4 ms·

The China Model Is Dead

7 points by clouddrover 3y ago

wolverine876 3y ago
All the China hype has shifted to anti-hype. Is it any more valid? I have always tended to think China's model would hit a ceiling due to lack of individual freedom. If you can only do what government thinks is a good idea, it's hard to imagine much innovtion happening. But many places, including Taiwan, grew rapidly under authoritarian rule, where those economic decisions were easy for government - when you start that far behind, you only need to follow a well-paved path. But my understanding is that they hit a ceiling when they run out of pavement and need to find their own way forward. Try to name any one person or organization in the US, for example, that could make those decisions for every business, technology, resource, university, etc. in the economy. It's just not plausible. The others, such as Taiwan and South Korea, threw off authoritarian rule, became free, and then moved into the ranks of first world countries. China may do the same - it would be a great moment in human history, not to mention economic history, if the people in China found freedom.
- yorwba 3y ago
  Technically, first-world countries are those that allied with the US against the SU, and Taiwan and South Korea have been part of their ranks since the beginning. You probably mean high-income countries, but even then, Taiwan has been in this group since the World Bank started classifying countries by national income in 1987. That was also the year President Chiang Ching-kuo ended martial law. But the first parliamentary elections afterwards didn't happen until 1991. The first direct election of the President had to wait until 1996. South Korea did democratize (in 1987, coincidentally) before becoming a high-income economy (in 1995) but it's not like they had hit a ceiling that could only be overcome with democracy, economic growth simply continued along the previous trend. (And in any case, President Roh Tae-woo was the handpicked successor of the previous dictator and got elected with 36.6% of the vote due to a split opposition, so his democratic credentials are rather weak.) Maybe if authoritarian governments did work by having a single person making all decisions in the economy and you can only do what they think is good, there would be greater economic benefits to democracy. But the typical authoritarian isn't quite that omnipotent or that stupid, so decision making is still decentralized across different companies and if you have an idea that the government doesn't consider good but also not actively harmful, you may not be eligible for subsidies, but you can still try your luck raising capital from investors. So I don't think China is ever going to encounter a ceiling where innovation becomes impossible due to lack of individual freedom. But they might democratize nonetheless if there's a power struggle between factions of similar strength (e.g. after Xi dies without a successor) who don't trust a strong government controlled by one faction not to eliminate the others, and thus agree to reforms weakening state power.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    What are those theories based on? Admittedly, I didn't offer much evidence; mine are based on what scholars and practicioners have long said about development. Also, it's a two-way interaction between democracy and economic development - wealthier citizens have more time and resources to demand democracy. > But the typical authoritarian isn't quite that omnipotent or that stupid People in a democracy could certainly believe a politician would be that stupid. Somehow a few people believe the hype about authoritarians. Plenty of examples of that stupidity, starting with Xi right now, who is taking economic decision-making from private business - even with the enormous success China has had with that - and centralizing it in the government. Look at North Korea or so many others, now and historically - it was the norm for history before democracy. Another bit of evidence: The very strong correlation between high-income countries and democracy. No authoritarian (or otherwise non-democratic) country has come close. Much more serious is the trendy infatuation some Westerners have with dictatorship. Ignoring the fundamental immorality - who is the dictator to tell anyone else what to do? - they are playing with high-explosives in their family's basement.
    - yorwba 3y ago
      On the relationship between economic growth and democracy in general, I'm with Daniel Treisman's observation https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-043546 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-05... that more developed countries are more likely to democratize when the government changes than less developed ones, which often simply end up with another autocrat. But if the government is stable, autocracies can maintain economic growth for a long time, the current outlier being Singapore with 3 prime ministers in over 60 years and a more developed economy than most democracies. On Chinese ability to innovate, Jeffrey Ding points out https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2173633 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2... that China's innovation capacity is high relative to other countries, but the diffusion capacity necessary for widespread adoption of innovations is low. So theories focusing on the supposed inability of autocracies to innovate might be barking up the wrong tree. Even assuming that Xi actually makes all decisions attributed to him, that those decisions are stupid, and that they take economic decision-making from private business, he's still not omnipotent and the vast majority of economic decisions are made at a local level, in response to the particular conditions individual businesses are facing.
RichCow1234 3y ago
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7 points by clouddrover 3y ago

All the China hype has shifted to anti-hype. Is it any more valid? I have always tended to think China's model would hit a ceiling due to lack of individual freedom. If you can only do what government thinks is a good idea, it's hard to imagine much innovtion happening. But many places, including Taiwan, grew rapidly under authoritarian rule, where those economic decisions were easy for government - when you start that far behind, you only need to follow a well-paved path. But my understanding is that they hit a ceiling when they run out of pavement and need to find their own way forward. Try to name any one person or organization in the US, for example, that could make those decisions for every business, technology, resource, university, etc. in the economy. It's just not plausible. The others, such as Taiwan and South Korea, threw off authoritarian rule, became free, and then moved into the ranks of first world countries. China may do the same - it would be a great moment in human history, not to mention economic history, if the people in China found freedom.

yorwba 3y ago
Technically, first-world countries are those that allied with the US against the SU, and Taiwan and South Korea have been part of their ranks since the beginning. You probably mean high-income countries, but even then, Taiwan has been in this group since the World Bank started classifying countries by national income in 1987. That was also the year President Chiang Ching-kuo ended martial law. But the first parliamentary elections afterwards didn't happen until 1991. The first direct election of the President had to wait until 1996. South Korea did democratize (in 1987, coincidentally) before becoming a high-income economy (in 1995) but it's not like they had hit a ceiling that could only be overcome with democracy, economic growth simply continued along the previous trend. (And in any case, President Roh Tae-woo was the handpicked successor of the previous dictator and got elected with 36.6% of the vote due to a split opposition, so his democratic credentials are rather weak.) Maybe if authoritarian governments did work by having a single person making all decisions in the economy and you can only do what they think is good, there would be greater economic benefits to democracy. But the typical authoritarian isn't quite that omnipotent or that stupid, so decision making is still decentralized across different companies and if you have an idea that the government doesn't consider good but also not actively harmful, you may not be eligible for subsidies, but you can still try your luck raising capital from investors. So I don't think China is ever going to encounter a ceiling where innovation becomes impossible due to lack of individual freedom. But they might democratize nonetheless if there's a power struggle between factions of similar strength (e.g. after Xi dies without a successor) who don't trust a strong government controlled by one faction not to eliminate the others, and thus agree to reforms weakening state power.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  What are those theories based on? Admittedly, I didn't offer much evidence; mine are based on what scholars and practicioners have long said about development. Also, it's a two-way interaction between democracy and economic development - wealthier citizens have more time and resources to demand democracy. > But the typical authoritarian isn't quite that omnipotent or that stupid People in a democracy could certainly believe a politician would be that stupid. Somehow a few people believe the hype about authoritarians. Plenty of examples of that stupidity, starting with Xi right now, who is taking economic decision-making from private business - even with the enormous success China has had with that - and centralizing it in the government. Look at North Korea or so many others, now and historically - it was the norm for history before democracy. Another bit of evidence: The very strong correlation between high-income countries and democracy. No authoritarian (or otherwise non-democratic) country has come close. Much more serious is the trendy infatuation some Westerners have with dictatorship. Ignoring the fundamental immorality - who is the dictator to tell anyone else what to do? - they are playing with high-explosives in their family's basement.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    On the relationship between economic growth and democracy in general, I'm with Daniel Treisman's observation https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-043546 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-05... that more developed countries are more likely to democratize when the government changes than less developed ones, which often simply end up with another autocrat. But if the government is stable, autocracies can maintain economic growth for a long time, the current outlier being Singapore with 3 prime ministers in over 60 years and a more developed economy than most democracies. On Chinese ability to innovate, Jeffrey Ding points out https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2173633 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2... that China's innovation capacity is high relative to other countries, but the diffusion capacity necessary for widespread adoption of innovations is low. So theories focusing on the supposed inability of autocracies to innovate might be barking up the wrong tree. Even assuming that Xi actually makes all decisions attributed to him, that those decisions are stupid, and that they take economic decision-making from private business, he's still not omnipotent and the vast majority of economic decisions are made at a local level, in response to the particular conditions individual businesses are facing.

RichCow1234 3y ago

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