I don't think many people in the West like credit score system either tbh

Two things can be bad at the same time.

The US has both:

The Chinese Social Credit score is where your Facebook and other social media are scoured by HR before you are hired. But if you are rich, your Facebook posts don't matter because your Dad made you an executive the company.

A Credit Score is pure capitalism. You can be a racist asshole and get the best deal from banks because you have money.

China is no different with their Princeling "Fuerdai".

Not to say credit scores are fun, but comparing the two is kinda absurd. Credit scores are calculated by private companies and used by banks to determine your eligibility for a loan. Essentially, it's an averaged history of how good you are at repaying debt, and it's used to determine if you will repay future debt. The people who calculate your score have no interest in how it affects you. The social credit system is a government score and has tons of things that can affect it, and there's plenty of opportunity for fudgery to screw you over. There are tons of ways in can negatively affect you. Worst of all, it can be used to deny international flights, and in effect your ability to escape the system. Since this is actually run by the government, it creates an avenue for punishing political dissent and control that just doesn't exist with credit scores.

So actually looked into the social credit system a while ago and it turns out a lot of it is myth and it seems to have been largely wound down after some abuse by some of the ?prefectures? where it was trialed and used to punish a few people (it was supposed to reward good behaviour by businesses and institutions apparently) but what remains did strike me as very similar to credit score, although it's maybe slightly more accountable? Maybe?

Anyway both seem dogshit, although a system verifying how organisations actually act (e.g. counter greenwashing and shit with hard evidence) would be cool if anyone could make it work.

The Chinese social credit thing is a myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

What the fuck is this nonsense?

Nobody likes credit scores but it's at least marginally financial measurements that are used for financial decisions.

It's regressive, but only because our society is regressive. A middle class person who overspends and doesn't pay their bills on time is probably gonna get treated better than a poor person who needs groceries and fails to pay their grocery bills on time, yes. But it's still financial.

The poor person isn't being stopped from buying a train ticket. They might not have money to do so, but that's a different societal fuck up.

At least compare apples to apples.

Because our ssn was stolen many of times, our credit score was low even after we fought off all the charges and couldn’t get an apartment without a garentour. Moved to Spain and never needed a garentour or social check in basic necessities, hell we could go for a loan and the only thing judged is our reasoning. Slowly waiting for permanent residency and citizenship :)

Two things can suck at the same time.

Both are bad and both countries are authoritarian shit holes

“There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Social credit in China is more about gauging trustworthiness of business entities. Something that is a great benefit to their citizens.

You say western but I live in the UK and while credit ratings exist here I have never had a reason to care about them. Never even had a credit card. Only time I borrowed money is for my mortgage.

There are more 'social scores' than just the credit one. The main difference is that in the West it's kept in secret, while China is open about it. Of course, it's also different than American propaganda says.

Arguments can be made both in favor and against such systems or their parts. I think we can all agree that the American one goes far beyond reasonable social utility. The Chinese one too, probably. China may be a lot better than our media tells us, but it's still far from perfect.

Damn, what happened here? I can only feel the warm ground, but I can tell there was a fire.

With or without credit scores, banks are going to be assessing you for whether you're likely to pay back the loans they provide. Even if you deleted all credit scores overnight so everyone had to do individual assessments, you're still getting assessed and a credit score in all but name will emerge. If you're a high risk, banks will just put a big mark on your name that says "Don't lend to this person, they don't pay their debts" like they do in Austria.

The only real difference between the US Credit Score and the Chinese Social Credit is that the Chinese Social Credit takes other factors into account in whether you are considered worthy enough to have a loan, which isn't aaaall that different to how it's done in the UK, where registering to vote makes your credit score go up, but then again lenders in the UK don't tend to use credit scores for things like mortgages, they use their own checks.