4 ms·

I think a more pertinent example is the Shanzhai culture in Chinese manufacturing, which is distinct from both the overtly open culture of Free software and the

I think a more pertinent example is the Shanzhai culture in Chinese manufacturing, which is distinct from both the overtly open culture of Free software and the explicitly closed structure of intellectual property. You're unlikely to find a datasheet for the latest MediaTek chipset through Google or Baidu, but you won't get sued for sharing a copy with a friend. You can't buy sample quantities through a distributor and MediaTek won't talk to you unless you're a serious player, but it's not hard to buy a couple of chips or a few reels if you know the right person. Information isn't free, but it doesn't have a price tag either - it's exchanged as part of a reciprocal guanxi network. Much like the BBS warez scene, information gradually percolates from a core of well-connected peers to a wider network, creating a hierarchy of esteem and a duty of reciprocity that incentivises the continued flow of information. I share with you today, in the expectation that you will share with me tomorrow.

forapurpose 8y ago
In my limited understanding, guanxi has the taste of corruption, not openness. People doing favors for those they know rather than a free, open, arms-length market which provides more liquidity and opportunity. Is that wrong?
- barrkel 8y ago
  People doing favors for those they know rather than a free, open, arms-length market This describes most markets that are not in fungible commodities.
- forkLding 8y ago
  Guanxi is a broad term and can mean anything from networking (the business kind) to asking about job referrals from friends, you can google the investopedia definition to get a better idea. It can be seen negatively or positively based on the context as in like "he got his job through guanxi" aka he either networked hard (positive) or there was some kind of nespotism involved (negative).
  - citrablue 8y ago
    That seems pretty close to how westerners use the term, unless I am missing something? Context matters, I think is what we can all agree on. Unfortunately, in order to agree on the appropriate context, we have to see each other as peers and working for the same goal. (I think this is what's fucked with the current American political system -- it's less "you have your facts, I have mine" and more "you think this context/lens is what matters, I disagree and choose these base assumptions." Naive realism wrote bigly.
    - forkLding 8y ago
      Yep, guanxi is roughly the Chinese word for "connections" or "through the network". I think its perceived more negatively nowadays by the Chinese with 'newish' (more 1990-2000s) terminologies such as the "关系户" (guanxi-hu) which is roughly translated into English as person with a lot of connections and/or is politically savvy and can gain a large advantage in society or conducting business through their network. Note that Chinese govt. (especially the lower rungs) tend to be corrupt/non-transparent and society is more about giving gifts (originally between friends and families, basically bribery if asking for a favour) so this tends to give a much more unfair advantage than Western society (the politically transparent ones). Chinese people (usually media) either think negatively of these kind of people as they see them having an unfair advantage while some respect and aspire to be guanxi-hu because of how well-connected they are.
- sfifs 8y ago
  Yes. That's how people like Elizabeth Holmes raise a billion dollars and gain a who's who board comprising of famous statesmen without any questions asked, how young son in laws become more powerful than career diplomats and how C- suites always get other C-suite jobs. At least this Chinese version in the electronics is more democratic and let's the little Chinese startup try out things quickly and get into a full commercial relationship if things succeed. I understand American companies used to do this early on but eventually rent extraction mindset took over. But this behavior extending up into actual corruption is very much a current problem for that country
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    Did you think that someone was criticizing Chinese culture and it needed defending? And the defense is, there is some degree of corruption based on relationships in other places? Every place sometimes has bad weather too; does that mean the weather is the same everywhere? And does the fact that there is also bad weather in Rome have any bearing on the weather in Edmonton or help the people there? Addressing guanxi seriously: My understanding is that guanxi works against opportunity and the free market; not anyone can get a loan at the bank, for example; instead it requires personal relationships. Economists I've read said the lack of arms-length commercial relationships hold back economic development and opportunity in China, but that was written maybe 20 years ago and possibly things have changed. I do know that Communist Party connections, and particularly connections to the 'royalty', the families of leaders, are highly valuable and are at least sometimes seen as necessary for success in business.
- losteric 8y ago
  It's not really "favors". The person selling individual chips profits because they don't have the overhead of a formal business. There are open markets for formal businesses, which also expect you to be a formal business ready to purchase large volumes. and, tbh, transparency doesn't matter at low volumes. If someone can afford to carry a prototype to production, the difference between the average and lowest potential guanxi price for a single chip is negligible.
dalbasal 8y ago
I like this example better too, or at least I think it's interesting. I think one key is that Shenzhen's manufacturing culture was not too centralised or formalised. This let a culture to emerge. I think your emphasis on is right. Culture, not ruleset or ideology. Emergent, not designed by some philosopher. Most people want an absolute answer, an absolute truth about intellectual property. A clear right and wrong that tells us what IP laws should be. The answer needs be true for chemistry in the 18th century, aeronautical engineering in the 19th, medicines in the 20th and software in the 21st. I don't think this truth exists. Ideology is not the way out of this. Ideological thinking (eg Stallman, Rand, Marx, Plato) is important as an exercise, but when people actually buy into ideology we're doomed to fail. The way an ideological thought process goes is usually: (1) Start from fundamental truths, usually moral truths. Property is exploitation. Unfree software is immoral. Selfishness is the only true love. Platonic forms are the truest truths. etc. Prove your truths metaphysically. Hold them self evident. Make them immutable. (2) Find some complicated but (seemingly) airtight way that everything good about life, the universe and everything will inevitably follow when people accept the Fundamental Truth. Software will be better. The economy will be better. We will achieve a classless harmonious society. Technology will advance. etc. To do this properly, you'll probably need to produce a very long, very boring book that works out all the details. This is how roads and police will work without government. This is how the economy will work without money. This is how software will be an industry when everything is strictly GNU. This is how hover boards will be invented. This step is inside baseball. Anyone who can slog through "Objectivist Epistemology" or "Das Capital" is... you need to be a hardcore believer. (3) Keep adding to no. 2. The more pages, the better. No. 1 can never change. No. 2 now needs to explain the entire world. Don't give up. Keep going. There is no such thing as a corner you can't argue your way out of with enough new terms. Degenerate Socialist State. Core-periphery modes of production. Keep going. Stay motivated. There is no such thing as a corner you can't argue out of with enough focus on a relevant totality, the transitory nature of social forms and a dialectical sense of motion through conflict and contradiction. ...This road goes nowhere. There is no absolute truth of life the universe and everything. You asked the wrong question. I totally agree that the IP/copyright systems that exist today and are being promoted as the no. 1 priority in international law... they are not good systems. At least, it would be very helpful to have other systems as well. The best systems will probably emerge, not be designed by lawyers.

forapurpose 8y ago

In my limited understanding, guanxi has the taste of corruption, not openness. People doing favors for those they know rather than a free, open, arms-length market which provides more liquidity and opportunity. Is that wrong?

barrkel 8y ago
People doing favors for those they know rather than a free, open, arms-length market This describes most markets that are not in fungible commodities.
forkLding 8y ago
Guanxi is a broad term and can mean anything from networking (the business kind) to asking about job referrals from friends, you can google the investopedia definition to get a better idea. It can be seen negatively or positively based on the context as in like "he got his job through guanxi" aka he either networked hard (positive) or there was some kind of nespotism involved (negative).
- citrablue 8y ago
  That seems pretty close to how westerners use the term, unless I am missing something? Context matters, I think is what we can all agree on. Unfortunately, in order to agree on the appropriate context, we have to see each other as peers and working for the same goal. (I think this is what's fucked with the current American political system -- it's less "you have your facts, I have mine" and more "you think this context/lens is what matters, I disagree and choose these base assumptions." Naive realism wrote bigly.
  - forkLding 8y ago
    Yep, guanxi is roughly the Chinese word for "connections" or "through the network". I think its perceived more negatively nowadays by the Chinese with 'newish' (more 1990-2000s) terminologies such as the "关系户" (guanxi-hu) which is roughly translated into English as person with a lot of connections and/or is politically savvy and can gain a large advantage in society or conducting business through their network. Note that Chinese govt. (especially the lower rungs) tend to be corrupt/non-transparent and society is more about giving gifts (originally between friends and families, basically bribery if asking for a favour) so this tends to give a much more unfair advantage than Western society (the politically transparent ones). Chinese people (usually media) either think negatively of these kind of people as they see them having an unfair advantage while some respect and aspire to be guanxi-hu because of how well-connected they are.
sfifs 8y ago
Yes. That's how people like Elizabeth Holmes raise a billion dollars and gain a who's who board comprising of famous statesmen without any questions asked, how young son in laws become more powerful than career diplomats and how C- suites always get other C-suite jobs. At least this Chinese version in the electronics is more democratic and let's the little Chinese startup try out things quickly and get into a full commercial relationship if things succeed. I understand American companies used to do this early on but eventually rent extraction mindset took over. But this behavior extending up into actual corruption is very much a current problem for that country
- forapurpose 8y ago
  Did you think that someone was criticizing Chinese culture and it needed defending? And the defense is, there is some degree of corruption based on relationships in other places? Every place sometimes has bad weather too; does that mean the weather is the same everywhere? And does the fact that there is also bad weather in Rome have any bearing on the weather in Edmonton or help the people there? Addressing guanxi seriously: My understanding is that guanxi works against opportunity and the free market; not anyone can get a loan at the bank, for example; instead it requires personal relationships. Economists I've read said the lack of arms-length commercial relationships hold back economic development and opportunity in China, but that was written maybe 20 years ago and possibly things have changed. I do know that Communist Party connections, and particularly connections to the 'royalty', the families of leaders, are highly valuable and are at least sometimes seen as necessary for success in business.
losteric 8y ago
It's not really "favors". The person selling individual chips profits because they don't have the overhead of a formal business. There are open markets for formal businesses, which also expect you to be a formal business ready to purchase large volumes. and, tbh, transparency doesn't matter at low volumes. If someone can afford to carry a prototype to production, the difference between the average and lowest potential guanxi price for a single chip is negligible.

dalbasal 8y ago

I like this example better too, or at least I think it's interesting. I think one key is that Shenzhen's manufacturing culture was not too centralised or formalised. This let a culture to emerge. I think your emphasis on is right. Culture, not ruleset or ideology. Emergent, not designed by some philosopher. Most people want an absolute answer, an absolute truth about intellectual property. A clear right and wrong that tells us what IP laws should be. The answer needs be true for chemistry in the 18th century, aeronautical engineering in the 19th, medicines in the 20th and software in the 21st. I don't think this truth exists. Ideology is not the way out of this. Ideological thinking (eg Stallman, Rand, Marx, Plato) is important as an exercise, but when people actually buy into ideology we're doomed to fail. The way an ideological thought process goes is usually: (1) Start from fundamental truths, usually moral truths. Property is exploitation. Unfree software is immoral. Selfishness is the only true love. Platonic forms are the truest truths. etc. Prove your truths metaphysically. Hold them self evident. Make them immutable. (2) Find some complicated but (seemingly) airtight way that everything good about life, the universe and everything will inevitably follow when people accept the Fundamental Truth. Software will be better. The economy will be better. We will achieve a classless harmonious society. Technology will advance. etc. To do this properly, you'll probably need to produce a very long, very boring book that works out all the details. This is how roads and police will work without government. This is how the economy will work without money. This is how software will be an industry when everything is strictly GNU. This is how hover boards will be invented. This step is inside baseball. Anyone who can slog through "Objectivist Epistemology" or "Das Capital" is... you need to be a hardcore believer. (3) Keep adding to no. 2. The more pages, the better. No. 1 can never change. No. 2 now needs to explain the entire world. Don't give up. Keep going. There is no such thing as a corner you can't argue your way out of with enough new terms. Degenerate Socialist State. Core-periphery modes of production. Keep going. Stay motivated. There is no such thing as a corner you can't argue out of with enough focus on a relevant totality, the transitory nature of social forms and a dialectical sense of motion through conflict and contradiction. ...This road goes nowhere. There is no absolute truth of life the universe and everything. You asked the wrong question. I totally agree that the IP/copyright systems that exist today and are being promoted as the no. 1 priority in international law... they are not good systems. At least, it would be very helpful to have other systems as well. The best systems will probably emerge, not be designed by lawyers.