[ossobuco]

> Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others.

Honestly it would be about time we stop repeating this Churchill's quote as if it's one of the ten commandments. The man wasn't certainly a god and humans are often mistaken.

The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.

I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.

[Swizec]

> The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.

Correct. “we” used to do it simply by killing the leaders that were disliked. Elections are a bit friendlier than that :)

You might enjoy this Zizek video on the border between the west and the balkans: https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo . I think he captures the sentiment well.

> I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.

This was Chomsky’s whole point in Manufacturing Consent.

[ossobuco]

I think then we can agree that if the people hold very little power, what we have today in the west is definitely not democracy.

A study[0] came to the conclusion that the US is in fact closer to an oligarchy, and I'd extend that to most other so-called democratic countries. The interests of a few always trump the interests of the many.

In this context, that Churchill's quote seems out of place and mostly serves the purpose of shutting down the discussion.

And thanks, I very much enjoy that Zizek video.

- [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

[mvc]

> what we have today in the west is definitely not democracy

On the metric of "people power", do you think people in the east have it any better?

[ossobuco]

It depends.

In Russia? Worse in terms of popular participation in the decisional process, but it still works because the majority of people believe (rightly or not) that their interests are protected by Putin. So for all they care, as long as Putin does his job right, it is for all purposes a democracy in its true meaning. Much unlike us, where most of the electorate feels that governments work against their interests and the quality of life stagnates or worsens, life conditions in Russia have improved greatly since the fall of the USSR.

In China? I'd say they have it better than us. Anyone can join the CPC/government and work their way up the decisional apparatus based on an actually meritocratic process, anyone can participate in administrative decisions through consultations. It's what they call "whole-process people's democracy". Do some research on this if you haven't, you'll find out that Chinese people are much more involved in the decisional process at all its stages than we are.

I'll tell you the truth, I sincerely believe that the only true marker of democracy is for the conditions of the people to keep improving constantly, even for the poorest. That is the realization of the power of the people, the only way in which their interests are actively pursued.

Everything else is just fluff that we added on top to make the term better fit us and exclude our adversaries. Democracy can be direct, representative, authoritarian, it doesn't matter so much to me as long as it makes our lives better.

[squigz]

> an actually meritocratic process

I find this hard to believe. Isn't Western society/democracy ostensibly setup to allow meritocratic advancement as well? Yet I think it's fairly well-established at this point it very much does not work that way in reality. So what is it about Chinese government/society that makes them impervious to the same factors that make meritocratic systems so difficult in the West? Greed, nepotism, and hunger for power to name but a few.

[ossobuco]

Well for one corruption is punished heavily in China, even with death penalty. Just recently an official has been executed for a $412 million corruption case. So of course there's going to be corruption and greed like anywhere else, the difference is how the system reacts to it. In comparison I believe the hardest bribery sentence in the USA is 13 years of imprisonment.

Another interesting thing is that for their poverty alleviation project, when an official is assigned to a province they have specific targets to achieve. As long as they don't achieve the targets, the official can't be promoted or transferred[0]. Meaning if they ever want to get a better job or earn more they have to actually reduce poverty.

- [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuaJGPZCBYU