It's hard to reconcile the words in a textbook that says an authoritarian society is doomed to fail, then go home and watch rice paddies turn to skyscrapers in a generation. In a competition between academia and the real world, the real world always wins out.
Your comments are interesting (in this and other threads), as others have mentioned - authoritarian societies are good for those in authority - less so for the others. If the authoritarian society is so good, why is it necessary to disallow conversation? Surely if everyone was doing well, conversation would be encouraged - because everyone would be saying how well things are going. The assumption of any reasonable person is, that if conversation and dissent is not allowed then there must be a reason, otherwise what are they scared of?
The issue is that in China's case, authoritarianism has been good for both people in authority and the majority, as evidenced by increasing economic growth and standards of living. You could make a theoretical argument that if China was democratic, then everyone would be even better off. But people in China use India as a mirror since both countries had massive populations, were underdeveloped, and gained independence at roughly the same time. That's not a flattering comparison.
As for suppression of free speech, the attitude in China is much more pessimistic about the ability of free speech among the public to produce good governing decisions. There is a difference between speech that can be used to gauge public opinion, and speech that seeks to spur the public into taking rash actions. Currently, governing decisions are made behind closed doors by a group of elites that carefully deliberate their choices after taking public opinion into account. Free speech that attempts to sidestep this process by not just allowing people to air their grievances, but tries to rally people into pressuring the government and seizing the decision-making levers directly are suppressed. At the end of the day, it is an authoritarian system to tries to keep the existing holders of power entrenched. But when the current philosopher kings are doing so well, only a minority of people on the margins of society really want to rock the boat.
At the end of the day, every society limits free speech in some way. The US sets that limit at threatening physical harm on specific individuals. China sets that limit at upsetting the status quo without going through the proper channels.
> Currently, governing decisions are made behind closed doors by a group of elites that carefully deliberate their choices after taking public opinion into account.
How do you know how carefully choices are deliberated and how much public opinion is taken into account if decisions are being made behind closed doors?
You don't. You just have faith that's being done, like you have faith that democracy will always produce the best outcome eventually.
Which of those two assertions above makes you more uncomfortable reflects the education system you went to, the society you grew up in, the people you interact with, and your sense of identity.
I'm reminded of how Greek city states all used to have their own deities, believed their deities would lead them to wealth and glory, and that war between cities would prove who had the more powerful divine protector. Swap out deities for government systems and the world doesn't seem to have changed all that much.
All other things being equal, a government that limits freedom of speech, freedom of speech, and is secretive will compare favorable to a government that does not try to hide its problems. We don’t have enough information to compare the authoritarian system with the liberal democracy.
In an uptrend comment you said:
> when the current philosopher kings are doing so well, only a minority of people on the margins of society really want to rock the boat.
There are interesting trade offs along of the spectrum of individualism and collectivism. It’s hard to talk about whether or not China has gotten that trade off right when information about the “margins of society” is suppressed.
I don't think anyone believes democracy will produce the "best outcome", just merely that it provides representation and roughly reflects the will of the people. The people can make terrible, ignorant short sighted decisions, see: Brexit, or Trump.
With speech suppressed, and a population trained to avoid unflattering expression, how do you suppose the group of elites behind the closed doors of their ivory tower are able to collect public opinion in order to take it into account?
Millions rounded up into concentration camps and butchered alive for organs would no doubt have a very different view of their plight than you do in this defense of Chinese nationalism and authoritarianism.
Citations very much needed for the absurd _millions_ of people in concentration camps being butchered alive for organs? I've done a lot of research into this topic and sans one far-right kook who extrapolated millions out of interviewing eight people, nobody suggests anything more than thousands of people in "re-education camps". Nothing about organ harvesting in said camps.
I'd urge you to investigate more yourself--and if you come up with a different answer please do update me.
If you did more than 5 minutes of Googling, you would have all the evidence you need. I dislike Chinese Shills, but I'll provide some links here.
There were millions of falun gong practitioners (focus on the "were" there). China started an organ program. You can't just take organs after a person dies. Only brain-dead people are viable candidates.
China can get an organ in a week or so (their record is 4 hours). The reason transplant lists are so long here is because you have to not only wait for someone to die in the approved way so their organs are usable, but they must also match. The intersection of these two things is very small. Such fast matching and delivery can only mean they have people pre-screened and waiting to die.
As to concentration camps, the camps are admitted by the Chinese government itself (claiming that everyone is there "voluntarily"). The locations of many have been pinned down. Furthermore, satellite imagery shows the break-neck speed at which new buildings are being erected and can be used for a quite accurate count of victims (especially when cross-sectioned with testimonials).
> And lawyers who have defended Falun Gong practitioners also reject allegations that those prisoners’ organs are being harvested.
> “I have never heard of organs being taken from live prisoners,” said Liang Xiaojun, who said he had defended 300 to 400 Falun Gong practitioners in civil cases and knew of only three or four deaths in prison.
>Jose Nuñez, head of the transplantation program at the World Health Organization, which collects information on transplants worldwide, says that in 2015 the number of foreigners going to China for transplants was “really very low,” compared with the traffic to India, Pakistan or the United States, or in comparison with transplant-visitor numbers in China’s past.
> Chapman and Millis say it is “not plausible” that China could be doing many times more transplants than, for instance, the United States, where about 24,000 transplants take place every year, without that information leaking out as it did when China used condemned prisoners’ organs.
I'd highly suggest taking a more critical approach to your media consumption over believing Western propaganda. The West would have you believe the Chinese are infants and cannot see the corruption of their own government. If Americans can see it in their own why can't other people?
> At the end of the day, every society limits free speech in some way. The US sets that limit at threatening physical harm on specific individuals. China sets that limit at upsetting the status quo without going through the proper channels.
I think you're drawing a long bow on this one - if thoughts aren't allowed to be discussed, then they effectively don't or can't exist. If a society is healthy then it can't be afraid of its constituents having a conversation, the rational limit is to prevent someone from coercing someone else with their conversation - through threats of violence. If these conversations aren't allowed, then how can the governing elite take public opinion into account? If public opinion is just the allowed conversation, you can see how easily the allowed conversation could become twisted and exclude more and more people. For instance if you asked the Uyghur people how things were going you'd probably get a different conversation, these people are Chinese citizens as well aren't they?
> But when the current philosopher kings are doing so well, only a minority of people on the margins of society really want to rock the boat.
Is this true? How do you know they're doing well if no one is allowed to criticise them, in democracy it was learnt many years ago that when things go wrong its best to chuck out the one managing the place and get someone new. Again, if things were going so well and everyone was so happy, then the rulers shouldn't be afraid to ask the people who are governed if they agree. If the rulers point to one metric - the ability to buy and produce widgets, then you can quickly imagine a situation where the opinion of those producing the widgets is irrelevant, they will just have to work all day every day to produce widgets because widget production is up, the widget producers are just expendable commodities.
> Surely if everyone was doing well, conversation would be encouraged
CCP encourage very open discussion on anything except political issues. While presumably one day that won't work, because absolute power brings absolute corruption. How long until that happens and backfires, it's not clear.
