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> Necessity is the mother of innovation. It is, but it is not the driver of it. China was an agrarian country with insane population growth before Deng Xiaopin
by mtts 13y ago
> Necessity is the mother of innovation.
It is, but it is not the driver of it. China was an agrarian country with insane population growth before Deng Xiaoping took office and yet the remedy of the government at that time was to increase population growth even further and spur on the youth in some sort of whack job ideological frenzy.
At some point, some people took some responsibility and turned the ship around. To my mind this is the most important thing to keep in mind about the current Chinese government: it may be staggeringly corrupt and have an absolutely frightening human rights record, but for the past thirty years it has done a surprisingly good job in reducing poverty for hundreds of millions of people. This does not mean they should be forgiven their abuses, but their successes definitely deserve credit.
- DenisM 13y ago> Deng Xiaoping took office and yet the remedy of the government at that time was to increase population growth even further and spur on the youth in some sort of whack job ideological frenzy. Can you clarify? Wikipedia does not seem to support your statement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping#Re-emergence_post-Cultural_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping#Re-emergence_post... Thanks.
- mtts 13y agoWack job ideological frenzy: the cultural revolution Increase population growth: One of Mao's slogans was "The more people we are, the stronger we are". Some graphs here: http://www.slideshare.net/isc/china-population-policies http://www.slideshare.net/isc/china-population-policies
- DenisM 13y agoBut wait, this happened before Deng came to power. Deng oversaw dismantling of he cultural revolution, per above Wikipedia link.