Miscellaneous News

jwnz said:

I did already by saying "in theory at least and we know how well that works out in real life", perhaps I should have been more clear and replaced "how well" with "how well or not", but you get the idea

Click to expand...

the 'incompetent ruler' problem is actually one shared by both democracies and their opposite - absolute monarchies.

What prevents a CEO from being extremely stupid or purposely running the company into the ground to boost personal stock invested in competitors? Because a random can't just jump into a CEO position.

This is just like a random CPC member can't just jump into the secretary general's chair. Xi spent decades shoveling pig poop, local government, etc. before rising to national politics.

Meanwhile someone like Tr or Bi can actually jump into the presidency, just like an absolute monarch can have a dumb heir, presenting the question of needing to quickly remove them.

But that is also only in theory, as both presidents and weak monarchs are extremely hard to difficult to remove by design. So now you have a system where it is somewhat easy for someone unfit for governing jumping into the ruler chair but being hard to remove.

jwnz said:

The argument is that employees and shareholders can vote with their fleet by leaving the company or selling shares. That's not usually a practical option for most citizens of any given country.

The best performing form of government is benevolent dictatorship, until it isn't. Liberal democracy is generally accepted as the best compromise,

Click to expand...

By who? Certainly not by the best performing nations.

jwnz said:

with the biggest strength being the ability to remove non performing leaders / governments, in theory at least and we know how well that works out in real life.

Click to expand...

"liberal" "democracy" is just an unachievable ideal used to mask varying degrees of oligarchies, much like "classless communism" is just an ideal and not something actually practiced by any communist organization.

jwnz said:

I would really like to know what systems the CPC has to prevent incompetent / malevolent people from gaining powerful positions and abuse their power. I'm sure there are checks and balances in place, but it would be nice to know more.

Click to expand...

The National Congress has 2977 members and appoints the executive power (politburo). Independent of either, the Supreme people's court is the highest power in the matter of law.

jwnz said:

While China has been blessed with competent leaders for decades, that shouldn't be taken for granted.

Click to expand...

It almost can, because the above system is very corruption/damage resistant. People become congress representants from a pyramid shaped voting structure. Then, they need to convene a majority to elect politburo officials.

So to create an awful high level leader, you need to brainwash a lot of locals + low + mid level politicians to all vote for the useless guy. Then, that useless guy will be at the same level with a bunch of charismatic and skilled people from other provinces/committees, where he will stick out as a sore thumb.

A system like this doesn't fully eliminate corruption (no system can), but it is the best compromise to get something done. China has had corrupt politicians, but they're forced to constantly walk on a tightrope, also it is very very uncommon that corrupt politicians are garbage at all their tasks. Usually, they perform acceptably or are even very skilled, but skim off proceeds on the side. No amount of executive power can prevent a politician from being charged by the judiciary, which has its own independent investigation teams. There is not even a sitting president exception.

jwnz said:

The argument is that employees and shareholders can vote with their fleet by leaving the company or selling shares. That's not usually a practical option for most citizens of any given country.

The best performing form of government is benevolent dictatorship, until it isn't. Liberal democracy is generally accepted as the best compromise, with the biggest strength being the ability to remove non performing leaders / governments, in theory at least and we know how well (edit) well or not that works out in real life.

I would really like to know what systems the CPC has to prevent incompetent / malevolent people from gaining powerful positions and abuse their power. I'm sure there are checks and balances in place, but it would be nice to know more.

While China has been blessed with competent leaders for decades, that shouldn't be taken for granted.

Click to expand...

Meritocracy, put the bureaucrats through lower tier administrations for years and promote them based on past merit. China's system isn't perfect and there was a lot of corruption before Xi cleaned house, but I trust meritocracy way more than democracy. Even back when CPC was riddled with corruption they still managed the country better then any democracy result in high economic growth and poverty reduction

jwnz said:

Liberal democracy is generally accepted as the best compromise, with the biggest strength being the ability to remove non performing leaders / governments, in theory at least and we know how well (edit) well or not that works out in real life.

Click to expand...

It's not generally accepted, that's just the propaganda position. Look at history. No western nation became powerful because they were liberal democracies. They became powerful as monarchies, oligarchies and apartheid societies. Most importantly, the Dutch East India company and later the British East India company were crucial in establishing colonisation of rich areas in Asia. Companies are not democracies.

The success of the European golden age through "authoritarian" systems allowed them to indulge in the luxury of liberal democracy. But the western system has never been proven to support development, it was only introduced very recently but the richest nations in the world at that time. It's a luxury to enjoy, not an effective way to govern. That should be self evident, looking at the world today

The same rules based western world order that decides that Lebanon is a part of Israel and that it’s somehow better because “rules are written down”, shows just how the rules based order functions when Anglo Zionist hegemony is threatened.

supercat said:

Elbridge Colby is actually one of the more realistic, less ideological ones among his ilk.

Click to expand...

The most level headed China watcher is still guided by “MUH DIK” emotions of inferiority against the Chinese. How does a Cold War against China serve the U.S. national interest? It’s a simplistic plagiarism of the reaganite playbook appealing to nostalgia and a racist desire to “keep them Asians in their place”. All Anglo societies and peoples exhibit the same mental illness of living in an apartheid world order, which can only be corrected by force.

Anglo Atlanticists are worried they’re not able to outproduce China when it comes to munitions, however will they be able to win that war against China?

jwnz said:

I would really like to know what systems the CPC has to prevent incompetent / malevolent people from gaining powerful positions and abuse their power. I'm sure there are checks and balances in place, but it would be nice to know more.

While China has been blessed with competent leaders for decades, that shouldn't be taken for granted.

Click to expand...

The essential part of China's system is meritocracy.

Which is done through a combination of a lot of assessments.
(what have you achieved in your position, your superior, colleagues and people under your command will get interviewed about you, at higher positions, there will be people from the central government coming to check in on you etc.).

And with the great strength in anti-corruption since 2012, it is much closer to its theoretical performance levels nowadays then before 2012.

Bellum_Romanum said:

Forget about soldiers able to vote for their general. The litmus test would and should have been about HOW CORPORATIONS ARE GOVERNED AND LED.

I have never once heard that successful companies should have been led by janitors and plumbers.

Click to expand...

Technically speaking Goldman Sachs was lead by a janitor once. Sidney Weinberg.

HOWEVER he was not voted in as a janitor. He was a janitor who worked hard and was given a chance to succeed in a higher role in the mailroom. When they saw his potential, they paid for his schooling and let him work his way up to the top. So kind like the CPC ironically and not democracy.

Kim from Better Call Saul was probably somewhat based on his story.