I am unable to read Chinese news, so I rely on the British Independent and other news agencies, which report that the Chinese government plans to launch its Social Credit System in 2020 to assess the trustworthiness of its 1.3 billion residents. According to the Independent: “China is moving towards a totalitarian society, where the government controls and affects individuals' private lives like Big Brother, who has all your information and can harm you in any way he wants.”
The Independent did not accuse the US of being Big Brother for the existence of a similar system called FICO. FICO is an acronym for the Fair Isaac Corporation, which calculates the credit scores and is used by mortgage lenders to predict the borrower's ability and willingness to pay debts. Neither Google nor Facebook was called Big Brother by the Independent, despite collecting information about people.
The Social Credit System aims to guide citizens toward an acceptable path for society. It should regulate individual responsibilities for accomplishing this goal in everyday life. Today, social regulation mainly affects criminal activities, which is insufficient, leaving too much space for individuals to harm society and go unpunished or face inadequate punishment. Additionally, it does not elicit sufficient good behaviour from citizens. The Social Credit System regulation is intended to address these shortcomings and foster a better society.
According to the Independent, the Chinese government plans to strengthen sincerity in government affairs, commercial and social sincerity, and the construction of judicial credibility. All individuals will be rated as either positive or negative and distilled into a single number, according to rules established by the government. That would create a Citizen Score, which would indicate to everyone whether or not they are trustworthy. The score would encourage good behaviour with rewards and discourage lousy behaviour with punishments. This is what gives justification. The rating is intended to impact every aspect of people’s lives. Everyone will be ranked in different categories, including behaviour, personal preferences, and interpersonal relationships. The plan will also collect establishment records, including those from courts, police, banking, tax, and employment agencies.
I have outlined all these ideas as essential conditions for creating a good society in my book, “Humanism,” which I completed in 1992 and is available free of charge online. Is it possible that China came up with the same ideas independently as I did? It might be possible if I had not witnessed a substantial number of visits from Chinese IP addresses to my website over the years. The IP addresses may be tracked down, but I assume that only the Chinese government would be that interested in my ideas. They have learned about new forms of social responsibility on my website and plan to apply them. I do not intend to charge anyone for my social inventions, but China was not supposed to use my work without proper acknowledgment. If China does not recognize my contribution, it will suffer in shame.
It is not entirely clear from the article who would be the decision-maker for the punishments and rewards for people. The Independent criticize the Communist Party acting as the ultimate judge, which would create a 21st-century police state. I am not sure about that. China has a system of delegative democracy, which is supposed to follow the will of the people. We may agree or disagree on the effectiveness of the Chinese government in this regard. On the other side, many would quickly agree that nothing can be less democratic than the Western liberal democracy, where anyone with social power is corrupted or controlled by the rich.
Then a big surprise comes in the same Independent article: “Citizens could additionally score Doctors, teachers, local governments and businesses for their professionalism and probity.” Scored by citizens? That sounds like the highest form of democracy to me, and also the best way to improve society. The point is that if users of medical, educational, or governmental services, or in other words, citizens, had the right to evaluate service providers, it would undoubtedly bring power to the people and improve the services. Such a system could not be corrupted, so it would significantly improve society.
I went further in developing democracy than the Chinese government. My ideas were based on equal human rights, which means they eliminate privileges, and that is something the Chinese government still cannot afford. For example, according to the article, the Chinese plan predicts that citizens will evaluate the local governments, but not the federal one. On top of that, I have developed socialism to become a much more productive system than capitalism could ever be, so that my ideas will send capitalism down in history. I have also defined how to achieve “to each according to their needs,” as Marx presented communism. I need China to spread my ideas, and China would benefit from cooperation with me.
It is not entirely clear what the rewards and punishments would be in the Chinese democratic initiative. I have invented a simple form of awards and penalties, which would be the most powerful ones. It would create a good society where nothing but prosperity would be possible. A simple variation of the developed form of democracy is presented in my article: “The Future of Democracy.” I wrote an even simpler variant of it for Facebook here: “Permanent votes would improve Facebook.”
I have developed democracy just because I was the first one to recognize the right way to go. My improvement of democracy will be one of the most important inventions ever, as it will create a good society simply, unconditionally, and unavoidably.
Although China may not be able to accept all my ideas, it is moving in the right direction. It has achieved the world's fastest economic growth. This proves that a market economy regulated by central planning policy is the most effective financial system. The system would be even better if it were based on direct democracy, but that requires time. Now it is evident that China is opening up to democracy, which means it understands that the system made by the people for the people is the best possible political system. That is why China prospers and will continue to prosper. On the other side, the Western world deteriorates because it is led by greedy rich people who have corrupted it so much that it is going down the drain. My conclusion would be that the independent defender of capitalism attacks the Chinese democratic initiative because China is a threat to the corrupt Western world. They are afraid of China.