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Deng Xiaoping. In the pure utilitarian sense, he may have had the greatest positive impact of any person in the 20th century. In a century wracked by war betw

Deng Xiaoping. In the pure utilitarian sense, he may have had the greatest positive impact of any person in the 20th century. In a century wracked by war between the ideologies, his philosophy was just the tonic the world needed: "Who cares if the mouse is black or white, as long it catches the mouse".

tokenadult 17y ago
I'd give Chiang Ching-kuo the credit for preceding Deng in that point of view.
cowmoo 17y ago
"Don't care if the cat is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches the mouse, it's a good cat." Basically for those who are interested in the background of the quote, Deng arose to power at the end of the Cultural Revolution, at the height of Chinese communism ideology when the government was so communist that they broke away from the Soviet's and accused of USSR as "revisionist"; destroyed all of the Buddhist temples in China as "backwards and Confucius," imprisoned the sons and daughters of former capitalists (because there were no current one's left) for being "Western corrupution," and stripped intellectual's of their post in Universities and forced them to "country-side re-education camps" for being "radical leftists against communism." Before he rose to power, Deng himself was denounced and stripped of his political post, and sent down for "re-education." In little as four or five years, in that kind of environment, Deng has reformed the former Chinese market-command economy to become more capitalistic. Liberalized the political and free-speech in China, that allowed for media/film/journalism criticize the Chinese Communist party which eventually led to the Tienanmen Incident. Deng, confronted tremendous criticism and resistance from the hardliners of the Community party when he tried enact his reform. He used this quote about "black cat" or "white cat" in a speech he delivered to the political cadres to persuade them to be a bit more pragmatic and less ideological about their communism, after 43 million people have died from Great Leap Forward and the Culture Revolution. It was also Deng who eventually issued the order to strike down the student protesters in Tienanmen. This ambivalent character of Deng, of balancing liberalization versus stability has become a hallmark quality of the Chinese government. See how the Chinese government encourages citizens towards private asset ownership and entrepreneurship, but not towards democratic representation. See how the Chinese government agrees in principle to a Korea/Iran nuke disarmament, but they are more so wary of the stability of Korea/Iran region in the event of a international escalation - that they block the UN Security Council sanctions. Whether the current Chinese/Russian model of free markets but central strong political oligarchy without an ideological emphasis, versus the American model of free markets and free democracy with a strong ideology (leader of the free world), the viability of either models remains to be seem.
- chrischen 17y ago
  > he viability of either models remains to be seem. I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    > And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely. I actually completely agree with this, but regarding your first sentence: > I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. I agree with this, too, but neither of the two models being discussed here actually does this. Perhaps the question, then, is which of the two models does a relatively better job, and the answer is not so obvious. There are some who would argue that the Chinese model does a better job of it, and they are not completely nuts. Edit: I wanted to add that your post deserves praise, because you have made an essential connection that few people have. It is more efficient when people do what they want, this does indeed apply to schools/education as well as large-scale economic organization, and in no way is this a coincidence!
    - chrischen 17y ago
      I agree, people who praise China's system isn't completely nuts. I have lived in China though, and I have a bunch of relatives there. I also visit regularly. But the fact is that the general consensus among Chinese youth (both from those I've encountered and from sentiments I've read on the web) is that even they don't like their current system. Even older generations acknowledge the fact that their standard of living is lower, and that China is basically unstable, and hostile to free individual thought. My dad grew up in in China (grew up poor might I add) and does not believe in the Chinese system. What does China have right now? Authoritarian style government. It's not near pure communism, just as America is not near pure capitalism. But the main difference between China and America is that China is authoritarian and America (and all the developed world) is democratic. I agree mob rule is bad. Can democracy work for China? Maybe. Democracy depends on the population to be educated in order to work ideally. Obviously 40 years ago many Chinese were uneducated and poor. Today many are still poor, but there is a growing middle class. More people are educated now and that number is continuously increasing. And as evident in the development of a society: as the standard of living and education of the population rises, they tend to convert to democracy. This is probably why all developed nations are democratic. Obviously uneducated poor populations cannot govern themselves. One bad idea from one uneducated person will be echoed by 100 uneducated if democratic rule would take place. Therefore it is up to the few in that society who are educated to take charge. So in such situations an authoritarian style may be more effective. But when there is less of an education gap, it not only becomes more fair to adopt a democratic process, but more effective since there is inherent risk in granting power to select few in a more equal society. Of course the same risk is present in a society with a large education gap, but the benefits of having the smart making the decisions outweighs that risk. In the United States there is less of an education gap and people are more equal. Therefore the risk in having the smartest and best govern is not worth the fewer benefits (because an authoritarian regime can definitely be more effective if done right than a slow democratic system). The risk I am talking about is of course having someone corrupt step into power. Democracy is slow and ineffective by design for this very reason. Establishing country is analogous to a startup (I love startup analogies). You start with a startup and few people have complete and utter control. These few people mean less checks on bad decisions. Why? Because if it fails, there is very little to lose, and if it succeeds, very much to gain. This is analogous to the authoritarian phase of a society where it is much more ideal to take big risks since everyone's life is already shit (excuse my language). Of course once your company hits it big and has lots more to lose if a bad decision is made, your company has to be very careful. This is analogous to the democratic phase of a society where incremental benefits in management or efficiency no longer outweigh the risks which could topple the established welfare of said society/company. So the question now is what stage is China at? Are the citizens of China smart enough to make their own decisions now?
philwelch 17y ago
He was also responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre. Even as communist regimes were falling around the world, he ordered tanks and troops to gun people down for wanting reform in China, extinguishing any hope for civil or human rights in China for decades to come.
- bokonist 17y ago
  China has continued to become much more free since 1989. The comparison with Russia or the East European states is particular interesting, because China's growth rates have been much better. As for Tienanmen, every single mob revolution in the history of the world has caused far more deaths than the number of people who died at Tienanmen. Imagine how many millions of lives would have been saved if Louis the XVI had acted in the same way as Deng. The Chinese government did the right thing in putting in forcefully dispersing the mob. Any government, when faced with a armed, violent rebellion, needs to put it down. Revolutions and civil wars are the worse than any government. (And yes, the protesters had weapons: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385482329/ref=sib_dp_srch_pop?v=search-inside&keywords=unified+action+headquarters&go.x=11&go.y=15&go=Go!# http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385482329/ref=sib_dp_srch_p... )
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Imagine how many millions of lives would be freer and richer if Deng had acted in the same way as Gorbechev, Yeltsin, or even Egon Krenz. Had Louis XVI acted in the same way as Deng, continental Europe may still be under the heel of absolute monarchism today, with all the stupid pointless wars that entails. The French Revolution was a step forward for humanity, no matter how messy it was.
    - bokonist 17y ago
      Imagine how many millions of lives would be freer and richer if Deng had acted in the same way as Gorbechev, Yeltsin, or even Egon Krenz. Gorbechev was fairly similar to Deng. He liberalized the economy and increased freedom of speech, but he did not allow democracy. Yeltsin introduced democracy, and what was the result? A terrible economy, a dramatic rise in suicide rates and alcoholism, and now under Putin, even speech is becoming less free. If only there could have been two Dengs, one for China and one for Russia! The heel of monarchism? What heel? The fundamental problem of monarchy was not that it was oppressive (it wasn't), but that it wasn't a very good military Schelling point. Were taxes higher under monarchy? Was their less freedom of speech? Were there more wars? No, no, and no. Where do you get your history? Look at the history of free speech for example. Pretty much every country that has gotten free speech, originally got free speech while under non-democratic government (Britain under the monarchy, France under Louis the XVI, U.S. under British Colonial rule, Germany under Allied military command, Japan under allied military command). Democracy has generally either been neutral or corrosive towards freedom ( the French Revolution, the terrorizing of the loyalists in America http://books.google.com/books?id=SZccAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=fisher+true+history+american+revolution#v=onepage&q=&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=SZccAAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... , Nazis, etc ). And pointless wars? The Wars of the French Revolution killed far, far more than any monarchist war. Not only that, they invented the usage of mass slave armies to fight the war. The French Revolution Wars and the Napoleonic Wars presaged the great Democratic total wars that followed - the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. Had Louis the XVI put down the mob, the nationalization, conscript armies, and total war may have never been invented. Prussia would have never felt the need to unify to protect themselves against France. It's almost impossible to imagine World War I or World War II without the Wars of the French Revolution.

tokenadult 17y ago

I'd give Chiang Ching-kuo the credit for preceding Deng in that point of view.

cowmoo 17y ago

"Don't care if the cat is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches the mouse, it's a good cat." Basically for those who are interested in the background of the quote, Deng arose to power at the end of the Cultural Revolution, at the height of Chinese communism ideology when the government was so communist that they broke away from the Soviet's and accused of USSR as "revisionist"; destroyed all of the Buddhist temples in China as "backwards and Confucius," imprisoned the sons and daughters of former capitalists (because there were no current one's left) for being "Western corrupution," and stripped intellectual's of their post in Universities and forced them to "country-side re-education camps" for being "radical leftists against communism." Before he rose to power, Deng himself was denounced and stripped of his political post, and sent down for "re-education." In little as four or five years, in that kind of environment, Deng has reformed the former Chinese market-command economy to become more capitalistic. Liberalized the political and free-speech in China, that allowed for media/film/journalism criticize the Chinese Communist party which eventually led to the Tienanmen Incident. Deng, confronted tremendous criticism and resistance from the hardliners of the Community party when he tried enact his reform. He used this quote about "black cat" or "white cat" in a speech he delivered to the political cadres to persuade them to be a bit more pragmatic and less ideological about their communism, after 43 million people have died from Great Leap Forward and the Culture Revolution. It was also Deng who eventually issued the order to strike down the student protesters in Tienanmen. This ambivalent character of Deng, of balancing liberalization versus stability has become a hallmark quality of the Chinese government. See how the Chinese government encourages citizens towards private asset ownership and entrepreneurship, but not towards democratic representation. See how the Chinese government agrees in principle to a Korea/Iran nuke disarmament, but they are more so wary of the stability of Korea/Iran region in the event of a international escalation - that they block the UN Security Council sanctions. Whether the current Chinese/Russian model of free markets but central strong political oligarchy without an ideological emphasis, versus the American model of free markets and free democracy with a strong ideology (leader of the free world), the viability of either models remains to be seem.

chrischen 17y ago
> he viability of either models remains to be seem. I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  > And the reason relates to my beliefs in self-education vs school education. It's more efficient if people do what they want. So even an oligarchy with an emphasis on practical results will still be less efficient than individual people managing themselves freely. I actually completely agree with this, but regarding your first sentence: > I think it's safe to say that any model which encourages individual freedoms would be superior. I agree with this, too, but neither of the two models being discussed here actually does this. Perhaps the question, then, is which of the two models does a relatively better job, and the answer is not so obvious. There are some who would argue that the Chinese model does a better job of it, and they are not completely nuts. Edit: I wanted to add that your post deserves praise, because you have made an essential connection that few people have. It is more efficient when people do what they want, this does indeed apply to schools/education as well as large-scale economic organization, and in no way is this a coincidence!
  - chrischen 17y ago
    I agree, people who praise China's system isn't completely nuts. I have lived in China though, and I have a bunch of relatives there. I also visit regularly. But the fact is that the general consensus among Chinese youth (both from those I've encountered and from sentiments I've read on the web) is that even they don't like their current system. Even older generations acknowledge the fact that their standard of living is lower, and that China is basically unstable, and hostile to free individual thought. My dad grew up in in China (grew up poor might I add) and does not believe in the Chinese system. What does China have right now? Authoritarian style government. It's not near pure communism, just as America is not near pure capitalism. But the main difference between China and America is that China is authoritarian and America (and all the developed world) is democratic. I agree mob rule is bad. Can democracy work for China? Maybe. Democracy depends on the population to be educated in order to work ideally. Obviously 40 years ago many Chinese were uneducated and poor. Today many are still poor, but there is a growing middle class. More people are educated now and that number is continuously increasing. And as evident in the development of a society: as the standard of living and education of the population rises, they tend to convert to democracy. This is probably why all developed nations are democratic. Obviously uneducated poor populations cannot govern themselves. One bad idea from one uneducated person will be echoed by 100 uneducated if democratic rule would take place. Therefore it is up to the few in that society who are educated to take charge. So in such situations an authoritarian style may be more effective. But when there is less of an education gap, it not only becomes more fair to adopt a democratic process, but more effective since there is inherent risk in granting power to select few in a more equal society. Of course the same risk is present in a society with a large education gap, but the benefits of having the smart making the decisions outweighs that risk. In the United States there is less of an education gap and people are more equal. Therefore the risk in having the smartest and best govern is not worth the fewer benefits (because an authoritarian regime can definitely be more effective if done right than a slow democratic system). The risk I am talking about is of course having someone corrupt step into power. Democracy is slow and ineffective by design for this very reason. Establishing country is analogous to a startup (I love startup analogies). You start with a startup and few people have complete and utter control. These few people mean less checks on bad decisions. Why? Because if it fails, there is very little to lose, and if it succeeds, very much to gain. This is analogous to the authoritarian phase of a society where it is much more ideal to take big risks since everyone's life is already shit (excuse my language). Of course once your company hits it big and has lots more to lose if a bad decision is made, your company has to be very careful. This is analogous to the democratic phase of a society where incremental benefits in management or efficiency no longer outweigh the risks which could topple the established welfare of said society/company. So the question now is what stage is China at? Are the citizens of China smart enough to make their own decisions now?

philwelch 17y ago

He was also responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre. Even as communist regimes were falling around the world, he ordered tanks and troops to gun people down for wanting reform in China, extinguishing any hope for civil or human rights in China for decades to come.

bokonist 17y ago
China has continued to become much more free since 1989. The comparison with Russia or the East European states is particular interesting, because China's growth rates have been much better. As for Tienanmen, every single mob revolution in the history of the world has caused far more deaths than the number of people who died at Tienanmen. Imagine how many millions of lives would have been saved if Louis the XVI had acted in the same way as Deng. The Chinese government did the right thing in putting in forcefully dispersing the mob. Any government, when faced with a armed, violent rebellion, needs to put it down. Revolutions and civil wars are the worse than any government. (And yes, the protesters had weapons: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385482329/ref=sib_dp_srch_pop?v=search-inside&keywords=unified+action+headquarters&go.x=11&go.y=15&go=Go!# http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385482329/ref=sib_dp_srch_p... )
- philwelch 17y ago
  Imagine how many millions of lives would be freer and richer if Deng had acted in the same way as Gorbechev, Yeltsin, or even Egon Krenz. Had Louis XVI acted in the same way as Deng, continental Europe may still be under the heel of absolute monarchism today, with all the stupid pointless wars that entails. The French Revolution was a step forward for humanity, no matter how messy it was.
  - bokonist 17y ago
    Imagine how many millions of lives would be freer and richer if Deng had acted in the same way as Gorbechev, Yeltsin, or even Egon Krenz. Gorbechev was fairly similar to Deng. He liberalized the economy and increased freedom of speech, but he did not allow democracy. Yeltsin introduced democracy, and what was the result? A terrible economy, a dramatic rise in suicide rates and alcoholism, and now under Putin, even speech is becoming less free. If only there could have been two Dengs, one for China and one for Russia! The heel of monarchism? What heel? The fundamental problem of monarchy was not that it was oppressive (it wasn't), but that it wasn't a very good military Schelling point. Were taxes higher under monarchy? Was their less freedom of speech? Were there more wars? No, no, and no. Where do you get your history? Look at the history of free speech for example. Pretty much every country that has gotten free speech, originally got free speech while under non-democratic government (Britain under the monarchy, France under Louis the XVI, U.S. under British Colonial rule, Germany under Allied military command, Japan under allied military command). Democracy has generally either been neutral or corrosive towards freedom ( the French Revolution, the terrorizing of the loyalists in America http://books.google.com/books?id=SZccAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=fisher+true+history+american+revolution#v=onepage&q=&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=SZccAAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... , Nazis, etc ). And pointless wars? The Wars of the French Revolution killed far, far more than any monarchist war. Not only that, they invented the usage of mass slave armies to fight the war. The French Revolution Wars and the Napoleonic Wars presaged the great Democratic total wars that followed - the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. Had Louis the XVI put down the mob, the nationalization, conscript armies, and total war may have never been invented. Prussia would have never felt the need to unify to protect themselves against France. It's almost impossible to imagine World War I or World War II without the Wars of the French Revolution.