There’s also been a certain “Soviet democracy”, the democracy perception of which in the polls would be sky high especially under dear Stalin and Voroshilov leading it with iron hand, and less when dissent stopped getting you executed.
Same thing with China. Dissent gets punished brutally. Young protesters are dying in camps in the thousands. The Chinese government just doesn‘t let the tanks roll in anymore. Instead they utilize mass surveillance to track down each and every protester and deport them from home. Tiananmen square massacres are happening every day behind closed doors. That‘s why the public thinks it‘s a democracy despite one party controlling everything openly, down to who may run against them in local elections. Or they‘re too afraid to say otherwise.
And then one can think one step further and realize that western nations are not very far from similarly detecting dissenters before they do anything useful, and they don’t need camps, just subtly directing them in life onto paths not harmful to the establishment and unlikely to bring offspring. Big data and social media magic.
There’s also been a certain “Soviet democracy”, the democracy perception of which in the polls would be sky high especially under dear Stalin and Voroshilov leading it with iron hand, and less when dissent stopped getting you executed.
Same thing with China. Dissent gets punished brutally. Young protesters are dying in camps in the thousands. The Chinese government just doesn‘t let the tanks roll in anymore. Instead they utilize mass surveillance to track down each and every protester and deport them from home. Tiananmen square massacres are happening every day behind closed doors. That‘s why the public thinks it‘s a democracy despite one party controlling everything openly, down to who may run against them in local elections. Or they‘re too afraid to say otherwise.
And then one can think one step further and realize that western nations are not very far from similarly detecting dissenters before they do anything useful, and they don’t need camps, just subtly directing them in life onto paths not harmful to the establishment and unlikely to bring offspring. Big data and social media magic.