To defend democracy in the West and spread it overseas, we need to remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: I believe there is no sign of revolution in China and Vietnam because these governments have been very competent at increasing the security of basic needs.
Often we get lost in debates about abstract values such as human rights, free elections and free speech, that will simply not be so attractive if our form of government cannot provide the basic necessities of life.
It is not sufficient to have beautiful ideals; we must also be competent at ensuring them and all the needs that come before them.
Neither the EU nor the US elites seem to understand this basic fact.
Old-fashioned totalitarian societies control information by suppressing what they consider inconvenient for their people to hear, while the more sophisticated capitalist democracies control information by swamping the truth in a deluge of disinformation, through which it is virtually a full-time job to sift.