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> The true story with China is that moving Western manufacturing to China raised the standard of living for literally hundreds of millions of Chinese people out

> The true story with China is that moving Western manufacturing to China raised the standard of living for literally hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. And thereby strengthened the hand of the CCP.

koheripbal 4y ago
It's exactly the opposite. People who can afford a good education are harder to control.
- bigcat12345678 4y ago
  Yes, that's why American people are so dumbed down nowadays, intentionally by some people who happened to share this ideology.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  No it isn't. People with nothing to lose and living in poverty while seeing their democratic neighbors prospering are harder to control. People with education, jobs, and families - something to lose - are easier to control. How many Tienanmen Squares has China had since Asian and Western democracies opened their markets and enriched China.
  - qsort 4y ago
    This is literally ahistorical. The overwhelming majority of consequential protests/rebellions/revolutions were heavily endorsed by the literati class. Why do you think freedom of speech and expanding education are classically liberal claims? You can see it right now in Putin's Russia. Opposition to the regime, to the extent that it exists, does not come from the proles.
    - triactual 4y ago
      No, you are exactly backwards. Did the People’s Revolution win or did the students win? I seem to remember that the students were run over by tanks. Probably not being driven by highly educated PLA commanders.
      - koheripbal 4y ago
        You just destroyed the argument you were trying to make. The protesters were the well educated students. This will always be the tip of the spear for change. Revolutions that try to leverage the uneducated masses are the most bloody and destructive - and they usually lead to dictatorships, not democracies.
        triactual 4y ago
        They all leverage the masses. That’s the whole point. Otherwise it’s just a coup.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Tiananmen protesters were mostly students, young people with a lot of prospects in life, usually from a better-off families who could afford to send children to a university (instead of having them work and keep up the family). They definitely had much more to lose than Marx's lumpen proletariat. Of course, now people in China, especially in the rich coastal cities, have dramatically more to lose. They've been shown though that they would be allowed to prosper, as long as they do not try to disobey or even express doubt about CCP's rule. So it's pretty easy for them to convince themselves that CCP's policy is fine enough and not worth protesting against.
    - nsonha 4y ago
      > mostly students Aka nothing to lose. Having family and job would be considered having things to lose. Also let’s not consider students “educated”, they will be if they then build a career and actually practice their knowledge. Any clown can get a degree.
  - karpierz 4y ago
    Fun fact: due to the small labor market for terrorists and education spurring political interests, terrorists are disproportionally well-educated men from upper class families. Essentially, they're very intense lobbyists. Citation: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177823/what-makes-a-terrorist https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177823/wh...
dcolkitt 4y ago
Even if this is the case, do you honestly not think the tradeoff is worth it? Lifting a billion people out of crushing poverty seems worth it even if it came at the cost of giving a dictatorship stronger geopolitical influence.
- S201 4y ago
  An authoritarian, nuclear armed government that is bent on expansionism by flaunting the established global rule of law and that is likely to start a world war over Taiwan? No, I don't think that's a worthwhile tradeoff.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s accurate to say they are bent on expansion, but whether it’s worth it is more up to those 1 billion people to decide their fate and tradeoffs rather than foreign intervention. Oh and, due to China’s history of negative foreign interventions I doubt the population will take kindly to it now.
  - roflulz 4y ago
    talking about the US?
  - dcolkitt 4y ago
    China has been nuclear armed since the 1960s. That wasn't a product of the country's industrialization or trade with the West.
eunos 4y ago
Somebody needs to dispel the myth that "outside of liberalism/west there will be no prosperity"

koheripbal 4y ago

It's exactly the opposite. People who can afford a good education are harder to control.

bigcat12345678 4y ago
Yes, that's why American people are so dumbed down nowadays, intentionally by some people who happened to share this ideology.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
No it isn't. People with nothing to lose and living in poverty while seeing their democratic neighbors prospering are harder to control. People with education, jobs, and families - something to lose - are easier to control. How many Tienanmen Squares has China had since Asian and Western democracies opened their markets and enriched China.
- qsort 4y ago
  This is literally ahistorical. The overwhelming majority of consequential protests/rebellions/revolutions were heavily endorsed by the literati class. Why do you think freedom of speech and expanding education are classically liberal claims? You can see it right now in Putin's Russia. Opposition to the regime, to the extent that it exists, does not come from the proles.
  - triactual 4y ago
    No, you are exactly backwards. Did the People’s Revolution win or did the students win? I seem to remember that the students were run over by tanks. Probably not being driven by highly educated PLA commanders.
    - koheripbal 4y ago
      You just destroyed the argument you were trying to make. The protesters were the well educated students. This will always be the tip of the spear for change. Revolutions that try to leverage the uneducated masses are the most bloody and destructive - and they usually lead to dictatorships, not democracies.
      - triactual 4y ago
        They all leverage the masses. That’s the whole point. Otherwise it’s just a coup.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Tiananmen protesters were mostly students, young people with a lot of prospects in life, usually from a better-off families who could afford to send children to a university (instead of having them work and keep up the family). They definitely had much more to lose than Marx's lumpen proletariat. Of course, now people in China, especially in the rich coastal cities, have dramatically more to lose. They've been shown though that they would be allowed to prosper, as long as they do not try to disobey or even express doubt about CCP's rule. So it's pretty easy for them to convince themselves that CCP's policy is fine enough and not worth protesting against.
  - nsonha 4y ago
    > mostly students Aka nothing to lose. Having family and job would be considered having things to lose. Also let’s not consider students “educated”, they will be if they then build a career and actually practice their knowledge. Any clown can get a degree.
- karpierz 4y ago
  Fun fact: due to the small labor market for terrorists and education spurring political interests, terrorists are disproportionally well-educated men from upper class families. Essentially, they're very intense lobbyists. Citation: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177823/what-makes-a-terrorist https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177823/wh...

dcolkitt 4y ago

Even if this is the case, do you honestly not think the tradeoff is worth it? Lifting a billion people out of crushing poverty seems worth it even if it came at the cost of giving a dictatorship stronger geopolitical influence.

S201 4y ago
An authoritarian, nuclear armed government that is bent on expansionism by flaunting the established global rule of law and that is likely to start a world war over Taiwan? No, I don't think that's a worthwhile tradeoff.
- chrischen 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s accurate to say they are bent on expansion, but whether it’s worth it is more up to those 1 billion people to decide their fate and tradeoffs rather than foreign intervention. Oh and, due to China’s history of negative foreign interventions I doubt the population will take kindly to it now.
- roflulz 4y ago
  talking about the US?
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  China has been nuclear armed since the 1960s. That wasn't a product of the country's industrialization or trade with the West.

eunos 4y ago

Somebody needs to dispel the myth that "outside of liberalism/west there will be no prosperity"