Quote Originally Posted by Ray View Post
Selective reading will only confuse issues.

The key sentence is - Don't confine to China alone!

In a totalitarian regime, it is not that easy to organise an insurrection, but there are other countries too where the gap has widened a wee too large to close it and there is insurrection!

Crass Consumerism can be controlled and of that there is no doubt. One cannot replicate the West overnight. Anything done suddenly will have negative repercussions.
Are we talking about totalitarian regimes or about post-communist states turning to consumerism? Not a whole lot of overlap there.

In my experience "crass consumerism" usually refers to somebody else trying to get what he wants. What we want is never crass.

How would you propose to repress acquisitive impulses in post-communist environments? Restrict people's incomes? Control the goods available for purchase? Doesn't that suggest a return to communism, or something much like it?

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
It's an official line from China, component of their propaganda (thus widely known there), plausible, reinforced by history, I didn't find a single bit of evidence to the contrary for years since I learned about this aspect of Chinese political culture.

That may not be a positive proof, but I doubt there's a negative one either.
Obviously one can't prove such a contention either way, but I doubt that many who watch China on a day to day basis would agree that there's that level of consensus supporting the pseudo-communist regime. There's a great deal of discontent in China, and if they encounter serious economic problems - which is looking more likely by the day - it's hard to say what will happen.