| 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. |
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.