One other possible legitimation mode for the Communists was system performance, meaning that they would seek the right to rule by delivering what the people wanted. Unfortunately, the economic slowdowns of the 1970s and 1980s rendered this path problematic. Moreover, attempts to redress the balance between heavy and light industry – and thus between the defence needs of the state and the consumer needs of citizens – had been at best only partial in most Communist states. Many citizens looked to the West, and saw that lifestyles and access to goods were much better there. Since their own leaderships had essentially put the end goal of communism on the back burner by the 1970s with their talk of ‘realistic socialism’ and acknowledgement of shortages, economic performance could not serve the legitimizing function leaders had hoped it would.引自 笔记摘选
P135:
A system can tolerate such a fundamental contradiction as long as the economy is functioning well. In other words, many citizens in most types of system appear to be willing to tolerate limits on their political freedoms as long as their standards of living are increasing, their security is ensured, and they are reasonably free to travel. These preconditions have pertained in China for more than two decades. But if the Chinese economy were to experience a serious crisis, there are many precedents to suggest that the political system could fail.
However, we need to consider the possibility that Chinese Communist power collapses, and that whatever succeeds it is, at least in the short term, unlikely to be a model others will seek to learn from or emulate. To conclude this brief analysis of Communism, it is finally time to acknowledge the elephant in the room – social democracy. In most countries in which voters were free to choose, social democracy proved to be more popular in the 20th century than Communism. The type of system Sweden had until the late 1980s – when even the Swedes began to move towards neo-liberalism – provides concrete evidence that it is possible to combine high levels of security, prosperity, the rule of law, freedom, and democracy. The hybrid has existed and could well return. For numerous reasons, it is both more desirable and more likely that it will experience a re-birth than that Communism will. But then that is how dialectics operate!引自 笔记摘选
对于共产主义未来的发展，作者给出的回答没什么新意，四平八稳。不过前几章对于共产主义简要的历史回顾，以及对于共产主义陷落的分析，读者不难读出要害所在。Legitimation crisis theory这一节，作者引用了马克思韦伯的理论，分析了共产主义国家试图从traditional, charismatic or legal-rational mode to legitimize the state所遇到的困境。这当然只是一种切入角度，也不妨于此去理解眼下的种种活动与宣传之目的何在。
