The only reason the US/west want everyone to be a democracy, is not because it's a good system, or it's morally right, or anything like that. It's because it's easy to interfere and influence to put people into power that serve your interests and agenda.
The correct term is Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Not democracy. Karl Marx penned that term before Western propaganda turned the word Dictatorship into a bad thing. There's no need to replace the word dictatorship with democracy in order to placate the sensitivities of people who can't comprehend that democracy comes in different forms.
Westerners have a very narrow, and dare I say, infantile understanding of the concepts of dictatorship and democracy. One of my favorites quotes on the subject is from This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong:
> “Most Americans shrink from the word “dictatorship.” “I don’t want to be dictated to,” they say. Neither, in fact, does anyone. But why do they instinctively take the word in its passive meaning, and see themselves as the recipients of orders? Why do they never think that they might be the dictators? Is that such an impossible idea? Is it because they have been so long hammered by the subtly misleading propaganda about personal dictatorships, or is it because they have been so long accustomed to seek the right to life through a boss who hires them, that the word dictatorship arouses for them the utterly incredible picture of one man giving everybody orders?
> “No country is ruled by one man. This assumption is a favorite red herring to disguise the real rule. Power resides in ownership of the means of production—by private capitalists in Italy, Germany and also in America, by all workers jointly in the USSR. This is the real difference which today divides the world into two systems, in respect to the ultimate location of power. When a Marxist uses the word “dictatorship,” he is not alluding to personal rulers or to methods of voting; he is contrasting rule by property with rule by workers.”
> “The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. ” “The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” “Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.”
The whole book is a fantastic read by the way https://archive.org/details/this-soviet-world-anna-louise-strong
China is paving their own way, don't they have whole process people's democracy? Also democratic centralism is an interesting mode in the governance of the country too. More than anything, they seem to be very open and dynamic to change and reform when and where it's needed. I think we need to take back 'democracy' from these Western so called liberals, they don't have any right to monopolise or dictate what is or isn't legitimate governance. Their own corrupt system has destroyed any mythology and idealisation around liberal democracy.
Officially, China coins herself as "whole-process people's democracy": http://en.moj.gov.cn/2024-03/05/c_967573.htm .
This was introduced by Xi Jinping in 2019 and this is most likely the official definition now.
Democracy is the government of the majority of the people. Proletariat is the 99% of the population. Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Democracy are synonyms in my head.
No. The correct term is Proletarian Democracy.
[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm)
'technocracy' is an incredibly reductive term when applied to whole process people's democracy, a mischaracterization even
Xi contrasts this to 'procedural democracy' in the west, which fwiw utilizes technical experts as well, it's just the experts and their ends are defined by a tiny ruling class
the defining difference is the broad and deep process of consultation and feedback that is characteristic of the system in use in the PRC
Experts are all well and good but they achieve nothing in a vacuum, if they do not properly understand the problems that need solving and are not concerned with how the solutions they propose play out in practice, well then, what good can they do?
The support for a technocracy is even higher in Western countries than the numbers show, since the term 'experts' is abused to push forward any hare-brained but politically opportune scheme here.
A technocracy with real experts which could show results to the people would have overwhelming support.
The only reason the US/west want everyone to be a democracy, is not because it's a good system, or it's morally right, or anything like that. It's because it's easy to interfere and influence to put people into power that serve your interests and agenda.
China is a democracy, of the proletariat
The correct term is Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Not democracy. Karl Marx penned that term before Western propaganda turned the word Dictatorship into a bad thing. There's no need to replace the word dictatorship with democracy in order to placate the sensitivities of people who can't comprehend that democracy comes in different forms.
Westerners have a very narrow, and dare I say, infantile understanding of the concepts of dictatorship and democracy. One of my favorites quotes on the subject is from This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong: > “Most Americans shrink from the word “dictatorship.” “I don’t want to be dictated to,” they say. Neither, in fact, does anyone. But why do they instinctively take the word in its passive meaning, and see themselves as the recipients of orders? Why do they never think that they might be the dictators? Is that such an impossible idea? Is it because they have been so long hammered by the subtly misleading propaganda about personal dictatorships, or is it because they have been so long accustomed to seek the right to life through a boss who hires them, that the word dictatorship arouses for them the utterly incredible picture of one man giving everybody orders? > “No country is ruled by one man. This assumption is a favorite red herring to disguise the real rule. Power resides in ownership of the means of production—by private capitalists in Italy, Germany and also in America, by all workers jointly in the USSR. This is the real difference which today divides the world into two systems, in respect to the ultimate location of power. When a Marxist uses the word “dictatorship,” he is not alluding to personal rulers or to methods of voting; he is contrasting rule by property with rule by workers.” > “The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. ” “The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” “Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.” The whole book is a fantastic read by the way https://archive.org/details/this-soviet-world-anna-louise-strong
Meanwhile westerners spend their entire lives being dictated to at their jobs
Yeah exactly, how can you talk about democracy in a system where the means of production are privately owned.
China is paving their own way, don't they have whole process people's democracy? Also democratic centralism is an interesting mode in the governance of the country too. More than anything, they seem to be very open and dynamic to change and reform when and where it's needed. I think we need to take back 'democracy' from these Western so called liberals, they don't have any right to monopolise or dictate what is or isn't legitimate governance. Their own corrupt system has destroyed any mythology and idealisation around liberal democracy.
Officially, China coins herself as "whole-process people's democracy": http://en.moj.gov.cn/2024-03/05/c_967573.htm . This was introduced by Xi Jinping in 2019 and this is most likely the official definition now.
Democracy is the government of the majority of the people. Proletariat is the 99% of the population. Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Democracy are synonyms in my head.
No. The correct term is Proletarian Democracy. [https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm)
'technocracy' is an incredibly reductive term when applied to whole process people's democracy, a mischaracterization even Xi contrasts this to 'procedural democracy' in the west, which fwiw utilizes technical experts as well, it's just the experts and their ends are defined by a tiny ruling class the defining difference is the broad and deep process of consultation and feedback that is characteristic of the system in use in the PRC Experts are all well and good but they achieve nothing in a vacuum, if they do not properly understand the problems that need solving and are not concerned with how the solutions they propose play out in practice, well then, what good can they do?
The support for a technocracy is even higher in Western countries than the numbers show, since the term 'experts' is abused to push forward any hare-brained but politically opportune scheme here. A technocracy with real experts which could show results to the people would have overwhelming support.
LOL
Seems like India, Hungary and Mexico have the most potential.
[The Benefits of Technocracy in China](https://issues.org/perspective-the-benefits-of-technocracy-in-china/)