22 ms·

It's not as hard to do it in 50 years when you're starting with the sum total of knowledge available 50 years ago. Doing it in 150 years, starting 220 years ago

It's not as hard to do it in 50 years when you're starting with the sum total of knowledge available 50 years ago. Doing it in 150 years, starting 220 years ago is far more challenging and impressive. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of what you wrote.

em500 7y ago
Perhaps the more apt comparison is democratic India, which had the same sum total of knowledge available 50 years ago and was at similar poverty level. Yet authoritarian China ended up roughly 3 to 5 times richer today. Even if all you need to do is catch-up growth, rapid implementation is far from given. It's not the idea but the execution that matters, as techies would say.
- yorwba 7y ago
  If you look at GDP per capita figures for China vs. India, they were mostly comparable until about 1990 (India was actually slightly in the lead): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=1990&locations=CN-IN&start=1960 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=1990... After 1990, China really took off: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN-IN&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... Of course China didn't suddenly turn authoritarian in 1990, so this is not a democracy vs. authoritarianism issue. Rather, it's that the authoritarian decided to change the way they were doing things. (Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening up".)
  - em500 7y ago
    > Of course China didn't suddenly turn authoritarian in 1990, so this is not a democracy vs. authoritarianism issue. Given the development of India, we might conclude that a democratic/non-authoritarian government is neither sufficient nor necessary to gain a good standard of living.
dmoy 7y ago
Oh for sure, it's way easier. Especially with certain... methods... of IP transfer. The fact that china relinquished communist economic models in favor of capitalism most certainly helped a lot too.

em500 7y ago

Perhaps the more apt comparison is democratic India, which had the same sum total of knowledge available 50 years ago and was at similar poverty level. Yet authoritarian China ended up roughly 3 to 5 times richer today. Even if all you need to do is catch-up growth, rapid implementation is far from given. It's not the idea but the execution that matters, as techies would say.

yorwba 7y ago
If you look at GDP per capita figures for China vs. India, they were mostly comparable until about 1990 (India was actually slightly in the lead): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=1990&locations=CN-IN&start=1960 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=1990... After 1990, China really took off: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN-IN&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... Of course China didn't suddenly turn authoritarian in 1990, so this is not a democracy vs. authoritarianism issue. Rather, it's that the authoritarian decided to change the way they were doing things. (Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening up".)
- em500 7y ago
  > Of course China didn't suddenly turn authoritarian in 1990, so this is not a democracy vs. authoritarianism issue. Given the development of India, we might conclude that a democratic/non-authoritarian government is neither sufficient nor necessary to gain a good standard of living.

dmoy 7y ago

Oh for sure, it's way easier. Especially with certain... methods... of IP transfer. The fact that china relinquished communist economic models in favor of capitalism most certainly helped a lot too.