Talk:Whole-process people's democracy

Whole-process people's editing
It would be good to get some sources on whether any of the terms and definitions involved actually mean anything. It's very likely true that our whole-process people's editing of Wikipedia is distinct from (is more transparent, rational, versioned, structured, evidence-based, discussed civilly than) the way that US federal legislation gets written and federal decisions get made and implemented, but we haven't (yet) chosen whole-process people's editing for our guidelines and policy - and external sources don't use this term for Wikipedia policies either (there are some quite insulting epithets used by non-members of the Cabal) - so we unfortunately can't include the Whole-process People's encyclopedia (WP) within this concept. Getting back to this article, some external reliable sources in e.g. social science research papers that do actual analysis would help to make our people's whole-process editing of this article more solid ("democratic" wouldn't make sense here). Boud (talk) 17:50, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Dictatorship of the proletariat

 * "Whole-process people's democracy differs from liberal democracy in that it is a dictatorship of the proletariat and a consequentialist model of political decision-making"
 * What does this even mean? "Dictatorship of the proletariat" denotes the class character of the state, literally the class system. In Marxism, every state has a class system. This term is not about the class system of the Chinese state, but the people's right to participate in politicss.
 * "consequentialist model of political decision-making"? I mean....
 * "aiming to be judged by how well the government is able to improve the socioeconomic lives of citizens, rather than being based on democratic processes"
 * Xi said that a democracy should be judged how well it treats its citizens, yes, but he never said that it was not based on democratic processes. In the same speech he said it should be judged by how people participate and if leaders step down. He says, "Whether a country is a democracy or not depends on whether its people are really the masters of the country", "The system of people's congresses is an important institutional vehicle for realizing whole-process people's democracy in China", "the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy"


 * At last, China: Democracy That Works literally defines it as "a model of socialist democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society. It is a true democracy that works." It even uses the term "democratic processes".

--TheUzbek (talk) 15:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Indeed, Whole-process people's democracy is a democracy from Marxist point of view. The reason I reference Dictatorship of the proletariat when comparing with liberal democracy is that Whole-process people's democracy does not extend passive suffrage to non-proletariat/bourgeoisie, which is present in liberal democracy. The effect of class on passive voting rights is critical here. HudecEmil (talk) 21:50, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Close but no cigar, the party line is now: "The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of the Chinese working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation". And as we know, "the people" are those supporting the communists. So it does as long as they support the system. TheUzbek (talk) 13:12, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The Chinese constitution is vague but consistent with that: "All citizens ... shall have the right to vote and stand for election; persons deprived of political rights in accordance with law shall be an exception." HudecEmil (talk) 13:27, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * "consequentialist model of political decision-making". Yes, check the source: What does this brand of democracy entail? ... First, it is primarily outcome- and results-driven, ... To put it bluntly, it is consequentialist, and arguably exclusively so. That's the key point of the source. In even plainer English, the model is more or less "if it works in running society effectively, then it's OK". Referring to dictatorship of the proletariat does not match the source, because the source does not claim that the Xi Ping model implements or aims to implement holding of state power by the proletariat (the working classes). The point of this encyclopedia article is to document the term whole-process people's democracy, presenting what Chinese politicians/bureaucrats claim that it means - and attributing it to them - and what social scientists say that it means in practice.Moreover, we cannot state in Wikivoice that whole-process people's democracy is a type of democracy (whether democracy in Marxism or other) without sources; the sources only say that this is what the CCP claims is the model of PRChina decision-making.The content of the white paper China: Democracy That Works is just a text that presents the  CCP POV; it's up to independent political scientists to analyse what the policy means in practice, and whether or not it includes any democratic processes. Boud (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2024 (UTC) (correction Boud (talk) 02:08, 19 February 2024 (UTC))

No sources justifying Category:democracy
I've removed this article from Category:democracy, because I don't see any WP:RS independent from the CCP claiming that the supposed model qualifies under the word democracy. The fact that the word democracy is in the title is not evidence that it's democracy. If there are any sources, please give them. Boud (talk) 20:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC) (correction Boud (talk) 02:07, 19 February 2024 (UTC))


 * The CCCP?
 * In any case, our category for democracy is not so limited as you frame and would have been fine to keep. That being said, I have refrained from re-adding Democracy as a top-line category and instead added sub-categories. JArthur1984 (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, keep in mind that we do have a source wherein the author (Pieke) notes that the CPC first used the phrase to describe existing democratic practices like local elections. JArthur1984 (talk) 21:05, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * s/CCCP/CCP/g - thanks for the correction! Well, I admit that I'm not quite sure how generous or strict Category policies are, since I'm not so active in Categories. To consider a clear case: Flat Earth is included in Category:Early scientific cosmologies, which is a subcategory of Category:Physical cosmology. I didn't really expect this, though it's fair to say that there was an epoch when flat-Earth models were the dominant paradigm. Anyway, you're right that we do have an offline, taken in good faith, source for the relation to the local elections in PRChina, which are generally well-sourced in related articles. Boud (talk) 02:07, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Its certainly should be in the category democracy. Democracy as a term predates liberal democracy and encompassed slave-owning societies and societies in which the vote was limited to property owners. Why on earth this can't be included is beyond me! TheUzbek (talk) 09:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * You’re right. That’s as straightforward and correct a point as can be. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

If it helps to illustrate the point: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has Democratic in its name but the sources overwhelmingly agree that it is not democratic; it has People's in its name, but the sources overwhelmingly agree that it is a dictatorship in which the working class (or any other big social subset of the society) does not have decision-making power in running the state. Boud (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It is rather ironic that you have a link front and center on your page entitled Countering Systemic Bias, yet between the accidental usage of CCCP instead of the correct term of CPC, coupled with attempting to draw strong parallels between the current governmental systems of the PRC and DPRK, it does seem as though you are rather strongly affected by western Cold War bias. I mention this not to cast WP:ASPERSIONS, as you are apparently a long-time contributor to Wikipedia (and we all have our inherent biases), but in the hopes that perhaps you might take a moment for some objective re-evaluation. Top5a (talk) 12:55, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your recommendation. I, following what appears to be the Wikipedia convention in this article and in the main usage in the article Chinese Communist Party and I based on the responses above. Just for the record, aspersions should be not be cast against new contributors either. In any case, this talk page is not about me, it's about a political idea proposed by the political party running the world's most populous autocracy. Boud (talk) 18:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Cheers, though I will point out, neither here nor there, but the linking of the Polity data series is again a western-biased metric fitting its own definition of what democracy should or should not entail (and such criticisms of the metric are even delineated on that page). Though as not for me to engage in WP:SYNTH, I understand your point of linking it, i.e. that it is not for us to determine a precise definition, either.  I sincerely appreciate your reply, have a good day! Top5a (talk) 03:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)