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> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of th
by Hasz 2mo ago
> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles
Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of the US on a "Chinese timescale", the US rejected autocratic rule, built a system that decentralizes power, uses ambition to check ambition, and provides for frequent, peaceful transfer of power. To an autocratic Chinese bureaucrat, this is all wasteful shortsightedness, but allows the US to pivot, change, adapt, etc at very fast pace, at least for government.
I do not believe the autocratic bargain that China has made with its people is stable, lasting form of government, even as they seek to export it elsewhere. The fundamental trade is individual voice in politics for breakneck growth and dramatically increased standard of living. However, if you are one of the few young people born in China recently, what breakneck growth? A vicious gauntlet of schooling, the great filter in the gaokao, only to work for 996 company until you cannot anymore.
We can see what happened in places like Venezuela or Argentina when the government breaks their end of the bargain, as will likely happen to other autocratic states.
- kibwen 2mo agoThe belief that autocracies will inevitably fall (or perhaps that "the arc of history bends towards justice") is hopelessly naive. Technology is a force multiplier with the power to entrench autocracy, forever.
- _superposition_ 2mo agoWhat if communism/socialism works with the assistance of technology?
- polotics 2mo agoCan you be more precise maybe?
- AnimalMuppet 2mo agoThe problem always was that the central planners never knew enough to plan the economy right. Well, with enough technology, enough reporting into the central database, they theoretically could know enough. And that might actually work, if that were the only problem. But it's not. The deeper problem is that people work better when they get to share in the proceeds. People didn't work very well in the "worker's paradise". They worked half-heartedly, doing the least they could to get by, and production (and quality) reflected it. (This isn't exclusive to communism, though. Large corporations can have similar issues.)
- dagenleg 2mo agoIt's not just large corporations, it's arguably most jobs, and it's getting worse. Wageslaves don't get to keep those proceeds either, not enough bargaining power.
- TFYS 2mo agoIt's the promise of a reward that makes people work better. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a share of the proceeds. Athletes push themselves hard for recognition and some monetary reward. A planned economy could have something like that to motivate people.
- daliusd 2mo agoStill you will not be able to give any existing example that lasted longer than 100 years. There are examples like Sayfawa dynasty which is counter-example to your claim about technology being multiplier
- andriy_koval 2mo agomany autocracies in terms of social management systems lasted for many hundreds years. Leaders of specific autocracies change, right (e.g. king got killed, but now we have new king), but governing structure persisted.
- kamaal 2mo agoIf you treat politics as a religion then you argue merits. Most common people care for abundance and affluence. Any system that helps them arrive there is ok.
- feverzsj 2mo agoThey will all fail. The difference is how brutal the end will be.
- kibwen 2mo agoFall how? Please be specific. The people will rise up to take down their evil leaders? With what weapons will the people be armed? With what weapons will their evil leaders oppose them?
- andriy_koval 2mo agothere is competition in technology field, and autocracies are not most competitive entities compared to say public corporations. Its still not clear who will win (common folks unlikely though)
- pphysch 2mo agoThis comment might hold water in 2006 or 2016 but it rings hollow in 2026. Who elected/congressionally-approved Jared Kushner to run US foreign policy?
- Hasz 2mo agoI'm sorry to hear you feel it rings hollow. As you know, the secretary of state is Marco Rubio, who is appointed and confirmed by the senate (bipartisian-ish, I might add). I am no fan of Kushner, but saying he runs US foreign policy is generously misleading at best.
- pphysch 2mo agoIt is a fact that Kushner (plus Witkoff) has been playing the role of primary diplomat of the USA in critical matters of peace and war. In many cases, Rubio is not even present at these key foreign meetings.
- scottLobster 2mo agoPlus, China's growth to this day is built on the back of foreign, primarily American, consumption. If they ever beat us too badly, they go down with us. They'd need to find alternate consumer markets to alleviate this, and what are their options? Domestic is out, China hasn't managed to create a domestic consumer market with their current demographics, which are only getting worse as their baby bust deepens. Europe? Similar demographic issues, simply not enough consumption to replace the US and greater economic protectionism. The 3rd world? Maybe, but first you have to develop it, and even if you could manage that they have nationalist impulses of their own. You think India is going to willingly offshore their industry to China on the scale of the US? The American system for all its many flaws is extremely dynamic. Trump and his policies are mostly bad adaptations, but they are attempts at adaptation, and the attempts aren't going to stop. The US has changed radically in the last 10 years; there's no reason it can't change just as radically in the next 10.
- Gud 2mo agoWhy must the consumption be exported? Why can't they build for themselves?
- scottLobster 2mo agoBecause that would lead to mass unemployment and deindustrialization, as China lacks the wealth among the lower classes and the demographics to consume everything that it produces.
- Gud 2mo agoWealth is made.
- scottLobster 2mo agoYes, in China's case through mass exports. What you're suggesting is North Korean Juche. Turning China into a larger North Korea will not increase its prosperity.
- dyauspitr 2mo agoThe Chinese model is 100% not exportable. It is in essence a benevolent dictatorship that actually seems to be functioning. It’s exactly like having a good monarch and if you look at history, good monarchs, were not all that frequent.
- bad_haircut72 2mo agoAgree with this however I wonder how functional it would be in a war - benevolent Xi, like all those good monarchs of the past, still has to quash rivals and every so often purges his top brass to put loyalists in, which we can see how effective that is in Russia right now (no comment on current US administrative choices in this regard, but at least historically, our generals were career military)
- Sabinus 2mo agoAnd what happens to the loyalty system Xi created after he dies? It will have been in power for decades by then.
- polotics 2mo agoCan you qualify the benevolence maybe as a factor of the distance to Beijing?
- dyauspitr 2mo agoThe nobles and the courtiers were always favored more.
- Hasz 2mo agoThe article explictly mentions trying to export it via belt and road, which is why I bring it up.
- AnimalMuppet 2mo agoA benevolent dictatorship that actually seems to be functioning... at the moment. If you look at the last 30 years, it looks like it works. But if you look at the last 70...
- godwinson__4-8 2mo ago"A republic, if you can keep it". The "the trajectory of the US on a 'Chinese timescale'" barely even registers. While the CCP might not be that old, China considers itself an ancient society with a level of historical coherence that makes the United States rather insignificant as a lesson in political history. You've offered a hugely reductive and rosy view of American history. Democracy is easy until it gets hard. America has fought a civil war before. The Congress basically does not function anymore ergo the "imperial presidency". The balance of powers the framers created when the country was a sparsely populated periphery of 3 million people has changed dramatically. George Washington rejected a partisan affiliation and regarded it as a societal disease. He was elected unanimously. Without his personal touch, the country probably would not have survived into the 19th century. America has come into superpower status as the rest of the world destroyed itself. Post WWII, the quality of our politics have steeply and sharply declined, go back and watch debates from the 1960s. The same civil war cleavages are being debated today, with far less eloquence than a Buckley Jr or a James Baldwin. People outside of the United States seem to imagine the rest of the world is naive about democracy. No. Rather when you are an old enough society, you experience more things and understand democracy has its own risks - just as any form of government. Democracy is not as easy or "self evident" as Americans think. The nature of American democracy has already changed radically since the founding. If you factor in "universal suffrage" to mean "democracy" then the United States hasn't even existed as a true democracy for 100 years. Are you really that bullish on the United States a century from now? Based on what? It seems obvious to me the next century will necessarily trend towards multipolarity. The chances of any American being born today having a better life than their parents have to approach the chances of techno-utopian fantasy. Which will only be attained if Americans learn to live with China as a partner not an adversary. Chinese scientists may cure cancer. They will innovate and solve other problems for the good of all mankind. Meanwhile in the United States your politicians can't even achieve universal healthcare. That is just one example where the United States has continually failed to make change at pace for decades. WWII recedes farther and farther into the background. So does the Pax Americana. China is not the enemy of the average American. It's just an obvious smoke screen for the homegrown problem - greedy elites robbing the country blind, buying elections and achieving corruption at a scale that makes "democracy" seem rather unattractive entirely. Please consult your history. I don't even necessarily disagree with your view on China. But it's not made better by essentially setting up a straw man, by suggesting the United States "as a democracy" is somehow especially immune to the same sorts of vicissitudes of history that may inflict themselves on China. The more I read about American history, the less I think "democracy" really had anything to do with America's success. It does make for nice mythology though. Perhaps it is an accompanying comfort that history is highly contingent, and that it really could have worked out in a myriad set of ways.
- grunder_advice 2mo agoI find your framing somewhat historically inaccurate. China did not make an "autocratic bargain" with its people. Democracy and Liberalism are offshoots of Christian culture that originated in Europe and spread to the former European colonies (including to Venezuela and Argentina) and post-WWII to the allies. Although China flirted briefly with liberalism and democracy those remained foreign concepts and did not permeate Chinese culture. So therefore to me a more correct historical reading is that China, a fairly insular culture, was pretty much always ruled as an authoritarian inward focused realm and it still is today. I think it is also an unjustified assumption that China would fare better under a liberal democratic regime. For example, currently the CCP keeps all the Chinese oligarchs in check. A liberal democratic China would find it much harder to control those oligarchs. Argentina and Venezuela are completely different situations where the population is a mix of different cultures and ethnicities and unlike China they had been injected with a heavy dose of western liberal democratic tradition before they regressed back to authoritarianism. Bottom line is, I think people tend to have this really weird blind spot to culture and history when they discuss politics.
- Hasz 2mo ago> China did not make an "autocratic bargain" with its people For a good review: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/10/05/chinas-authoritarian-model-stability-today-risks-tomorrow/ https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/10/05/chinas-authoritarian-m... Shangahi went from a dusty fishing village to one of the largest, most populous metropolises in <50years. > Democracy and Liberalism are offshoots of Christian culture cmon, democracy as a word should tell you that is not be true. Earliest is probably Greek, about 500 BC. Notably, this is before Christian culture existed, unless you want to talk about the "borrowing" from older religions. > China flirted briefly with liberalism and democracy Otherwise known as the Chinese Civil War :) > China, a fairly insular culture Modern China, 90% Han Chinese. Han were not always on top, notably China was ruled by outsiders (most famously the Qing imo), but also Liao, Jin, Yuan dynasties. Phrase is "conquest dynasty".
- fmajid 2mo ago> Democracy and Liberalism are offshoots of Christian culture That would be news to the pagan ancient Athenians who invented democracy (although the Indus Valley Civilization may have beaten them to it). The Athenians were clear-eyed about the dangers to democracy and developed procedures like ostracism to deal with the threat from the inside.