5 ms·

What did it do to bring its citizens out of poverty?

hnzix 9y ago
Sinologists have a long running debate as to whether the CPC should be praised for the Chinese Economic Miracle™ or if the Cultural Revolution just set the bar really, really low. Either way the "iron rice bowl" was as a genuine phenomenon.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
This is obvious: the Chinese government stopped interfering with the people who already had a culture for business and development. Deng simply stopped Mao's disasterous policies and china started to thrive.
- imron 9y ago
  That's a big part of it. The other thing the government has done (at least in the last couple of decades) is a big push in to transportation infrastructure - bridges, highways, high-speed rail. All of these things help in opening up the economy of previously isolated regions.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Yes. But that isn't especially a communist thing. There is no special formula to China's success beyond getting out of the way and eliminating barriers. Ironically enough, much of China's transportation infrastructure is supposed to turn a profit, leading to still fairly high logistic costs.
    - imron 9y ago
      > But that isn't especially a communist thing. It's not, however unlike other countries, by being authoritarian they can get things done. Compare for example a proposed high-speed rail line between Melbourne and Sydney, which has been under investigation since the 80's and it still hasn't gone beyond the basic planning stage. And it's not like there isn't demand, Melbourne->Sydney is currently the 5th busiest air route in the world.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        There are good reasons for that. Each time I rode the hsr in china, the car I was in was pretty empty. I'm not sure if this line (BJ to GZ) made much sense demand wise. Sure the government can push through face glorifying project, but whenever it rains heavily in southern china everything floods because investing in basic drainage isn't sexy enough.
        imron 9y ago
        > whenever it rains heavily in southern china everything floods because investing in basic drainage isn't sexy enough. Same thing happens in northern China also :-)
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Yes, tough to be fair, beijing gets a bad storm once every 4 years that causes the subway stations to flood (I had nice flood pictures for zhichunlu stations back in 2008 but lost them...it was basically a huge swimming pool). Cities in southern china have to put up with it every year (that and bloody no indoor heating makes living there a no-no for me).
lovich 9y ago
Built a metric fuck ton of infrastructure? Manipulated it's currencies so that it's burgeoning manufacturing industries could become the factory of the world? I get if you have a problem with the bad things they did but it's disingenuous for people to say all the positive consequences of the side they support was because of specific actions on their sides part, while the side they dislike had good things happen by coincidence or in spite of themselves

Sinologists have a long running debate as to whether the CPC should be praised for the Chinese Economic Miracle™ or if the Cultural Revolution just set the bar really, really low. Either way the "iron rice bowl" was as a genuine phenomenon.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

This is obvious: the Chinese government stopped interfering with the people who already had a culture for business and development. Deng simply stopped Mao's disasterous policies and china started to thrive.

imron 9y ago
That's a big part of it. The other thing the government has done (at least in the last couple of decades) is a big push in to transportation infrastructure - bridges, highways, high-speed rail. All of these things help in opening up the economy of previously isolated regions.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Yes. But that isn't especially a communist thing. There is no special formula to China's success beyond getting out of the way and eliminating barriers. Ironically enough, much of China's transportation infrastructure is supposed to turn a profit, leading to still fairly high logistic costs.
  - imron 9y ago
    > But that isn't especially a communist thing. It's not, however unlike other countries, by being authoritarian they can get things done. Compare for example a proposed high-speed rail line between Melbourne and Sydney, which has been under investigation since the 80's and it still hasn't gone beyond the basic planning stage. And it's not like there isn't demand, Melbourne->Sydney is currently the 5th busiest air route in the world.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      There are good reasons for that. Each time I rode the hsr in china, the car I was in was pretty empty. I'm not sure if this line (BJ to GZ) made much sense demand wise. Sure the government can push through face glorifying project, but whenever it rains heavily in southern china everything floods because investing in basic drainage isn't sexy enough.
      - imron 9y ago
        > whenever it rains heavily in southern china everything floods because investing in basic drainage isn't sexy enough. Same thing happens in northern China also :-)
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Yes, tough to be fair, beijing gets a bad storm once every 4 years that causes the subway stations to flood (I had nice flood pictures for zhichunlu stations back in 2008 but lost them...it was basically a huge swimming pool). Cities in southern china have to put up with it every year (that and bloody no indoor heating makes living there a no-no for me).

lovich 9y ago

Built a metric fuck ton of infrastructure? Manipulated it's currencies so that it's burgeoning manufacturing industries could become the factory of the world? I get if you have a problem with the bad things they did but it's disingenuous for people to say all the positive consequences of the side they support was because of specific actions on their sides part, while the side they dislike had good things happen by coincidence or in spite of themselves