Bunch of BRICS countries arent democratic themselves, not to speak of their new additions.
The whole BRICS conference didnt allow journalist questions
I’m sure Russia and China have the perfect democracy in mind.
It will be perfectly fair. Both Putin and Xi will have 55% of the vote.
Bold to think Putin would be more than a junior partner.
Then again, he has lots of nukes.
I think what we’ve seen over the last bit, is that just nukes are a very inflexible tool. They protect you from open invasion, and that’s it, because nobody’s going to believe you will end the world over whatever diplomatic slight.
Democracy with Chinese characteristics they meant.
Democracy without dissent. China has achieved peak democracy. Once you mercilessly crush all opposition, your population becomes completely unified and elections are easy, straightforward affairs! The one secret of success that western democracies don’t want you to know!
I’m sorry, what? Are they defining “democratic” to mean that each government has a say, regardless of how democratic that government itself actually is?
We can call it The Democratic People’s Republic of Earth.
Sanctions and wide spread use off the of the dollar needs to be addressed in a global democratic fashion. The USA hasn’t resembled anything near democratic for a bit, yet kill innocent citizens globally in the name of democracy. In the same way each vote should mean something in a democratic country, each country should have a say in what takes place globally. Makes sense when they’re orchestrating multipolar international rule.
US democracy is flawed but still stronger than most BRICS countries. Maybe all of them.
There are many shades of gray on the slide to authoritarianism.
This headline is strange. It doesn’t seem to be a quote that I can find, and none of the proposed policies really would involve more global democracy. They are mostly aimed at increasing the influence of BRICS countries at the expense of the US and its allies.
Giving more of the world’s population a greater say in global governance and decision-making is a great idea. But unfortunately there really is no one trying to push for such a thing currently.
The USA hasn’t resembled anything near democratic for a bit
What fantasy land are you living in?
No, really. America has fucked up their democracy… It started good, for sure, but it keeps getting eroded (unrealistic time constraints, arbitrary boundaries and silly vetoes or weightings). I’m just sitting from the hip here, certainly no expert
Only white male landowners could vote when it started
That’s a very good point, I do concur. But it used to be a lot better just a (few?) decades ago
…And yet most of the rest of the world is streaking way ahead in terms of basic liberties
Russia, probably.
Tell me, what is the likelihood that a publicly supported measure will become law on a federal level? And what about one that the public doesn’t support?
Yes, the author chose that word and the content of the article suggests it’s meant as respecting countries’ sovereignty and reducing the concentration of global political power.
Just because a country does not conform to a Western definition of “democratic”, doesn’t mean that that country is not a democracy.
I would personally say that the United States is not a democracy by a typical definition, because voters don’t actually have the choice to vote for anything they like, and not just crank things but even things that are very popular and very important - medicare for all is a popular policy that neither party represents for example, and third parties are so disempowered by the voting system that it is essentially impossible (but not technically! as if that matters!) for any other party to gain power in their place. The generally low approval ratings for various parts of the government (the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court) are an indication of this. Is the mere ability to choose between two options, especially bad options, really a good definition of democracy? Might, perhaps, there be better ones?
Compare this to China. Sure, it’s a one-party state, but it’s a communist one-party state, as opposed to the United States’ capitalist one party state that is merely separated into two separate parties to meet their own, bad, definition of democracy. That being said, it’s actually quite a highly decentralized country, with regional and local officials elected by the people. More importantly, it has very high approval ratings and the people’s needs are generally met. I think this is a much better definition of democracy because where the people’s needs are made the priority. It’s harder to game that kind of system - the former definition has the “cheat code” of just splitting one party in two and then having the rich “lobby” both of them (AKA, legalized corruption) to have the same policies where it counts, whereas the latter can’t do that, it actually has to deliver the goods. Of course, it’s not as if you can’t have both - a system where you can choose everything about your country, and one where most people’s needs are generally met and most people approve. But if we have to have one or the other, the latter is the more important feature, IMO.
Sure, it’s a one-party state, but it’s a communist one-party state
Wasn’t communism supposed to be a classless, stateless, and moneyless society?
people’s needs are generally met
Except if you’re a political dissident or a Uyghur.
You also seem to overlook the massive state surveillance apparatus. The NSA and FBI are probably jealous of how far reaching some of the Chinese systems are.
China is essentially an autocratic state-capitalist country, with some communist aesthetics.
But then again, your comment is nothing I wouldn’t expect from someone from hexbear.
China is an authoritarian dictatorship. It bears very little resemblance to Marx’s communism.
It seems to me you never lived in a real existing communist country.
It it incorrect to state that voters don’t have a choice. The barriers are high to make radical change at the Federal level, sure, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be done. One of the biggest problems is disenfranchisement and disengagement. People feel like they cannot make any change so they believe that the system is broken, but for all of the talk about politics, very few people actually vote in all of the possible elections.
Here’s an example of US voting in action…
The 2022 Dallas County elections covered a population of about 2.8 million residents in a large urban area, yet voter turnout was only 218,000 residents (7.8% of the population).
The county level of government manages a significant part of daily life for residents (e.g. police, utilities, public education, roads) yet the resident population seems disinterested with guiding local government. If you look at the election records, some roles voted into power are not even contested.
https://www.dallascountyvotes.org/election-results-and-maps/election-results/historical-election-results/#ElectionIf one wanted to run for office, the requirements at county levels are fairly simple. Fill in some forms, be a resident in the country for 6 months (12 months in the state), and you might need to arrange for 25 people to sign a petition for your nomination. That’s it. You don’t need to be a Democrat or a Republican - you just need the nomination.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2022/qualifications2022.shtmlAnd if you need more convincing about how easy it could be to make a change in local politics, meet the animal opponents: https://www.insider.com/dog-mayors-of-america-2019-7
The US has never pretended to be a pure democracy. It’s a representative republic. A truly democratic system would work fairly poorly in most places.
Belt Road Initiative of China, Stupid
It’s another means for china to have influence
China is far from Democratic
Countries that have fallen for belt and road have already or will regret it
Now tankie whataboutism…
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The role of democracy is to make government responsible to its constituents rather than to the rulers: democracy was founded on the idea that the monarchy fucking sucks and wealth/power should be better distributed.
China’s government is still accountable to its constituents, just in a different way than the US. Instead of winning and losing elections, getting increased or reduced responsibilities (promotion and demotion) is the primary way of managing accountability. The primary failure mode of China’s government is rampant corruption that decouples the promotion/demotion mechanism from actual constituent well-being, which is why stopping that is the platform that Xi Jinping rose to power on.
People always talk about civil liberties in China, but frankly Asian culture is notoriously conservative. LGBT rights are still an active topic across East and Southeast Asia (and indeed even in the US). Religious freedoms are just… not really a big concern when most of your population isn’t religious. Freedom of speech exists up until they begin calling for government reform/replacement: protests are a dominant form of expressing displeasure to local and municipal governments (the Jasic workers protest was quelled, but the company was punished by government policy that fucked their short-term growth prospects), and can even influence national politics (see the protests against COVID-19 lockdowns and the resultant opening of policy on COVID-19). The War On Terror rears it’s head in ugly ways, but all indigenous minorities get handled with affirmative action policies that encourage economic independence.
Getting over the great firewall is fairly trivial in practice, particularly for the young and tech savvy. The prevalence of studying (4.4 million students) and travel abroad (who the fuck knows) makes it even more trivial to learn and spread news from other perspectives. Activism is prosecuted a fair chunk more, but it’s not like activists in the West are given carte blanche either.
Is it less progressive than urban West Coast/Northeast US? Absolutely. Is the government as accountable as in democracies like the Nordic states or Switzerland? Absolutely not. Then again, you wouldn’t expect it to be. Chinese culture is far closer to that of right-wing America (without the bible thumping and gun toting lol) than it is to that of left-wing America, nevermind left-wing Europe.
