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Modern China is definitely a "market economy" in every meaningful sense of the term. Unlike in Maoist times, there is no central planning committee deciding wha
by jhbadger 8y ago
Modern China is definitely a "market economy" in every meaningful sense of the term. Unlike in Maoist times, there is no central planning committee deciding what should be manufactured and sold and private businesses make their own decision based on what they think will sell. Is there government intervention in the Chinese market? Of course, but that's true of every country -- even the US. The completely free market is just a theoretical concept never practiced anywhere at any time.
- harrumph 8y agoThey build cities...using their army. Your description of the country's general economic characteristics is off-the-charts wrong, and is especially wrong concerning the area where Pinker pretends that liberalized markets are why poverty in China has been in sharp decline.
- jhbadger 8y agoThere's no question that China is still an authoritarian country with a powerful military, but that's beside the point. You have to look at what has changed to stop making them poor. It's the new policy of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" (their euphasism for capitalism)
- harrumph 8y agoIt is you that is missing the point. Their army is not worth noticing because it's "powerful", it must not be overlooked because of what role it serves in the economy. It builds cities itself. Armies don't build (dozens of) cities in market economies. China is in a literal sense a command, not a market, economy in whole swathes of its body, starting with the beating heart of its double digit growth: its construction sector.