Posted on 04/03/2018 10:00:52 AM PDT by C19fan
Western media and the Chinese chattering classes have been in an uproar since China’s National People’s Congress approved constitutional changes that included lifting the two-term presidential limit. China approves “president for life,” proclaimed Western media.
But this misinterprets the nature of the development. And the world appears to be overlooking consequential political reforms taking place in China that will impact our collective future for the better.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
China like Russia has been run by autocratic rulers and civil society is only gradually emerging in those countries.
In Xi’s youth, China had the chaotic and destructive Cultural Revolution. The anarchy and assault on Chinese values and governing institutions left a lasting impression on many of the current elite.
As a result, they favor stability over freedom. Its a Chinese version of Catch-22 you must have a strong government, rule of law and free markets in place before you can have democracy.
In today’s China, the latter takes a back seat to the former in terms of national development.
It always amazes me how on FB and elsewhere ignoramuses get ‘Fascism’ and ‘National Socialism” mixed up.
Fascism, in economic terms actually works pretty well sometimes- Mussolini revitalized Italy's economy and for the first few years Germany did OK in many respects; markets like stability in the political sense...
(posted too soon, a continuation).
“National Socialism”, by the definition of its founders, has race at its very core, but uses fascistic means - single party rule but capitalist (if corrupt and only semi free) economics but the economics is only a means to a racial end.
I’m going with the definitions that the founders, Mussolini and Drexler/Eckart respectively, used,
Somewhere in Seattle a plutocrat is rubbing his hands together murmuring ‘President for life Bezos”.
Xi dynasty?
I’m no fan of the Chinese Communist Party. Certainly the US Constitution is theoretically better than the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party.
However, the Chinese ruling elite (after Mao croaked) compare favorably with the corrupt US ruling elite, its craptastic US Congress, its imperial US president’s phone and pen (regardless of party), and its US national security state that is doing everything possible to keep up the water levels in the swamp.
At least the ChiComs since Mao have the good sense not to squander trillions on nation-building third-world Muslim sh**holes and the good sense not to encourage those who engender racial, ethnic, and gender strife, and the good sense not to admit immigrants who have no desire to integrate in their way of life. They also haven’t run up over twenty trillion in deficits since Mao croaked.
It’s not like the Chinese ever had a solid tradition of individual liberty to squander in the first place. This is precisely what the ruling elite in the US have done. For this reason, the Chinese ruling elite are more popular with ordinary Chinese people (excluding Tibetan Buddhist and Xinjiang Muslim extremists, of course) than the US ruling elite are among ordinary Americans.
Old tyrants’ formula of creating a problem and imposing a solution. Does not mean that liberty will not work.
There is nothing non-socialistic about national socialist/fascist economics; it actually follows the Marxist formula of government takeove “by degree”.
They are different, but not distinct. Fascism is entirely about combining single party political rule with a (somewhat) free market economy; sorry the definition was clear and accurate when Mussolini wrote the definition, the fact that dimwit ‘academics’ got them conflated decades later to where they are used interchangeably now just means that the people using them interchangeably should not be taken seriously. Words (definitions) have meaning, and not whatever ones we simply decide to give them at our whim.
Fascism existed before ‘National Socialism’. Fascism also utilizes the free market to create and (somewhat) distribute wealth. It’s quite possible for a capitalist to be a fascist, too. ‘National Socialism’ is a racial philosophy that initially used the fascist single party/capitalist model (since it worked for both economic resuscitation and political control) but quickly revealed it’s truly socialistic nature, but in either case was all about race, with economics being much less important.
it does no good to confuse them.
Hell, most people think Hitler invented National Socialism.
So, technically, you are incorrect by any definition except the ones propagated by liberal academia, no point in playing their game.
Anyway, no supporter of either, but I merely find it interesting that China is actually using the Fascist model according to the definition of Mussolini.
You’re right on that MrEdd.
Pretty much the same for the NYTimes and LATimes.
“Italy is not a capitalist country according to the meaning now conventionally assigned to that term.” — 1935Plainly Marxist in outlook.
“When the war is over, in the world’s social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth’s riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers.” — 1941
arrrg- sorry for the formatting error.
Mussolini was all over the place with his rhetoric, but always went back to his communist roots, speaking particularly on themes of “social justice” and wealth redistribution. As the Communist Manifesto said, “These measures will, of course, be different in different countries”, so Benito adjusted his measures to fit his own country.
Good points, well made.
This is just the latest China dynasty - the start of the Xi dynasty. Chinese are used to it, they’ve had over 2 thousand years of it.
“... US ruling elite, its craptastic US Congress”
When I hear ‘Republicans’ like Jeb or McCain shooting their mouths about ‘one party states’ ‘stealing from their own (put any country) people” abroad it cracks me up each time.
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