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China’s population is double that of Europe, so China would need to produce twice the quantity of innovation to be comparably innovative. I’m not saying it does

China’s population is double that of Europe, so China would need to produce twice the quantity of innovation to be comparably innovative. I’m not saying it doesn’t achieve this, but we should be wary of comparing two places with vastly different populations. > But when done right, as it was in China after the 90s and before the Pooh, it has also caused the single biggest reduction in poverty in world history, measured by number of people. This was largely China moving away from a planned economy and toward a more market oriented economy. Also, you have to take care about how you measure “largest reduction in poverty” here as well because poverty was declining all over the world at the same time, largely driven by advancements from the capitalist west and globalization. I’m sure economic planning can be credited with something, but the key element was “allowing western money to pour into the country” which looks a lot more like capitalism than central planning to my eyes.

tsimionescu 4y ago
> This was largely China moving away from a planned economy and toward a more market oriented economy. Possibly, though they still retained much more control than the capitalist economies they outgrew. > Also, you have to take care about how you measure “largest reduction in poverty” here as well because poverty was declining all over the world at the same time, largely driven by advancements from the capitalist west and globalization. That is not true. The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely. > I’m sure economic planning can be credited with something, but the key element was “allowing western money to pour into the country” which looks a lot more like capitalism than central planning to my eyes. If China had played by free market rules, Huawei, Alibaba and Xiaomi would not be competing with Samsung, Apple or Amazon right now. A large part of China's advantage came from the state using its negotiating power to force foreign companies to trade their IP for cheap manufacturing, thus propelling China's intellectual elite back from the dark age that it had been plunged into. Individual Chinese companies probably lost profits for a long time because of this, and much more US, Japanese or European money would have pourn in if they didn't enforce this policy; but, they would be much poorer today. Edit: note that China is and has always been a capitalist country. They were centrally planned state capitalists, and have moved somewhat in the direction of free market capitalism. But there has never been a period in China's history when production or wealth were democratically controlled.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely." This largely is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Specifically, many countries in southeast Asia, geographically close to China but using different societal models, have grown much, much richer since 1950. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia have nowadays much higher living standards than they used to have.

tsimionescu 4y ago

> This was largely China moving away from a planned economy and toward a more market oriented economy. Possibly, though they still retained much more control than the capitalist economies they outgrew. > Also, you have to take care about how you measure “largest reduction in poverty” here as well because poverty was declining all over the world at the same time, largely driven by advancements from the capitalist west and globalization. That is not true. The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely. > I’m sure economic planning can be credited with something, but the key element was “allowing western money to pour into the country” which looks a lot more like capitalism than central planning to my eyes. If China had played by free market rules, Huawei, Alibaba and Xiaomi would not be competing with Samsung, Apple or Amazon right now. A large part of China's advantage came from the state using its negotiating power to force foreign companies to trade their IP for cheap manufacturing, thus propelling China's intellectual elite back from the dark age that it had been plunged into. Individual Chinese companies probably lost profits for a long time because of this, and much more US, Japanese or European money would have pourn in if they didn't enforce this policy; but, they would be much poorer today. Edit: note that China is and has always been a capitalist country. They were centrally planned state capitalists, and have moved somewhat in the direction of free market capitalism. But there has never been a period in China's history when production or wealth were democratically controlled.

inglor_cz 4y ago
"The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely." This largely is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Specifically, many countries in southeast Asia, geographically close to China but using different societal models, have grown much, much richer since 1950. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia have nowadays much higher living standards than they used to have.