In almost any category conceivable (police presence on the streets, incarceration weights, bureaucratic oversight), the PRC is significantly more libertarian than the US. It is true that the CIA has invested a tremendous amount of energy and money into political issues designed to delegitimize the CCP -- Tibet, Falun Gong, and Taiwan. Liberalizing speech around these topics would likely be more efficient counterstrategy than the current approach, which is a remnant of an older model of socialist statecraft.
If you understand the population distribution in the PRC, have spent time in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city, and think deeply about economic growth, the idea that the Chinese economy could "crash" is laughable: there is a vast pool of emerging customers that will continue to fuel growth over the foreseeable future. The question is whether global trends, especially related to climate change driven instability, will interfere in the emergence of the socialist/communist market economy. If you find a contradiction in the conception of a socialist/communist market economy, check Dominic Losurdo's
"Has China Turned to Capitalism?—Reflections on the
Transition from Capitalism to Socialism" published in the March 2017 issue of International Critical Thought.
I'd love to read about this. Been trying to create this kind of worker owned firm in the media space for many years now. Am close to getting it but it's been tough for the reasons that you are talking about: people who aren't fully in it.
There is not a single Chinese "regime" - the space of contestation of politics is simply different than in the US. There's an enormous amount of sometimes extremely emotionally intense conflict within the CCP.
The commodification of land is antisocial and bad for other economic agents. Euthanasia of the rentier class is good policy all, including the rentier class.
No, your essay is not very clear, nor convincing. Wechat is much better positioned to do what Zuck wants to do re: social infrastructure. Given the downwards spiral of the US and European economies, a long short on FB seems more propitious.
The world will not be accommodating to startups associated with an organization with obvious bad ethics. Thiel helped get a fascist into office. AirBnb is complicit in eviction. This is less political than business advice for anyone. The US brand is very tainted, the SV brand more tainted, the YC brand most tainted.
China has very sane, good government, come actually experience it and stop believing CIA lies. The firewall is a rational way to keep the US deep state out.
This is a plenty democratic place, I recommend coming and observing it with your eyes, asking people here questions, and assessing the history of the revolution yourself.
"The idea of a Grand Supercycle bear market may be interpreted to suggest that mankind will never learn from its past mistakes, or become self-aware in a macro-economic sense. The historical study presented in David Hackett Fischer's The Great Wave (Oxford University Press, 1999), however, presents a meticulously argued case that the periodic crises in human history are becoming steadily less volatile, which suggests that some kind of species-wide learning is occurring."
Strategic anticipation of long-term conflict over control of the pacific -- presumably they wouldn't want a failed state, they would want a parliamentary democracy ruled by a "liberal" party subservient to American hegemony.
You can get books in the Shanghai library with a lot of narratives of world history different than the CCP's.
Totalitarian is probably not the most fitting word to describe the current state of Chinese society, insofar as it connotates an environment of constant fear of unwarranted state intrustion into everyday life. The only environment I've been in that could be said to be "totalitarian" in that sense would be the south side of Chicago.
A key sentence from the BBC article on the topic: "
The strict rules are also seen as a way to foster the success of indigenous net Chinese firms such as Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent."
“Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were forty cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides-pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the barn," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.
"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies.”
Excerpt From: Don DeLillo. “White Noise.” (published in 1985!)
Why do you assume that individual intelligence's are necessarily short-sighted in that sense? The existence of cultures as ongoing traditions of making indicates that individual intelligences are capable of participating in long-term, multigenerational endeavors....