Yes, but for a person in the developing world in absolute poverty, do they want advanced civil liberties first or do they want economic development first?
Incidentally, lack of freedoms in China are overblown. The average person on the street has no worries about insulting the Chinese Government or Chinese leaders, in fact that is probably one of the most common things they do. Some protestors recently even stripped the clothes off the Mayor of Qidong and threw him out onto the street without any repercussions. In fact it was the government who backed down in that case, and shut down the pipeline.
I agree with what you have said here.
But people will fiercely disagree on whether a particular regime is progressive or regressive, especially when it comes to the CPC. Check out some of the arguments the Chinese members here have with each other.
This is perhaps the most interesting and richly endowed post so far. Allow me to respond in some detail.
I believe we agree on almost all points, although our universal tendency to assume that a response must contain an element of refutation is getting in the way.
A person living in poverty will first look for survival, for herself and her family. Is that not human nature? For such a person, economic development- actually, the security of life - undoubtedly comes first. If I may recall the thought I keep going back to, freedom under a regressive regime is not better than lack of freedom under a progressive regime.
There may be some confusion about what regressive and progressive mean in this connection. By regressive, I mean a regime that is oriented towards an other-worldly theology, or is oriented towards the betterment of a segment of society at the cost of the bulk of citizens, or is punitive and vindictive in nature. These are obviously inimical to the security of life that we started with. A progressive regime would look to the welfare and betterment of its citizens and their security from the mass deaths inherent in war. That seems like a reasonable description of the PRC, progressive but not democratic. It fits my formulation rather well, I thought.
Second, I did not mean to imply, as some do in error, that lack of western democracy goes hand in hand with a repressive regime. If we go back to my 'formula', you will notice that regressive hurts people; progressive fosters people. I take your point about freedom of action in China very readily, and in turn point out that the concept of the Mandate of Heaven is embedded in Chinese political thought at the most fundamental level. If the Mayor of Qidong lost the Mandate of Heaven (if we might playfully extend it down to his level), he no longer has credibility. The CPC then has no option but to get rid of him!
