Thanks!
Cowbee
joined 2 years ago
I don't really agree. Most definitions of democracy center the majority, or the people, as the source of political power. I'd agree if you were talking about voting, but we are talking about democracy overall.
Democracy for the bourgeoisie is not democracy for the whole of society. If the bourgeoisie is in control of who and what the proletariat can vote on, it's more theatrics than democracy.
You can actually use syntax for your references, btw. Lemmy has that functionality (though I can never remember it).
Either way, the UK is a democracy purely for the bourgeoisie, the proletariat isn't given legitimate control over the politcal process. It's a bourgeois dictatorship.
There are 8 other political parties beyond the CPC in China. They don't compete with the CPC, but cooperate, and exert their own interests. Over 90% of Chinese citizens support their government. The extent to which the average Chinese citizen can affect policy is greater than that of the average UK citizen, because democracy is more than just picking a party, but having the ability to pick and choose policy.
All states are authoritarian, as every state is the extension of a given class. The only way to get rid of the state is through socialism, after revolution, and gradually sublimating all property into collectivized ownership until class no longer exists, ie communism. The administration, management, social planning, accounting, etc will remain while the need to exercise authority will vanish along with class. Until we get there, it is better for the proletariat to be in control, ie socialism, than the bourgeoisie, ie capitalism. The UK is under bourgeois control, while the PRC is under proletarian control.
The extent to which a given state exerts its authority depends precisely on the given conditions and circumstances a state is in. There is no latent desire for exerting authority at the helm, there are class dynamics and reactions to those changing relations through class struggle. Nazi Germany and modern Germany are both authoritarian and both serve the bourgeoisie, but Nazi Germany was in economic crisis and needed to violently suppress the working class to retain private property and bourgeois control. Those same circumstances do not exist in modern Germany, but if they did, the state would be just as willing to wield its authority the same way if the bourgeoisie felt it necessary.
Huawei is employee owned. Further, it exists in a socialist economy and is subject to state control, it isn't Huawei that has power over the economy, but the state that has power over Huawei.
I'm sure that's how you were taught in (presumably) Canada, but that's not what happened. The Soviets spent the previous decade trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance with Britain, France, etc, who had instead signed non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany. It wasn't until the eve of wartime that the Soviets agreed to a non-agression pact with the Nazis to buy time before the inevitable war.
The Soviets expected it. The Nazis attacked the Soviets just like everyone knew they would, because the Nazis wanted to commit genocide on the Slavs and because Nazism is inerently anti-communist, and communism inherently anti-fascist, as communism is proletarian and fascism is bourgeois.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
The West wanted the Nazis to exterminate the communists.
What would that accomplish?
Not like everyone else. Capitalists do not work for their money, they exploit workers through paying them less than the value they create.
What gives you the impression that those satisfied with the government will drop, in the PRC?
As for pointing out that China has 1 main party and 8 smaller, more focused parties, I point it out because democracy doesn't need to look like a bunch of groups battling it out. Society can be run in a more cooperative manner. In the PRC, the minor parties are focused on specialized areas, and some parties even hold seats in the NPC.