Social Death Under the Social Credit System

How virtual crimes may be committed by the majority against the minority under the social credit system.

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As China embarks on the journey of implementing its social credit system in 2020, various reports by the western media focused on the corporate impact and the social impact of this system. What about the human impact of this system? Have we forgotten that there are 1.7 billion people who will be impacted by this system? How will they live, work, and grow in this type of world? The reality is that anytime a system attempts to “classify” its people or resources, there are bound to be errors.

These errors are opportunities to be exploited by the government and the people who are in the majority.

Today, we are concerned with people’s mental health. Suicide, we deem as an important statistic to help us measure the wellbeing of people in our society. The suicide rate in our countries often tells us how happy our citizens are living their lives.

Each of us, as individuals who participate in the society’s economy essentially sign a contract with the country that we live in. We will abide by the rules of the society for the reward of participating in the country’s economy, its social structure, and its innovations.

With a system of classification, the government is essentially modifying that contract with terms and conditions in fine print that will bend the rules of the social contract in favor of the majority.

The new suicide rate will be the social death rate within the country. That rate will need to be measured to gauge the happiness of its citizens within the country.

What is Social Death?

According to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and other historians of slavery, social death is a condition when a set of people are not accepted as fully human by the wider society. This is usually based on a bias such as gender, race, or other criteria.

Orlando Patterson, author of Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study says, “one of the most extreme forms of the relation of domination, approaching the limits of total power from the viewpoint of the master, and of total powerlessness from the viewpoint of the slave.”

When a group of people is persecuted to the point of changing the views of themselves, the way they are regarded by society, and their mobility within the society, then it can very quickly lead to social death. This social death results in the cycle of slavery that have perpetuated for centuries in our histories.

What will Social Death look like under the Social Credit System?

Under the social credit system, each member of society is assigned a score based on the family they come from, jobs they hold, behaviors in public (at school, at work, in subways, etc..), their creditworthiness, and their social relations.

Schools will use this score to determine entrance to the best public education a person can apply for.

Public transportations will use this score to determine whether the person can travel from province to province.

Government agencies will use this score to determine whether the person can obtain a passport to move outside of the country.

Dating websites will use this score to recommend dates.

Banks will use this score to issue loans and accept financial transactions.

There are many more aspects of life that the social credit system will govern. But, let’s look at a person in the minority who might grow up in this social credit system and become blacklisted.

“Johnny grew up slightly disabled by a condition in his right arm. This resulted in a series of bullying incidents he encountered at school. Usually, school administrators are very supportive of him. However, one day, one of the teacher’s sons bullied Johnny. Because the teacher did not want to see his son punished by the social credit system, Johnny’s behavior was instead blacklisted by the school system.

No matter how hard Johnny studied in the statewide entrance exam to college, he was not eligible to apply to the best colleges.

Johnny wanted to become an engineer. But, no one wanted to hire an engineer from a non-elite school.

Johnny didn’t let this stop him. He decides to go to a college near his hometown and eventually apply to take the civil service exam to become a public servant in his province.

Due to the medical bills incurred by his medical condition, Johnny’s mother’s credit suffered while Johnny was growing up. Due to his mother’s credit, Johnny could not apply for a student loan and ended up having to work at low-end jobs throughout the school.

Working at these jobs significantly lowered Johnny’s motivation for life and outlook for the prospects of his family, he eventually dropped out of school without taking the civil service exam.”

This story of Johnny, who is just slightly different, through a series of minor incidents became punished by the system. This system will not offer any opportunities for Johnny or his family to get out of the system without years of hard work.

This hard work further erodes Johnny’s sense of self to the point that Johnny becomes satisfied with his current condition and his family’s remedial prospects.

This is how modern enslavement can happen within our system of classifications. This type of modern enslavement traps people in their cycle of poverty and perpetuate a caste system to form within the society.

What is promoted under the social credit system?

Everyone under the social credit system will place special emphasis on their behaviors in public. This will include behaviors at school, at work, and with acquaintances. People will establish a kind of “accepted” norms. Everyone will strive to abide by these norms for fear of persecution. Instead of striving for originality, ideas, and free-thinking, people will instead go with the herd. They will perform their best within the “established” norms.

What can we learn from history?

This was seen under Mao’s Cultural Revolution when the Chinese government punished intellectuals and burned books. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, family members informed on each other.

Children were forced to name their parents for punishment to protect themselves from persecution. Children were seen as government property instead of members of the family. Families informed on other families to protect themselves.

There were groups of informants identified in workplaces, at schools, and in public organizations. All of these informants were responsible for classifying people. If people were classified as “Good Communists”, they received jobs, statuses, wealth and education.

If people were classified as “Bad Communists”, they were persecuted by being excluded from participation in the economy, and social systems. Their children were often taken from them. The “Bad Communists”, if they were deemed as worthy will be forced to marry the “Good Communists” to neutralize their beliefs. Otherwise, they stayed single.

Do you see the similarity in our modern classification by technology?

Arguably, technology is supposed to be neutral; technology is supposed to be intelligent. But, any error made by technology can result in an exponential impact on the person’s social credit. This then leads to unfair persecution that can enslave the people by this system.

What is exactly the danger?

The danger of the social credit system lies in how the system is used. If it’s used to place controls around certain minority groups of people within the country, then it will simply have a snowball effect. Within no time, people within the majority will use this system to commit virtual crimes against anyone deemed unworthy.