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Yes. The world’s largest population is relying on an unsustainable economic model, under a political system that is not beholden to or representative of its peo

Yes. The world’s largest population is relying on an unsustainable economic model, under a political system that is not beholden to or representative of its people, propped up by western nations that aren’t going to need it anymore in a post-robotics and post-automation world. That really should worry people more than it seems to.

Apes 8y ago
Did you intend for this description to also nearly perfectly apply to the United States?
- a_tractor 8y ago
  It could actually apply to every nation with a debt-based economy.
- linksnapzz 8y ago
  ....BUT WHAT ABOUT....
nostrademons 8y ago
...if it's unsustainable, why should we worry about it, because by definition it'll be gone in a few years?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway0255 8y ago
  Strong economies prevent people from dying of starvation, disease, and violence. Social issues all start as economic issues, they are a luxury of the wealthy. There are 1.4 billion people in China, and if that economy is "gone in a few years", a few hundred million people will die of starvation and disease, and a few billion people all over the globe will descend into poverty.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    That assumes nothing will replace it. Most of the time, when unsustainable economies collapse, they get replaced by something else. Collapse a few times and eventually you get something sustainable, if only through survivorship bias.
nopinsight 8y ago
There is no reason a country of 1.4 billion people with strong work ethics and good results on STEM education cannot have a self-sustaining economy when organized with their largely capitalistic system. The only two critical resources China still lacks are oil and state-of-the-art electronics. They have alright homegrown alternatives to the latter, and those are improving every year. They are also addressing the oil security issue using many approaches in tandem. "But China’s continental economy of 1.4 billion people could achieve almost all possible economies of scale while still maintaining intense internal competition; in principle, India could, too. The United States, with 300-plus million people, would suffer only slightly if it exported and imported little beyond its borders, and the same is true for the European Union’s single market of 520 million. Beyond some point, the potential benefits of wider trade between equally rich countries inevitably decline. If there was less trade among the continental-scale economies of China, the US, and Europe in 2050 than there is today, the direct impact on living standards would be small." [1] In addition, China's AI research is already the 2nd most advanced in the world [2]. They are trading heavily with the west in order to grow faster, but they would still be growing without trading. [1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/protectionism-can-no-longer-stop-china-by-adair-turner-2018-07 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/protectionism-c... [2] http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2015/toyear/2017/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp&world http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2015/toyear/2017/index?ai&v...
- adventured 8y ago
  > when organized with their largely capitalistic system. Their system is almost the exact opposite of capitalistic in fact. It's a mercantalist, hyper-nationalist, hyper-protectionist, quasi-fascist economic system, with de facto state control of all businesses, lives and property. You can't have the state controlling and owning all your major industries, and claim that it's primarily capitalist. Fascism typically presents a fake veneer of private property and Communism doesn't bother with the veneer. China is ok with pretending you own a business or a condo, until or unless they decide your ownership is no longer in their strategic interest or you upset the wrong powerful member of the party. Thus their economic system is more like a traditional fascist one, as opposed to a communist approach that doesn't pretend you have a right to property at all. They have few property rights protections and the ones they supposedly have, are not real (which gets demonstrated constantly). It's almost entirely illegal to own farm land, and farming is entirely state controlled. The banking system is almost entirely owned by the state, the rest is aggressively controlled by it. Your property can be taken from you at any time by the central government, for any reason it decides to invent; you will not get it back, and you will not win in court. You have no freedom of speech / press / expression, which is a critical requirement for a market economy; without those things, you cannot properly argue in the realm of ideas, which is needed to maximize all forms of research, innovation, trade and economic action (without it, you're handicapping your potential dramatically, which is going to inherently restrict China's ability to innovate). The economy is overflowing with operate-by-bribe requirements, you can't do anything economically in China without bribing people (at the beginning, during, and or throughout); that's a top to bottom, systemtic failure of property rights and judicial + political integrity. You can't pretend you have a capitalist system when your competitors can trivially destroy you by using the state (and no, pointing out that this happens occasionally in market systems in the West, is not a proper rebuttal; it's the difference between a system that operates routinely that way, versus one where that's considered a crime or scandal). Xi's crackdowns the last few years perfectly illuminate that no rights in China are solid. They can be removed at any time and for any reason. There can be no functioning market economic system in that type of atmosphere. You can't be at all confident that your property rights will exist tomorrow or 20 years from now, which means you can't really make confident long-term business plans, you can only shrug and keep going regardless, hoping some powerful person doesn't randomly destroy you. This is why Chinese capital is so desperate to flee the nation (so desperate that China had to almost entirely lock it down, so you can't get your wealth out of China any longer; that's a hostage situation, not a capitalist system). What China has is economic activity on a tight leash. They gave a lot more slack to the leash thanks to Deng, and Xi has pulled in the leash a lot.

Apes 8y ago

Did you intend for this description to also nearly perfectly apply to the United States?

a_tractor 8y ago
It could actually apply to every nation with a debt-based economy.
linksnapzz 8y ago
....BUT WHAT ABOUT....

nostrademons 8y ago

...if it's unsustainable, why should we worry about it, because by definition it'll be gone in a few years?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
throwaway0255 8y ago
Strong economies prevent people from dying of starvation, disease, and violence. Social issues all start as economic issues, they are a luxury of the wealthy. There are 1.4 billion people in China, and if that economy is "gone in a few years", a few hundred million people will die of starvation and disease, and a few billion people all over the globe will descend into poverty.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  That assumes nothing will replace it. Most of the time, when unsustainable economies collapse, they get replaced by something else. Collapse a few times and eventually you get something sustainable, if only through survivorship bias.

nopinsight 8y ago

There is no reason a country of 1.4 billion people with strong work ethics and good results on STEM education cannot have a self-sustaining economy when organized with their largely capitalistic system. The only two critical resources China still lacks are oil and state-of-the-art electronics. They have alright homegrown alternatives to the latter, and those are improving every year. They are also addressing the oil security issue using many approaches in tandem. "But China’s continental economy of 1.4 billion people could achieve almost all possible economies of scale while still maintaining intense internal competition; in principle, India could, too. The United States, with 300-plus million people, would suffer only slightly if it exported and imported little beyond its borders, and the same is true for the European Union’s single market of 520 million. Beyond some point, the potential benefits of wider trade between equally rich countries inevitably decline. If there was less trade among the continental-scale economies of China, the US, and Europe in 2050 than there is today, the direct impact on living standards would be small." [1] In addition, China's AI research is already the 2nd most advanced in the world [2]. They are trading heavily with the west in order to grow faster, but they would still be growing without trading. [1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/protectionism-can-no-longer-stop-china-by-adair-turner-2018-07 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/protectionism-c... [2] http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2015/toyear/2017/index?ai&vision&mlmining&nlp&world http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2015/toyear/2017/index?ai&v...

adventured 8y ago
> when organized with their largely capitalistic system. Their system is almost the exact opposite of capitalistic in fact. It's a mercantalist, hyper-nationalist, hyper-protectionist, quasi-fascist economic system, with de facto state control of all businesses, lives and property. You can't have the state controlling and owning all your major industries, and claim that it's primarily capitalist. Fascism typically presents a fake veneer of private property and Communism doesn't bother with the veneer. China is ok with pretending you own a business or a condo, until or unless they decide your ownership is no longer in their strategic interest or you upset the wrong powerful member of the party. Thus their economic system is more like a traditional fascist one, as opposed to a communist approach that doesn't pretend you have a right to property at all. They have few property rights protections and the ones they supposedly have, are not real (which gets demonstrated constantly). It's almost entirely illegal to own farm land, and farming is entirely state controlled. The banking system is almost entirely owned by the state, the rest is aggressively controlled by it. Your property can be taken from you at any time by the central government, for any reason it decides to invent; you will not get it back, and you will not win in court. You have no freedom of speech / press / expression, which is a critical requirement for a market economy; without those things, you cannot properly argue in the realm of ideas, which is needed to maximize all forms of research, innovation, trade and economic action (without it, you're handicapping your potential dramatically, which is going to inherently restrict China's ability to innovate). The economy is overflowing with operate-by-bribe requirements, you can't do anything economically in China without bribing people (at the beginning, during, and or throughout); that's a top to bottom, systemtic failure of property rights and judicial + political integrity. You can't pretend you have a capitalist system when your competitors can trivially destroy you by using the state (and no, pointing out that this happens occasionally in market systems in the West, is not a proper rebuttal; it's the difference between a system that operates routinely that way, versus one where that's considered a crime or scandal). Xi's crackdowns the last few years perfectly illuminate that no rights in China are solid. They can be removed at any time and for any reason. There can be no functioning market economic system in that type of atmosphere. You can't be at all confident that your property rights will exist tomorrow or 20 years from now, which means you can't really make confident long-term business plans, you can only shrug and keep going regardless, hoping some powerful person doesn't randomly destroy you. This is why Chinese capital is so desperate to flee the nation (so desperate that China had to almost entirely lock it down, so you can't get your wealth out of China any longer; that's a hostage situation, not a capitalist system). What China has is economic activity on a tight leash. They gave a lot more slack to the leash thanks to Deng, and Xi has pulled in the leash a lot.