<p>UCLAri, Where a person started out is not relevant. It is where they are when they run. And I am talking about today.</p>
<p>You can come up with reasons why, but we don’t have a democracy, do we?</p>
<p>I tend to agree with Larry Diamond at Stanford about what defines a liberal democracy:</p>
<p>Electoral outcomes are uncertain, opposition vote is significant and no group that adheres to constitutional principles is denied the right to form a party and contest elections.
The military and other democratically unaccountable actors should be subordinate to the authority of elected civilian officials.
Citizens have multiple channels for expression and representation such as diverse independent associations and movements which they have the freedom to form and join.
Individuals have substantial freedom of belief, opinion, discussion, speech, publication, assembly, demonstration and petition.
There are alternative sources of information (including independent media to which citizens have politically unfettered access).
Executive power is constrained by the autonomy of the government institutions such as an independent judiciary , parliament and other mechanisms of horizontal accountability.
Civil liberties are effectively protected by an independent non-discriminatory judiciary whose decisions are respected and enforced by other centres of power.
Citizens are politically equal under the law.
Minority groups are not oppressed.
The rule of law protects citizens from human right abuses.
The constitution is supreme.</p>
<p>So, assuming that no country meets any of the above metrics perfectly, how does the US not meet these requirements? </p>
<p>And I do think that it matters where people start out. Look, I don’t want a president who’s just some schlub off the street, and let’s be fair: a successful person is more likely to be an exceptional leader. What would bother me is if every president came from a family like the Kennedy or Roosevelt families.</p>
<p>“Electoral outcomes are uncertain, opposition vote is significant and no group that adheres to constitutional principles is denied the right to form a party and contest elections.”</p>
<p>We don’t have this. We don’t have many of the ideas you listed.</p>
<p>Pretty sad.</p>
<p>How on Earth is opposition vote in the US not significant? We have two parties, and despite high incumbency rates, elections for many seats, particularly the presidency, are heavily contested. </p>
<p>What else don’t we have? Don’t just speak in broad terms. And remember that there are degrees: no country has everything listed to the letter.</p>
<p>“How on Earth is opposition vote in the US not significant? We have two parties, and despite high incumbency rates, elections for many seats, particularly the presidency, are heavily contested.”</p>
<p>You answered your own question.</p>
<p>I am not going to give a detailed answer.</p>
<p>“Minority groups are not oppressed.”</p>
<p>You don’t see this? African Americans, Hispanics, Gays.</p>
<p>Like I said: Degrees.</p>
<p>Two parties and incumbency does not mean that seats aren’t being fought over. Yes, there are safe seats, but you will have safe seats in EVERY democracy. It’s both a consequence of what political scientists refer to as the “righteous cycle of dominance” (which means that a politician can bring pork easily and maintain a strong constituency) and aggregation of politically like-minded people in many areas.</p>
<p>You’ll find that the same thing occurs quite a bit in the UK, which also has first-past-the-post elections and single member districts.</p>
<p>However, you’re really not doing a comparative analysis here. EVERY major democracy has some sort of issues with minorities: US, UK, Japan, France, etc. The US treats its minorities a whole lot better than a lot of other countries-- not the best, but not the worst. I mean, political scientists never say that France isn’t democratic, but it sure doesn’t treat its minorities a whole lot better. Same with the UK and Japan.</p>
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<p>Generalities are usually weak responses. Bring out the big guns and let’s see what you’ve got.</p>
<p>IMO, China was never a communist state. Mao and friends wanted power-Emperor Mao. His stance towards the outside world is the only policy that survived his legacy, and even that was borrowed from other dynasties. All his other other policies failed because he concentrated too much power (emperor) at the top with the local microdynamics functioning at another level. </p>
<p>Perhaps you can contrast our current administration in the same tone. Concentration of power by few and the daily life moving in other directions.</p>
<p>The truth is that a large country cannot have a purely communist economic system, because it’s too complicated–that’s why there is really “state capitalism” in communist countries. You can only have pure communism in a small setting, like a farm commune (and even there it’s pretty difficult).
Similarly, it’s not really possible to have pure democracy in a large country. Note that the U.S. political system is a republic, not a pure democracy. In fact, our Constitution has numerous elements that protect minorities from the potential negative effects of a pure democracy.
In fact, though, our country is pretty democratic. Shifts in control from one party to the other really do bring about significant changes in national policy–and those shifts happen fairly often. Perhaps we would have more and better democracy if it were easier for third (and more) parties to be effective.</p>
<p>Hunt,</p>
<p>the thing is what’s the benchmark for “state capitalism”? with almost 70% of the GDP coming the private sector, is it even proper to call it that? maybe we just run out of label to describe china’s economy?</p>
<p>razorsharp,</p>
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<p>i second UCLAri that what you described is more just totalitarianism; just because you add “for the common good” to your description doesn’t make it communism. in singapore, they prohibit having gums and give capital punishment for carrying even small dose of drugs. are you gonna call it communism if they just tag the words “for the common good” to those laws? </p>
<p>i agree with you that communism isn’t all all about an economic theory but economic system is a huge part of it. when it’s looking so much like capitalism, i think communism is indeed pretty dead in china.</p>
<p>I question whether there ever really was “communism” in China, in the sense of the workers owning and controlling the means of production. It seems to me that the means of production were simply taken over by a different set of elites. I agree with Sam Lee that it’s hard to know how to label China’s system now–it is politically totalitarian, but it seems that centralized economic control is weakening. Will the same thing happen to political power as rich people get more power?</p>
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<p>This is amazing. How a single government can govern 1.5 billion people will be unreal.</p>
<p>[China</a> population to reach 1.5 billion by 2033 - Yahoo! India News](<a href=“Yahoo Search - Web Search”>Yahoo Search - Web Search)</p>
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<p>I think that China actually managed to create the most wealth equality of any of the communist states. It’s just that everyone was poor.</p>
<p>in reality, many families have more than one child, especially in rural areas. my friend from china told me even if they were caught, they pay some fines like few thousand yuan (less than 1000 US Dollars)–still a lot for the poor ones but many people can easily pay that these days.</p>
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The difference it makes (the point that communism has essentially ceased to exist in China) is huge and critically important.</p>
<p>If you were to decide to start running a country and were to choose an economic model to follow, choosing the communist model would not be a wise choice since it’s been proven to fail on massive terms in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and elsewhere. There has been long suffering in the world as a result of the decisions of these countries to follow that communist model. It’s important to look at history and understand what’s worked and what hasn’t worked. That’s why the recognition that China’s communist economic model that they’ve followed for decades until the very recent past has failed is important.</p>
<p>Great Op-ed article in NY Times today on this exact topic… (sort of agrees that communism is dead)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin</a></p>
<p>Many of the senior members did indeed graduate from top colleges. The paramount leader went to Tsinghua, which is like the MIT of China. Unlike Bush, they did it without legacy…:D</p>
<p>“That’s why the recognition that China’s communist economic model that they’ve followed for decades until the very recent past has failed is important.”</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know about that…remember that the PRC was only founded in 1949…considering how far their economy has come in less than 60 years, you might argue that it has been a remarkable success.</p>
<p>Hunt,</p>
<p>Yeah, but… I’d say that almost all of their economic growth happens once Deng Xiaoping takes power. Not before.</p>
<p>Hunt:</p>
<p>As UCLARi stated, there hasn’t been a linear progression. It’s almost all happened withing the most recent very short timeframe - after they switched to capitalism and started allowing private enterprise.</p>
<p>China actually went backward, let alone had any progress during the 10-yr Cultural Revolution. That ended only 31 years ago.</p>