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I read it somewhat differently. From my limited interaction with Chinese citizen as a resident of Singapore, many think more pragmatically. "We do what it take
by crdb 11y ago
I read it somewhat differently. From my limited interaction with Chinese citizen as a resident of Singapore, many think more pragmatically.
"We do what it takes to get a billion people to first world middle class standard of living. Yes, there's a bit of collateral damage but you guys' industrial revolution was not all roses, read some Dickens. We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread."
In other words the majority of Chinese citizen (that I know - YMMV, selection bias, etc.) think that the government is doing an alright job considering its constraints, and don't feel particularly oppressed - the authoritarianism is population-sanctioned. Just like the new French anti-terrorism measures.
- paul_milovanov 11y agocrdb: are you my separated-at-birth twin? I've been looking for you all my life. These are my thoughts exactly, down to my favorite Dickensian analogy. Everybody's favorite pastime, pointing fingers on China on everything from "freedoms" to the environment, is really more of a reflection on the commentators' astonishing lack of historical perspective. There's no shortage of fifty-year-olds around China today (say, about a population of Sweden's worth) that will tell you how they were plucked out of the university and sent to work the fields for years during the Cultural Revolution, and point out the exact level -- somewhere between knee- and waist-deep in shit -- that the country was at prior to Deng Xiaoping. I'm sure anybody that witnessed the change from then to now would have a richer and more nuanced opinion on China's government.
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- jmckib 11y ago> We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread The majority of economists would disagree. More economic and political freedom would accelerate economic progress, not hold it back. Check out Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu for an in depth discussion of this in relation to China.
- paul_milovanov 11y agoThe chicken-egg problem has been solved and nobody told me? my, my.
- jmckib 11y agoAll I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth, which is not a controversial statement. I think you're saying that economic growth will lead to more freedom. I'm sure that's true to some degree, but there are counterexamples. The Soviet Union experienced dramatic economic growth, but freedom never improved, and eventually the economy stagnated, as will China's (I predict). In any case, surely more freedom in China would not be a bad thing.
- rumcajz 11y ago> All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth What about Russia in '90s?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]