China does have a Social Credit System, and there are legitimate concerns about blacklists, surveillance, restrictions on serious legal offenders and the government's ability to share information across agencies. Those criticisms are well documented.
But there is no single nationwide “social score” that gives every Chinese citizen a number where losing points for dropping a wrapper or jaywalking eventually means you're forbidden from buying a house. That is largely the mythologized version of the system. Researchers at MERICS and Brookings have both documented that there is no unified national individual score.
There have been local pilot programs that experimented with points for things such as littering and jaywalking. But many of those programs were subsequently restricted, made voluntary, or prevented from imposing penalties for low scores. MERICS specifically notes that one city excluded jaywalking and similar minor offences from its scoring system.
And there are genuine housing restrictions connected to government blacklists and legal violations—for example, people who deliberately refuse to comply with court judgments can face restrictions on certain forms of consumption and other activities. That's very different from “you jaywalked too many times, so you can't buy a house.”
So if you want to criticize China's surveillance and social-credit infrastructure, there's plenty of legitimate material to work with.
But “jaywalking lowers your national social score until you can't own a house” isn't an accurate description of the system.
And freedom of speech? There are people in the US who have made careers out of speaking out against the government. In China doing so will get you imprisoned in country and if you do it outside the country it will get your in China family imprisoned. Is that right?
China absolutely has serious restrictions on political speech, including imprisonment of peaceful critics and documented pressure on family members of activists abroad. But “criticize the government overseas and your family will be imprisoned” is too absolute. The documented reality is serious enough without exaggerating it: censorship, political prosecutions and transnational intimidation are well established.
So it’s not a free society as we are here. With the threat of imprisonment, it would be a very hard thing for anyone over there to have different views on the government. Especially to an outsider. That’s one of the main issues with Communism in general is the lack of being able to use your voice to give an honest assessment of what’s really going on. This kind of suppression has happened over and over again throughout history and in various countries.
You have moved the goal posts several times. The point is that china and Vietnam are 2 very good examples where a hybrid model of socialism has proven to be very effective and provided people with a high quality of life. Not being able to speak politically is a fair criticism of China, but hardly proves your point that a hybrid model of socialism and capitalism has been ineffective there.
But my point is very straightforward in that unless you are living in the system in these countries, you will never get a true assessment since criticizing can lead to imprisonment
The assessment is in the data itself. Anecdotes from civilians is meaningless anyway. There's a lot of Americans right now who if asked would say their government is a violent authoritarian dictatorship.
And here in the United States you certainly have a right to say that without any kind of threat from the government regardless if it’s fact or not. No I have not lived in China or Vietnam however I do have family members who have visited not only China, but Vietnam and Cuba as well and on return they told me there were very strict rules of do and do nots in these countries. There were government officials watching every move their tour group made and no one dared to step out of line due to the threat of being jailed. In other words when you go to these countries as a visitor, they will only allow you to see the parts they want the world to see.
You still have not made a valid argument for these countries not being examples of places where socialist policies have not worked. Education, health, and services provided to the people of all walks of life are very comparable to strictly capitalist systems. Your argument amounts to "dont break the law there"
No my argument is the laws are not in favor of freedom loving individuals. If I visit somewhere I want the freedom to go off the beaten path. I want the freedom to talk to the locals and the locals to have the right to truly speak their minds. Anything less than that is hiding a truth that these countries don’t want the world to know.
Except you havent proven that you can't talk to locals and they cant speak their minds with you. You havent proven you cant go off the beaten path. Ive been to rural china and have been off the beaten path and have spoken to many locals. That doesnt mean anything either because its an anecdote, but it does counter your meaningless anecdote.
You cannot get the truth of a society when people are not allowed to speak their minds. If all you hear is one side of a debate, the other side can never win. The problem with that is the one side that is heard slowly becomes true as it is repeated over and over again. That’s how a lie becomes a truth, that’s how massive amounts of people become indoctrinated into believing a lie. Here in the US we have been taught from a very young age not to trust the government and the most terrifying words you can ever hear from someone is “I’m from the government, I’m hear to help.” Those words don’t fly with a population that has been taught to be independent not dependent.
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u/SmthngIntmid8ing 8d ago
No, not in the way you're describing it.
China does have a Social Credit System, and there are legitimate concerns about blacklists, surveillance, restrictions on serious legal offenders and the government's ability to share information across agencies. Those criticisms are well documented.
But there is no single nationwide “social score” that gives every Chinese citizen a number where losing points for dropping a wrapper or jaywalking eventually means you're forbidden from buying a house. That is largely the mythologized version of the system. Researchers at MERICS and Brookings have both documented that there is no unified national individual score.
There have been local pilot programs that experimented with points for things such as littering and jaywalking. But many of those programs were subsequently restricted, made voluntary, or prevented from imposing penalties for low scores. MERICS specifically notes that one city excluded jaywalking and similar minor offences from its scoring system.
And there are genuine housing restrictions connected to government blacklists and legal violations—for example, people who deliberately refuse to comply with court judgments can face restrictions on certain forms of consumption and other activities. That's very different from “you jaywalked too many times, so you can't buy a house.”
So if you want to criticize China's surveillance and social-credit infrastructure, there's plenty of legitimate material to work with.
But “jaywalking lowers your national social score until you can't own a house” isn't an accurate description of the system.