this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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[–] taygaloocat@leminal.space 5 points 2 hours ago (4 children)

Dictatorship might seem appealing while democracy is failing, but we should never give up on democracy in exchange for safety and stability.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago

You can’t give up what you never had. Previously.

It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.

[–] _lunar@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 hours ago

the US is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that people still fail to see that after the epstein files is actually shocking

china, on the other hand, is one of the most functional democracies in the world

[–] QinShiHuangsShlong@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 hours ago

China has democracy. Just not bourgeois liberal democracy. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local levels are directly elected, and then these representatives from around the country elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Also due to the nature of things the vast majority of representatives are among those directly elected by the people. You should research things before you just say things. And we're very happy with our system. Even Harvard puts the approval rating around 95%.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 hours ago

China is democratic, though. In addition to QinShiHuangsSchlong's comment, I recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.