Authoritarianism is when the government does stuff.
Gonna repost myself but authoritarianism is difficult for libs to define because any serious understanding of the concept reveals it to be a tool for propaganda rather than understanding politics
China is authoritarian
So are Google, Facebook and Microsoft. But these entities can’t be held accountable because they are “private companies”
All states are “authoritarian” in that they are all tools by which the ruling class dominates the others. The working classes controlling a state still wield its authority to dominate capitalists, fascists, landlords, etc, but this use of authority liberates the majority. The authority question is therefore not a question of amount, but in whose hands, the working classes or capitalists.
My previous comment was deleted because I was mean to Cowbee. But the man point is still valid, which is why I’ll comment again:
Here are some definitions from A Modern Anarchism, by Daniel Baryon (aka “Anark”).
Authoritarianism: The degree to which a power structure monopolizes control over the total social implementation of some power.
Domination: The degree to which some power structure utilizes coercion, violence, and/or deception to achieve its ends.And his definition of power:
When I say power I mean, quite simply, “the ability to successfully enact one’s will.”
Please explain logically, how the term “western propaganda” would apply.
Addendum:
Someone claimed that this is a good thing if the proletariat is doing it. This is not a materialist stance however, because it presumes that the function of a system can be fundamentally changed by having people with the correct ideas doing the domination.
Also, monopolization means that structural power is concentrated to benefit a minority. The proletariat is not a minority, however (which is basically the whole idea why most people should be socialists). That is why MLism creates a ruling class of bureaucrats that calls itself “proletariat”, although their material function doesn’t classify them as such.
Then, someone claimed that the terms are supposedly loaded. These semantic discussions are pure formal critique, though. When clear definitions are given, it’s not a logical argument to claim a term sounds “too scary”.
I will refrain to be mean to people I blocked. Sorry for that.
Authoritarianism: The degree to which a power structure monopolizes control over the total social implementation of some power.
Domination: The degree to which some power structure utilizes coercion, violence, and/or deception to achieve its ends.What existing collective doesn’t fit this definition? Because by this definition, the anarchist controlled areas of republican spain then, were deeply authoritarian.
In what way did republican spain monopolize power? Monopoly means that only a small amount of agents get access to it.
Monopolize does not mean that the group is small, but that the access is exclusive. The group that monopolizes can be large, and extremely exclusionary towards other groups. Anarchists in Spain monopolized authority, ran labor camps, and built up hierarchical structures over time to suit the realities of the Spanish Civil War.
This is a very weird way of responding to me, either unblock me and respond, or don’t respond at all, IMO. Others can clearly see where I responded to you, and you’re directly addressing me in the beginning of your comment. Either way, I’ll address your new points.
As for it being a good thing if the proletariat is in control, your assertion that this isn’t materialist because it means we are depending on people with the “right ideas” is fundamentally wrong. This is like saying violence against Nazis and violence from Nazis are equivalent. Going off of Anark’s definition, the proletariat monopolizing power in their hands is unambiguously a good thing and a necessary step forward.
As for the idea that administration is a class in and of itself, this is not a materialist stance. Classes are not simply job categories, managers are proletarian too. Government officials earning wages are not a class, but instead proletarians. Their class goal remains the same as the rest of the proletariat, collectivize all production and distribution. Claiming that they are a class is not based on what actually determines class, but instead a conflation of hierarchy with class, which is an entirely different subject altogether.
As for the semantic terms being loaded, I don’t really think it matters as far as we are trying to get definitions across. However, subjectivist tactics of labeling concepts you disagree with with scary sounding words does impact how people react to said terms. Pointing out the subjectivist labeling isn’t really an argument against the terms, but instead against the intentions of the author. Considering Anark is a frequent abuser of Marxist theory (see my response to Anark here for an example), it makes sense for us to be skeptical of Anark’s claims and intentions.
I am not going to pretend to be an expert on Anark’s whole body of work. I have only watched a handful of his videos, on recommendation from an anarchist I know. But what I did see was enough to recognize: petty-bourgeois anarchism dressed up in the language and strappings of rigorous theory. The starting point it appears is never class struggle, production, imperialism, state power, colonial pressure, or the actual historical tasks of socialist construction. It is abstract “power,” abstract “authority,” abstract “domination,” and then a moral judgment against every real revolutionary state for failing to match an idealized fantasy of immediate anti-authoritarian purity.
In theoretical terms: phrase-mongering and infantile ultra-leftism. From what I have seen, his understanding of Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, and existing socialist states is paper-thin. Socialist construction under siege, blockade, sabotage, civil war, peasant backwardness, imperialist encirclement, and restorationist pressure gets flattened into a morality tale about “authoritarianism.”
His definition of power is fine, if overly individualist: “the ability to successfully enact one’s will.” This makes sense given individualism being a pillar of anarchism. But the definition of “authoritarianism” is yet another vacuous redefinition to add to the pile. It strips analysis of class content, state form, property relations, and historical function. “The degree to which a power structure monopolizes control over the total social implementation of some power” sounds precise, but it tells us almost nothing. Which class controls it? Through what institutions? On the basis of what property relations? Against whom is coercion being used? In what historical situation? A workers’ state, a fascist state, a colonial state, a bourgeois liberal state, and a revolutionary army can all be made to fit vague language about monopoly, coercion, and implementation. Returning it once again to a label for designated bad countries™.
Your claim that defending proletarian power is “not materialist” because it supposedly relies on people with the correct ideas doing domination is a misunderstanding of the argument. Marxist-Leninists do not defend proletarian state power because the people wielding it have nicer opinions. We defend it because class power is materially rooted. A bourgeois state defends private property, capital accumulation, wage labour, imperialist extraction, and the dictatorship of capital not because they have bad ideas but that it is directly within their class interest to do so. A proletarian state, however imperfectly and under real contradiction, is a transitional instrument for suppressing the old exploiting classes, socializing production, defending the revolution, and reorganizing society toward communism not because they have better ideas but again because it is directly in their class interest to do so.
You also misunderstand class when you claim that administrators in socialist states simply become a ruling class of bureaucrats because they administer. Administrators, planners, party officials, and state functionaries can absolutely develop bureaucratic distortions, careerism, privilege, and contradictions. Marxist-Leninists do not need anarchists to discover bureaucracy for us. But a bureaucrat without private ownership of the means of production, without the legal right to buy, sell, bequeath, and accumulate productive property as capital, does not occupy a different class but a different stratum of the same class.
And it is obviously valid to point out that words were specifically chosen for their negative connotations. An unrelated example to show the point: there’s a reason western media uses regime for talking about “designated bad countries™” governments despite it effectively being a synonym of government, it’s the connotation. Criticising this is again obviously valid.
I am not going to pretend to be an expert on Anark’s whole body of work.
I can tell. I will ignore your wrong, and partially ad-hominem attacks on Anark (like him supposedly not understanding Marx). They are baseless and tangential to the discussion.
This makes sense given individualism being a pillar of anarchism.
It seems as if you claim that individualism is the main pillar of anarchism, which ignores the anarchist collectivist tradition. Anarchism focuses both on the individual and the collective.
But the definition of “authoritarianism” is yet another vacuous redefinition to add to the pile. […]
It is an abstract term with an abstract definition. All the things you mention can be subsumed under that abstract definition.
It seems you have a problem with abstraction in general. It seems that’s due to motivated reasoning, rather than the wish to do scientifically/logically rigorous thinking.
Returning it once again to a label for designated bad countries™.
That’s motivated reasoning. The critique is against all states, not against “designated bad countries™”.
[…] because it is directly in their class interest to do so.
You complain about abstract definitions before and now you hide against the huge abstraction of “clars interest”.
You claim that the party (the controling body of the so-called “socialist” states) has “proletarian class interests”. But that implies that the members of the party are actually part of the proletarian class. This supposed class membership is purely idealist. A materialist analysis suggests however, that they are not proletarian, but a class of bureaucrats.
You also misunderstand class when you claim that administrators in socialist states simply become a ruling class of bureaucrats because they administer.
That’s not all they do. Anark’s critique doesn’t attack administration. But they administer via authoritarian and domination strategies.
I will ignore your critique of the form, since it’s not directed at the argument made.
Edit: I still didn’t see any argument made about how this definition fits the term “western propaganda”, except for “word sounds scary”, which doesn’t critique the content of the definition. The same points would be valid if you called it “power-monopolized”.
Saying Anark displays a poor understanding of Marxism is not an ad hominem. It is an observation about the content of his analysis. An ad hominem would be “he is wrong because he is personally bad or stupid.” I am saying his categories are weak because they fail to grasp class content, state form, property relations, and historical development. That is directly relevant to the argument.
I also never said individualism is the only or the main pillar of anarchism. I said it is a pillar, which it plainly is, and this has been a Marxist criticism of anarchism since Marx and Lenin. The fact that there is a collectivist anarchist tradition does not erase the petty-bourgeois individualist core of much anarchist theory: the tendency to begin from abstract individual autonomy, abstract anti-authority, and abstract moral opposition to coercion rather than from class struggle and historically specific relations of production.
Your defense of the “authoritarianism” definition as merely “abstract” misses the point. The problem is not abstraction as such. Marxism uses abstraction constantly. The problem is bad abstraction: abstraction that removes the decisive features of the thing being analyzed. A useful abstraction helps reveal the essence of a process. This one obscures it. It tells us there is concentrated power, coercion, and administration. That describes every state and every serious revolutionary process in class society. What it does not tell us is which class holds power, what property relations are being defended or abolished, what state form exists, what social base sustains it, what historical pressures condition it, and whether the coercion is being used to preserve exploitation or suppress exploiters.
My objection is not that the definition is “too abstract.” It is that it is vacuous. It explains nothing of substance while pretending to explain everything. It takes the unavoidable existence of state power under class antagonism and gives it a scary liberal gloss. Then, in practice, it becomes a ready-made tool for flattening the difference between a bourgeois imperialist state and a socialist state under siege. You can say the critique is “against all states,” but that is infantile. Critiquing all states in the same moral register, without class content, only benefits the existing hegemonic order. The bourgeois state already exists globally as the dominant power. Treating proletarian state power as equally evil for exercising coercion does not transcend the bourgeois state; it disarms opposition to it.
You also accuse me of hiding behind the abstraction of “class interest,” but class interest is not an empty abstraction. It is rooted in material relations to production, ownership, surplus extraction, and the reproduction of social relations. The bourgeoisie has an interest in maintaining private ownership of the means of production and the extraction of surplus value. The proletariat has an interest in abolishing those relations because it does not own the means of production and survives by selling labour-power. That is not idealism. That is basic historical materialism.
Your claim that party members or state administrators in socialist states are automatically not proletarian because they administer is nonsense. Class is not determined by whether someone performs administrative labour or exercises authority. Class position is determined principally by relation to the means of production, particularly ownership thereof. A school principal is not less proletarian than a teacher merely because they administer. A doctor, safety inspector, engineer, planner, or workplace coordinator may exercise authority in a technical or administrative capacity without thereby becoming a capitalist. The key question is whether they privately own productive property and appropriate surplus value as capital.
The same applies to government administrators in socialist states. Their existence creates contradictions, and bureaucracy can become a serious danger. Marxist-Leninists have written extensively on this. But a state functionary operating inside a socialized property system, without private ownership of the means of production, without the legal right to buy, sell, bequeath, and accumulate productive property as capital, is not automatically a bourgeois class simply because they administer. You are confusing function with class position.
Saying “they administer via authoritarian and domination strategies” does not solve this. It just repeats the same empty categories. Every state administers through coercive mechanisms because every state is an instrument of class rule. The question is not whether coercion exists. The question is coercion by which class, against which class, defending which property relations, and moving society in which direction. Without that, “authoritarianism” and “domination” become little more than moral labels for power you dislike.
I do not think “authoritarian” is inherently a Western propaganda term. The problem is that it is a vacuous political label: it covers a wide range of state forms and social relations while explaining very little about their actual class content. In that sense, it functions much like “regime.” It can describe almost anything with centralized power, but it tells us nothing decisive about which class rules, what property relations are being defended, whose interests the state serves, or what historical conditions produced it. Precisely because of that vagueness which abstracts away the core of the matter, it becomes useful to Western propaganda under the current conditions of Western hegemony: it allows imperialist states and their ideological apparatuses to flatten socialist, anti-imperialist, or otherwise non-aligned states into a moral category of “bad governments,” they can then point to and shout look at these authoritarians who are just as authoritarian (read bad) as the Nazis.
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Sorry, in future I’ll try to couch my insults in tedious redditisms like you did, presumably that will placate the mods. Apparently writing condescending purple prose dog shit like “I will ignore your wrong, and partially ad-hominem attacks on Anark (like him supposedly not understanding Marx). They are baseless and tangential to the discussion” is fine but just being direct and calling you a dipshit is crossing the line of not being insufferable enough.
It is the same as the United States and Silicon Valley; I won’t defend China because I hate America, just as I can’t ally with Baphomet just to kill Lucifer.
I am politically pessimistic, so I don’t believe that any good state, government or politician really exists, they are all equally disgusting and putrid, and as such, I hate each and every one of them equally.
I will defend China because it’s doing good. It has lifted 100s of millions out of poverty.nit is the only country that is on track to hit the goals set by the Paris climate agreement - many years ahead of schedule. It invests heavily in public infrastructure, to the good of the people. It has become a fantastic producer of solar energy panels, which will be needed to ensure a livable future - in fact China does so many wonders in the fields of climate science, energy production and so much more. It has one of the best democratic systems I have ever seen - and that shows in the belief its citizens have in the democratic processes of China. It is one of the only countries that has taken Big Tech seriously - curtailing it rather than letting it foment genocides and spread misinformation. It is the only country that actually makes billionaires answer to the law. It has made great strides with it’s anti-corruption campaigns as well, something I wish I would see elsewhere.
The critiques I have of the nation are likewise being rectified. LGBTQ rights are constantly being expanded for example.Why do you assume support of a country is contingent on how one feels about another country?
I don’t hate the US because of anything to do with China. I hate the US because of what the US is and does.
You have a very simplistic worldview.
This is Baphomet slander. They’re not evil.
Good choice with Baphomet, a propaganda campaign to persecute the Templar Order because they became too powerful.
Noo, if you admit that there can be more than one bad thing, you’ve fallen for western propaganda! For there is only one bad thing: The
bourgeoisiewest!/s
TwO tHiNgS
Do you disagree with the statement that two things can be bad at once?
Yeah lmao
And, again, I hate US too, but I hate every government/state/party/politician equally, so well… I’m just really pesimistic, more as I live in Venezuela, that basically divinizes China, and here we can barely even exist peacefully; just now we even have an arbitrary curfew for the army to steal everything they want in my town.
Oof, that’s tough. Are there any mutual aid groups in your area to reach out to?
Edit:
Can someone who downvoted me tell me what’s wrong with that particular comment, or is it just that you don’t like me, personally?
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Based on this, Anark makes it seem like authoritarianism is both good and necessary as long as it’s the working classes holding the authority. Same with whatever degree of domination is minimally required to prevent capitalists and fascists from overturning this. I don’t really think it’s “propaganda” so much as the words “authoritarianism” and “domination” are deliberately picked to sound scary.
Edit, responding to your edit: What’s with that response? Why brag about blocking me? That’s very silly behavior. I don’t think I’ve misunderstood anything, and it’s certainly not deliberate. The proletariat monopolizing control is a good thing.
That would be like comparing Marx’s definition of “dictatorship” to the modern definition of the same word, complete with all of its societal connotations.
Sort of. Marx had the same concept of authority and dictatorship, in that they belong to classes, and therefore should belong to the working classes. The anarchist critique of authority presented by Anark doesn’t make it seem bad at all.
The issue with using language such as “dictatorship” and “authoritarian” is those words have specific negative colloquial connotations.
For example, one of the dictionary (Merriam-Webster) definitions of “authoritarian” is:
of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people
This definition specifies a singular “leader or an elite” and would be incompatible with a definition that includes rule by the proletariat.
Similarly, here is one of Merriam-Webster’s definitions for “dictatorship”:
a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique
My point being not that these definitions are absolute and cannot be changed, but currently in western societies, that the definitions describe rule by a singular elite leader or small group of leaders who have absolute, or near absolute power over their populace.
I understand, it’s all a part of what we have to deal with in the battle of linguistics to make our ideas clear.
It’s nothing new for a society to change their language over time to make it more palettable to a larger group of people. For example, it is no longer considered acceptable to use the r-slur or the f-slur (not “fuck”, but the other one), whereas 10-20 years ago, it was considered normal to use those words.
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Looking up descriptions online will have people saying all sorts of shit because the actual meaning of authoritarianism is just every state.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party, the military, or the concentration of power in a single person.
-Wikipedia
A funny thing about Wikipedias short description here means a state without democratic institutions isn’t necessarily authoritarian, since it is not moving away from them, they just don’t exist within it. Also under this definition the US isn’t authoritarian, since it is not based upon the rule of a party, but two parties.Authoritarianism, in politics and government, the blind submission to authority and the repression of individual freedom of thought and action. Authoritarian regimes are systems of government that have no established mechanism for the transfer of executive power and do not afford their citizens civil liberties or political rights. Power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small elite, whose decisions are taken without regard for the will of the people. The term authoritarianism is often used to denote any form of government that is not democratic, but studies have demonstrated that there is a great deal of variation in authoritarian rule.
-Britannica
“Submission to authority” will appear in the next (and last) source as well. What does it mean? No clue, they don’t define it.Pretty based of Britannica to support the DPRK though - considering the DPRK does
- Have a system for the transfer of executive power
- Does afford it’s citizens political rights and civil liberties. (Without getting into all the propaganda about North Korea, even within the western liberals propaganda apparatus it cannot be denied that the DPRK does afford it’s citizens *some rights and liberties. How many and to what extent and which ones specifically? Doesn’t matter)
Power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small elite, whose decisions are taken without regard for the will of the people.
Okay so every government with a parliamentary system and a low approval rating then?
The term authoritarianism is often used to denote any form of government that is not democratic, but studies have demonstrated that there is a great deal of variation in authoritarian rule.
I wonder why there is such a variation? Could it be because the concept is flawed? No! It must be because
Authoritarianism: The belief that people must obey completely and not be allowed freedom to act as they wish
-Cambridge dictionary
Apparently it’s just… A belief system and not actually about how a state enforces itself? Doesn’t this make every “vote blue no matter who!” lib an authoritarian? Abolish bedtimes I guess, since that is a belief children should obey the authority of their parents. Abolish homework as well.Authoritarianism: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority [OR] of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people
-Merriam-Webster
The second definition is perhaps the best one available, though it is kind of yank-brained. The UK doesn’t have a constitution. It is authoritarian, yes, but not because of a lack of a legal document. It also decries the concentration of power, so that would be every centralised state apparatus.
And what does “constitutionally representative to the people” even mean? Does this not also require the constitution continually is changed as the will of the people changes? I agree that would be a good thing, but that would mean most governments are authoritarian, considering how many have constitutions with bits that leave them excempt from responsibility to “the people”.
Finally this definition doesn’t actually care about what the government does, just that it is not constitutionally beholden to "the will of the peopleRemoved by mod
look at 996.
Been illegal nearly half a decade and was only a thing in around 40 of the large tech firms around the 2019 tech boom before being ruled illegall by the supreme people’s court in 2021.
barely mention Winnie the Pooh inside China or they’ll go to a “reeducation camp”
Straight up lies you should see any miniso in any city lmao
repress violently every single protest or criticism to the Party-State,
Not true also we have party offices in every town and city as well as direct lines to them through the 12345 hotline specifically for voicing criticism.
not to mention the Great China’s Firewall.
The firewall was created to foster and protect China’s fledgling digital infrastructure and data sovereignty. Many countries regulate foreign platforms and data flows. China built its own ecosystem instead of depending on foreign companies. We have seen what happens when foreign platforms operate without local oversight: Facebook facilitating genocide in Myanmar, coordinated anti-vax disinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia, algorithm-driven radicalization. The firewall makes those kinds of external influence operations harder or close to impossible to run at scale. I support it and so do many others as the alternative is plain to see. Also everyone has a VPN we’re not living in ignorance it is in fact people like yourself who are massively ignorant about us and our country.
I wish you people would educate yourselves before talking idiotic nonsense it gets tiring having to repeat the same things over and over.
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You are talking to a Chinese person in China and trying to “set them straight on the facts” when they live there and you just consume youtube
Lmao the firewall isn’t a surveillance tool it’s a blacklist for ips/domains you massive fucking idiot. Also VPNs are legal to use and literally everyone has one. All the firewall does is shut companies out of the Chinese market it has effectively 0 effect on us outside of needing a vpn the odd time you want to use a blocked site.
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Yes, and only on paper, because even today Chinese companies do that and more (like 007) at will without the government telling them anything, just as Jack Ma said that was desirable, and there is indirect evidence that the Chinese government has supported them.
Do you have any proof because I certainly don’t work anything more than 50 hours a week even during busy season, none of my friends do either, and the data says the average is around 46.
Chinese government you are defending a tyranny as much as if the one you were defending was the American one.
No I like my govenrment just like 95% of my compatriots do according to Harvard. They have done so much for my village and Chinese people as a whole it’s honestly not surprising.
I live on a country (Venezuela) that sucks China’s fucking balls and believe me, I have been able to notice the effects of that in my fucking 24 years of life in this fucking hell.
Yeah? You being a reactionary shithead is Chinas fault?
There’s no good government out there, just fucking shitty demons that if were all killed it would be the Heaven in Earth.
Infantile nonsense. Are you sure you’re not 12?
both are shit
This is the least nuanced take available and is just rhetorical cover for “status quo good”
Both are shit but one of them I need to invent a new reality to make it look really bad. Every single fuck thing you describe is a exageration or do not exist. Give me where someone got to a re-education camp for mentioning winnie the pooh, are you this illiterate to believe that a government would waste resources to persecute people for this shit? Even the shithole fascist country of USA didn’t do shit with all shit with Trump/JD Vance, the worst thing that happend was a tourist allegedly revoke entry because of found memes in their phone.
can barely mention Winnie the Pooh inside China or they’ll go to a “reeducation camp”
LMAO.
There’s like a whole Disney world ride with him in china lol. This has been the weirdest lie every dumbass buys, right next to “le Chinese bots” as if the “biggest reddit city” wasn’t a US military base.
It’s always funny being accused of “falling for Chinese propaganda” by someone who unironically believes Winnie The Pooh stories.
Or Uyghur stories for that sake, though I can lend them a little more patience, since you have to read a little bit of the “report” to realise it.Uyghur people at least did go to a reeducation camp but what happened with them is not what they think and the government had a real reason to waste resources on that, to contain terrorism and the “genocide” have more “”“”“documentation”“”"(written by the same fucking weirdo) so I can understand people falling for this shit.
But the winnie the pooh bullshit is on the same level of everyone in north korea has the same haircut but also can be killed if they have the same haircut of Kim Jong-un
Uyghur people at least did go to a reeducation camp but what happened with them is not what they think and the government had a real reason to waste resources on that, to contain terrorism and the “genocide” have more “”“”“documentation”“”"(written by the same fucking weirdo) so I can understand people falling for this shit.
Yeah exactly. Honestly wish people knew what happened instead of the propaganda, because I’d love to see it treated like a case study. It should have been seen as a novel data point when it comes to public policy about curtailing religious radicalisation. Instead it became a redditism written by a man “on a mission from god to crush communism”.
This is what we tend to mean by sinophobia. There’s a difference between knowledgeable and nuanced critique of the CPC and PRC in general, and repeating the most bog-standard confidently incorrect bullshit you can find. This utter chauvanism is spoken the same way European colonizers spoke about Africans back in the height of colonialism, and still today in some cases.
Or if not, look at 996
Illegal, limited largely to the 40 companies in Beijing and Shanghai. The average working hours in China is 46 per week.
the mere fact that anyone can barely mention Winnie the Pooh inside China or they’ll go to a “reeducation camp"
Also bullshit, Winnie the Pooh is legal and fairly popular.
the fact that they repress violently every single protest or criticism to the Party-State
Again, bullshit. Criticism is popular and constructive in China, and protests do happen infrequently. Most people support the government though so it doesn’t come to that.
or the fact that they have the biggest data fusion and surveillance network of the world
Incorrect, Five Eyes countries do. This is projection from the west.
just to control what can be said, thought, looked at, searched or done
Incorrect, brainwashing does not exist.
not to mention the Great China’s Firewall.
Which is done to help develop a Chinese sovereign internet free of foreign influence, such as from western tech giants.
or is it that for you, all that independently-checked and blindly peer-reviewed facts are just a “USA propaganda”.
None of what you said is peer-reviewed.
These are just two different models of authoritarism.
There are four different models presented. Thank you for putting this first so I know not to waste my time reading the rest.
About “submission to authority”, it talks by itself: you have to think what the president or leader thinks, to want what they wat and to hate what they hate, and if you dissent even just a bare minimum, you’ll be paid with physical, mental and social violence.
With all due respect, this is baby’s first anticommunist propaganda and we’ve all debunked these claims four million times.
Well, give me the studies, arguments and independent periodistic reports that are clearly not subject to interests conflicts.
Because I have them.
Again, you all are being, blind,bManichean and naive by basically cherry-picking and looking to another side when there’s information that doesn’t support your beliefs, just to attack the US (that, let’s accept it, it’s as authoritarian as China, but in a very different way).
Again, I hate both equally, and for me would be better if both Trump and Xi Jing Ping died.
Well, give me the studies, arguments and independent periodistic reports that are clearly not subject to interests conflicts.
Because I have them.
Lol no you don’t, everything you think you know about anticapitalist societies has been told to you by capitalist societies. Might as well ask the Tsar what he thinks about the commoners (fun fact, the colonialist powers that gave you your indoctrination invaded Russia during the revolution to fight alongside the Tsar against the commoners).
Again, you all are being, blind,bManichean and naive by basically cherry-picking and looking to another side when there’s information that doesn’t support your beliefs
Are you just stringing together reddit words? Neither of us has presented anything yet, how can we be “cherrypicking” things that haven’t been presented. Are you in some kind of fugue state? All that’s happened is that you’ve stumbled in here like a drunk in a museum and vomited your terribly weak propaganda all over the displays.
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Becoming? So it wasn’t authoritarian when black people were routinely beaten by police for drinking from the wrong fountain or looking at a white person wrong?
Or perhaps the genocidal occupation of the Philippines. Not authoritarian?
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The early days of the republic when the entire economy was based on native genocide and all the work was done by millions of enslaved people weremovedd, tortured and sold like animals?
I’m not trying to be Mr Gotcha here, I’m trying to communicate that there is literally no good past we can turn to. It’s always been like this, just lately the mask has come off
Every time liberals try to define “authoritarian” they just end up at
Flakesbonglers evergreen meme
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