The most recent Chinese communist brainstorm involves the “Social Credit” (shehui xinyong) system, which has no connection whatsoever to the utopian early 20th-century economic proposal of that name. Under the Chinese system, citizens are issued 1,000 “credits” and then monitored cybernetically, electronically, and socially. Any “anti-social” or anti-party activity results in credits being taken away. It’s impossible to add points. After points drop to a certain level (it’s unclear exactly what this actually is; it’s also unclear how many points each offense costs, along with other details), penalties kick in. These range from being banned from airline travel and expelled from high-ranking schools to cutting down internet access and taking your dog away.
The China lobby excuses the policy by comparing it to Western customer loyalty programs and asserting that it’s not in place around the whole country yet. In truth, it’s a typical aspect of Chinese communism, which loosens the reins for a period before tightening them again. Mao instituted the “Thousand Flowers” campaign in the ’50s that encouraged criticism of the party, following up a few years later with the Great Cultural Revolution, in which those critics were shot or sent to the Gobi.
Like it or not, progress of any sort – social, scientific, artistic – is propelled by the mavericks. Beethoven, Tesla, Einstein, Patton, Kubrick, Trump … all individualists – cantankerous, arrogant, belligerent – who pushed against social inertia, no matter what the consequences. Their story, from Socrates on, is the story of the West. With the “Social Credit” program, China is returning to its immemorial preference for stasis, which has led to disaster time and again. The end result will be a society that is stratified, ossified, and petrified. There is evidence that this is occurring right now.
J.R. Dunn, “The Myth of China as Superpower”, American Thinker, 2019-01-09.
October 9, 2021
QotD: China’s “social credit” policy
Filed under: China, Government, Quotations — Tags: Communism, CrimeAndPunishment, Culture, MaoZedong, SocialCreditSystem, Surveillance — Nicholas @ 01:00
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