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Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Has Ch

Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Has China gotten to that point yet for planes? No, they clearly just started. But they're clearly there for some industries like electronics where Shenzen is the place to be if you're building hardware startups.

chaostheory 6y ago
> Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Japan and South Korea are both democratic republics. South Korea's economic seemed to transform overnight, once they transitioned from a dictatorship into a democratic republic. Like it or not, the lack of free speech has an economic cost. > Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Singapore is also able to mitigate their own lack of creativity with immigration. I do not believe China has the same views regarding foreigners. I view Singapore more as an Asian Switzerland than a tech leader anyways. I also do not believe that Singapore's leaders believe in Mao style centralist control (of the economy at least) > Has China gotten to that point yet for planes? No, they clearly just started. They've been copying Russian aircraft for a while now. They haven't "just started". Before Xi, China was slowly moving in the right direction for global dominance. China under Xi is moving backwards.
- yorwba 6y ago
  > South Korea's economic seemed to transform overnight, once they transitioned from a dictatorship into a democratic republic. Like it or not, the lack of free speech has an economic cost. If you look at actual data https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=KR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locat... , you'll see that Korea has had high GDP-per-capita growth since as far back as the 1960s, with two years of shrinking: 1980 after the assassination of the dictator Park Chung-hee and 1998 after the Asian Financial Crisis, which was also the first time the ruling party let go of their power after losing a democratic election. The economic cost of lack of free speech isn't as great as the economic cost of uncertainty (because it discourages investing). Not knowing who the next dictator will be and not knowing who will win the next election are both sources of uncertainty.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    Another argument would be that SK wouldn't have been able to maintain their GDP-per-capita growth without switching to a democratic republic.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      That might seem like a good argument if you only look at the growth rate trending down under the authoritarian regime since the 1970s, but it's actually a bad argument because that trend continued unchanged after the democratic transition. So if democracy actually has some effect on economic performance, it's not strong enough to overcome broader trends. Which makes sense if you consider that authoritarians like making money, too, so blocking obvious productivity improvements would only be shooting themselves in the foot.
- EliRivers 6y ago
  Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Not much, no. Single party state, been in power forever, tame opposition parties allowed, ruling party never had anything less than a supermajority, individual leaders stay in power for decades, fines and jail sentences for questioning the independence of the judiciary.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Not really. Japanese / SKorea success in tech are from massive conglomerates that function effectively the same as Chinese SEOs, see Chaebol, Zaibatsu. These are legacies of their authoritarian history. Free speech doesn't matter when building electronics or military hardware. It won't matter for semiconductors or turbojets. Japan / SKorea both have their indigenous nex-gen fighter programs, F-X2/3 for Japan, KAI KFX for Korea. China's J-20 that started a few years earlier is far more mature. Japan had help from US aviation and realized their indigenous capabilities were insufficient. J20 also ahead of Russian gen5, Su57 in most technical categories except power plant. Pattern is to copy 1 or 2 generations to learn and then indigenize. Maybe free speech matters for commercial cultural products, but the media products China exports like video games would suggest no. China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously. Chinese money talks, but military hardware gatekeeps whether that conversation to happen in the first place. Which matters more and more now that China containment is official US policy. The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. Clinton sent two. I use to be a Xi doubter, but it's hard to argue he's not doing an incredible job.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    > Not really. Japanese / SKorea success in tech are from massive conglomerates that function effectively the same as Chinese SEOs, see Chaebol, Zaibatsu. That's only part of the picture. I'm talking more lower level ie. artists, engineers and scientists Sure, you need the infrastructure for investment and manufacturing but that doesn't solve the problem of nationally, stunted creativity > Free speech doesn't matter when building electronics or military hardware It does matter if you want to build something original and innovative, instead of yet another cheap copy. That requires creativity, which is dependent on free speech. I mean just take a look at mainland entertainment. Most of it consists of movies and shows about the distant past. It's not even close to what could have been done like what you see in Japan or SK. Maybe if China had a more individualist society, you'd have a better argument or even proof beyond one off exceptions like DJI > China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously... Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. What does this matter when everyone important already has global, ballistic nuclear missiles? One could argue that it's a drain on GDP when it could be spent elsewhere. Most of the US deficit is due to wasteful, military spending. > The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. How do you even know there are actual reforms vs Xi just having a good excuse for rounding up his enemies like Putin, when there's no free press?
- chillacy 6y ago
  >> Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. > Japan and South Korea are both democratic republics. I think we should be crisp on the difference between government systems and culture. East asian culture tends to be very collectivist regardless of the government system. When you originally said "collectivist culture" I assumed you were referring to this culture (tallest hammer gets nailed down, route memorization learning, respect for seniority over ability, etc). But if you were referring to the political system then that's true now, though this might be putting the cart before the horse. SK, Taiwan, and even Japan all got a lot of economic development done under authoritarian regimes (even if they were democracy in name). Only once economic development came did they transition. Ironically the growth slowed after that so if you think political system is a causal factor of economic growth, it might appear at first glance that democracy is bad for economic growth. > Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Haha, well, maybe formally. As others have pointed out Singapore has practically single-party-rule. By some accounts, China owes much of its modern success to copying Singapore's flavor of state capitalism. Deng Xiaoping visited Lee Kwan Yew in 1978 and that set the course for China to pivot away from communism to state capitalism. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/lee-kuan-yew-lauded-for-critical-role-in-chinas-reform-and-opening-up https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/lee-kuan-yew-lauded-for-cr... > Before Xi, China was slowly moving in the right direction for global dominance. China under Xi is moving backwards. I agree with that statement, though time will tell. ---- To sum up this discussion: 1. if it's ultimately a question of whether democracy is a necessary condition of economic growth or even creativity, I would say no. Plenty of good science was done in Germany in the 40s or the Soviet Union, and economic growth in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan under military dictatorships. 2. Would more creative work have been done with more freedom? Hard to prove or disprove but I intuitively would lean towards yes, especially for disruptive innovation (the kind that the folks in charge wouldn't like or be able to see). I think we agree here. 3. Is democracy a sufficient to create economic growth? I would say no, looking at some of the other non-western democracies out there, or democracies which failed.
  - matthewdgreen 6y ago
    The advantage of democracy is the ability to correct serious leadership mistakes. China lost decades of growth to Maoism (and obviously a lot more besides), and there wasn’t much they could do beyond waiting for Mao to die. Democratic systems are designed to prevent that. However: this does not mean that every non-democratic leader is going to make mistakes, and certainly not at all phases of their leadership career. (Mistakes are, however, more probable than not over the long term in the typical authoritarian society. It’s noteworthy that we mostly point to Singapore as the sole counterexample of an economically successful authoritarian regime that didn’t revert to democracy or suffer decades of needless economic self-harm.)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

chaostheory 6y ago

> Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Japan and South Korea are both democratic republics. South Korea's economic seemed to transform overnight, once they transitioned from a dictatorship into a democratic republic. Like it or not, the lack of free speech has an economic cost. > Singapore has an authoritarian government and also managed the leap. Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Singapore is also able to mitigate their own lack of creativity with immigration. I do not believe China has the same views regarding foreigners. I view Singapore more as an Asian Switzerland than a tech leader anyways. I also do not believe that Singapore's leaders believe in Mao style centralist control (of the economy at least) > Has China gotten to that point yet for planes? No, they clearly just started. They've been copying Russian aircraft for a while now. They haven't "just started". Before Xi, China was slowly moving in the right direction for global dominance. China under Xi is moving backwards.

yorwba 6y ago
> South Korea's economic seemed to transform overnight, once they transitioned from a dictatorship into a democratic republic. Like it or not, the lack of free speech has an economic cost. If you look at actual data https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=KR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locat... , you'll see that Korea has had high GDP-per-capita growth since as far back as the 1960s, with two years of shrinking: 1980 after the assassination of the dictator Park Chung-hee and 1998 after the Asian Financial Crisis, which was also the first time the ruling party let go of their power after losing a democratic election. The economic cost of lack of free speech isn't as great as the economic cost of uncertainty (because it discourages investing). Not knowing who the next dictator will be and not knowing who will win the next election are both sources of uncertainty.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  Another argument would be that SK wouldn't have been able to maintain their GDP-per-capita growth without switching to a democratic republic.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    That might seem like a good argument if you only look at the growth rate trending down under the authoritarian regime since the 1970s, but it's actually a bad argument because that trend continued unchanged after the democratic transition. So if democracy actually has some effect on economic performance, it's not strong enough to overcome broader trends. Which makes sense if you consider that authoritarians like making money, too, so blocking obvious productivity improvements would only be shooting themselves in the foot.
EliRivers 6y ago
Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Not much, no. Single party state, been in power forever, tame opposition parties allowed, ruling party never had anything less than a supermajority, individual leaders stay in power for decades, fines and jail sentences for questioning the independence of the judiciary.
dirtyid 6y ago
Not really. Japanese / SKorea success in tech are from massive conglomerates that function effectively the same as Chinese SEOs, see Chaebol, Zaibatsu. These are legacies of their authoritarian history. Free speech doesn't matter when building electronics or military hardware. It won't matter for semiconductors or turbojets. Japan / SKorea both have their indigenous nex-gen fighter programs, F-X2/3 for Japan, KAI KFX for Korea. China's J-20 that started a few years earlier is far more mature. Japan had help from US aviation and realized their indigenous capabilities were insufficient. J20 also ahead of Russian gen5, Su57 in most technical categories except power plant. Pattern is to copy 1 or 2 generations to learn and then indigenize. Maybe free speech matters for commercial cultural products, but the media products China exports like video games would suggest no. China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously. Chinese money talks, but military hardware gatekeeps whether that conversation to happen in the first place. Which matters more and more now that China containment is official US policy. The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. Clinton sent two. I use to be a Xi doubter, but it's hard to argue he's not doing an incredible job.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  > Not really. Japanese / SKorea success in tech are from massive conglomerates that function effectively the same as Chinese SEOs, see Chaebol, Zaibatsu. That's only part of the picture. I'm talking more lower level ie. artists, engineers and scientists Sure, you need the infrastructure for investment and manufacturing but that doesn't solve the problem of nationally, stunted creativity > Free speech doesn't matter when building electronics or military hardware It does matter if you want to build something original and innovative, instead of yet another cheap copy. That requires creativity, which is dependent on free speech. I mean just take a look at mainland entertainment. Most of it consists of movies and shows about the distant past. It's not even close to what could have been done like what you see in Japan or SK. Maybe if China had a more individualist society, you'd have a better argument or even proof beyond one off exceptions like DJI > China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously... Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. What does this matter when everyone important already has global, ballistic nuclear missiles? One could argue that it's a drain on GDP when it could be spent elsewhere. Most of the US deficit is due to wasteful, military spending. > The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. How do you even know there are actual reforms vs Xi just having a good excuse for rounding up his enemies like Putin, when there's no free press?
chillacy 6y ago
>> Japan and Korea have collectivist cultures and made that leap in the past 50 years. > Japan and South Korea are both democratic republics. I think we should be crisp on the difference between government systems and culture. East asian culture tends to be very collectivist regardless of the government system. When you originally said "collectivist culture" I assumed you were referring to this culture (tallest hammer gets nailed down, route memorization learning, respect for seniority over ability, etc). But if you were referring to the political system then that's true now, though this might be putting the cart before the horse. SK, Taiwan, and even Japan all got a lot of economic development done under authoritarian regimes (even if they were democracy in name). Only once economic development came did they transition. Ironically the growth slowed after that so if you think political system is a causal factor of economic growth, it might appear at first glance that democracy is bad for economic growth. > Isn't Singapore more or less a democratic republic now? Haha, well, maybe formally. As others have pointed out Singapore has practically single-party-rule. By some accounts, China owes much of its modern success to copying Singapore's flavor of state capitalism. Deng Xiaoping visited Lee Kwan Yew in 1978 and that set the course for China to pivot away from communism to state capitalism. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/lee-kuan-yew-lauded-for-critical-role-in-chinas-reform-and-opening-up https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/lee-kuan-yew-lauded-for-cr... > Before Xi, China was slowly moving in the right direction for global dominance. China under Xi is moving backwards. I agree with that statement, though time will tell. ---- To sum up this discussion: 1. if it's ultimately a question of whether democracy is a necessary condition of economic growth or even creativity, I would say no. Plenty of good science was done in Germany in the 40s or the Soviet Union, and economic growth in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan under military dictatorships. 2. Would more creative work have been done with more freedom? Hard to prove or disprove but I intuitively would lean towards yes, especially for disruptive innovation (the kind that the folks in charge wouldn't like or be able to see). I think we agree here. 3. Is democracy a sufficient to create economic growth? I would say no, looking at some of the other non-western democracies out there, or democracies which failed.
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  The advantage of democracy is the ability to correct serious leadership mistakes. China lost decades of growth to Maoism (and obviously a lot more besides), and there wasn’t much they could do beyond waiting for Mao to die. Democratic systems are designed to prevent that. However: this does not mean that every non-democratic leader is going to make mistakes, and certainly not at all phases of their leadership career. (Mistakes are, however, more probable than not over the long term in the typical authoritarian society. It’s noteworthy that we mostly point to Singapore as the sole counterexample of an economically successful authoritarian regime that didn’t revert to democracy or suffer decades of needless economic self-harm.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]