> but this is something altogether different than believing it is impossible to govern a society successfully in this form, for a very long period of time.
The West seems to have forgotten its own political history, which was based on the divine right of kings far longer than the current populist democratic consensus, which only has a 100-year history.
As for China——well, it's had something like 2500+ years of cycling between Imperial dynasties. China (along with India) was the world's pre-eminent economic power for the majority of that period.
The hubris of the West is that anything it does necessarily represents a permanent form of progress, rather than a single swing of the pendulum. That's not to say that societies that are more rooted in common law and popular representation aren't desirable, but blithely assuming that the 'end of history' has arrived is a bit silly.
The West seems to have forgotten its own political history, which was based on the divine right of kings far longer than the current populist democratic consensus, which only has a 100-year history.
As for China——well, it's had something like 2500+ years of cycling between Imperial dynasties. China (along with India) was the world's pre-eminent economic power for the majority of that period.
The hubris of the West is that anything it does necessarily represents a permanent form of progress, rather than a single swing of the pendulum. That's not to say that societies that are more rooted in common law and popular representation aren't desirable, but blithely assuming that the 'end of history' has arrived is a bit silly.