Dúvidas (316) - Será por acaso que apenas um quarto da humanidade vive em regimes democráticos?

 “Power and paranoia”, the cover title to your special report on the Chinese Communist Party (June 26th), might equally well be the result of unfettered capitalism, so why pick on China? The Economist does a decent job of presenting the pros and cons of government policies, but you seem incapable of seeing the basic role of government as most people in the world view it.

The vast majority of the globe’s inhabitants believe that the purpose of government is to maintain stability, tranquillity and national defence, and not to protect individual liberty or provide social equality. For most, those ideals are the antithesis of traditional social norms. I especially think you have a bad take on China. The fact that there were only ten dynasties in a 4,000-year history shows that rocking the boat was considered an affront to the ancestors, the gods and to humanity. Laws made sure the masses fell in line. It worked for them, where democracy may never.

Until you recognise that most cultures are still built on a firm foundation that ranks stability—from the rule of kings, dictators or imams—as the paramount necessity of a society’s existence, you will never understand the world as most people see it.

Kirk Lovenbury 

(Carta de um leitor da Economist) 

O caso da China é a este respeito particularmente interessante. Repare-se que de todas as ideologias ocidentais foi o colectivismo marxista a única profundamente adoptada, hoje reduzido a doutrina oficial da nomenclatura do PCC como religião do Estado. Note-se também que, para quem pense que a democracia liberal resulta automaticamente da prosperidade, a China é o exemplo mais notório que é melhor pensar duas vezes.