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Excellent article. For years I've suspected that when American 'leaders' look at the kind of power the Chinese government (or the Saudi government) has over its

Excellent article. For years I've suspected that when American 'leaders' look at the kind of power the Chinese government (or the Saudi government) has over its people, their main emotion is not revulsion but rather envy, and this seems rather bipartisan in nature, and is a sentiment found not just in the political sphere but also the corporate sphere. It's the complete intertwinement of the corporate and political spheres that leads to totalitarian regimes who view their own people as the greatest threat to their continued grasp on power and so institute highly repressive mass surveillance system, mass incarceration of dissidents and so on. However, there's another aspect to this, in which 'freedom' is not just legal in nature, but economic and physical as well. What does it mean to be 'free' in a company town where the only employers are Amazon and Walmart? What does it mean to be 'free' when energy sources you need for survival are controlled by someone else? The Chinese model seems to be 'we will ensure you have access to food and water and energy and in exchange your total loyalty to the state is required'. The American model I'm afraid is becoming 'we will ensure you have access to food and water and energy and in exchange your total loyalty to your corporate employer is required.'

yosito 5y ago
> The Chinese model seems to be 'we will ensure you have access to food and water and energy and in exchange your total loyalty to the state is required' Judging based on the most recent incidence of mass starvation, which model do you think worked better? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  I'm not sure if that is relevant to this particular issue, but the history is fascinating. Not everyone gets excited about fertilizer chemistry but when Nixon went to China and opened up trade, the very first major industrial projects were the construction of massive ammonia fertilizer plants across China, built with American technology (*well German technology from the 1900's more accurately, just updated). This ended the famine cycle in China [1]: > The removal of the limits to agricultural growth and China’s industrialization came in the immediate aftermath of US President Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China. The first commercial deal signed immediately after the visit was China’s order for thirteen of the world’s largest synthetic ammonia complexes for producing nitrogen-based chemical fertilizer. China purchased additional plants in the 1970s, developed its own capacity to build chemical fertilizer plants in the 1980s, became more or less self-sufficient in the 1990s, and began exporting chemical fertilizer by the turn of the new millennium. [1] https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/9279-modern-china-s-agricultural-contradictions/ https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/9279-modern-china-s-agricu... Now is a rigidly authoritarian state necessary for this kind of technological development? Err... no.
zepto 5y ago
It’s not really ‘the American model’ - it’s the model America was founded to try to avoid. The trend you identify seems to be in all political systems. The fact that america as a political ideal is not immune to the trend does seem to be a failure.
- tomerv 5y ago
  In what way is this "the model America was founded to try to avoid"?
  - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
    It can be argued that the separation of powers and systems of checks and balances defined in the US Constitution help to ensure that no single person or group holds too much power over the American people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the...
    - sangnoir 5y ago
      > American people It's public knowledge that there always was been an asterisk on "people" from the very beginning, and who it encompasses is always shifting. A lot of dismay comes from people learning that the government (any arm) of the day doesn't include them in this group[1]. 1. "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
      - zepto 5y ago
        This has been true of all governments of all kinds thoughout all of time. Once again, it’s something America can only be criticized for because the goal is for it to be something different. It’s fair to criticize America for not living up to its ideals. It’s intellectually dishonest to imply that the ideals don’t exist.
        sangnoir 5y ago

yosito 5y ago

> The Chinese model seems to be 'we will ensure you have access to food and water and energy and in exchange your total loyalty to the state is required' Judging based on the most recent incidence of mass starvation, which model do you think worked better? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

photochemsyn 5y ago
I'm not sure if that is relevant to this particular issue, but the history is fascinating. Not everyone gets excited about fertilizer chemistry but when Nixon went to China and opened up trade, the very first major industrial projects were the construction of massive ammonia fertilizer plants across China, built with American technology (*well German technology from the 1900's more accurately, just updated). This ended the famine cycle in China [1]: > The removal of the limits to agricultural growth and China’s industrialization came in the immediate aftermath of US President Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China. The first commercial deal signed immediately after the visit was China’s order for thirteen of the world’s largest synthetic ammonia complexes for producing nitrogen-based chemical fertilizer. China purchased additional plants in the 1970s, developed its own capacity to build chemical fertilizer plants in the 1980s, became more or less self-sufficient in the 1990s, and began exporting chemical fertilizer by the turn of the new millennium. [1] https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/9279-modern-china-s-agricultural-contradictions/ https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/9279-modern-china-s-agricu... Now is a rigidly authoritarian state necessary for this kind of technological development? Err... no.

zepto 5y ago

It’s not really ‘the American model’ - it’s the model America was founded to try to avoid. The trend you identify seems to be in all political systems. The fact that america as a political ideal is not immune to the trend does seem to be a failure.

tomerv 5y ago
In what way is this "the model America was founded to try to avoid"?
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  It can be argued that the separation of powers and systems of checks and balances defined in the US Constitution help to ensure that no single person or group holds too much power over the American people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the...
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    > American people It's public knowledge that there always was been an asterisk on "people" from the very beginning, and who it encompasses is always shifting. A lot of dismay comes from people learning that the government (any arm) of the day doesn't include them in this group[1]. 1. "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
    - zepto 5y ago
      This has been true of all governments of all kinds thoughout all of time. Once again, it’s something America can only be criticized for because the goal is for it to be something different. It’s fair to criticize America for not living up to its ideals. It’s intellectually dishonest to imply that the ideals don’t exist.
      - sangnoir 5y ago