(Hybrid) Is Chinese Political Meritocracy Superior to Western Democracy?

Daniel Bell is a Canadian political theorist who has spent many years in China, about which he has written several books, including *The China Model: Political* *Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy*, I find the argument of this book disappointingly thin and waffly. The speaker, Dr. Steele, will however say something about it, and about Bell's claim, also made by some Marxists, that the Chinese system of "political meritocracy" may be superior, at least for some countries, to Western democracy. This will broaden out into a general consideration of the best and worst systems of government from a libertarian point of view. In other words, we can temporarily suspend the issue of anarchocapitalism versus limited state, and look at what form of state is best, assuming that some form of a state is unavoidable. As you would expect, there will be brief mentions of Plato, Confucius, Herbert Spencer, Marx, Rothbard, Mao Zedong, Hayek, and Deng Xiaoping. **Speaker**: David Ramsay Steele Dr. David Ramsay Steele is Supreme Leader of the Chicago Libertarian Seminar. His most recent published book is *The Conquistador with His Pants Down: David Ramsay Steele's Legendary Lost Lectures* (2024). The information for livestream is forthcoming