Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

Many commentators and experts argue that China has undergone such substantial changes that it is no longer a Communist, Maoist, or Marxist system, but a somehow moderate system of centralized capitalism.

Nonetheless, the current dictator has been consolidating his power in recent months and has been affirming it even further since the Covid-19 crisis unleashed. In fact, President Xi Jinping also leads the nation's Communist Party and he recently moved to be made president-for-life through the elimination of term limits. This means that he and his Party have shielded the traditional Chinese totalitarian system to effectively control all aspects of Chinese citizens' lives. In other words, their agenda is to maintain power through a sort of "Sinicization", forcing their subjects to comply with what they claim are "Chinese cultural norms".

However, this system is not part of a legitimate aspect of historical Chinese culture but of the Party's repressive policies truly reflective of militaristic, totalitarian (so called Communist) rule violently forced upon the Chinese people since Mao Zedong grab power 70 years ago.

Among the most outstanding repressive signs of this regime are the coercive family planning policies that go so far as to force abortions, as well as spying on its population through video and other digital monitoring (e.g. massive implementation of facial recognition with no legal procedures involved) and a system of measuring each citizen according to Party loyalty through centrally documented indexes called the "social credit score system", thus controlling each individual's social status and opportunities in their lives. In addition, China has a very limited degree of religious tolerance that allows a restricted practice of Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism only. No other belief is permitted; not even under state control.

The question is whether it is necessary to adopt the Chinese formula and shut the whole country down,"

The last ten days have had the virtue of inserting us into a worldwide reality show aimed at paralyzing our brains with fear and turning the world at large into a immense farm of automatons.

We thus aimlessly run to the supermarket to grab everything in sight.

We have cleaned each closet about ten times.

We have cooked a pool of jams, soups and sauces.

We have ironed and starched grandma's table cloths and bed spreads for the first time in ten years.

And we have cleaned our computer systems of digital garbage.

A price tag for this laborious dedication to domestic chores and digital cleanliness just for the U.S. would be close to $317 billion. Indeed, the Bureau of Economic Analysis has found that if the value of household production were included in gross domestic product (GDP), it would add approximately $3.8 trillion to the U.S. economy.

In contrast the country shutdown will most probably munch up about 10% of our GDP, which means we will lose about $ 1.9 trillion.

To be sure, should we add the losses attributable to paralysis in the most vulnerable activities such as transportation services, restaurants, lodging and entertainment services, the tab reaches $175 billion per month or $2.1 trillion a year or 14% of consumer spending. And the ancillary cost in reduced payrolls represents $574 billion.

1. So far as I can discover, opposition parties in the European countries (and elsewhere) are cooperating with the leadership of the party in power by acquiescing in its policies for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the Conservative government of Great Britain is considering inviting representatives of the Labour Party (excluding Jeremy Corbyn) to participate in a national government, though for a limited time only. (A period of four months has been suggested.)

The exception to this pattern is the US Democratic Party, which twice blocked passage of the Trump Administration’s emergency rescue bill costing $1.6 trillion in the Senate by larding it with liberal pork, including increased fuel emissions standards for airlines, expansion of wind and solar tax credits, other items lifted from the Green New Deal and $25 million for the Kennedy Center as part of a $100 million arts funding. Finally, Democrats and Republicans were able to reach an agreement early Thursday at midnight approving a larger stimulus package costing up to $2 trillion after some of these marginal allotments were added. This Party's obstructive strategy is inspired by Rahm Emmanuel’s maxim about never letting a good crisis go to waste. In this instance, the Democracy is probably overreaching itself. In which case, it may soon discover that the crisis it didn’t allow to go to waste was its own.

2. Le Figaro, the best conservative daily I know of, recently published an interesting feature the newspaper has continued to run for the past several days now. Unfortunately, Figaro doesn’t publish an edition in English, or any other language; its consistently superb contents are available exclusively to people who know French, which is too bad. 

Most community protests are as a result of residents demonstrating because of a lack of consultation by the government before carrying out projects, despite officials submitting reports claiming that there has been a consultative meeting.

The phenomenon of “shutdown movements”, which have seen communities revolt against the government of the day, symbolise a trust deficit. Communities rightly feel they do not have a voice in the government.

Violent disruptions of Integrated Development Plan (IDP) meetings in communities such as Alexandra in Johannesburg are an indication of simmering anger among residents that has been brewing for some time.

The cornerstone of a thriving democracy rests on a government that is in a constant consultative mode with the people it serves. A public consultation process has to be authentic. It should not be a box-ticking exercise by public officials. Public participation is a two-way communication and collaborative problem-solving mechanism with the goal of achieving mutually acceptable decisions.

At the heart of this mechanism is the principle of inclusivity: it should afford all citizens who have a stake in the matter a chance to make input irrespective of their social or economic status.