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Spot on! The decline of West was invented as a tool to mobilize certain groups of Western population, just like any cultural and/or political narrative. To na

Spot on! The decline of West was invented as a tool to mobilize certain groups of Western population, just like any cultural and/or political narrative. To name one obvious narrow prejudice: The prosperity in China was brought by market economy and Western corporation mechanisms. The rise of China is the rise of West. And often cited as one indication of the decline of the West.

tristor 6y ago
The rise of China is /not/ the rise of the West. It's something we haven't exactly seen before, it's the rise of a new type of Totalitarian Fascism which is supplanting Totalitarian Communism to intentionally enrich a blessed few through state-run corporations. There is nothing even resembling a "free market" in China, and most of the official economic reporting in China is falsehoods and outright lies. As Benito Mussolini said "“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” and what would be a more accurate description of how China creates and structures SRCs? What created prosperity in China was not adoption of Western corporate mechanisms and a market economy, it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China, enriching party officials and their cronies by using the massive population of destitute people ripe for exploitation as unskilled labor. Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  > it's the rise of a new type of Totalitarian Fascism which is supplanting Totalitarian Communism If the argument is "putting capitalism in a box and using it to motivate government hegemony" is "the rise of a new type" of "fascism" unique to China, that's not true at all. Avoiding comparisons to certain "western" governments, Germà Bel argues convincingly that Nazi Germany was deeply committed to this strategy [0]. It's the western party line that this is exactly what the post-revolutionary Soviet Union ended up doing sometime after Stalin, ultimately leading to its dissolution into what can only be called an Oligarchy. And uh, I think it's at least worth debating if the US responded to the Great Depression by doing the same thing; essentially using the notion of "jobs" programs and "public works" projects to move lots of money into corporate government supporters rather than directly providing relief. > , it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China Maybe, but if that's the case than that's them simply noticing what various other economic projects the US in particular was already engaged in. I'm still not convinced "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Perkins is entirely made up. > Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up. Perhaps so. But any government is only a few leaps from fascism. See, for example, the Philippines. The US's response to COVID-19 and its current use of loyalist "border control forces" to "defend federal monuments" while violating subject Miranda Rights, States Rights, and arguably the US Constitution should remind us that it is not so long a fall for any organized nation. Two bad things can be bad. [0] http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf
  - tristor 6y ago
    Agreed on basically all points here. My criticism of the state of China is not a defense of the state of the West. It's merely intended to provide a clear distinction between the two, and to combat the rising pro-CCP shilling I see happening consistently on HN. It is very much possible for two different bad things to both be bad.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      Well then allow me to extend a hand from the other side of the aisle and point out that articles like this off and read like love letters to a much more authoritarian era. Often containing words like "value" and "culture" which appear to be little more then a thinly-veiled rebuke of cultural liberty. In the top posted article here, it's a depressing truth that it's impossible for us to tell what the author means to say until they write more about it, because words like "the west" and "Culture" I've been deeply co-opted by reactionary discourse. So I'm keeping an open mind, but I definitely want to point out that there's nothing special about Western governments when it comes to a slow slide into fascism.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  The West was not merely it's democracy political system. It is also the market economy. Overwhelming amount of US politicians state the same thing. For example, most US president express one of the core principles of western system is market economy. Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending CCP. What typical HNers stated about CCP's "crimes" are nothing but typical political polis. Let me say one thing, CCP organized the suppression of Han Chinese population, totaling probably 100+ millions baby, through the one child policy. While at the same time allow racial injustice by selectively applying the rule (I.e. force it strictly on normal Han people, but allow political figures and some population the free rein). And the systematic exploitation on the rural population during since 1976 opening up probably was the most cruel of all of the modernization process. These were seldom mentioned by Westerners. Of course, china's rise is complex phenomenon. It has many debatable elements. But decisively, it's rise was enabled by adopting core western value system, forsaking the Soviet Union era Communism doctrine. It's in that sense that I believe it is a fair statement to say China's rise is the rise of the West.
  - tristor 6y ago
    I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't see any market economy in China. I see China directly manipulating currency markets, stock markets and requiring state ownership or control of all major companies, as well as the creation of SRCs. This is not a market economy, it's a vehicle to enable foreign dollars to prop up state actions. I mean, the Chinese government even manipulates data at all levels to lie about the status of their economy intentionally and with no attempt to even report accurate data. It's so bad that most Western companies which make serious investments in China use other data as a proxy and perform their own analytics to determine market movement separate from what is reported by the government. I'm not going to go digging for a pile of links, but here's one article in the Financial Times discussing how far off the official numbers are: https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32aece https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32a... There's some depth there, I don't think all of the misreporting in China is machinations occurring at the top. I've seen too many substantiated reports of more minor governmental officials reporting incorrect data to save face or to enhance their own position politically within the CCP and once that data becomes analyzed in aggregate it will lead to incorrect results. It seems there's a "vig" being added at every layer, such that it may not even be possible for China to report accurate data. Market economies run off of data and information, fundamentally. The stock market itself is just a mechanism to set pricing and valuation based on all available collected data. It's essentially a mechanism for crowd-sourcing, where the people participating have skin in the game and a vested interest in making a meaningful analysis of the data available to them. China manipulates and misreports data as a matter of course and directly intercedes to manipulate what little in the way of markets actually exist, so it cannot be in any way described as a "free market economy" (that word "free" is crucial to the Western capitalistic way).

tristor 6y ago

The rise of China is /not/ the rise of the West. It's something we haven't exactly seen before, it's the rise of a new type of Totalitarian Fascism which is supplanting Totalitarian Communism to intentionally enrich a blessed few through state-run corporations. There is nothing even resembling a "free market" in China, and most of the official economic reporting in China is falsehoods and outright lies. As Benito Mussolini said "“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” and what would be a more accurate description of how China creates and structures SRCs? What created prosperity in China was not adoption of Western corporate mechanisms and a market economy, it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China, enriching party officials and their cronies by using the massive population of destitute people ripe for exploitation as unskilled labor. Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up.

KirinDave 6y ago
> it's the rise of a new type of Totalitarian Fascism which is supplanting Totalitarian Communism If the argument is "putting capitalism in a box and using it to motivate government hegemony" is "the rise of a new type" of "fascism" unique to China, that's not true at all. Avoiding comparisons to certain "western" governments, Germà Bel argues convincingly that Nazi Germany was deeply committed to this strategy [0]. It's the western party line that this is exactly what the post-revolutionary Soviet Union ended up doing sometime after Stalin, ultimately leading to its dissolution into what can only be called an Oligarchy. And uh, I think it's at least worth debating if the US responded to the Great Depression by doing the same thing; essentially using the notion of "jobs" programs and "public works" projects to move lots of money into corporate government supporters rather than directly providing relief. > , it was the realization of party leadership that if they created an appropriate facade it would allow Western Neoliberals to create the necessary messages to shift economic policy and allow foreign money to flood into China Maybe, but if that's the case than that's them simply noticing what various other economic projects the US in particular was already engaged in. I'm still not convinced "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Perkins is entirely made up. > Both before and after, China remains a totalitarian country run by despots, but now they are able to put a veil of acceptability over their actions which has greatly helped their propaganda machine in the West as people eat it up. Perhaps so. But any government is only a few leaps from fascism. See, for example, the Philippines. The US's response to COVID-19 and its current use of loyalist "border control forces" to "defend federal monuments" while violating subject Miranda Rights, States Rights, and arguably the US Constitution should remind us that it is not so long a fall for any organized nation. Two bad things can be bad. [0] http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf
- tristor 6y ago
  Agreed on basically all points here. My criticism of the state of China is not a defense of the state of the West. It's merely intended to provide a clear distinction between the two, and to combat the rising pro-CCP shilling I see happening consistently on HN. It is very much possible for two different bad things to both be bad.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    Well then allow me to extend a hand from the other side of the aisle and point out that articles like this off and read like love letters to a much more authoritarian era. Often containing words like "value" and "culture" which appear to be little more then a thinly-veiled rebuke of cultural liberty. In the top posted article here, it's a depressing truth that it's impossible for us to tell what the author means to say until they write more about it, because words like "the west" and "Culture" I've been deeply co-opted by reactionary discourse. So I'm keeping an open mind, but I definitely want to point out that there's nothing special about Western governments when it comes to a slow slide into fascism.
justicezyx 6y ago
The West was not merely it's democracy political system. It is also the market economy. Overwhelming amount of US politicians state the same thing. For example, most US president express one of the core principles of western system is market economy. Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending CCP. What typical HNers stated about CCP's "crimes" are nothing but typical political polis. Let me say one thing, CCP organized the suppression of Han Chinese population, totaling probably 100+ millions baby, through the one child policy. While at the same time allow racial injustice by selectively applying the rule (I.e. force it strictly on normal Han people, but allow political figures and some population the free rein). And the systematic exploitation on the rural population during since 1976 opening up probably was the most cruel of all of the modernization process. These were seldom mentioned by Westerners. Of course, china's rise is complex phenomenon. It has many debatable elements. But decisively, it's rise was enabled by adopting core western value system, forsaking the Soviet Union era Communism doctrine. It's in that sense that I believe it is a fair statement to say China's rise is the rise of the West.
- tristor 6y ago
  I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't see any market economy in China. I see China directly manipulating currency markets, stock markets and requiring state ownership or control of all major companies, as well as the creation of SRCs. This is not a market economy, it's a vehicle to enable foreign dollars to prop up state actions. I mean, the Chinese government even manipulates data at all levels to lie about the status of their economy intentionally and with no attempt to even report accurate data. It's so bad that most Western companies which make serious investments in China use other data as a proxy and perform their own analytics to determine market movement separate from what is reported by the government. I'm not going to go digging for a pile of links, but here's one article in the Financial Times discussing how far off the official numbers are: https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32aece https://www.ft.com/content/961b4b32-3fce-11e9-b896-fe36ec32a... There's some depth there, I don't think all of the misreporting in China is machinations occurring at the top. I've seen too many substantiated reports of more minor governmental officials reporting incorrect data to save face or to enhance their own position politically within the CCP and once that data becomes analyzed in aggregate it will lead to incorrect results. It seems there's a "vig" being added at every layer, such that it may not even be possible for China to report accurate data. Market economies run off of data and information, fundamentally. The stock market itself is just a mechanism to set pricing and valuation based on all available collected data. It's essentially a mechanism for crowd-sourcing, where the people participating have skin in the game and a vested interest in making a meaningful analysis of the data available to them. China manipulates and misreports data as a matter of course and directly intercedes to manipulate what little in the way of markets actually exist, so it cannot be in any way described as a "free market economy" (that word "free" is crucial to the Western capitalistic way).