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The United States still has, overall, a much better set of governance, courts, regulation, etc. than China. But the USA is trending gradually downwards and Chin
by lionhearted 15y ago
The United States still has, overall, a much better set of governance, courts, regulation, etc. than China. But the USA is trending gradually downwards and China is trending quickly upwards.
Now it's interesting, countries can catch up a lot faster than they can lead. If a country is a bit backwards, with the right set of leadership, they can very quickly modernize, becoming extremely important economically and geopolitically in ~30 years when starting almost from scratch. But many of those rapid modernizations peter out once a lot of the proven methods are implemented.
Sometimes that means flat growth, like Japan. Sometimes collapse, like Nazi Germany. Sometimes gradual decline, like the USSR. Singapore has done a pretty outstanding job of keeping their upwards trends going and they're about 50 years into their building phase - I think that's the longest rapid sustained modernization in history?
So anyways, yes, I'll take the USA's system over China's today. And tomorrow. And probably 5 years from now. But maybe not 20 years from now if all else stays equal, and China can adapt after they've caught most of the low hanging fruit.
- stcredzero 15y agoIf a country is a bit backwards, with the right set of leadership, they can very quickly modernize, becoming extremely important economically and geopolitically in ~30 years when starting almost from scratch. It's not only leadership. If there is a long track record of commerce and admiration of scholarship, a culture can enable rapid modernization. I think this is why Japan, Korea, and China have done very well for themselves.
- jacques_chester 15y agoCultural antecedents are not a necessary pre-condition for modernisation. The USSR modernised very rapidly and it started off with mass illiteracy.
- stcredzero 15y agoThe USSR modernised very rapidly and it started off with mass illiteracy. Yes, but look at them now. The territories of the former USSR do not constitute the best climate for business. Cultural antecedents are not a necessary pre-condition, but they seem to help.
- jacques_chester 15y agoFair enough.
- lukeschlather 15y ago>But the USA is trending gradually downwards and China is trending quickly upwards. In population, wealth, etc. sure. But in terms of corruption? Having people who do no harm in power is often better than having people who do great good. If a great leader is just that - great. Not good, but great. Greatness has the capacity for evil and good. The advantage of a less skilled leadership is that they're only really able to do middling things, whether middlingly evil or middlingly good.
- jacques_chester 15y agoBack in the 1990s economists found that the major cause of improvements for the "Asian tigers" was due to increases in inputs -- that is, people and material were actually used for the first time. But productivity per person or unit of capital is actually quite poor and in the long run, this places a limit on that rapid growth. We're already seeing work being outsourced from China to even cheaper countries as China's supply of labour becomes fully engaged.