[Arn_Thor]

I much prefer democracy (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus) but one can't argue that with the fact that a multi-generational one-party system CAN encourage a refreshing degree of long-term thinking. This is a good example. (Of course, examples abound of the opposite--also in China)

[BigTTYGothGF]

> (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus)

Got some news for you on that front.

[throwawayqqq11]

The best argument for democracies, are their possibility of peaceful revolutios and this problem might become very relevant for china too.

You can compare the early US with present china. Both countries had/have great potential for economic growth, and everything went well for its citizens as long as the pie got bigger. The interests of the elites and the working class were aligned by that. Once the interests of these two groups diverge, democracies become relevant again. That's why the tech oligarchs are so afraid and politically engaged, to distract us with the have-nots below us.

Today, china just has the better aligning plan, while the west is struggling to keep it's democracies. IMO any reasonable trajectory for sustainability and social stability is a contradiction to western elites, who cannot think outside their status quo, while china just builds it. I really wish china well and that they dont develop such an arrogant international stance like the west.

[xg15]

> (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus)

Inside the country at least...

[Arn_Thor]

Indeed

[Barrin92]

I'd honestly turn the argument on its head. It's China that is being democratic, in the most literal sense. Giving the people what they want, clean energy, cheap stuff, infrastructure simply by satisfying market demand.

It's the largest western, ostensibly democratic nation that is run by some combination of occult neoreactionaries, techno-elites and pseudo-royalty all of which seem to have lost connection to immediate reality in pursuit of annexing territories, bringing about the singularity or what have you. It is ironically China who is more short termist and notably better off for it

I would actually much prefer if the US was run by people who fix potholes in the streets than something that resembles Dune's House Harkonnen

[Yizahi]

Neither is democratic. Democratic is direct rule of citizens, or at least some significant fraction of citizens. Only Switzerland is partially a democracy nowadays. Western countries are oligarchies, where elected elites are ruling however they deem necessary, but possibly with some caution because of elections. China is not even an oligarchy, it's a despotic regime, completely severed from the citizens.

[gamblor956]

It's not market demand. The government is ordering the construction of solar and wind farms without regard to the market demand or to the citizens residing in the locations where the solar farms and wind farms are to be built.

That's the exact opposite of democracy and capitalism.

[Arn_Thor]

you can't just go redefining terms until they mean what you want them to mean. You can say "China meets the wants of most of its citizens" (in which case, citation needed...) but that is definitionally not democratic. Democracy is a system, and a process can or cannot be democratic (within or outside a democratic system).

[boredpeter]

I take issue with "the lack of large scale human rights abuses."

Are you ignorant or just deliberately ignoring the genocide of the Palestinian people with an estimated 680,000 dead (~30% of Gaza) that occurred with widespread support of almost every western democracy?

China may be an authoritarian state but I would argue their large scale human rights abuses are far tamer than what these so called western democracies have been doing for the past 2 years and the direction we're headed.

[Arn_Thor]

Yes, I'm not including deaths in the colonial periphery. That's a rather different dynamic to the domestic question. Your criticism of this simplified view is a valid and welcome addition to the conversation, though.

The West's post-colonial exploitation and suppression of the global south does strike me as a feature of unfettered capitalism more than the political systems "back home".