Hi everyone. In this video, I examine the data on popular support for the communist regime in china. Since the media always presents china as oppressive and the chinese people as oppressed, in the introduction I explain why and how the media serves as a means of propaganda under capitalism and so why it should not be trusted, esp. on the question of communism and communist regimes. In part one I first focus on one of the major mistakes many people on the left in the west make, namely, assuming that their subjective values and conceptions of democracy, freedom etc. apply to all other nations. The result of this mistake is that people in the west assume that because they themselves do not like the regime in china, the chines people must not like it either. However, a proper appreciation of the cultural differences shows that this is a mistake because the western values are not universal so we must listen to the people living in china themselves to understand whether they like or dislike the regime. This leads us to the conclusion that only well sampled opinion surveys can tell us how people in china feel about their regime. At the end of part one, we see that the data from opinion surveys show a very high level (97-98 percent) of approval rate of the regime in china. In part two I examine the possible causes of this support: political fear, state propaganda, economic progress, and political reforms. In the end we see that the data show the high level of support can be explained only by two causes: high economic satisfaction and high political satisfaction with the recent reforms to increase political rights and participation. In part three I conclude the video.
You can find all my citations in the description. I ordered them by the time they appear in the video. I hope you will find the video useful.
Yikes, it’s tough being banned sometimes and I know I’ve been banned (and had a negative emotional reaction each time) on various Internet spaces through my life. Of course, hopefully you don’t have the same problem as me where I react with a negative emotional reaction each time I’m banned from an Internet space every once in a while. All the same: hopefully some libertarian socialists saw it and at least thought deeply about what you had to say. Maybe I can even put your video on their subreddit or something?
And yeah, I can see why you just went along with the term “regime.” Though, as you say, the term is technically just referring to a mode of governance… even when the Western connotation is referring to one that’s bad, corrupt, or illegitimate, among other things. I’m not upset over it being used, I just prefer the term “government” being used. But again, I know now why you used it so it’s all cool. I suppose it’s like the term “dictatorship” and how’s it’s used in the democratic terms of us Marxist-Leninists and the “authoritarian” terms of the bourgeoisie and its defenders; there’s a stark difference between the two ways that they’re used.
Anyways, those are my thoughts for now; keep up the great work! 😁