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In America, politicians are controlled by billionaires. This comes at the cost of national interest, given that winner-takes-all systems are gini coefficient ma
by tmule 5y ago
In America, politicians are controlled by billionaires. This comes at the cost of national interest, given that winner-takes-all systems are gini coefficient maximizers.
In China, politicians control billionaires. At least in theory, especially given how much the Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner, this does protect the national interest.
- refurb 5y agoThis is an incredibly generous take on the situation. In China the corruption of government officials is several orders of magnitude higher. We’re talking wholesale theft of govt assets in the billions of dollars. Chinese leaders also have a much more tenuous hold on power. They aren’t smacking down Jack Ma because they are looking out for the Chinese commoner (though they might benefit), their top priority is looking out for themselves.
- haram_masala 5y agoThis is the first time I have ever heard the claim that the CCP's hold on power is anything but rock solid. Unless you mean that specific leaders within the party have a tenuous hold against their party rivals.
- refurb 5y agoThe later.
- oreally 5y agoTo put it this way is too much of a simplification. There is good and bad. For now their priorities intersect with the chinese commoner, ie. Protecting themselves via serving the chinese commoner. Another bonus to this is the ability to make harder decisions now for the sake of the future. The fact of the matter is that with this 'aligned interests' dictatorial style you can more done and plan for the future - so long as that future is aligned with your population. I'd say the standoffish bipartisan politics of the US is far harder to get things done, but hey, as I'm sure some of you would say, it's better to have the freedom.
- refurb 5y agoAuthoritarian decision making is great until the authority starts making the wrong decisions. The bipartisan politics of the the US is not a bug, it’s a feature. It was entirely intentional that power was split and broad consensus was required to get anything done.
- bllguo 5y agonobody disputes if it was (broadly) by design, it's whether the design is outdated and needs modernization. by the way, i actually really disdain founding fathers veneration, but two-party deadlock was infamously _not_ intentional. neither was our increasingly corporatocratic government.
- refurb 5y agoi actually really disdain founding fathers veneration, but two-party deadlock was infamously _not_ intentional It absolutely was. Canada, where the majority party can pass whatever they want (their majority practically guarantees it), the unelected Senate almost always rubber stamps it and the head of state is one and the same as the ruling party, it's clear that the US design is intentional. Nothing gets passed in the US unless: 1) House approves it, 2) Senate approves it, 3) President signs it. All three bodies are independently elected. It was clearly intentional to be much more challenging to pass legislation in the US. What you call gridlock, I call the system operating as designed.
- oreally 5y agoCategorizing it as either a bug or a feature is thinking at extremes and is indicative of the influence of the media on your minds, leading to poor decision making. It's a feature with weaknesses. As another example, the NRA preventing gun control laws in spite of school shootings. The path the US has chosen is both poison and boon. The trouble is who gets to suffer from the poison?
- Rapzid 5y agoIn America politicians are influenced by actors and forces that affect their election prospects. This includes companies, billionaires, and yes even voters.
- reader_mode 5y agoVote with your feet ?
- sebow 5y ago>At least in theory, especially given how much the Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner, this does protect the national interest. No, that protects the Communist Party's interests, not the average citizen's one. In china politicians control billionaires as much as it is required so that the party doesn't lose it's influence/control, nothing more.It's well known China is de facto very capitalistic in this regard(at least at the very high level), but only if you don't piss off the communist party and obey all the way, provide all info and basically be their lapdog.This still happens even if we're talking about companies that rise up due to nepotism.Ironically in practice this makes china somewhat fascistic by definition, it's just that private companies are not publicly controlled & aligned with the party.
- yann2 5y agoHas nothing to do with the needs of the Chinese ppl. Its just about survival. Once you accumulate enough wealth and/or power unintended consequences just keep increasing. They never decrease. And the 6 inch chimp brain everyone has dooms it to blunder. The East India Company did hand over ownership to the Queen after 200 years of raking it in. Why? And look at the state of the Queen today. Xi and the Billionaires are trapped by their own hubris.
- adriancr 5y ago> Chinese political establishment is attuned to the needs of the Chinese commoner Hah... here is how common people are treated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
- dnzkw 5y agoThose are non-Han. They aren't considered common people or people at all.
- adriancr 5y agoYou are correct... it is unfortunate that if you are born in the wrong place to wrong parents you get treated that way... It's also sad that people praise the CCP like the OP here... Also, nothing stopping CCP from doing the same to han/everyone else as well... mao zedong's stupid policies come to mind...
- strogonoff 5y ago> In China, politicians control billionaires. The problem is when said politicians are a small faction of fallible people with unlimited power and no procedure of being peacefully replaced. Such a setup strongly hints at the fact that they really don’t want to give up control, which implies any policy is bound to protect their position first. They might act selflessly or benefit the nation at some particular point in time, but blindly counting on it being consistently so seems foolish.
- tmule 5y ago“ They might act selflessly or benefit the nation at some particular point in time, but blindly counting on it being consistently so seems foolish.” I think you’re right. But Chinese politicians are yet strongly motivated by nationalistic impulses, which are long dead in the thuggish political establishment of the West where nationalistic impulses are long dead (the GOP does performative nationalism very well, but they’re always ready to jump into the next war that’ll kill tens of thousands of Americans).
- nostromo 5y agoThis is such a naive take. Xi Jinping is literally a billionaire.
- h8hawk 5y agoHow massive censorship and state surveillance have anything to do with need of Chinese commoner?
- ithkuil 5y agoTo protect them, of course /s
- bhawks 5y agoChina's parliament is a literal billionaires club. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/china-parliament-billionaires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/china-parliament... There is no altruistic motivation to better the lot of the common person. The only motivation is to maintain control.
- baybal2 5y ago> There is no altruistic motivation to better the lot of the common person. The only motivation is to maintain control. I don't take it even as a control maintenance. They are now literally back to years when they were taking it as an insult for anybody to be more rich, and successful than a village party head. It's 100% truth. Heard stories of people having their houses demolished for building them more fancy than the house of a party leader nearby, and that was not in the cultural revolution era, but barely 3 decades ago. Bad old times are back.
- dirtyid 5y agoPretty much. Deluded people who think Xi and politburo fears tech billionairs when actually dangerous rival factions and unreliable military brass have already been managed / purged. And TFW all of these supposedly desperate moves for survival just happens to meet needs of commoner or improve comprehensive national power. Generic whining about Xi being authoritairan overlooks possiblity of him also being a generally benevolent dictator. Complaints of Xi's CCP is generally not mutually exclusive with the fact that his actions are mostly benefitial to PRC interests.
- sgt101 5y agoHang on, what about all the people he's had executed? What about their interests? Shooting people doesn't seem benevolent to me.
- dirtyid 5y ago>_generally_ benevolent ... >PRC (national) interests Governance priorities and development generally going right under Xi. Crack egg to make omelette etc. Incidentally, political executions also way down after his reforms, customary executions now "death with reprieve" sentences, where death is suspended. Way things are going, Xi's hagliography is going to be 10% bad and 90% good, especially if he can avoid war with US. Otherwise, hard to argue he isn't resolving or trying to resolves some of modern PRC's most entrenched problems across many domains.
- falomor 5y agoAre they called "politicians" in a one party state?
- tmule 5y agoAm seeing a lot of pushback against this take. There are two things to keep in mind: 1. On execution: The track record of the Chinese political establish in bringing hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty is arguably the greatest political achievement of the last four decades. Their track record here gives them legitimacy as a national-interest optimizing function (despite admittedly terrible human rights abuses for minorities). The contrast with, for example, the neocon-military-industrial complex that jumps from one failed international adventure to the next is astounding! 2. On planning: They’ve demonstrated a phenomenal understanding of key issues that the nation currently faces and expects to face, and has prioritized them appropriately — often using Western failures and failure modes as data points to inform their strategy. The contrast with the constant bickering in American politics is astounding. How can America succeed if there’s no general agreement even about what the problems are?
- calsy 5y agoIt's a great political achievement bringing people out of crushing poverty and starvation caused entirely by the last authoritarian in charge? 'Hey maybe we shouldn't turn all our farms into factories', its simplicity is what makes it so brilliant I guess. It's an achievement to starve millions to death then decide to give them something to eat and a job.
- native_samples 5y agoPeople who don't compete in fair elections aren't politicians. They are dictators.
- euroderf 5y agoWhen the USSR collapsed, the USA lost its primary ideological competitor, and proceeded to turn inequality into an unspoken national growth industry. Let's see if vigorous competition from those other commies can feed a USA course correction.