The data is coming from the world’s largest democracy perception study, published by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (a Danish-based non-profit organisation).
Democracies have never been anything other than disguised oligarchies. As good old Blanqui said: “What is a democrat, I pray you? It is a vague, banal word, without precise meaning, a rubber word. Everyone claims to be a democrat.”
Damn evil CCP brainwashing their people to think that democracy is important /s
That’s because they’re brainwashed by propaganda.
The US us not at all democratic.
Assuming this is a reasonable representation of public opinion in the two countries (and I don’t yet have reason to assume otherwise, despite the neoliberal position of the founders of the institute commissioning the survey), I now think it would be interesting to see a breakdown, country by country, of the discrepancy between public perception of democracy and independent observers’ ratings of democracy in those same countries.
independent observers
How are you determining “independent”?
The perception of democracy by a country’s own people is likely the strongest indicator of its health. After all, what could be more relevant than the lived experience of the populace? If people don’t feel that their government serves them, then external ratings showing otherwise, however meticulously compiled, miss the core reality of the situation.
Furthermore, coming up with a truly comprehensive and universally agreed-upon rating system for democracy is itself a non-trivial challenge. Would such a rating heavily weigh material conditions, levels of inequality, access to public services, or more abstract freedoms like speech and assembly? And crucially, who decides which of these aspects are the most important or hold the greatest weight in determining a nation’s democratic standing?
Those poor naive people have been brainwashed into thinking their government helps people. Us enlightened and free Westerners know the system’s rigged and that those in power don’t give a shit about what we think, which proves the superiority of our system
Its incredibly depressing talking to western liberals about politics. They can’t even imagine that countries actually exist where the goverment isn’t trying to kill them at all times.
What’s even worse, is that when looking at any societal problem, the first place they look is the how the US half-tries and fails to solve a problem. How the US does anything, whether it be from health care, to law, to caring for the environment, should be the case study in what not to do. It’s a rare person who looks at how any non-western country tackles problems.
The liberal worldview rests on a theological conviction that liberalism represents the pinnacle of governance, inherently destined to yield the best possible results. This article of faith, treated as self-evident truth, then dictates that any non-liberal system is, by definition, repressive and inferior. It’s a conclusion that requires no further examination.
This will be unironically what libs and conservatives post if they ever saw this. Of course they won’t ever see it because they have a premium media diet of 100% western cope so they can imagine how they’re forces for good in the world as they repeatedly ignore every sign that the west is taking all the money and burning down everything it touches.
I think that enlightenment is a moral of bourgeoisie . I would say materialistic.
Something not mentioned in the comments; In my experience Americans do not really understand democracy ; they understand voting. But ignore everything after they leave the voting booth, including how their votes are counted ( which in much of the USA are some private companies who hide their methods and do not allow recounts). Any United Nations method used to detect cheating shows massive amounts of ballot stuffing. This is ignored.
My point mentioning the above is that the United States is not a democracy by any metric, but pretends more than any other country that it is. And because the people of the USA fundamentally do not understand this, any improvement in the USA, improving quality of life, cannot be by democratic methods.
Something not mentioned in the comments; In my experience Americans do not really understand democracy ; they understand voting.
Debatable, they suck at voting.
I think the national participation level is at a maximum possible. Many understand that voting is worthless and have disengaged; and there is no way to get those people to vote without making new and transparent ballot counting methods.
The USA is very complex and there are states which have honest voting. I think, but don’t know, that participation is higher in those states as a rule.
Some background information on the source. From NATOpedia:
The Alliance of Democracies Foundation (AoD) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of democracy and free markets across the globe
It was founded in 2017 by war criminal, former NATO secretary general and likely current CIA asset Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Among the co-founders you find the politically connected oligarch Fritz Schur who provided a significant part of the funding for Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s Liberal Party during his tenure as prime minister.
It is an organisation devoted to advance atlanticism, neoliberalism and western imperialism.
And yet, it still shows China in a more positive light than its masters.
Yes. That’s what makes it quite remarkable.
There could be several reasons why such an organisation would publish this. It could have been published with the expectation that it would only be read among the elite who actually needs accurate information. It could also have been published to push for some sort of “renewal of democracy” through tighter control of the media and harsher repression of dissidents. It could also simply be a “look at his brainwashed the Chinese are!” Kind of thing.
whatever the intentions, it’s for damn sure they won’t want to disperse this sort of thing to their mainstream news outlets
Actually this stuff has been going on TV since I can remember.
in other words, it’s an org that cannot possibly be accused of having a pro Chinese bias
You can choose exploiters not the system. Western democracy is this
This should be improved with adding more countries, like Russia, then comparing with other important data, like freedom of expression, to be somehow relevant to any discussion
Freedom of expression only matters when it translates into real-world action. Otherwise, it’s just a jester’s privilege, the freedom to scream into the void. In China, people enjoy genuine freedom to advance their material interests, reflected in their consistently rising standard of living and an economy that serves the majority. Meanwhile, the West claims abstract ‘freedoms’ while living standards crumble and working people are stripped of political power.
In my country I could live without working and still be in pretty good health conditions after years, if I would like to.
Is that possible in China?
Because my country is the average “western” country and I consider it still pretty far from a democratic utopia.
The average “western” country depends on the spoils of Imperialism to subsidize costs, ie social safety nets and lower prices of commodities through expropriating vast amounts of wealth from the Global South. China doesn’t do that, its own development and safety nets come from their own labor and production. Very different circumstances.
The average “western” country depends on the spoils of Imperialism
Hm… Yes, the famous Polish Colonies spanning half the India, some of Africa and Kamchatka.
China doesn’t do that
China for the past 20 years has been mining Africa like crazy. I don’t see that wealth staying with African people, but moving to China and giving it monetary and political power.
Poland isn’t the “average Western country,” but it does depend on the same system of super exploitation of the Global South.
China is not imperializing Africa. China needs a lot of raw materials found in African countries, but it doesn’t keep African countries dependent on China nor does China enforce economic control on African countries. Both sides benefit. See here, China does not meet the definition of Imperialism.
I’m from Poland.
The source you quoted says that USSR wasn’t imperialistic.
Polish economy during occupation by USSR was drained, we were forced to send goods to the Mother Russia like crazy, without compensation. We had local shortages, so that Moska could benefit. If that’s not imperialistic exploitation to you, we have nothing to talk about, because you’re crazy.
The USSR was not Imperialist, see again:
USSR did not practice imperialism in the Leninist sense — it did not export capital and was not under control of a financial oligarchy.
Users like @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml can offer more insight on Poland as it related to the USSR, but to claim that the USSR was Imperialist is wrong. Calling me “crazy” for having consistency is just a way to avoid the original subject, which was your claim that the PRC is Imperializing Africa, which is also wrong. Now that you were caught out, you pivot to another direction hoping you can coast by on being Polish, when I’ve spoken to other Polish users and done study on my own that leads me to disagree with you.
Lol that must be true for some country somewhere, but China is not it, no matter how much even I would like it to be true.
It is true, though. The PRC’s economy is extrenely industrialized and focused on exporting commodities, western countries use financial domination and strategic underdevelopment of the Global South to get cheap commodities. The West doesn’t produce as much as it takes, China produces for itself and sells the excess to others.
In my country we produce for ourselves and sell the excess too… Still not even close to a socialist utopia though…
Every country exports and imports, that’s not what I’m talking about. Private monopoly Capital in western countries extends and carves out the value created in the Global South. The PRC is far more industrialized than any Western Country, it doesn’t engage in Imperialism. Here’s a good article on Imperialism.
Further, nobody said China was a Utopia. It’s a developing Socialist country, Socialism isn’t some holy status that makes all who live in it live magical lives, it’s a mode of production. China has a long way to go, but Socialism is why it has had the success it has so far.
Which other countries does China exploit?
Are you serious? China is an imperialist country like most others that are that big.
Tell me who they’ve exploited. Go on.
17·3 days agoIs Brazil imperialist? Is India imperialist? They are “that big”, no?
If you’re not working to support your life, then someone else is.
Yes?
You couldn’t choose not to work in China, it’s still a pretty poor country and the majority need to work to live.
Those who can’t work are mostly well-supported by a combination of family support networks - far more highly valued in China than in the west - and government welfare systems. It’s part of the reason homeless people are so rare there for example.
And that doesn’t sound too me like a big different situation fron what we have, let alone a better one. Then how is the perception of what’s going on that different?
They’ve seen their own lives improve materially due to the actions of the state. They’ve seen the government respond to the wishes of the public.
I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make.
My point is that our lives here have improved too, but still the sentiment isn’t that positive, rightfully so.
Also China isn’t a third world country, it’s a pretty big player in the global scale and yet the condition of his population are on par or lower than what you can find in the “west”.
Yes, and after time on RedNote, I believe it’s because of them simply believing what western media says about it, but since they’re not also living in it, they don’t get to also see the negatives.
You’re misunderstanding. The infographic is saying that Chinese people consider China a democracy at a higher rate than Westerners consider their own countries democracies.
In my experience though you’re not entirely wrong; lots of Chinese still romanticise the west in many respects, though I also know many who’ve lived abroad and realised that it’s not as rosy as they had imagined.
I met a Chinese exchange student at my local college Palestine encampment last year. He was finishing up his masters and was about to go back to China after having been here a few years. He said in China he was a pro-west liberal who thought Marxism was outdated and the party was silly, but after seeing America in such detail he became a dedicated Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist who wore a hammer and sickle medallion everywhere and was planning to join the party when he returned. I hope he followed through.
Sweet arc. Reminds me of the story Parenti tells about ppl in the soviet bloc hoping that with the fall of the USSR, that they would gain the consumer cornucopia of the west, but get to keep all the social services, job security, and quality of life they had gained through socialism (they didn’t gain the first, and lost the 2nd).
This comrade got to see first hand the US’s horrible inequality and poverty, and that the chinese marxists were correct.
Yeah, I majorly misunderstood the graphic, thank you
Either you’re misunderstanding this or I’m misunderstanding you. This is showing that people in China believe the PRC is very democratic and therefore they support it, not that they envy western “democracy”. The Chinese people enjoy far more democracy than people in the imperial core.
OOOOOOH, yes, I misunderstood
this is giving off
vibesAt least you’re honest about your politics being vibes based
ok
That’s literally UK
accurate description of how surveys are conducted in fascist states like the US, UK, and France
lol, why did you throw in France specifically?
since it was part of the survey
Unironically correct. What’s there to complain about?
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
Chinese household savings hit another record high in 2024 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
People in China enjoy high levels of social mobility https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
The typical Chinese adult is now richer than the typical European adult https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-richer-than-europeans-wealth-report-finds-2022-9
Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&%3Blocations=CN&%3Bstart=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
None of these things happen in capitalist states, and we can make a direct comparison with India which follows capitalist path of development. In fact, without China there practically would be no poverty reduction happening in the world.
If we take just one country, China, out of the global poverty equation, then even under the $1.90 poverty standard we find that the extreme poverty headcount is the exact same as it was in 1981.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/5-myths-about-global-poverty
The $1.90/day (2011 PPP) line is not an adequate or in any way satisfactory level of consumption; it is explicitly an extreme measure. Some analysts suggest that around $7.40/day is the minimum necessary to achieve good nutrition and normal life expectancy, while others propose we use the US poverty line, which is $15.
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/12-things-we-can-agree-about-global-poverty
