Which is why you should support China, as a recent Harvard Kennedy School survey found that over 93% of the Chinese people are satisfied with their central government.
https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf See page 3
Facts don’t care about your feelings
I support China but the principle of “listen to the people” is fucking terrible. Propaganda exists, people express beliefs directly against their own interests all the time.
To be fair… The same study conducted by Harvard that OP is citing also states that they do not consider propaganda to be the reason for the massive popular support the party has, they state very clearly that the people’s opinions change with actual material outcomes and that ultimately the fact they have such massive support is that they have only ever consistently seen an improvement in their material conditions year after year. They believe that if citizens experience a lowering of their conditions they will turn against the government.
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. For government leaders, this is a double-edged sword, as citizens who have grown accustomed to increases in living standards will expect such improvements to continue, and citizens who praise government officials for effective policies may indeed blame them when such policy failures affect them or their family members directly. While our survey reinforces narratives of CCP resilience, our data also point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
The thing is that people are satisfied because of economic growth. Ronald Reagan won the vast majority of states both times he ran, Bill Clinton was very popular too, the James Carville “it’s the economy stupid” line is accurate everywhere in the world.
The real question is that should their economic growth level off to a level comparable to more developed countries would people be this satisfied with their government, and I’m unsure if this would be the case. Everything about this is based on how there’s never been a real financial downturns there nation wide in decades.
No. It’s not “the economy”. It’s real material changes in their lives. This is strictly stated, and something Harvard has been keen to say does not occur in the American population – for example the rust belt are not voting based on rational assessments of their material conditions.
There is a massive difference between voting for the line and voting for actual material change in your life. The Chinese people’s support is driven by absolutely consistent improvement in their lives, nationwide, year on year, for multiple decades in a row with almost no slowing. It is exceptionally consistent and has been since the 50s.
Everything about this is based on how there’s never been a real financial downturns there nation wide in decades.
There’s a difference between a financial downturn and a change in the actual material effect on a population. If people have houses, food, entertainment and work the same hours their lives have not actually deteriorated, they’ve just stayed the same. A financial downturn may affect investment and thus the continued development and improvement of conditions for people but unless the government severely mismanages it there is no reason it should result in a backwards step in the material lived conditions of the people – any private business that is necessary to maintain the conditions of the people can simply be pulled into national ownership and operated at no profit until such a time as things change or have been adapted to suit the changing situation.
Labour is what matters to the continued survival of communities, not financial growth. If you ensure labour is protected in a crisis you do not have a collapse of anyone’s living conditions. Massive setbacks in living conditions of a population is a distinctly capitalist phenomenon and is driven by governments allowing the “free markets” to collapse industries in various local areas and have the communities that depended upon those industries rot as a result, followed by doing absolutely nothing to help those rotting communities.
I’m not disagreeing with anything you’ve said. I’m talking about metrics like unemployment, housing stability and ownership, ect.
China is deeply integrated into the global market place, should there be a major sudden demand drop for things like say, electronics, people in China would be put into a bad spot and that could very meaningfully hurt the approval of their party.
The, “it’s the economy stupid” line is about metrics that do directly relate to the material conditions of working people, not just financial markets.
Key metrics like home ownership (but really housing stability), low unemployment, and so on are what I’m referring too. China is not the same as Cuba or DPRK or how the USSR was, they are deeply engrained into global markets, a real slowdown for them is possible in ways that can cause significant spikes in unemployment. Additionally housing costs in China can be insanely high depending on where you are, it’s just that this problem hasn’t hit them especially hard yet.
