KlassWar wrote:Back in the good old days before neoliberalism political parties had their own newspapers, some mass organizations (usually big unions) had theirs, and small independent media run by intellectuals on ideological lines was relatively common, and they used to allow voters to be more or less reasonably informed. It went to shit when the neoliberals took power and sold out every chunk of civil society to the highest bidder, of course.
In the west, all these voices still exist, only that some voices are much bigger and they drown out less funded ones. Everyone pretend or imagine they have free thought but everything reaches "Washington consensus" + "Liberal vs Conservative" anyway.
In China, there is only one voice. “Mainstream thoughts” they call it, like its supposed to be a good thing.
We also have "Patriotic anti-west types" vs "Liberal anti-everything-Chinese types"
In the end money and power speaks, but at least option 1 is a lot less boring.
Society changes, politics changes, no ideology should remain stationary.