&#62; As soon as people's daily lives get good enough for them to have some free time for watching TV or owning a yacht, they stop caring about what the government is doing.<p>Free time has different effects on different people. Perhaps that's what your personal experience has led you to believe, but for me, and quite many others in the developed world, free time has freed us from constant thoughts about satisfying our basic needs, and allows us to contemplate higher levels of needs like "political correctness," "ethics and equality," "freedom of speech," and "technology startups."<p>It's probably also why the super-elite are the liberal do-gooders and political leaders. They don't have to worry about finding a job and "making it" or scavenging for food or shelter. Of course there are some with too much free time but explore it in other ways. Hippies, socialites, druggies, and startup founders I think are also examples of what happens when we satisfy basic needs and seek a higher meaning to life. It also depends on your intellectual level. But the point is that free time allows the upper-echelons of society to dwell on issues like freedom of speech, not necessarily all people though.<p>So in China there will be some people who are comfortable enough and start seeking more out of life. But for my relatives and pretty much all the current older generation they don't care. The younger people will probably start caring, but the older ones are just glad it's not like it was when they were children anymore. They probably just want the burden to be passed to their children... and so it will. But until my generation starts taking over completely, most of China's backwards policies will be mostly ignored by the people. Who knows, China's policies might even be superior and they might just keep it up.<p>I'm kind of scared of the implications to be honest. What if China, which has over a billion in population, creates a government sponsored organization that starts operating in an unregulated free market. Wouldn't it have an advantage in that economy over a multitude of separately competing entities? (sorry for slightly changing the topic. I always wanted to ask this)