[MichaelZuo]

If the party membership is revoked first, then the person wouldn’t be part of the ‘political and ruling class’ any longer.

Then they would just be a citizen who might formerly have been some bigshot, i.e. the second case.

It still doesn’t seem to make sense to discuss any increases relative to the first case, since in 2012 it was already unlimitedly authoritarian.

[vlovich123]

Revoking party membership doesn’t mean much necessarily if you still wield influence and power. Imagine if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton were kicked out by Joe Biden trying to consolidate power. They’d still have a voice and be influential outside of their party membership. That’s why Xi needs to imprison his rivals and root them out beyond just revoking their membership. And again I’ll point you to the example made of Jack Ma who wasn’t in the political party except maybe nominally but had wealth. I think you’ve never lived under an authoritarian regime and never talked with people who lived under it to understand what life is like.

[MichaelZuo]

This is getting too into the weeds, of course individual situations can be analyzed, but this doesn’t apply to ‘the political and ruling class’ as a whole.

To be more precise in wording, the net increase, or decrease, in net negative authoritarian decision making is what matters for me and probably most HN readers.

Since this increase, or decrease, may be positive and negative to varying degrees for various people and factions, it’s practically impossible to tell if it’s net negative for the class as a whole.