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I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

lovich 8y ago
They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen
- hangonhn 8y ago
  Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.
jacquesm 8y ago
They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there. As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart. Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritarian regime isn't moving forward, and relative to the rest of the world they are moving at an incredible pace. We, the West (assuming you are in the West like I am) should count our blessings that China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system because the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable.
- RamshackleJ 8y ago
  They are catching up, which is a net good for humanity. The highbred command/market economy and the focused bureaucracy of the Party have has been amazingly effective at industrializing and modernizing China. They have lifted many people out of poverty in a very short time. Catching up and innovating are different though. There is so much structure and even culture in China that will make getting ahead in tech and science very difficult. The protected industries and closed internet incentivizes making copy cat businesses. The lack of established academic institutions hurts research. Innovation depends on individuals, and the lack of individual freedoms does make staying in china less appealing to talented individuals. I really, really hope china can become more open and democratic. That would be an amazing win for humanity. More opportunity and freedom for more people! For a while they seemed to be on the path to doing that but with Xi staying in power indefinitely I worry that what the powerful and rich want is at odds with what would be best for the population.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Have a read: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpower-took-over-the-west http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpo...
  - worldengineer 8y ago
    You're wrong if you think the party actually cares about the people in poverty. for example "Beijing’s migrants no longer welcome as city caps population" https://www.ft.com/content/822e982c-1b40-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f https://www.ft.com/content/822e982c-1b40-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f... "How the eviction of Beijing’s migrant workers is tearing at the fabric of the city’s economy" http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2126836/how-eviction-beijings-migrant-workers-tearing-fabric http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/212... few hundred million of these migrants only make $500/month in the cities. http://www.clb.org.hk/content/migrant-workers-and-their-children http://www.clb.org.hk/content/migrant-workers-and-their-chil...
- darkmighty 8y ago
  Actually I'm not so sure if much would change (w.r.t. performance) if they switched to a more democratic regime. In the end I were always a bit scared/reluctant about the US often touted ultimate justification for democratic capitalism that it is simply more efficient -- "Cultivate freedom -- after all, in the end it's just more efficient!". What if... it isn't? China is turning the tables on this argument quite a bit. Heavy handed government control, aggressive state-sponsored corporate espionage, citizens surveillance and strict punishment of detractors, exploitation of workers, all combined with hand-picked aspects of market economy to lubricate the system. China is designing itself as an efficient economic machine with minimal regard for personal freedom or expression. It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century.
  - andygrovetheman 8y ago
    The US has slid away from a free and fair market too. By moving to completely unregulated markets, they have given control to the biggest companies. In a totally unregulated market, inequality grows. That’s bad for a society. Most free market economists (before “free market” was taken over by billionaires and plutocrats trying to increase their wealth) understood that regulations (anti-trust, anti-price fixing, anti-dumping etc) were needed to give small players and workers a fair shake. When the US emerges from this national emergency, will it restore balance to markets as it did in the 1930s and 40s in reaction to the 1920s plutocrats? To me that is totally unclear. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope Europe joins it.
  - hospes 8y ago
    >> It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century. China is already #1 by GDP (PPP) with ~$23 trillions [1]. US is #2 with ~$19 trillions (numbers are from 2017). So here China already overtook US. If you look at nominal GDP, then US is #1 with ~20 trillions and China is #2 with ~14 trillions [2]. With the government and political system that US currently has it will take very short amount of time for China to close this gap as well. Another metric that shows that China will continue having growth in near future is human capital. China's school education system is better, they have number of pretty good universities, state supports STEM. Yes, they have a lot of problems, but they have good human capital to solve them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
- imtringued 8y ago
  >isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system No that's the dumbest thing china could do. They would lose their protectionist advantages like the great firewall and currency manipulation which resulted in decade long trade surpluses. China is doing the "walmart strategy" of price dumping and killing off competitors but on a global scale. On top of that stealing IP is a very cheap way to build manufacturing capability while avoiding expensive R&D costs. Homegrown innovation is only required if they no longer have competitors. Trump's decision to implement tariff is a very conservative strategy to even out the imbalance of protectionism between china and us but unfortunately the execution of the tariffs is terrible, he's targeting components instead of finished goods and he is also targeting allies that are not excessively abusing the trade imbalance.
- allenz 8y ago
  > China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system... the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable This is ideology. For growth, it is the outcome that matters. Democracies can make terrible decisions (Brexit) and authoritarian regimes can make great ones. In particular, government investment is a primary driver of economic growth, and China has a fabulous track record of five year plans for transportation, manufacturing, energy, technology, etc. Note that government investment represents state allocation of capital as an alternative to markets. On other aspects such as rent seeking or productivity, it is also unclear whether democracies would be better. On the micro scale, I agree that markets are needed for efficient allocation and on this scale China is completely capitalist. It has private property rights and free markets. On issues such as consumer protections, China's markets are more free than those in the West.
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation. The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.
- 394549 8y ago
  > The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists. I would say that's debatable. The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane.
  - jonhendry18 8y ago
    "The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane." Those are arguably issues of running out of resources, to some extent, not inability to innovate. At some point you need money to turn innovative ideas into reality.
    - whb07 8y ago
      Elon Musk got asked what’s the best way to get started on building a space oriented company and his response was essentially “build a billion dollar internet company first”. By innovating and letting private individuals to do as they please in their own self pursuits the US was able to get that money for space.
tzahola 8y ago
>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation. Werner Von Braun would disagree.
- andygrovetheman 8y ago
  On a mostly-unrelated note: Apparently big difference between the US and Germany in the nuclear race was not science but instead engineering. Fermi and Oppenheimer were useful to the US effort but Heisenberg probably had the intellectual firepower to do that for Germany. The REAL advances the US made were in chemical and metallurgical engineering at an industrial scale. Dealing with gaseous and liquid uranium and plutonium compounds took a lot of innovation. And the plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge were ENORMOUS. So if Germany was going to build a bomb they would have needed a massive industrial complex. Not just physicists. Apparently Leslie Groves commissioned a public report in 1945. He deliberately put a lot of physics in it, but left out the chemical engineering. Because he regarded the latter as the key difficult steps in bomb building. And the physics was mostly known.
  - tzahola 8y ago
    Maybe if Germans had not wasted their engineering efforts on idiotic “superweapons” like the Schwerer Gustav [0] or the 130m long V-3 cannon [1], they could have succeeded with their nuclear program. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon
    - a1369209993 8y ago
      There's something hilariously ironic about that, given the next couple of decades.
      - erikpukinskis 8y ago
        Given what?
hangonhn 8y ago
A market based system and an authoritarian regime are not mutually exclusive. Singapore is very capitalistic but its political structure is basically a dictatorship. The same family has ruled it from the beginning. The Singapore model is very attractive to other countries who want to emulate the same. In fact, when Deng Xiaoping opened up China, Singapore was one of those places he visited and studied.
- andygrovetheman 8y ago
  It’s good if you find the right family. But this is exactly what Tolkien was saying in Lord of the Rkngs with the ring metaphor (Tolkien’s work was a big allegory on European World Wars and politics). Tolkien said Gandalf couldn’t take the ring because he would be corrupted by power and become an evil autocrat. There are few rulers who can assume dictatoral power and not use it for ill. And once a family has autocratic power, it is difficult and bloody for the people to take power back.
  - hangonhn 8y ago
    In violent agreement with you and I love your comparison! This is precisely the trap the Chinese are falling into as they reverse their democratization and remove the guardrails put in place after Mao. People are attracted by the "glamour" of a strong authoritarian and the exercise of power to quickly get things done. But the moment that power falls into the hand of the corrupt, it's hell for everyone. We see this over and over in Chinese history: this is the heart of the dynastic cycle. China has tried to remedy this by trying to pound education into the heads of their rulers and have good advisers/ruling elite around the rulers. However, you can only go so far with that. The repeated rise and fall of Chinese dynasty is a manifestation of these failures.

lovich 8y ago

They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen

hangonhn 8y ago
Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.

jacquesm 8y ago

They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there. As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart. Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritarian regime isn't moving forward, and relative to the rest of the world they are moving at an incredible pace. We, the West (assuming you are in the West like I am) should count our blessings that China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system because the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable.

RamshackleJ 8y ago
They are catching up, which is a net good for humanity. The highbred command/market economy and the focused bureaucracy of the Party have has been amazingly effective at industrializing and modernizing China. They have lifted many people out of poverty in a very short time. Catching up and innovating are different though. There is so much structure and even culture in China that will make getting ahead in tech and science very difficult. The protected industries and closed internet incentivizes making copy cat businesses. The lack of established academic institutions hurts research. Innovation depends on individuals, and the lack of individual freedoms does make staying in china less appealing to talented individuals. I really, really hope china can become more open and democratic. That would be an amazing win for humanity. More opportunity and freedom for more people! For a while they seemed to be on the path to doing that but with Xi staying in power indefinitely I worry that what the powerful and rich want is at odds with what would be best for the population.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Have a read: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpower-took-over-the-west http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpo...
- worldengineer 8y ago
  You're wrong if you think the party actually cares about the people in poverty. for example "Beijing’s migrants no longer welcome as city caps population" https://www.ft.com/content/822e982c-1b40-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f https://www.ft.com/content/822e982c-1b40-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f... "How the eviction of Beijing’s migrant workers is tearing at the fabric of the city’s economy" http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2126836/how-eviction-beijings-migrant-workers-tearing-fabric http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/212... few hundred million of these migrants only make $500/month in the cities. http://www.clb.org.hk/content/migrant-workers-and-their-children http://www.clb.org.hk/content/migrant-workers-and-their-chil...
darkmighty 8y ago
Actually I'm not so sure if much would change (w.r.t. performance) if they switched to a more democratic regime. In the end I were always a bit scared/reluctant about the US often touted ultimate justification for democratic capitalism that it is simply more efficient -- "Cultivate freedom -- after all, in the end it's just more efficient!". What if... it isn't? China is turning the tables on this argument quite a bit. Heavy handed government control, aggressive state-sponsored corporate espionage, citizens surveillance and strict punishment of detractors, exploitation of workers, all combined with hand-picked aspects of market economy to lubricate the system. China is designing itself as an efficient economic machine with minimal regard for personal freedom or expression. It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century.
- andygrovetheman 8y ago
  The US has slid away from a free and fair market too. By moving to completely unregulated markets, they have given control to the biggest companies. In a totally unregulated market, inequality grows. That’s bad for a society. Most free market economists (before “free market” was taken over by billionaires and plutocrats trying to increase their wealth) understood that regulations (anti-trust, anti-price fixing, anti-dumping etc) were needed to give small players and workers a fair shake. When the US emerges from this national emergency, will it restore balance to markets as it did in the 1930s and 40s in reaction to the 1920s plutocrats? To me that is totally unclear. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope Europe joins it.
- hospes 8y ago
  >> It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century. China is already #1 by GDP (PPP) with ~$23 trillions [1]. US is #2 with ~$19 trillions (numbers are from 2017). So here China already overtook US. If you look at nominal GDP, then US is #1 with ~20 trillions and China is #2 with ~14 trillions [2]. With the government and political system that US currently has it will take very short amount of time for China to close this gap as well. Another metric that shows that China will continue having growth in near future is human capital. China's school education system is better, they have number of pretty good universities, state supports STEM. Yes, they have a lot of problems, but they have good human capital to solve them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
imtringued 8y ago
>isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system No that's the dumbest thing china could do. They would lose their protectionist advantages like the great firewall and currency manipulation which resulted in decade long trade surpluses. China is doing the "walmart strategy" of price dumping and killing off competitors but on a global scale. On top of that stealing IP is a very cheap way to build manufacturing capability while avoiding expensive R&D costs. Homegrown innovation is only required if they no longer have competitors. Trump's decision to implement tariff is a very conservative strategy to even out the imbalance of protectionism between china and us but unfortunately the execution of the tariffs is terrible, he's targeting components instead of finished goods and he is also targeting allies that are not excessively abusing the trade imbalance.
allenz 8y ago
> China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system... the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable This is ideology. For growth, it is the outcome that matters. Democracies can make terrible decisions (Brexit) and authoritarian regimes can make great ones. In particular, government investment is a primary driver of economic growth, and China has a fabulous track record of five year plans for transportation, manufacturing, energy, technology, etc. Note that government investment represents state allocation of capital as an alternative to markets. On other aspects such as rent seeking or productivity, it is also unclear whether democracies would be better. On the micro scale, I agree that markets are needed for efficient allocation and on this scale China is completely capitalist. It has private property rights and free markets. On issues such as consumer protections, China's markets are more free than those in the West.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation. The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.

394549 8y ago
> The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists. I would say that's debatable. The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  "The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane." Those are arguably issues of running out of resources, to some extent, not inability to innovate. At some point you need money to turn innovative ideas into reality.
  - whb07 8y ago
    Elon Musk got asked what’s the best way to get started on building a space oriented company and his response was essentially “build a billion dollar internet company first”. By innovating and letting private individuals to do as they please in their own self pursuits the US was able to get that money for space.

tzahola 8y ago

>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation. Werner Von Braun would disagree.

andygrovetheman 8y ago
On a mostly-unrelated note: Apparently big difference between the US and Germany in the nuclear race was not science but instead engineering. Fermi and Oppenheimer were useful to the US effort but Heisenberg probably had the intellectual firepower to do that for Germany. The REAL advances the US made were in chemical and metallurgical engineering at an industrial scale. Dealing with gaseous and liquid uranium and plutonium compounds took a lot of innovation. And the plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge were ENORMOUS. So if Germany was going to build a bomb they would have needed a massive industrial complex. Not just physicists. Apparently Leslie Groves commissioned a public report in 1945. He deliberately put a lot of physics in it, but left out the chemical engineering. Because he regarded the latter as the key difficult steps in bomb building. And the physics was mostly known.
- tzahola 8y ago
  Maybe if Germans had not wasted their engineering efforts on idiotic “superweapons” like the Schwerer Gustav [0] or the 130m long V-3 cannon [1], they could have succeeded with their nuclear program. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    There's something hilariously ironic about that, given the next couple of decades.
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      Given what?

hangonhn 8y ago

A market based system and an authoritarian regime are not mutually exclusive. Singapore is very capitalistic but its political structure is basically a dictatorship. The same family has ruled it from the beginning. The Singapore model is very attractive to other countries who want to emulate the same. In fact, when Deng Xiaoping opened up China, Singapore was one of those places he visited and studied.

andygrovetheman 8y ago
It’s good if you find the right family. But this is exactly what Tolkien was saying in Lord of the Rkngs with the ring metaphor (Tolkien’s work was a big allegory on European World Wars and politics). Tolkien said Gandalf couldn’t take the ring because he would be corrupted by power and become an evil autocrat. There are few rulers who can assume dictatoral power and not use it for ill. And once a family has autocratic power, it is difficult and bloody for the people to take power back.
- hangonhn 8y ago
  In violent agreement with you and I love your comparison! This is precisely the trap the Chinese are falling into as they reverse their democratization and remove the guardrails put in place after Mao. People are attracted by the "glamour" of a strong authoritarian and the exercise of power to quickly get things done. But the moment that power falls into the hand of the corrupt, it's hell for everyone. We see this over and over in Chinese history: this is the heart of the dynastic cycle. China has tried to remedy this by trying to pound education into the heads of their rulers and have good advisers/ruling elite around the rulers. However, you can only go so far with that. The repeated rise and fall of Chinese dynasty is a manifestation of these failures.