6 ms·

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values a

by kiba 9y ago

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder how much does that impact their economy. How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good job of it, or at least a better one than those in less democratic societies?

rukittenme 9y ago
> maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity That was never in question. It's been known since at least Tocqueville and certainly long before that. "I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society will not be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and directed forwards; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive, but those of comfort will be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their experience; each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that his personal interest is identified with the interest of the community. The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of things were not good or useful, society would at least have appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and for ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter into possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford."
Cyph0n 9y ago
They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  That's why they have all those knife attacks and bombings and hundreds of young Tibetans self-immolating in protest. All that 'Chinese homogenity' and 'harmonious society.'
  - wjn0 9y ago
    I'm curious to know the ratio of these crimes to population, as compared to Western countries. Harmonious != 100% peaceful.
    - PakG1 9y ago
      100% this. Violent incidents in China pale in comparison to the US in terms of both scale and frequency. Take into consideration proportion of population? No comparison at all.
      - baq 9y ago
        There's no comparison because the data isn't there, not because the news report on something or not.
- coumygen 9y ago
  Human capital doesn't automatically indicate economic prowess; you have to remember there's around 700M in China that still lives in rural areas with under $1 a day, and they can't get the jobs in urban cities because those jobs are going away due to moving to cheaper SE asia countries, robots, and lack of skillsets.
grouseway 9y ago
Wasn't it Mao's tongue in cheek assessment of the American democracy experiment that it's "too early to tell"? The same can certainly be said of Chinese current state. They're a remarkable success on a scale unlike anything else in the world's history but lets wait a little longer...
- Uehreka 9y ago
  That was Zhou Enlai to Nixon about the legacy of the French Revolution.
fspeech 9y ago
"How critical is good information about the world?" Of course it is critical but the access to good information is not entirely dependent on whether there is censorship: For long form reporting a lot is dependent on budget resources. When newspapers here lose revenue they inevitably cut back on investigative reporting and resort to more editorialization. In China newspapers may have fared slightly better on the revenue side so far (https://www.statista.com/statistics/498028/newspaper-publishing-revenue-advertising-circulation-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/498028/newspaper-publish...) but the future is uncertain. Outbound tourism has been steadily growing, reaching 126 million trips in 2016. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2016statistics/outbound.htm https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2016statistics/outb... There is a large Chinese diaspora connected through social networking. There are also websites such as Zhihu that is a real force in dispersal of knowledge but is barely discussed here on HN due to the language barrier. Weibo (which is like Twitter), where a celebrity could generate millions of comments, gets more attention from the general public and the government. But if you are after good information Zhihu often provides surprisingly in-depth answers.
coumygen 9y ago
Your information is old; China is the most indebted country in the world, and its growth in debt is scaring alot of economists.
- executesorder66 9y ago
  It is? I thought it was the USA. Here's just the wikipeida link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_... If you have a better source, please link it so that I can read through it. Thanks.
musage 9y ago
> maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. Huh? It was never about pure economic prosperity. The point is the human being that any prosperity is useless without. Also, I had to think of this: > You can have a lot of political 'change' in the United States, but will it really change that much? Will it change the amount of money in someone’s bank account? Will it change contracts? Will it void contracts that already exist? And contracts on contracts? And contracts on contracts on contracts? Not really. > So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn’t matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn’t have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not. But China is still a political society, although it is rapidly heading toward a fiscalized society. And other societies, like Egypt, are still heavily politicized. Their rulers really do need to be concerned about what people think, so they expend proportionate efforts on controlling freedom of speech. -- Julian Assange So yeah, "democracy". Freedom of speech. We can call Bush a war criminal, fine. Yay for us! But are others yearning for the right to speak about grievances and take part in normalizing them, or about correcting them, for good? What would be the functional difference between capitalism in which one company provides all products and jobs and any other strictly top-down hierarchy? Flavor? And while I do not mean to say "oh it's all the same", and think it would be insane to demean the liberties we (still) have instead of really using them -- just take this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15444607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15444607 Just some random quotes describe what I mean: > They make hardware that we can't control, there's no real alternative to buy, and now we gotta rely on volunteers and wiki pages to give instructions that might work but who knows you might brick it. > Unfortunately for consumers, there's no way to escape this as even AMD has their own IME. "Unfortunate". You know, like it's the weather. And now consider at all the double think spouted at other, more minor occasions. Oh, free market this personal choice that. But that stops when it comes to a whole lot of things that matter a whole lot. In a sane world with people who have their dignity intact, it would be "unfortunate" for AMD and Intel, and companies that engage in war profiteering and a whole mess of other things. We are not living in that world and we are not those people. We could and should be.
rdtsc 9y ago
> prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity But it's always been optional. China showed it. But Singapore showed it best. It's undoubtedly prosperous, but not considered too democratic (it is on paper of course). The West usually sells the idea of liberalization with the promise that Democracy will eventually follow. It goes something like "let us come in overthrow the government, start a war, install some dictator, bring some big multinational corporations to run things, etc. But don't worry, eventually democracy will arrive". But it seems it doesn't always. Slavoj Žižek, hate him or like him, likes to call this Capitalism with Asian Values He explains himself what that means here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADfH9Rt6pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADfH9Rt6pc (Be prepared for silly jokes, and endless diversions)
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  Singapore is often shown as proof that China's model will work. But look at it from the perspective of China. To be like Singapore they would need to have a much more regular and neutral justice system and expose their politicians to much more democratic oversight (though still not to western levels). They would have to engage in a much more subtle and limited form of censorship. If they do become like Singapore, then what do they get? They get to be about as rich as western democracies.
pjc50 9y ago
> democracy is optional for economic prosperity You might want to look at the history of US external economic relations, especially the United Fruit Company (which created the "banana republics").
odiroot 9y ago
> democracy is optional for economic prosperity This is quite obvious. We've had economically prosperous countries for ages now. Even in feudal times. Doesn't mean the average citizen is going to prosper.

by kiba 9y ago

rukittenme 9y ago

> maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity That was never in question. It's been known since at least Tocqueville and certainly long before that. "I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society will not be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and directed forwards; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive, but those of comfort will be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their experience; each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that his personal interest is identified with the interest of the community. The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of things were not good or useful, society would at least have appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and for ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter into possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford."

Cyph0n 9y ago

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

wavefunction 9y ago
That's why they have all those knife attacks and bombings and hundreds of young Tibetans self-immolating in protest. All that 'Chinese homogenity' and 'harmonious society.'
- wjn0 9y ago
  I'm curious to know the ratio of these crimes to population, as compared to Western countries. Harmonious != 100% peaceful.
  - PakG1 9y ago
    100% this. Violent incidents in China pale in comparison to the US in terms of both scale and frequency. Take into consideration proportion of population? No comparison at all.
    - baq 9y ago
      There's no comparison because the data isn't there, not because the news report on something or not.
coumygen 9y ago
Human capital doesn't automatically indicate economic prowess; you have to remember there's around 700M in China that still lives in rural areas with under $1 a day, and they can't get the jobs in urban cities because those jobs are going away due to moving to cheaper SE asia countries, robots, and lack of skillsets.

grouseway 9y ago

Wasn't it Mao's tongue in cheek assessment of the American democracy experiment that it's "too early to tell"? The same can certainly be said of Chinese current state. They're a remarkable success on a scale unlike anything else in the world's history but lets wait a little longer...

Uehreka 9y ago
That was Zhou Enlai to Nixon about the legacy of the French Revolution.

fspeech 9y ago

"How critical is good information about the world?" Of course it is critical but the access to good information is not entirely dependent on whether there is censorship: For long form reporting a lot is dependent on budget resources. When newspapers here lose revenue they inevitably cut back on investigative reporting and resort to more editorialization. In China newspapers may have fared slightly better on the revenue side so far (https://www.statista.com/statistics/498028/newspaper-publishing-revenue-advertising-circulation-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/498028/newspaper-publish...) but the future is uncertain. Outbound tourism has been steadily growing, reaching 126 million trips in 2016. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2016statistics/outbound.htm https://www.travelchinaguide.com/tourism/2016statistics/outb... There is a large Chinese diaspora connected through social networking. There are also websites such as Zhihu that is a real force in dispersal of knowledge but is barely discussed here on HN due to the language barrier. Weibo (which is like Twitter), where a celebrity could generate millions of comments, gets more attention from the general public and the government. But if you are after good information Zhihu often provides surprisingly in-depth answers.

coumygen 9y ago

Your information is old; China is the most indebted country in the world, and its growth in debt is scaring alot of economists.

executesorder66 9y ago
It is? I thought it was the USA. Here's just the wikipeida link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_... If you have a better source, please link it so that I can read through it. Thanks.

musage 9y ago

> maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. Huh? It was never about pure economic prosperity. The point is the human being that any prosperity is useless without. Also, I had to think of this: > You can have a lot of political 'change' in the United States, but will it really change that much? Will it change the amount of money in someone’s bank account? Will it change contracts? Will it void contracts that already exist? And contracts on contracts? And contracts on contracts on contracts? Not really. > So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn’t matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn’t have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not. But China is still a political society, although it is rapidly heading toward a fiscalized society. And other societies, like Egypt, are still heavily politicized. Their rulers really do need to be concerned about what people think, so they expend proportionate efforts on controlling freedom of speech. -- Julian Assange So yeah, "democracy". Freedom of speech. We can call Bush a war criminal, fine. Yay for us! But are others yearning for the right to speak about grievances and take part in normalizing them, or about correcting them, for good? What would be the functional difference between capitalism in which one company provides all products and jobs and any other strictly top-down hierarchy? Flavor? And while I do not mean to say "oh it's all the same", and think it would be insane to demean the liberties we (still) have instead of really using them -- just take this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15444607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15444607 Just some random quotes describe what I mean: > They make hardware that we can't control, there's no real alternative to buy, and now we gotta rely on volunteers and wiki pages to give instructions that might work but who knows you might brick it. > Unfortunately for consumers, there's no way to escape this as even AMD has their own IME. "Unfortunate". You know, like it's the weather. And now consider at all the double think spouted at other, more minor occasions. Oh, free market this personal choice that. But that stops when it comes to a whole lot of things that matter a whole lot. In a sane world with people who have their dignity intact, it would be "unfortunate" for AMD and Intel, and companies that engage in war profiteering and a whole mess of other things. We are not living in that world and we are not those people. We could and should be.

rdtsc 9y ago

> prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity But it's always been optional. China showed it. But Singapore showed it best. It's undoubtedly prosperous, but not considered too democratic (it is on paper of course). The West usually sells the idea of liberalization with the promise that Democracy will eventually follow. It goes something like "let us come in overthrow the government, start a war, install some dictator, bring some big multinational corporations to run things, etc. But don't worry, eventually democracy will arrive". But it seems it doesn't always. Slavoj Žižek, hate him or like him, likes to call this Capitalism with Asian Values He explains himself what that means here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADfH9Rt6pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADfH9Rt6pc (Be prepared for silly jokes, and endless diversions)

adrianratnapala 9y ago
Singapore is often shown as proof that China's model will work. But look at it from the perspective of China. To be like Singapore they would need to have a much more regular and neutral justice system and expose their politicians to much more democratic oversight (though still not to western levels). They would have to engage in a much more subtle and limited form of censorship. If they do become like Singapore, then what do they get? They get to be about as rich as western democracies.

pjc50 9y ago

> democracy is optional for economic prosperity You might want to look at the history of US external economic relations, especially the United Fruit Company (which created the "banana republics").

odiroot 9y ago

> democracy is optional for economic prosperity This is quite obvious. We've had economically prosperous countries for ages now. Even in feudal times. Doesn't mean the average citizen is going to prosper.