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I would argue that with the exception of the American Civil War, internal course corrections of the US during the last 250 years were a lot less violent than th

I would argue that with the exception of the American Civil War, internal course corrections of the US during the last 250 years were a lot less violent than those of China. The Taiping Rebellion, the White Lotus Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution - lots of deaths and chaos involved. (I omitted the civil war between CCP and the Kuomintag, which I consider roughly equivalent to the ACW.)

bryanlarsen 1y ago
The past is the past. Sometimes it is a good predictor of the future, other times people learn the lessons of mistakes, making the past anti-correlated.
- nradov 1y ago
  The history of China going back millennia is chock full of violent revolutions and civil wars. They don't seem to learn anything from mistakes. I fully expect another one in our lifetimes.
  - codedokode 1y ago
    You should look at European history for comparison. I don't remember, what did they have, a 100 or 200-year war?
    - nradov 1y ago
      Yes, Europeans are equally unable to learn from their mistakes.
      - mallowdram 1y ago
        You should grasp that China has maintained a civilization through line for 5K years. No other state comes close. The question is how.
        s1artibartfast 1y ago
        What does that even mean and how does it compare to any other place that is inhabited by humans?
        nradov 1y ago
        Civilization has been maintained in other places such as Egypt for just as long. You can argue about the degree of continuity but the modern nation state of China bears almost no resemblance to what existed on the same territory 5K years ago. So I don't understand what point you're trying to make.
grafmax 1y ago
Almost as if countries were closed systems and imperialism never existed. As if the US has not acted a neo-imperialist superpower post-WW2. Surely a country’s positionality in the global system contributes to how much violence occurs within their borders?
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  "Surely a country’s positionality in the global system contributes to how much violence occurs within their borders?" Surely, but how much? 1 per cent or 40 per cent? We don't know. As you say, nothing is a closed system. For example, by 1949, China imported Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist school of thought, a totally culturally alien system constructed by (mostly long dead) Europeans, which was the root cause of the horrors of the Maoist era - none of which were imposed by external empires by force. For all its faults, the US never forced the Chinese to exterminate the sparrows or attempt to build a steel mill in every village, resulting in a massive economic collapse and death toll.
  - grafmax 1y ago
    China had many famines before that during the century of humiliation. Maoism was itself a reaction to the dire social conditions of the time. This doesn’t absolve Maoism of its policies which led to millions dying. (And yet we shouldn’t absolve the global capitalist system either which leads to millions of preventable deaths each year.) Colonialist exploitation has been major historic driver over this timeframe (shifting to neo-colonialism in the world system post WW2). Admittedly it hasn’t been the only one. But our understanding of world history loses nuance if we gloss over colonialism and neo-colonialism over this period and treat historic events as due to the supposedly essential traits of this or that nation.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      It seems that famines in China were commonplace even pre-19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China Political system may be one of the reasons (feudalism doesn't have a great record in preventing famines either), but the most salient explanation might be that a pre-modern economy with high density of population is inherently prone to famines - a bad drought will easily topple the precarious balance between demand and supply towards lack of food, and without a railway network it is nearly impossible to move food easily among places that don't have good ports.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

The past is the past. Sometimes it is a good predictor of the future, other times people learn the lessons of mistakes, making the past anti-correlated.

nradov 1y ago
The history of China going back millennia is chock full of violent revolutions and civil wars. They don't seem to learn anything from mistakes. I fully expect another one in our lifetimes.
- codedokode 1y ago
  You should look at European history for comparison. I don't remember, what did they have, a 100 or 200-year war?
  - nradov 1y ago
    Yes, Europeans are equally unable to learn from their mistakes.
    - mallowdram 1y ago
      You should grasp that China has maintained a civilization through line for 5K years. No other state comes close. The question is how.
      - s1artibartfast 1y ago
        What does that even mean and how does it compare to any other place that is inhabited by humans?
      - nradov 1y ago
        Civilization has been maintained in other places such as Egypt for just as long. You can argue about the degree of continuity but the modern nation state of China bears almost no resemblance to what existed on the same territory 5K years ago. So I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

grafmax 1y ago

Almost as if countries were closed systems and imperialism never existed. As if the US has not acted a neo-imperialist superpower post-WW2. Surely a country’s positionality in the global system contributes to how much violence occurs within their borders?

inglor_cz 1y ago
"Surely a country’s positionality in the global system contributes to how much violence occurs within their borders?" Surely, but how much? 1 per cent or 40 per cent? We don't know. As you say, nothing is a closed system. For example, by 1949, China imported Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist school of thought, a totally culturally alien system constructed by (mostly long dead) Europeans, which was the root cause of the horrors of the Maoist era - none of which were imposed by external empires by force. For all its faults, the US never forced the Chinese to exterminate the sparrows or attempt to build a steel mill in every village, resulting in a massive economic collapse and death toll.
- grafmax 1y ago
  China had many famines before that during the century of humiliation. Maoism was itself a reaction to the dire social conditions of the time. This doesn’t absolve Maoism of its policies which led to millions dying. (And yet we shouldn’t absolve the global capitalist system either which leads to millions of preventable deaths each year.) Colonialist exploitation has been major historic driver over this timeframe (shifting to neo-colonialism in the world system post WW2). Admittedly it hasn’t been the only one. But our understanding of world history loses nuance if we gloss over colonialism and neo-colonialism over this period and treat historic events as due to the supposedly essential traits of this or that nation.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    It seems that famines in China were commonplace even pre-19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China Political system may be one of the reasons (feudalism doesn't have a great record in preventing famines either), but the most salient explanation might be that a pre-modern economy with high density of population is inherently prone to famines - a bad drought will easily topple the precarious balance between demand and supply towards lack of food, and without a railway network it is nearly impossible to move food easily among places that don't have good ports.