I imagine a similar situation was happening in China because when you live in a particular system you tend to take it for granted
I’ve got a Chinese friend and this is kinda the impression I got talking to her about socialism. She was surprised to learn I was interested in socialism, but also didn’t really have much of an opinion on it or the Chinese government or any of that stuff, cause it’s just not something she’s thought about that much. Something she was taught about in school and then moved on from.
Yeah, and that’s just normal human behaviour. We tend to focus on things that are going wrong, and take things that are going well for granted. The reason there’s a resurgence of genuine interest in socialism in the West is because capitalism is failing huge numbers of people. People are seeing their material conditions degrading before their eyes, and they’re starting to wonder what went wrong.
Michael Parenti raises this point when he discusses the collapse of the Soviet Union. He talked to one of his pro-capitalist Russian academic colleagues about it, asking “what about the free high quality education, the job guarantees, the universal healthcare and the housing?” to which the Russian responded “that’s funny, no one ever talks about those”.
I’ve got a Chinese friend and this is kinda the impression I got talking to her about socialism. She was surprised to learn I was interested in socialism, but also didn’t really have much of an opinion on it or the Chinese government or any of that stuff, cause it’s just not something she’s thought about that much. Something she was taught about in school and then moved on from.
Yeah, and that’s just normal human behaviour. We tend to focus on things that are going wrong, and take things that are going well for granted. The reason there’s a resurgence of genuine interest in socialism in the West is because capitalism is failing huge numbers of people. People are seeing their material conditions degrading before their eyes, and they’re starting to wonder what went wrong.
Michael Parenti raises this point when he discusses the collapse of the Soviet Union. He talked to one of his pro-capitalist Russian academic colleagues about it, asking “what about the free high quality education, the job guarantees, the universal healthcare and the housing?” to which the Russian responded “that’s funny, no one ever talks about those”.
Yeah, he talks about this problem in detail in Blackshirts and Reds. Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.