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I think we’ve been late to re-examine some of the ideological memes from eh 80s-90s, which formed as the Soviet Union failed. In a nutshell, it was triumphalis

I think we’ve been late to re-examine some of the ideological memes from eh 80s-90s, which formed as the Soviet Union failed. In a nutshell, it was triumphalist. The Soviet Union, was oppressive, had a failed economy, it’s people wanted out.. wanted democracy, rights, capitalism. All the aspects of soviet failure (and the West’s success) were pinned in the “ideology” or system of government. Free markets, liberal democracy, independent courts, late night talk shows… These were all taken as a single system, which beat out a rival system. Looking back… Do we think that if the US had a Leninist revolution 100 years ago and Russia had had Tatcher & Churchill, that everything would be reversed. We see countries succeeding and failing regardless of clear ideological links. Implementation is usually more important than ideas. Stalinism was a very bad implementation. China’s last generation was a good one. The ideological underpinnings… less important. Anyway… the major & minor powers run almost identical economic systems these days. China, US, Russia, Japan, EU, UK… “Large Corporations”, almost sums up the system. At the scales modern corporations live on, the concept of free markets is fairly watered down. Banking, real estate (housing), transport, education… there are no free markets here. Elsewhere in the economy (e.g. consumer tech), oligopolies run the show. China has inched its way over to an almost identical economic system. I think the west has taken a few steps towards china’s. They’ll “intervene” more (like using the great firewall to keep out foreign competition), but … meh .. China runs a local monopoly rather than adopting the international one. It’s not really a big deal, economically. Basically, the economic system of china is the same as the west’s. Neither are very similar to the ideological systems they pay lip services to. Also, free markets don’t exist within companies. Companies are “islands of planning.” Well, the corporations are continents these days. Inside a company, totalitarianism is perfectly acceptable in Ohio, just like it is in Xiamen. When it comes to linking western rule-of-law, rights-centric constitutions and such to economic success… I’m not sure that link is really there. I think this was triumphalism and wishful thinking. Anyway, Russia accepted a lot of western systems. They have a free-ish market, a democratic constitutions. Yet, Putin is running yet again. The betting odds are currently @ 1/500 of him winning. My TLDR point is that the ideological lens is very, very foggy. It distorts our view of the world with easy-to-digest narratives and categories, but it really doesn’t describe the world. We need to drop this cold war mentality. I was 7 years old when the Berlin wall came down, why am I still thinking in these terms!!

saas_co_de 9y ago
> the ideological lens is very, very foggy. It distorts our view of the world with easy-to-digest narratives and categories Right. All of this talk about capitalism, communism, etc is intellectually nonsense. The whole world is actually moving towards the Chinese model with highly interventionist monetary policy, the majority of GDP allocated by the government, etc. That is the case in every major country now. No serious policy makers believe in free markets any more. They believe in democracy to the extent that they see it as a mechanism for social control, but that is it. That might be shocking to some people but the other thing to take into account is that all of these smart people have come to this conclusion so maybe they are right and free markets and real democracy are just dumb ideas.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Well... The Chinese are "moving to the Chinese model" too, so idk if it's right to call it chinese. I think the model is the same, and all major economies are going that way. The cultural & legal differences make for different ways of describing and justifying things but.., they don't seem to amount to a huge difference. Baidu was essentially picked by the CCP, as the Chinese Google. Google was produced by the "free market." The end result is the same. Similar privacy/surveillance implications, similar business models. Similar market share (monopoly). I bet the offices look pretty similar too. Generally speaking, I am very skeptical of free market ideas applied at the >$1bn level. Corporations that size have political power, inevitably. They also tend to operate in less dynamic & competitive environments. The power differential between them and the employees they are "freely transacting" with are huge. Mostly though, it's the political thing. A mayor of a city is not going to ignore a $5bn going under, or moving away. They have influence on the rules that get made.
SZJX 9y ago
Exactly. Glad to see that many people out there still have their cool heads and see through the ideological nonsense and lens of extreme double standards that the mainstream government/media want to force upon their populace. After all it's just ideological propaganda. Singapore has been much more "authoritarian" than China in many aspects. Regimes in Central America supported by CIA brutally kill their citizens every day. Saudi backed by the US wrecks havoc in the region. The media doesn't give a damn, or at least has very restricted reportage. They only want to constantly attack China because China is regarded as a competitor/enemy, while Singapore and Saudi allies. As simple as that. In fact China is just rapidly turning into another US in a lot of aspects of the society. Xi is compared with Reagan for his pro-market stance. (Though he does indeed implement a lot of surveillance etc. as well.) The west just doesn't want to see their old order challenged. But little can be done to stop the rise of China now. Whether the reforms of Xi totally succeed is still unknown. There are of course a lot of uncertainties. But China as a world power is probably there to stay for a long time. The better thing to do for the western elites/governments is cope with this fact and think of strategies under this premise, instead of trying to deny/sabotage it with wishful thinking. Personally I'm horrified that China is turning into another US but that apparently doesn't have anything to do with the ideological buzzwords that those media so like to use.

saas_co_de 9y ago

> the ideological lens is very, very foggy. It distorts our view of the world with easy-to-digest narratives and categories Right. All of this talk about capitalism, communism, etc is intellectually nonsense. The whole world is actually moving towards the Chinese model with highly interventionist monetary policy, the majority of GDP allocated by the government, etc. That is the case in every major country now. No serious policy makers believe in free markets any more. They believe in democracy to the extent that they see it as a mechanism for social control, but that is it. That might be shocking to some people but the other thing to take into account is that all of these smart people have come to this conclusion so maybe they are right and free markets and real democracy are just dumb ideas.

dalbasal 9y ago
Well... The Chinese are "moving to the Chinese model" too, so idk if it's right to call it chinese. I think the model is the same, and all major economies are going that way. The cultural & legal differences make for different ways of describing and justifying things but.., they don't seem to amount to a huge difference. Baidu was essentially picked by the CCP, as the Chinese Google. Google was produced by the "free market." The end result is the same. Similar privacy/surveillance implications, similar business models. Similar market share (monopoly). I bet the offices look pretty similar too. Generally speaking, I am very skeptical of free market ideas applied at the >$1bn level. Corporations that size have political power, inevitably. They also tend to operate in less dynamic & competitive environments. The power differential between them and the employees they are "freely transacting" with are huge. Mostly though, it's the political thing. A mayor of a city is not going to ignore a $5bn going under, or moving away. They have influence on the rules that get made.

SZJX 9y ago

Exactly. Glad to see that many people out there still have their cool heads and see through the ideological nonsense and lens of extreme double standards that the mainstream government/media want to force upon their populace. After all it's just ideological propaganda. Singapore has been much more "authoritarian" than China in many aspects. Regimes in Central America supported by CIA brutally kill their citizens every day. Saudi backed by the US wrecks havoc in the region. The media doesn't give a damn, or at least has very restricted reportage. They only want to constantly attack China because China is regarded as a competitor/enemy, while Singapore and Saudi allies. As simple as that. In fact China is just rapidly turning into another US in a lot of aspects of the society. Xi is compared with Reagan for his pro-market stance. (Though he does indeed implement a lot of surveillance etc. as well.) The west just doesn't want to see their old order challenged. But little can be done to stop the rise of China now. Whether the reforms of Xi totally succeed is still unknown. There are of course a lot of uncertainties. But China as a world power is probably there to stay for a long time. The better thing to do for the western elites/governments is cope with this fact and think of strategies under this premise, instead of trying to deny/sabotage it with wishful thinking. Personally I'm horrified that China is turning into another US but that apparently doesn't have anything to do with the ideological buzzwords that those media so like to use.