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Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal, I have yet to see a 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to

Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal, I have yet to see a 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to ever succeed, anywhere. Markets just don't work that way in my experience, they evolve, they change, and if you box them in they die. So the fundamental question is, "What did these people expect?" (and were thus disillusioned when they didn't get their expectation). Did they expect that they would be able to build large foreigner controlled businesses? Did they expect that their success would not be impeded by a desire on the part of political entities to craft a narrative? Did they expect to secure more wealth for themselves before they were shut down? I am always surprised by people who think they can do what they do in their home country in any other country and get the same results. But it is particularly true of people in the US it seems. If you don't really internalize how the laws, politics, and policies of a country shape what is, and what is not possible, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.

chaostheory 8y ago
The US is largely a country of immigrants, who in effect are risk takers. Even in times of war and famine, typically only a small percentage (approx 10%) of the population leave. In the past, our country may have taken the lion's share of immigrants compared to other nations.
- briandear 8y ago
  The US still takes the lion’s share of immigrants.
  - chaostheory 8y ago
    You're right https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/international-migration-outlook-2018_migr_outlook-2018-en#page24 https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-healt...
    - HillaryBriss 8y ago
      interesting table. Japan and Korea appear on it. but i don't see China.
pjc50 8y ago
> 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to ever succeed, Well, apart from the entire modern history of Chinese export-led growth.
- natechols 8y ago
  I'd argue that this wasn't "managing the market", it was dropping suicidal economic policies that kept the entire population in serfdom. The state actually gave up a huge amount of control in the process (relative to the status quo circa 1970). It's still much more "managed" than other developed nations, but vastly less so than under Mao.
bwb 8y ago
Agreed, the key is how much you box in versus grants and early pushes to get to a tipping point IMO. is China doing it right? Hell if I no, but there is a ton of good data from what the USA/EU have done right, and what they have screwed up to do better.
selimthegrim 8y ago
What they can do or what they couldn't do?
duxup 8y ago
It is strange that you see a lot of folks who feel that in China they'll be less restricted in some ways, and that might be true, until it isn't and in that case with an authoritarian government, it's just over. No legal options, no heads up.
- throwaway5yiu 8y ago
  I went to China after I repeatedly hit the Bamboo ceiling in the US. Luckily my parents forced me to learn Chinese as a kid, so I was able to network with the people there. Along with my credentials, I am now at a fulfilling C-level position. I guess we’ll have to see if my luck lasts.
  - duxup 8y ago
    I think an individual is quite less risky than a business that may be far less portable. I was thinking more as a business.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Hindsight is always 20/20, but as an anecdote I can attest that in 200 (when I started my 9 year stint), optimism about China was much greater than the way it eventually turned out. Back then, China was opening up, most major foreign websites were still unblocked, a lot of foreigners thought they could actually make their futures there, and they were being egged on by the Chinese government and institutions in agreement. Of course, the reality turned out to be way different, but back then everyone had already sunk their costs. BTW, not everyone in the article is from the US, Blue Frog for one thing is most definitely Australian (who else puts beets on their burgers?).
- splintercell 8y ago
  > [I]n 200 (when I started my 9 year stint), optimism about China was much greater than the way it eventually turned out. It's because back then Han dynasty was just getting started after the fall of Qin dynasty. You gotta give them some time.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Typo. I meant 2007. I was just a baby during the Han dynasty.
- discreteevent 8y ago
  "Back then, China was opening up". I can tell you that in 1990 it was the same, I remember reading a very similar article in a newspaper and a friend who was sent out to head up the office of an industrial power supply company came back in 95 with the very same dissolution.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    1990? Maybe 1988, but as soon as May 35th hit, China backed away rapidly from the liberation of the 1980s. The reasons the students marched on the square in the first place was because they thought they could.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
coliveira 8y ago
Many Americans believe that the meaning of China opening up their economy is that they can go there and dominate all industries they want. This may even be the case in some third-world countries, but China is way past the point that they need to bow to western countries. If you go to any other developed nation like France, Switzerland or Canada, you won't be able to do business as it pleases you, you need to follow the local political rules.
- mc32 8y ago
  True but the local political rules in these places are pretty predictable and don’t change drastically on edict. So, yes, follow the rules, but the rules applied to you are the rules applied to all.
  - coliveira 8y ago
    Of course, France is an old country with very stablished rules, even more than the USA. It is normal that a new economy, like China, will have new rules more often than the US. This doesn't mean that they have an obligation to create laws to facilitate American business.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Why does everyone just assume all the businesses talked about in the article are American? Obviously some of them were not. It seemed that they were focusing more on foreigners. China does not have rule of law, full stop. They have a constitution that guarantees freedom of press, religion, and speech, and it is completely meaningless because they do not have rule of law. What this means is that Baidu can make most of its money on medical scams and porn while any foreign company would immediately be prosecuted for any small transgression. Whatever rules China makes up, its just for convenience, if they want to get you, they'll find something.
    - mc32 8y ago
      No one is asking for favoritism, only level playing field. Of course people would also be okay with exceptions, so long they remain exceptions and not the rule.
paganel 8y ago
Some of them had probably expected that the laissez-faire attitude of the Chinese authorities that was noticeable up to the mid-2000s would continue indefinitely, but that turned out to be a bad bet. Once the Chinese authorities started to become more serious about things like environmental regulations or higher salaries (both these things mentioned in the article like something bad ?!) then many “napkin” business-plans turned to nothing. I really cannot feel any empathy for this type of investors.
- mcguire 8y ago
  "both these things mentioned in the article like something bad ?!" It is the Wall Street journal.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Wh1skey 8y ago
  Didn't realize requiring a separate 8 square meter space to prepare salad was for saving the environment.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  >s like environmental regulations or higher salaries They didn't become more serious about these things. They passed rules to kill off businesses arbitrarily to maintain power under the guise of "environment". The salad preparation rules have nothing to do with the environment.
hbosch 8y ago
> Did they expect that they would be able to build large foreigner controlled businesses? Did they expect that their success would not be impeded by a desire on the part of political entities to craft a narrative? Did they expect to secure more wealth for themselves before they were shut down? No, I believe most gold-rush Westerners were actually looking to join up with established (or government-blessed) Chinese businesses and help them introduce their businesses back to the West and help there - such as marketing Huawei or Xiaomi to Americans for example, or working with government lobbyists on pro-China PR campaigns.
buttholesurfer 8y ago
Funny, I always say the same about foreigners coming to the U.S.
youwindang00 8y ago
Isn’t China just making the “invisible hand” visible? Meanwhile, in the US, the majority are “boxed in” to the prerogatives of billionaires. I don’t really see the difference in a practical sense.
klodolph 8y ago
> I am always surprised by people who think they can do what they do in their home country in any other country and get the same results. But it is particularly true of people in the US it seems. If you don't really internalize how the laws, politics, and policies of a country shape what is, and what is not, possible you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. I don't think this is particularly true of the US in comparison with, say, China. There are people who will blame Chinese nationals or immigrants in the US for behaving incorrectly or irrationally. And there are people here who will blame Americans for not accommodating or understanding the Chinese community. (I'm going to make an unfair generalization: and then there are always Europeans who pipe in to comment without really understanding American race relations, American culture, or Chinese culture. America has its own politics of race, identity, and nationality that have significant differences from the way it works in Europe. Just as I'm liable to go to Europe and, say, make a fool out of myself trying to have a conversation about Catalonia, a European is liable to make a fool out of themselves coming to America and talking about Black Lives Matter.) Coming back to the original article, I do think these people are mostly just bad entrepreneurs trying to cash in on a fad, or being led by exoticism and memories of 19th century trade rather than an understanding of the market and a sound business plan. It's not some kind of testament to US arrogance, even though that makes a good narrative.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >America has its own politics of race, identity, and nationality that have significant differences from the way it works in Europe. The average European has a much better grasp of those than the average American has of any European situation (assuming they can even pinpoint France on the map, that is). We read lots of American news, websites and books, follow US music, movies, and so on. With a small exception of UK music, the US can hardly do 1/100th of the European following US culture we do.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    As an American, I agree. I think one of the factors is that it's easy for the US to be a world unto itself. With 325m people versus the EU's 505m (soon to be 440m), and with roughly equivalent GDPs, it's really easy for Americans to stay in their bubble. E.g., hear only English, experience only one culture, deal with only one system of law. We can easily move a thousand miles and still be in a place where, well, people measure in miles. There's some hope, though. As recently as 1994, only 10% of Americans had passports. But now that number is above 40%. [1] Part of that's due to to no longer having passport-free travel to our nearest neighbors since the 9/11-inspired security tightening. But I think part of it's real. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42586638 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42586638
stcredzero 8y ago
Markets just don't work that way in my experience, they evolve, they change, and if you box them in they die. But with enough money and power, you can convince yourself it's working on a temporary basis, until the market distortions make things suck enough, something has to break or change. If you don't really internalize how the laws, politics, and policies of a country shape what is, and what is not possible, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. Don't forget culture.
reaperducer 8y ago
Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal To be fair, the perceived anti-China slant wasn't always that way. It used to be one of the most pro-China publications in the early days of the Chinese economic ramp-up. But as things have changed in China, so has the tone of the Journal. It's a reaction to what's happening there. An over-reaction, probably. But a reaction, nonetheless.
- wpietri 8y ago
  It could be a reaction to what's happening in China. But it could also be a reaction to what's happening at the WSJ. Rupert Murdoch, who among many media properties created and owns Fox News, bought the WSJ in 2007. That led to changes both obvious and subtle: http://www.journalism.org/2011/07/20/wall-street-journal-under-rupert-murdoch/ http://www.journalism.org/2011/07/20/wall-street-journal-und...
  - z2 8y ago
    For what it's worth, I attended an event where Murdoch spoke a couple years ago [0][1]. Despite the interviewer's best efforts, he actually seemed a bit extreme to the other direction in refusing to say a negative thing about China. To paraphrase what I remember, "I've visited plenty of Chinese startups, there is real innovation," and "I don't think China is a military threat." 0: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/young-leaders-circle-forum-rupert-murdoch-8100.html https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/young-leaders-circl... 1: I have zero affiliation with the above organization -- stumbling into the event was purely right-place-right-time circumstance.
    - retrogradeorbit 8y ago
      Well, he did marry Wendy Deng. Some have said it was to help break into the Chinese market. If it wasn't for Tony Blair, they'd probably still be married. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng_Murdoch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng_Murdoch
      - 8y ago
SubiculumCode 8y ago
I read an interesting argument over at Foreign Policy highlighting the failures of China's One Belt One Road foreign policy, and attributed those failures (and their continuation) to the increasing authoritarianism of President Xi, and the breakdown of the Party's meritocractic efficiency seen over the last 20 years or so. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-initiative-blunder/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-ini...
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  That probably deserves its own submission as a link. I can quibble with some of the details but I agree with the general thesis that China's execution of the OBOR initiatives have failed to meet expectation and that the initiative has become more important than the results politically. I keep looking for signs for this effort to collapse and take the RMB with it, but China has more direct control over the levers than most economies would trying to pull off what they are doing.
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    I submitted it about an hour ago. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-initiative-blunder/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-ini...
vkou 8y ago
> Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal, I have yet to see a 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to ever succeed, anywhere. Markets just don't work that way in my experience, they evolve, they change, and if you box them in they die. I strongly disagree. Since the Great Depression, farming is incredibly heavily subsidized in the United States. World-wide, but particularly in the US, agriculture is probably the most government-managed/subsidized/regulated industry you can think of. And yet, over the past 85 years, despite the many economic ups and downs, changes in global demand for, and global prices of staples, US agriculture remains a resilient pillar of the economy. You can go to any grocery store, country-wide, and buy more cheap food then you can ever eat, despite wars, shipping problems, droughts, natural disasters, crop failures, and other calamities. Now, all of this comes at a cost. It costs a lot of taxpayer dollars to ensure that cheap food is available for everyone. The alternative, of course, is an unresilient, market system, with fluctuating outputs, shortages, and price spikes. These sorts of things tend to lead to bread riots, revolutions, and bourgies being strung up on lamp posts. As a bourgie, I'd rather not risk seeing the price of bread triple.

chaostheory 8y ago

The US is largely a country of immigrants, who in effect are risk takers. Even in times of war and famine, typically only a small percentage (approx 10%) of the population leave. In the past, our country may have taken the lion's share of immigrants compared to other nations.

briandear 8y ago
The US still takes the lion’s share of immigrants.
- chaostheory 8y ago
  You're right https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/international-migration-outlook-2018_migr_outlook-2018-en#page24 https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-healt...
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    interesting table. Japan and Korea appear on it. but i don't see China.

pjc50 8y ago

> 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to ever succeed, Well, apart from the entire modern history of Chinese export-led growth.

natechols 8y ago
I'd argue that this wasn't "managing the market", it was dropping suicidal economic policies that kept the entire population in serfdom. The state actually gave up a huge amount of control in the process (relative to the status quo circa 1970). It's still much more "managed" than other developed nations, but vastly less so than under Mao.

bwb 8y ago

Agreed, the key is how much you box in versus grants and early pushes to get to a tipping point IMO. is China doing it right? Hell if I no, but there is a ton of good data from what the USA/EU have done right, and what they have screwed up to do better.

selimthegrim 8y ago

What they can do or what they couldn't do?

duxup 8y ago

It is strange that you see a lot of folks who feel that in China they'll be less restricted in some ways, and that might be true, until it isn't and in that case with an authoritarian government, it's just over. No legal options, no heads up.

throwaway5yiu 8y ago
I went to China after I repeatedly hit the Bamboo ceiling in the US. Luckily my parents forced me to learn Chinese as a kid, so I was able to network with the people there. Along with my credentials, I am now at a fulfilling C-level position. I guess we’ll have to see if my luck lasts.
- duxup 8y ago
  I think an individual is quite less risky than a business that may be far less portable. I was thinking more as a business.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

Hindsight is always 20/20, but as an anecdote I can attest that in 200 (when I started my 9 year stint), optimism about China was much greater than the way it eventually turned out. Back then, China was opening up, most major foreign websites were still unblocked, a lot of foreigners thought they could actually make their futures there, and they were being egged on by the Chinese government and institutions in agreement. Of course, the reality turned out to be way different, but back then everyone had already sunk their costs. BTW, not everyone in the article is from the US, Blue Frog for one thing is most definitely Australian (who else puts beets on their burgers?).

splintercell 8y ago
> [I]n 200 (when I started my 9 year stint), optimism about China was much greater than the way it eventually turned out. It's because back then Han dynasty was just getting started after the fall of Qin dynasty. You gotta give them some time.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Typo. I meant 2007. I was just a baby during the Han dynasty.
discreteevent 8y ago
"Back then, China was opening up". I can tell you that in 1990 it was the same, I remember reading a very similar article in a newspaper and a friend who was sent out to head up the office of an industrial power supply company came back in 95 with the very same dissolution.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  1990? Maybe 1988, but as soon as May 35th hit, China backed away rapidly from the liberation of the 1980s. The reasons the students marched on the square in the first place was because they thought they could.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

coliveira 8y ago

Many Americans believe that the meaning of China opening up their economy is that they can go there and dominate all industries they want. This may even be the case in some third-world countries, but China is way past the point that they need to bow to western countries. If you go to any other developed nation like France, Switzerland or Canada, you won't be able to do business as it pleases you, you need to follow the local political rules.

mc32 8y ago
True but the local political rules in these places are pretty predictable and don’t change drastically on edict. So, yes, follow the rules, but the rules applied to you are the rules applied to all.
- coliveira 8y ago
  Of course, France is an old country with very stablished rules, even more than the USA. It is normal that a new economy, like China, will have new rules more often than the US. This doesn't mean that they have an obligation to create laws to facilitate American business.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Why does everyone just assume all the businesses talked about in the article are American? Obviously some of them were not. It seemed that they were focusing more on foreigners. China does not have rule of law, full stop. They have a constitution that guarantees freedom of press, religion, and speech, and it is completely meaningless because they do not have rule of law. What this means is that Baidu can make most of its money on medical scams and porn while any foreign company would immediately be prosecuted for any small transgression. Whatever rules China makes up, its just for convenience, if they want to get you, they'll find something.
  - mc32 8y ago
    No one is asking for favoritism, only level playing field. Of course people would also be okay with exceptions, so long they remain exceptions and not the rule.

paganel 8y ago

Some of them had probably expected that the laissez-faire attitude of the Chinese authorities that was noticeable up to the mid-2000s would continue indefinitely, but that turned out to be a bad bet. Once the Chinese authorities started to become more serious about things like environmental regulations or higher salaries (both these things mentioned in the article like something bad ?!) then many “napkin” business-plans turned to nothing. I really cannot feel any empathy for this type of investors.

mcguire 8y ago
"both these things mentioned in the article like something bad ?!" It is the Wall Street journal.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Wh1skey 8y ago
Didn't realize requiring a separate 8 square meter space to prepare salad was for saving the environment.
pathseeker 8y ago
>s like environmental regulations or higher salaries They didn't become more serious about these things. They passed rules to kill off businesses arbitrarily to maintain power under the guise of "environment". The salad preparation rules have nothing to do with the environment.

hbosch 8y ago

> Did they expect that they would be able to build large foreigner controlled businesses? Did they expect that their success would not be impeded by a desire on the part of political entities to craft a narrative? Did they expect to secure more wealth for themselves before they were shut down? No, I believe most gold-rush Westerners were actually looking to join up with established (or government-blessed) Chinese businesses and help them introduce their businesses back to the West and help there - such as marketing Huawei or Xiaomi to Americans for example, or working with government lobbyists on pro-China PR campaigns.

buttholesurfer 8y ago

Funny, I always say the same about foreigners coming to the U.S.

youwindang00 8y ago

Isn’t China just making the “invisible hand” visible? Meanwhile, in the US, the majority are “boxed in” to the prerogatives of billionaires. I don’t really see the difference in a practical sense.

klodolph 8y ago

> I am always surprised by people who think they can do what they do in their home country in any other country and get the same results. But it is particularly true of people in the US it seems. If you don't really internalize how the laws, politics, and policies of a country shape what is, and what is not, possible you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. I don't think this is particularly true of the US in comparison with, say, China. There are people who will blame Chinese nationals or immigrants in the US for behaving incorrectly or irrationally. And there are people here who will blame Americans for not accommodating or understanding the Chinese community. (I'm going to make an unfair generalization: and then there are always Europeans who pipe in to comment without really understanding American race relations, American culture, or Chinese culture. America has its own politics of race, identity, and nationality that have significant differences from the way it works in Europe. Just as I'm liable to go to Europe and, say, make a fool out of myself trying to have a conversation about Catalonia, a European is liable to make a fool out of themselves coming to America and talking about Black Lives Matter.) Coming back to the original article, I do think these people are mostly just bad entrepreneurs trying to cash in on a fad, or being led by exoticism and memories of 19th century trade rather than an understanding of the market and a sound business plan. It's not some kind of testament to US arrogance, even though that makes a good narrative.

coldtea 8y ago
>America has its own politics of race, identity, and nationality that have significant differences from the way it works in Europe. The average European has a much better grasp of those than the average American has of any European situation (assuming they can even pinpoint France on the map, that is). We read lots of American news, websites and books, follow US music, movies, and so on. With a small exception of UK music, the US can hardly do 1/100th of the European following US culture we do.
- wpietri 8y ago
  As an American, I agree. I think one of the factors is that it's easy for the US to be a world unto itself. With 325m people versus the EU's 505m (soon to be 440m), and with roughly equivalent GDPs, it's really easy for Americans to stay in their bubble. E.g., hear only English, experience only one culture, deal with only one system of law. We can easily move a thousand miles and still be in a place where, well, people measure in miles. There's some hope, though. As recently as 1994, only 10% of Americans had passports. But now that number is above 40%. [1] Part of that's due to to no longer having passport-free travel to our nearest neighbors since the 9/11-inspired security tightening. But I think part of it's real. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42586638 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42586638

stcredzero 8y ago

Markets just don't work that way in my experience, they evolve, they change, and if you box them in they die. But with enough money and power, you can convince yourself it's working on a temporary basis, until the market distortions make things suck enough, something has to break or change. If you don't really internalize how the laws, politics, and policies of a country shape what is, and what is not possible, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. Don't forget culture.

reaperducer 8y ago

Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal To be fair, the perceived anti-China slant wasn't always that way. It used to be one of the most pro-China publications in the early days of the Chinese economic ramp-up. But as things have changed in China, so has the tone of the Journal. It's a reaction to what's happening there. An over-reaction, probably. But a reaction, nonetheless.

wpietri 8y ago
It could be a reaction to what's happening in China. But it could also be a reaction to what's happening at the WSJ. Rupert Murdoch, who among many media properties created and owns Fox News, bought the WSJ in 2007. That led to changes both obvious and subtle: http://www.journalism.org/2011/07/20/wall-street-journal-under-rupert-murdoch/ http://www.journalism.org/2011/07/20/wall-street-journal-und...
- z2 8y ago
  For what it's worth, I attended an event where Murdoch spoke a couple years ago [0][1]. Despite the interviewer's best efforts, he actually seemed a bit extreme to the other direction in refusing to say a negative thing about China. To paraphrase what I remember, "I've visited plenty of Chinese startups, there is real innovation," and "I don't think China is a military threat." 0: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/young-leaders-circle-forum-rupert-murdoch-8100.html https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/young-leaders-circl... 1: I have zero affiliation with the above organization -- stumbling into the event was purely right-place-right-time circumstance.
  - retrogradeorbit 8y ago
    Well, he did marry Wendy Deng. Some have said it was to help break into the Chinese market. If it wasn't for Tony Blair, they'd probably still be married. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng_Murdoch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng_Murdoch
    - 8y ago

SubiculumCode 8y ago

I read an interesting argument over at Foreign Policy highlighting the failures of China's One Belt One Road foreign policy, and attributed those failures (and their continuation) to the increasing authoritarianism of President Xi, and the breakdown of the Party's meritocractic efficiency seen over the last 20 years or so. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-initiative-blunder/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-ini...

ChuckMcM 8y ago
That probably deserves its own submission as a link. I can quibble with some of the details but I agree with the general thesis that China's execution of the OBOR initiatives have failed to meet expectation and that the initiative has become more important than the results politically. I keep looking for signs for this effort to collapse and take the RMB with it, but China has more direct control over the levers than most economies would trying to pull off what they are doing.
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  I submitted it about an hour ago. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-initiative-blunder/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/06/bri-china-belt-road-ini...

vkou 8y ago

> Aside from the general anti-China slant that is fairly common in the journal, I have yet to see a 'manage the market' to achieve results desired by the state to ever succeed, anywhere. Markets just don't work that way in my experience, they evolve, they change, and if you box them in they die. I strongly disagree. Since the Great Depression, farming is incredibly heavily subsidized in the United States. World-wide, but particularly in the US, agriculture is probably the most government-managed/subsidized/regulated industry you can think of. And yet, over the past 85 years, despite the many economic ups and downs, changes in global demand for, and global prices of staples, US agriculture remains a resilient pillar of the economy. You can go to any grocery store, country-wide, and buy more cheap food then you can ever eat, despite wars, shipping problems, droughts, natural disasters, crop failures, and other calamities. Now, all of this comes at a cost. It costs a lot of taxpayer dollars to ensure that cheap food is available for everyone. The alternative, of course, is an unresilient, market system, with fluctuating outputs, shortages, and price spikes. These sorts of things tend to lead to bread riots, revolutions, and bourgies being strung up on lamp posts. As a bourgie, I'd rather not risk seeing the price of bread triple.