labour and resources.
What specifically is the bad information you're referring to. I've provided you with the actual numbers here.
So far you have provided a survey about government satisfaction. When presented with data which shows that China is quite a bit more corrupt than the west, you changed the subject to argue prosperity and wealth.
And on those topics, you are wrong as well. China trails the west considerably on:
Human Development Index:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
GDP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
GDP per Capita:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Educational Attainment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://www.worldeconomics.com/Indicator-Data/ESG/Social/Mean-Years-of-Schooling/
Access to Indoor Plumbing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proportion_of_the_population_using_improved_sanitation_facilities
Social Mobility:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
Labor productivity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity
Minimum wage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage
We could keep going here. You are very clearly the one who is cherry picking data. Like many people who make these ridiculous claim, you seem to be under the impression that everyone in China lives in tier 1 cities, and ignore things like China's hukou caste system, or the fact that the average rural Chinese person does not even attempt a high school education.
Again, I acknowledge that China has made miraculous advancements in many of these areas, and will likely be on par or even surpass the west in many of these this century. However, you are clearly arguing in bad faith, moving goalposts and ranting about a bunch of things you seem to have quite a poor grasp of.
Again, you Wikipedia is not exactly the most reliable source for these things, and I've provided you with very different numbers from other sources. Pretty much every source that accounts for stuff like PPP shows that China is doing quite well compared to the west. However, you once again ignore the fact that the west had a head start, and that the wealth in the west comes from colonialism. China's growth doesn't come at the cost of impoverishment of other countries the way western growth does. Finally, the really important part is the trajectory. Life in China is improving, life in the west is getting worse.
And claiming that when I'm arguing in bad faith or moving goal posts when I've been consistently saying the same thing and backing up with sources says everything I need to know about you. Bye.
I am still waiting to see your sources on any of this tbh
Not sure what you're waiting for given that I've already provided you sources backing everything I said.
Well then it should be easy for you to consolidate them in one comment.
I'm not going to waste more time on you. It's pretty clear you're just going to keep ignoring everything I say and repeating the same thing like a broken record. You don't want to have an honest discussion here.
On the contrary, I am trying to have a conversation. I have attempted to address every premise you've offered with a combination of history, data and personal experience. I don't believe you have offered sources for many of your claim, but in case I missed them, it would be helpful if you provided a summary.
If you are trying to have a conversation then we're clearly talking past each other. My points are as follows.
I have sourced all these claims in this thread.
From your own damn source.
🤣
oh hey, why don't you quote the rest of it? 😂