Does democracy have a future?

[AutomaticEarth]

Answers on a postcard please........

[AutomaticEarth]

Newsnight is very interesting. Some bloke trying to sell his wares re a book about China ruling the world.

My view is that China will not rule the world as they are polluting it which is not a good situation...

[kenneal - lagger]

It occurred to me during that piece on Newsnight that there is not much practical difference between he governments of the USA and China. In China the Communist Party gives you one or two selected people to vote for and they do what the Party tells them to. In the USA the corporations give you one or two people to vote for and they then do what the corporations tell them to.

What's better? Government by a political party or government by corporation? The economic performance of China has far exceeded that of the USA over the last twenty or thirty years and they haven't had the benefit of a huge indigenous oil industry. So it would seem that government by the Communist Party is more successful than government by corporation!

In effect there is the same level of democracy in the two countries as democracy in the US is a scam as the politicians there are bought and paid for by the major corporations. Every one else but the population of the US can see it is so!

[Little John]

Yes to all of that K. Frankly, I am sick of hearing the empty pontifications of rent-an-intellectual types being put in front of our screens on regular basis to remind us all just how "free" we all are. The obvious implication being that we should stop complaining since we could be Chinese---poor things.

[UndercoverElephant]

Answers on a postcard please........

No. Democracy guarantees it is impossible to take the tough, long-term decisions required to prevent the collapse of the world as we know it. The perfect example comes from China. Without the initially-despised and admittedly brutal one-child-policy, China would have walked into a humanitarian catastrophe. It needed to be done. But no democracy could ever have or will ever implement such a policy, because it would be too unpopular with the electorate.

The odd thing is that having forced this change by implementing a hated law, it has led to a cultural change whereby the law isn't needed. Most chinese people now see the immense benefits to their own children of having only one of them, and there are indications that even if the law was now completely repealed, a lot of them would choose to only have one child. So now they have the flipside "problem" of worrying about there not being enough young people to economically support the old ones, but that is a debate for another thread...

[UndercoverElephant]

My view is that China will not rule the world as they are polluting it which is not a good situation...

Will not and should not aren't the same thing. The Americans have done a pretty good job of polluting the world for the last 60 years, during which they have effectively "ruled" most of it.

[emordnilap]

Does democracy have a future?

Well, "It has a great future behind it". As Ken points out, it's been replaced by corporatocracy before it's really been tried, so we may never know...

Even if it was tried somewhere, the forces against it would prevail in today's climate.

A more relevant question might be, "Where exactly will corporatocracy take us before something really gives? And how long is this going to take?"

[kenneal - lagger]

A corporatocracy will take us to the old Soviet Union or present day China as far as pollution is concerned with no environmental safeguards and poison dumped all over the place. You just have to look at the USA to see where it would go: mountain top removal with tailings dams bursting into water courses all over the place; coal fired power stations belching sulphurous smoke into the atmosphere; the odd nuke going critical; fracking and flow back ponds leaking into the environment and last but not least the terrible scar that is tar sands development.

Corporations only think of their bottom line and as such are entirely selfish and evil. They need the heavy hand of the law to keep them in their place which is under heavy sedation, chained in a darkened, padded, padlocked room.

Remember small companies make jobs and big companies destroy them.

[emordnilap]

Ken, it'll definitely go that way in Europe if TTiP is implemented. Despite everything, we Europeans have held onto a little more sanity (though much of our insanity is proxied).

The evil 'companies are persons' idea has much to answer for.

[emordnilap]

A corporatocracy will take us to the old Soviet Union or present day China as far as pollution is concerned with no environmental safeguards and poison dumped all over the place.

China Wields New Weapon in Pollution War But How Far Will it go?

It's a start, the first step on a very high staircase with very low risers.

[emordnilap]

And right on the nail, Ken: Ohío is plunging ever deeper into the fossil/nuke abyss

Its Public Utilities Commission may soon gouge the public for $3 billion(BILLION!) to subsidize two filthy 50-year-old coal burners and America’s most dangerous nuke.

Ah yes, America, the land of the free market:

In 2001, Ohío deregulated its electric markets. But the state’s nuke owners demanded nearly $10 billion in “stranded cost” handouts so the obsolete Davis-Besse and Perry reactors on Lake Erie could allegedly compete with more efficient technologies.

Corporatism for 99%, socialism for 1%.

LOL: the state's name was converted to 'SPAMLAND' when I posted.

[raspberry-blower]

Right on cue - TAE: We've Let the Clowns Come Way To Far

Allow money into politics and the former will end up owning the latter, no exceptions. Money won’t support candidates with a conscience, only those who’ll do anything to advance their careers, who are as pliable as and spineless as a stick of wet gum, and those are all that will be left. If anything typifies American politics, it’s moral bankruptcy. One dollar one vote. 100 million dollars, 100 million votes. And then they insist on calling that democracy, a concept promoted by the media purchased the same way the politicians are.

All you need to do is get people to believe whatever it is you got for sale. And 99.9% of people are easily fooled. That’s how you define democracy in 2015: how many people can you fool? Which is the most convincing sleight of hand?

The Europeans are well down that same road. Mario Draghi is set to announce over $1 trillion in QE tomorrow, and none of it will ever reach the alleged target, the real economy. He set up his QE in a ‘proportional’ way, meaning most of that trillion will go to Germany and France, not the Greeks and Italians who need it most.

It's more than about time to redefine the word "Democracy". It is far more than just putting an X on a bit of paper every 4/5 years or so

[emordnilap]

You'd like Owen Jones's The Establishment - a brilliant, easy read, showing how it's not just money (though that's the bigger part of it) but also about shaping the narrative: what was totally unacceptable 20 years ago is now mainstream.

Classic examples are the bribing of customers to sell off assets at a cheap rate (BT, BG, building societies etc), making privatisation of natural monopolies and mutuals normal and even, to many, a good idea! The privatisation of the Post Office was thus a doddle.

Controlling the mood and mindset of a country is key, isn't it? Just as in The Shock Doctrine, the establishment seizes the moment.

[Lord Beria3]

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Winston Churchill

That is what I think. Its true China has seen massive growth and progress in the last 30 years but this started from a very low base (self inflicted by mad Maoist policies) and a brutal Civil War/WW2.

Yes, the Communist Party have done a pretty good job post-Mao but lets be frank, there have been some major negative effects including huge pollution of the eco-system across China.

[BritDownUnder]

“Yes, the Communist Party have done a pretty good job post-Mao but lets be frank, there have been some major negative effects including huge pollution of the eco-system across China.

I am in China again at the moment. This time Shanghai. The standard of living here seems quite good to be honest - on par with a poor London suburb lets say.

I do feel they are going for growth at the expense of all else such as the environment etc. They don't go in for weekends here. Just work everyday from what I can see. Big discrepancies in wealth too. Shops selling similar stuff that is more expensive than Australia and the UK too. Not much sign of any upheaval though. "The government is always right" my interpreter told me.

They have been expanding Shanghai across what was fertile farmland judging by the mud that is around our site. Replacing single/terraced houses and gardens closeby with numerous tower blocks mainly 4 to 10 storeys in the suburbs and a few token solar water heaters on top with poor single glazed aluminium framed windows. A retrograde step for resilience and nightmare for a future energy or food shock. Lots of cars, very few pedal bikes electric bikes by the dozen, big shopping malls all around. Everyone seems to have an iPhone or Samsung on the train.

I get the impression that every little bit of efficiency has been wrung out of the system here. No rubbish collection for instance in most of China. Someone recycles it all. Same with the food - very little gets wasted even the unpalatable things. Lots of food poisoning around even among the locals as old and probably unfit for consumption food gets put into the system. They had babyfood scandal a few years ago. The standards and enquiries are not transparent like in the West. Just a secret trial and some of the players in the babymilk scandal got shot the government is like "Move on people. Nothing to see here now".

Of politics seems like little dissent here. Maybe the wealth, promises of increasing wealth and the trappings of the Western lifestyle is enough.

Hate to be to Party leaders if things go badly wrong though. At least the Greeks can throw out their leaders if things go really pear shaped. Here it will be a bit more nasty.

I'd take Democracy myself but China seems to have the edge on planning and can get things done. Maybe in a country this crowded - China has around 1000 people per cultivatable square mile ignoring deserts and mountains, Australia has around 20 - maybe you need authoritarianism to manage such a society as China's.