All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding and abetting the regime in this way.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
This observation seems more immediate these days internationally than ever.
It's an intractable problem that's always been present, but what were once 'edge cases' are now front and centre as a result of technology bringing the world closer together, and therefore highlighting the areas of conflict.
Case in point: Australia's law that enforces software companies to create a backdoor in encryption for reasons of law enforcement[0][1][2].
[0]https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...
[1]https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/14/oz_encryption_backdoo...
[2]https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australia...
On the other hand, China has achieved something very close to a technocracy where rules are based on expert opinion. The economy is controlled by economists, health policy is controlled by epidemiologists, and media censorship is controlled by political and social scientists. You are more likely to advance based on competence in Chinese politics than you are in the USA, where elections are just a high school popularity contest. The Chinese government has plenty of terrifyingly competent bureaucrats.
A lot of democratic stability comes from it being hard to change things quickly, separation of power, and the existence of a lot free speech so it's hard to cover things up. Ultimately, with a dependence on the people.
I could be persuaded that there are better ways to structure things within that, if a lot of thought was put into how to handle a tyrant's rise and how to handle a transition of power. I probably could not be persuaded that limits on speech and government censorship are good long-term for the health of a society that I'd want to actually live in. I think it's a good thing for governments to ultimately be accountable to their people.
I generally agree with the sentiment that elected leaders fear getting voted out, while dictators fear getting dragged out. The ability to vote seems important for long term stability.
In China's case, it seems they've done away with terms entirely for Xi. Speech and dissent is tightly (and violently) controlled, and even when there's just potential for future dissent, entire groups are put into camps to destroy their culture to supposedly reduce that risk.
The west has problems too, but there's a reason people emmigrate out to countries that are more free when they're allowed to.
Enormous economic growth and strategic planning have allowed their people to accept this abuse for now, though the party should be worried if that ever changes.
Europe had hereditary transitions of power, which were about as peaceful as any other form of transition of power. In Rome you would choose your successor and he would be the next emperor.
> I probably could not be persuaded that limits on speech and government censorship are good long-term for the health of a society that I'd want to actually live in. I think it's a good thing for governments to ultimately be accountable to their people.
Just because it's supposed to work that way doesn't mean it actually works that way. Do you think Americans are using free speech well? Do you feel like the government is accountable to you? In America you have free speech but it's not practically useful for anything. Have a go at trying to stop some government abuse of power.
Yes.
> "In America you have free speech but it's not practically useful for anything. Have a go at trying to stop some government abuse of power."
The protests happening now, civil rights movements in the 60s, the changes after the pentagon papers, the suffrage movement. "Me Too" and its impact on culture, awareness of the continuous lies coming from the current administration. There are an enormous amount of historical examples of free speech being critical to improving the society.
I think you're very wrong, but you're free to be wrong (at least on this website).
Do you think the police will stop their violence? When is the last time that people got politicians to do something they didn't want to do already?
I think that's irrelevant, since being a free individual is the main reason being alive and healthy is desirable, not the other way around. If people just existed to keep an abstract group of people alive, with no person in that group actually mattering, actually being allowed to develop as the person they are, not the group they are in -- what's the point of having people at all? What would we be doing that insects or algae aren't already doing much better?
> Just because it's supposed to work that way doesn't mean it actually works that way.
Sure, but if it's not even supposed to work that way, or is even supposed to work the opposite, then that's still a lot worse.
It depends on your timeline. If you eliminate dissent you may be able to push through short-term aims or develop a facsimile of national unity, but you will naturally eliminate nuance from your geopolitics. Even one or two generations into this experiment, you can wind up with a leader who truly "drinks the koolaid," who assumes the state propaganda to be reality. At that point, the regime is doomed.
There possibbly is no leader in history who drank the state propaganda koolaid as deeply as Chairman Mao. He accidentally murdered tens of millions when the propaganda turned out to be incongruent with reality. Meanwhile he stayed in power by butchering millions of potential opposition members, and by having nukes and ten million soldiers which impressed Nixon enough to bow and scrape before him.
The lesson has been learned by Chairman Xi. As long as he brutally cleans house domestically and is a MAD-level military threat, absolutely no one can doom his regime.
It's the same reason we're seeing so much strife in the US. In the US, societal opinion and legislative action hardly follow the same path. In fact, IIRC, public opinion has almost no impact on legislation. Wonder why everyone here feels like we're going down the wrong track?
Wishful thinking is a temptation, but it doesn't lead to reasonable analysis. Xi is in fine health at the age of 66. His father lived to the ripe age of 88. His mother is still alive, at 93. We can expect him to receive better medical care than they did, since he is leader of China and they spent several decades getting purged, imprisoned, overworked, and starved by the party. If the Chinese people look for a change in leadership, they had best look somewhere besides the calendar.
Besides, if current dystopic trends continue, most of us won't have 40 years to wait for the expiration of our despotic sovereign overlords...
Usually the first thing dictators do is disarm civilians and beef up the military, so the only way out is via a military coup (which usually just trades one regime for an equivalent one). In just 2 decades, North Korea will have had a dictatorship for a century.
The CCP witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and instead of opening up to a peaceful transition to democracy they chose to double down on top-down authoritarian policies. At the same time, they’ve sought to leverage markets for economic growth. The result is a conundrum: how to reconcile Marxist ideology with the prosperity of markets?
This is where “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” comes in. This is an ideology of doublethink which can only be maintained through force. All of the censorship taking place, both inside and outside China, has the goal of ideological suppression for any speech the CPC deems a threat. And so here we are.
Sounds as if you think he wants to dismount
Hmm yes I guess for him personally maybe, however to me the overall system looks stable
Edit: if you disagree, please explain why. Marx believed that history moved according to dialectical materialism where almost all individuals are little more than atoms in a moving body.
It’s a pretty accurate summary of Marxist beliefs.