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Just going by appearances, the story at the time looked a lot like Jack Ma fleeing the country for a bit. One minute he was disturbing the tranquillity in China
by roenxi 3y ago
Just going by appearances, the story at the time looked a lot like Jack Ma fleeing the country for a bit. One minute he was disturbing the tranquillity in China then the next he was picking up some Zen among the cherry blossoms.
It is interesting to compare-and-contrast Jack Ma and Elon Musk who seems to me the nearest analogue in the US. How their host countries treat them says a lot about the real cultural differences between Washington and Beijing. For all America's problems - at least up to Trump level annoying the politicians - it is safe to build wealth in the US.
- daghamm 3y agoChina is still ruled by communism, the goverment has a majority share in every company. That's bad for entrepreneurs, but also means that they can have the entire power of CCP behind them. There are tons of example where a small company started by stealing from western competitors then suddenly produced a huge pile of cash out of nowhere to bought those competitors and took over their marketshare in the west.
- jfim 3y agoDo you have examples of such companies? I'm curious to see which industries they were in.
- slowmotiony 3y agoThe boss of ARM China was fired by the company board, decided he has a different opinion on the matter, changed the locks to the office and just stopped communicating with the rest of the company. The chinese courts sided with him, then when SoftBank acquired them, the company staff just left, took all the IP and started a new company. https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heist-of-the-century https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heist-of-th... https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ousted-arm-china-ceo-refuses-to-go-after-being-fired-again/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ousted-arm-china-...
- ametrau 3y agoTo be fair it wasn’t actually retarded because no one could foresee China stealing arm’s IP.
- red-iron-pine 3y agois that sarcasm? China and stealing IP are like cookies and milk
- ametrau 3y agoYes it is sarcasm.
- nebula8804 3y agoMore like tea and baozi :P
- red-iron-pine 3y agoyoutiao and soymilk?
- nebula8804 3y agoYou miss 100% of the shots you don't take. China has taken that to heart lol.
- RangerScience 3y ago/Personally/, I’d attribute that more to authoritarianism than communism, but the two have been commingled since Lenin so it’s not necessarily an important difference.
- non-chalad 3y agoIsn't communism supposed to be achieved through authoritarianism, after which the state "withers away" [sic]?
- RangerScience 3y agoAFAIK (“Seeing like a State”), that’s specific to the Leninist modality. I very well could be misinformed, but, the book mentions essentially a moment where democratic-socialism was co-opted by authoritarian communism (Leninism), so that’s what the world ended up with.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y ago[flagged]
- defrost 3y agoWere, not Are ... from your own link: > Marxism–Leninism was the first official ideology of the CCP. Mao Zedong Thought was some time ago and since then various directions the CCP has taken have been criticized as being un-Marxist and a betrayal of basic Marxist values. The Authoritarian edge has always been there in the CCP, ebbing and flowing with the years .. but that part is distinctly un-(classical)-communism. Like Capitalism "Twue Communism" has never really existed, even the big names in modern "communism" have said on the record that they represent authoritarian "on behalf of the people" (sort of) socialist control as a neccessary means on the way to a true workers paradise (barf) .. you know, a classic bait and switch to mask a system being just another variation of top down control.
- 3y ago
- gloryjulio 3y agoWhile 'goverment has a majority share in every company' is very likely not true, but CCP does have control over the the companies whenever they want. They would force CCP member into the board and setup CCP organizations within the companies. Anyone who deals with China's companies would need to understand this. You are always dealing with CCP behind it
- djtango 3y agoI know it's not a dichotomy but I think these days I'd take that model over the opposite where behind every politician is a company and with government you are always dealing with companies behind it.
- qsort 3y agoThe CCP is communist like I'm Chinese. They're just run-of-the-mill nationalist authoritarians.
- daliusd 3y agoWhich communist regime has not been nationalist authoritarian? Yes, in theory it is different thing but somehow in practice it always ends up like this.
- lazide 3y agoWell, there is authoritarianism and then there ‘a spy in every phone, internet Great Wall, re-education camps, social credit score’ authoritarianism no?
- vondur 3y agoI would argue that the CCP is basically fascist at this point.
- staplers 3y agoLabels like these are arbitrary anyways. It's just about what is explicitly said vs what happens in the shadows. Take "fines" for example. They are the cost of doing business and never actually dissuade the behavior (in the USA). This in effect allows the government to act as a shareholder (fines = dividends) under the guise of domestic legal enforcement. Then they turn around and protect the same corporations intellectual and physical property abroad.
- hackerlight 3y agoThat's the autocratic Leninist party model, which is what enabled them to defy predictions that economic liberalization would lead to political freedoms. They are solidly state capitalist since Deng, and since Xi I would classify them as far-right revisionist and even possibly fascist, with a strong focus on order, aesthetic, collective responsibility towards nation, and restoring the homeland, where homeland is defined on ethnonationalist not civic nationalist lines.
- KerrAvon 3y ago[flagged]
- themoonisachees 3y agoI'm not aware of this either. Maybe he is, but I was under the impression that he was simply another billionaire
- aaron695 3y ago[flagged]
- maxglute 3y ago> it is safe to build wealth in the US It's safe to build OBSCENE wealth in the states. It's safe to build wealth in PRC, plenty of 10-100 millionaires. It's also safe to build OBSCENE wealth in PRC, but it comes with more political caveats. Like not trying circumvent regulators by launching irresponsible fintech. Which system is better depends on how much you value checking billionaires.
- gscott 3y agoBuilding wealth in China you have to keep it there due to tight capital controls. In the USA you can transfer it out of the country if you want to. https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3212414/i-cant-get-my-money-out-billionaire-investor-mark-mobius-says-china-restricting-flows-capital-out https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3212414... https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-rich-are-using-total-strangers-to-sneak-cash-out-of-the-country-20231107-p5ei2h.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-rich-are... https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-banks-waits-07212023123106.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-banks-waits-072... https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/getting-money-out-of-china-the-long-version/ https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/getting-money-out-o... https://www.afr.com/world/asia/smurfing-strangers-how-china-s-rich-smuggle-cash-from-the-country-20231106-p5ei1o https://www.afr.com/world/asia/smurfing-strangers-how-china-... https://agbrief.com/news/china/24/01/2024/china-tightens-controls-on-capital-outflows-amid-market-rout/ https://agbrief.com/news/china/24/01/2024/china-tightens-con... https://www.uschina.org/china%E2%80%99s-capital-controls-choke-cross-border-payments https://www.uschina.org/china%E2%80%99s-capital-controls-cho... https://www.ft.com/chinese-capital-controls https://www.ft.com/chinese-capital-controls
- maxglute 3y agoAnd? They can financial engineer a few 100 million out of country and have generational wealth stashed abroad or be a boring billinoaire in PRC. Flashing extravagant lavishness is frowned upon, maybe settle for a 300 ft yacht instead of a 600ft mega yacht like a RU oligarch or Arab crown prince. They're billionaires they can get pretty much what they want, not upper-middle class family from tier1 city trying to figure out how to wire >50kUSD to pay their kids rent and tuition.
- gmerc 3y agoIt’s safe to build wealth and become untouchable and unaccountable in the US, all the way to attempting a coup
- red-iron-pine 3y agosounds like the best possible endorsement to me
- gmerc 3y agoIt would, if you are a closeted fascist.
- gloryjulio 3y agoNot saying the US model is the best, but having a fascist state like China would be worse. To quote Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.
- gmerc 3y agoThe good old “at least we are not hitler” benchmark and confusing end stage capitalism with democracy… what a flex
- nebula8804 3y agoOh yeah the US is so much better, a place where the largest source of bankruptcy is medical bankruptcy, people need to go into massive debt to get a college degree to have any chance of a middle class life and unless you have something that can make the elites even more extremely wealthy than they already are (programmer, engineer) then your chances of getting them to part with any of their wealth is slim to none. This is such a beautiful life isn't it? Im not saying China is any better, but come on man. Have some empathy for all the people that have been crushed by this system whether its the poor, the people on the receiving end in Gaza/Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Venezuela or just the people unlucky to not be born at a competitive level.
- baby 3y agoI understand the feeling, but on the other hand I don't think these are good examples because these people have gotten filthy rich and it's not clear to me if we actually need such accumulation of wealth. There's probably a healthy cap somewhere, the same way power is capped in the government.
- winrid 3y agoJack Ma didn't just try to build wealth like your average mid sized software or HVAC company. He built a monopoly and the company was fined for it and eventually broken up [0]. He obviously didn't like this and left the country to do billionaire things. To me there's nothing 1984 or dystopian about this. The guy was building a company that was hurting the people. If anything we need more of this in the US. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/07/tech/jack-ma-ant-group-fine https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/07/tech...
- logicchains 3y agoIt was only a harmful monopoly if you take the Chinese communist party's word at face value, which is a pretty naive thing to do.
- eunos 3y agoGood thing Lehman bros and Enron already gone by now, else they'd be lionized as "dynamic and forward thinking" compared to "sclerotic" party
- _xnmw 3y agoI'm not sure it is safe to build wealth anywhere, anymore, although the US is the country I chose to register my company in, because it is probably the safest. Still, I have my reservations. Petty theft like shoplifting is being increasingly normalized and justified in the US (see train package theft), and enforcement of property law is slipping, see how home owners can lose their home to "squatting". This is a very slippery slope which I hope doesn't go the way of the Bolshevik revolution, but anything is possible.
- professor_x 3y agoSafe relative to what? Being a Venetian banker or Chinese tea exporter wasnt that safe. What about prospecting for gold in Colorado river valleys where bears hang out? Moving trains of camels thru the Sahara? Chasing whales around for years at a time without going home. Today is way better.
- squigz 3y agoDid you really just compare the state of America to... the Russian Revolution?
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoFair, I think. We had protestors storm the centers of government, attempting to overthrow it, after the last election. So many similarities if you only look.
- nebula8804 3y agoWhats old is new again, just with more enshittification(in your example instead of gladiators storming the capitol we got lard butts one of which died by heart attack)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nebula8804 3y agoWonder if some of this is just people needing more and more of a 'thrill'. The US culture is one of auspicious displays of wealth or exceptionalism that things like doing train robberies, drifting in crowded times square, or outrunning cops for the 'likes' is the latest fad.....maybe im overthinking it and its just a lack of parenting.