I see comment chains touching on this topic in nearly every post even tangentially related to China, and it's rarely ever that the main issue is mentioned. So I'll write this for the benefit of any passing reader with similar thoughts.
In a country of 1.x billions, it shouldn't be surprising that there would be at least a few tens of millions of hardcore, actual socialists, who genuinely believe in some distant future communist utopia.
Even if the entire rest of the population were the most perfect paragons of virtue imaginable, it's still likely going to be the hardcore folks willing to fight to the death en bloc that end up with the actual power. That's just how the cookie crumbles in every country.
Whether it's ultra-Maoists in China, or ultra-Hindus in India, or ultra-muslims in Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, etc..
The real question is whether or not the bulk of the hardcore group can be enticed with enough potential rewards to moderate their views.
Wealth works if there's a lot to go around, like in the U.S., EU, etc., but otherwise the hardcore group needs to be paid in some form of power, geopolitical, cultural, etc.
> My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them.
Humans are not perfect deceivers, even the average Joe can usually tell if someone's fishy within a 10 minute face-to-face conversation.
There do exist really expert and cunning deceivers, but the folks higher up in the hierarchy will also commensurately be better equipped to see through it.
So for a large enough hierarchy, the practical impossibility of duping so many means that only genuine believers end up near the top.
You don't even need to go Beijing to see this dynamic play out, there's a company in Cupertino where many folks allege this is the case (though to be fair some allege the non-believers are also moving up the ladder).
In a country of 1.x billions, it shouldn't be surprising that there would be at least a few tens of millions of hardcore, actual socialists, who genuinely believe in some distant future communist utopia.
Even if the entire rest of the population were the most perfect paragons of virtue imaginable, it's still likely going to be the hardcore folks willing to fight to the death en bloc that end up with the actual power. That's just how the cookie crumbles in every country.
Whether it's ultra-Maoists in China, or ultra-Hindus in India, or ultra-muslims in Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, etc..
The real question is whether or not the bulk of the hardcore group can be enticed with enough potential rewards to moderate their views.
Wealth works if there's a lot to go around, like in the U.S., EU, etc., but otherwise the hardcore group needs to be paid in some form of power, geopolitical, cultural, etc.