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It seems abundantly clear at this point that China's economy is vastly "smarter" than ours, in terms of aligning productive resources to where the country needs

It seems abundantly clear at this point that China's economy is vastly "smarter" than ours, in terms of aligning productive resources to where the country needs them most.

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
At what cost though.
logicchains 9y ago
Is that why China still has hundreds of millions of extremely poor subsistence farmers? Not all of China is Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  partly yes, it's managing strategically their move to the city/middle class to a) avoid starvation and b) keeping an healthy supply of fresh internal market not that I condone the various atrocities and general suffering happening there, but yes from the economical point of view that's why and that also makes sense, as cruel as it might be. you simply cannot "industrial revoluzionize" a country that big as England did in the 1800. they maybe can do more and faster, but that's very hard to model.
  - jernfrost 9y ago
    Sure you can and they are are much faster rate. England had growthof 1.3% during the industrial recolution. That was rapid growth back then. China has been doing 10% for many years. So what England did is not impressive by todays standard. Event the most backwards developing countries today can achieve that growth rate.
    - LoSboccacc 9y ago
      gdp growth != rate of urbanization
- natural219 9y ago
  Are you asking "why hasn't a country lifted a billion people out of poverty overnight?", or, "why have they only lifted 500 million people out of poverty in 30 short years?"
- pcnonpc 9y ago
  The current number of extremely poor people in China is less than 30 million, less than 2% of population. From Google: "According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms." In 2017 there are around 600 million people in rural area. Their average monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. Cost of living there is cheap and this is middle income, not poor.
  - adventured 9y ago
    China has radically more extremely poor people than that. The number is closer to 500 million, so long as absurd numbers like $3 per day are not your line. 75% of China's middle class is in the $2 to $10 per day income bracket. And that's their middle class, the bottom 1/3 are even worse off. https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ (Oct 2014) “Poverty is still a salient problem in China,” Zheng Wenkai, a vice-minister at a government office responsible for poverty alleviation and development, said at a news briefing Tuesday, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. About 200 million Chinese, or 15% of the country’s population, would be considered poor by international poverty measures, set at $1.25 a day, Mr. Zheng added. https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/15/more-than-82-million-chinese-live-on-less-than-1-a-day/ https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/15/more-than-82-... Two simple questions that make the point easily: What's the median income, in non-purchasing parity terms, for the bottom 50% of people China? How many people does China have living below $5 per day, in non-purchasing parity terms? Answer those please.
    - Lutrinae 9y ago
      Why non-purchasing parity? The cost of most goods is significantly cheaper in China, even more so in the relatively poorer rural areas.
    - pcnonpc 9y ago
      I answered the comment which used "extremely poor" and "subsistence farmers" so I used the international poverty line ($1.90). At $3.2 (World Bank's lower middle income poverty line), it was 12.1% or 160 million people, but that was 2013. The number dropped rapidly every year. It should be lower now. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN Purchasing parity is a good measure for living standards. You can buy a full meal for 10 yuan or $1.5 in rural China. It is not fair to measure their income with no adjustment. Cooking for a family may cost less than that. $1 in rural China is worth much more than $1 in the US. Your quotes were from 2014. China is improving every year. You can Google for more recent statistics and quote them here if you disagree.

It seems abundantly clear at this point that China's economy is vastly "smarter" than ours, in terms of aligning productive resources to where the country needs them most.

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago

At what cost though.

logicchains 9y ago

Is that why China still has hundreds of millions of extremely poor subsistence farmers? Not all of China is Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen.

LoSboccacc 9y ago
partly yes, it's managing strategically their move to the city/middle class to a) avoid starvation and b) keeping an healthy supply of fresh internal market not that I condone the various atrocities and general suffering happening there, but yes from the economical point of view that's why and that also makes sense, as cruel as it might be. you simply cannot "industrial revoluzionize" a country that big as England did in the 1800. they maybe can do more and faster, but that's very hard to model.
- jernfrost 9y ago
  Sure you can and they are are much faster rate. England had growthof 1.3% during the industrial recolution. That was rapid growth back then. China has been doing 10% for many years. So what England did is not impressive by todays standard. Event the most backwards developing countries today can achieve that growth rate.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    gdp growth != rate of urbanization
natural219 9y ago
Are you asking "why hasn't a country lifted a billion people out of poverty overnight?", or, "why have they only lifted 500 million people out of poverty in 30 short years?"
pcnonpc 9y ago
The current number of extremely poor people in China is less than 30 million, less than 2% of population. From Google: "According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms." In 2017 there are around 600 million people in rural area. Their average monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. Cost of living there is cheap and this is middle income, not poor.
- adventured 9y ago
  China has radically more extremely poor people than that. The number is closer to 500 million, so long as absurd numbers like $3 per day are not your line. 75% of China's middle class is in the $2 to $10 per day income bracket. And that's their middle class, the bottom 1/3 are even worse off. https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ (Oct 2014) “Poverty is still a salient problem in China,” Zheng Wenkai, a vice-minister at a government office responsible for poverty alleviation and development, said at a news briefing Tuesday, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. About 200 million Chinese, or 15% of the country’s population, would be considered poor by international poverty measures, set at $1.25 a day, Mr. Zheng added. https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/15/more-than-82-million-chinese-live-on-less-than-1-a-day/ https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/15/more-than-82-... Two simple questions that make the point easily: What's the median income, in non-purchasing parity terms, for the bottom 50% of people China? How many people does China have living below $5 per day, in non-purchasing parity terms? Answer those please.
  - Lutrinae 9y ago
    Why non-purchasing parity? The cost of most goods is significantly cheaper in China, even more so in the relatively poorer rural areas.
  - pcnonpc 9y ago
    I answered the comment which used "extremely poor" and "subsistence farmers" so I used the international poverty line ($1.90). At $3.2 (World Bank's lower middle income poverty line), it was 12.1% or 160 million people, but that was 2013. The number dropped rapidly every year. It should be lower now. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN Purchasing parity is a good measure for living standards. You can buy a full meal for 10 yuan or $1.5 in rural China. It is not fair to measure their income with no adjustment. Cooking for a family may cost less than that. $1 in rural China is worth much more than $1 in the US. Your quotes were from 2014. China is improving every year. You can Google for more recent statistics and quote them here if you disagree.