I'd say the exact opposite - those in a system become desensitized to its failings, and steeped in societal myths. One needs to be outside of that to have a frame of reference to compare anything to.

Your argument seems to hinge upon material wealth. That can carry a lot of water for a system's failings, as it does in the US. But it's not particularly indicative of the shapes of power structures.

Interesting, can you cite any of these books? I don't believe they contradict my understand that censorship in China is so drastically different from the US that the comparison becomes dishonest.

> I think the idea that people living in a country understand their own lives worse than an outsider is beyond absurd. People can certainly understand whether they are happy with their lives and whether their quality of life is improving or not.

I didn't claim this, because normally I'd agree with you. I don't think I understand their lives better than they do. If someone says they're happy with their life, and I don't suspect duress. I'm happy to believe them. My claim was, in part because it's so hard to get reliable information inside from China given the extreme government censorship; that the opinions from the population about the quality shouldn't be given the normal amount of weight you'd give opinions about the government from a country that has strong protections and freedoms for the press. At best, they're under informed, and at worse they're misinformed. If you disagree, and believe they're perfectly informed, can you explain why there's so many articles, information, and evidence showing the CCP attempting to coverup information and events?