[drzaiusapelord]

Western states certainly aren't perfect but they are far more permissive on a practical level and tend to lean towards lowered corruption and reasonable punishments outside of edge cases.

From a tourist's perspective NYC, Chicago, LA are a madhouse of crime, graffiti, etc while Pyongyang is a wonderful, clean, and relatively quiet capital. You'd think the latter would be utopia, but of course, its far from it. My point is that a tourist's experience actually has the opposite incentives as a citizen's experience. An oppressed and submissive populace is nice for tourists but not nice for locals. A boisterous, empowered, and loud populace is nice for locals but not nice for tourists.

For example, I imagine the Paris and Athens metro systems go on strike a lot more than the Moscow and Pyongyang metro systems do.