I don't know about that. China seems to have found a middle ground that allows for a pretense of exploratory and associative free-will ("special economic zones", China even has billionaires) with people in reality being one wrong move away from the usual sudden and drastic crackdown you'd associate with its style of government.
On the other hand Western democracies largely seem to fund this kind of "exploratory and associative free-will" to the benefit of their aristocracies (i.e. wealthy people who hold a lot of social, economic and often political power but can not actually directly control the government itself despite often benefiting from selective enforcement) while at the same time clearly being aware that ideas like the state monopoly of violence (even in the US) or the "right for a country to defend itself" are vital to the state's continued existence and that democracy is a threat to that ulterior motive if taken too seriously.
China seems to be an example of a "disciplined obedience" system adapting to its economic environment (more the international one than the internal one) whereas "the West" seems to provide examples of systems creating layers of misdirection to hide their inherent "disciplined obedience" based nature that ensures their self-preservation.
On the other hand Western democracies largely seem to fund this kind of "exploratory and associative free-will" to the benefit of their aristocracies (i.e. wealthy people who hold a lot of social, economic and often political power but can not actually directly control the government itself despite often benefiting from selective enforcement) while at the same time clearly being aware that ideas like the state monopoly of violence (even in the US) or the "right for a country to defend itself" are vital to the state's continued existence and that democracy is a threat to that ulterior motive if taken too seriously.
China seems to be an example of a "disciplined obedience" system adapting to its economic environment (more the international one than the internal one) whereas "the West" seems to provide examples of systems creating layers of misdirection to hide their inherent "disciplined obedience" based nature that ensures their self-preservation.