I notice that the US seems to have never-ending budget problems, and that China is the largest creditor in the world.
Without knowing the subject in depth, a few things stand out to me:
Our (USA) election process orients people around results that span a few years
I don’t think high government officials in China are even elected into office.
So our election process may fuel inefficient long term economic policies due to focusing on short term results whereas China could do what’s right for the long term, without the burden of short term political pressure.
Is there any truth to my random pondering, or is China just beating us economically due to other reasons?
You’re wondering if dictatorship is more effective in terms of long term economic planning? Well Germany and Japan are traditionally run on similar lines to China, in terms of trade surpluses, and without the brutal and murderous dictatorships.
I don’t think China is a dictatorship, but regardless, do those countries have longer election terms? If not then hats off to their citizens/government
Sure they’re more efficient. It’s a lot cheaper to make people you’re irritated by disappear than it is to hold a trial. Also taxes are easier to collect when there are no loopholes just escalating fees for those who complain.
So in summary being a brutal and corrupt dictatorship has its perks right up until the pace of revolt exceeds your capacity to control it.
I think this might be better suited to Great Debates.
First of all, I don’t think the Chinese government is more efficient than the American Government. For one thing, the Chinese government is incredibly corrupt. Corruption in China - Wikipedia I wouldn’t consider a place where you have to bribe public officials to get anything done a place that has a high rate of government efficiency.
Secondly, who says China is beating the United States economically? The American economy is nearly 3 times the size of the Chinese economy yet China has 4 times the population of America.
Of course it is a dictatorship. There’s no question about it. It isn’t even debatable.
But in terms of stability, in one sense Japan is about the least stable modern democracy there is. They have had 30 prime ministers since World War II ended, and most of them led the country for less than two years. On the other hand, power was mostly consolidated in the bureaucracy for most of that time, so elected leaders were quite weak.
China is to Texas is what Texas is to California. Except not linearly proportionally but to a much greater degree.
In both cases the place on the left has a more minimalistic government that gets the job done without employing vast numbers of overpaid tax-eating parasites running do-gooder “social programs” and “government services” as well as without creating endless expensive regulations that prevent people from doing business and living their lives prosperously. To cite a more obvious example, the unionized Californian prison guards make a whole lot more money than unionized Texan prison guards. Well, and Chinese prison guards make a lot less than the Texan ones, and they probably have fewer of them per thousand prisoners as well.
Or, let’s say, San Francisco is known as the magnet for the homeless and spends lots of money taking care of them. By contrast, (let the more knowledgeable enlighten me if I am wrong, but) I suspect that the homeless are a very small proportion of the population in China, if they exist at all. Homelessness is caused by excessive regulation of the building and housing standards, so with minimal regulations (as in China) homelessness should be minimal.
Not surprisingly, California has been having more budget problems than Texas lately. And Texas has been having more budget problems than China.
No. They’re still working on reducing institutional corruption, a problem that America (and other Asian countries) have managed to grow past culturally. So I disagree with the glib “look at shiny high-speed trains OMG they’re eating our lunch” people. At the same time I think that pretty much all other commentators underestimate China’s strengths and America’s systemic weaknesses.
And do take care to separate governments and people. That a country’s government is good or bad says nothing about how we should think about the people, and vice versa.
Jesus, you don’t know the first thing about China.
China has a system which is intended to limit who can live in the big prosperous cities – it is called hukou. Nevertheless, many Chinese want to live in the big, rich cities where they can earn more money. So people from poorer areas of the country will live illegally in big cities, sometimes in shanty towns. When I was in Beijing, you’d see roving bands of Tibetans hiding from the eyes of the law because they were, in effect, illegal immigrants within their own country.
The idea that China benefits due to a lack of regulation (in the same way that Texas is “better” than California) just isn’t the case – everything is regulated to the hilt, and the number of people dependent on the government makes California look like a libertarian wet dream. It’s just that the wealthy people and corporations can pay the right people to make sure that the regulations don’t apply to them.
For all that China has accomplished it is still a very poor country on a per capita basis.
It is a dictatorship and therefore is much, much more efficient. If the central government wants to do something it does it. No concern about human rights, environmental impact or other things that cause responsible people to think about what they are doing and cause them to hold some accountability. If you want to displace a million people you just do it and let them figure it out.
Don’t confuse efficiency with justice or human rights.
Remember, one of the big wake-ups when the Soviet Union fell was the revelation of how the system had abused the environment. All the wanna-be communists that saw the system as the salvation of mankind had to take a hard look at what a lousy system it actually was and was operating in ways that were truly appalling.
I’ve yet to see any evidence in this thread that the Chinese government is noticeably more efficient than the American government. The only links provided so far seem to indicate that China is full of corruption, complicated restrictions, and laws that are arbitrarily enforced. That doesn’t seem very efficient to me. Any one have any hard evidence that the Chinese government is more efficient? Hell, what about anecdotal evidence? Isn’t there a doper who currently lives in China?
I still think this should be moved to Great Debates.
I particularly like this notion that San Francisco has something to learn from China’s building codes. Many of my Chinese students lost their entire families to the Sichuan quake. One of my friends lost his wife, three kids, and his elderly mother, Every year on the anniversery, the still put the mothers who lost kids to shoddy school construction under arrest in a hotel so that they cannot publically mourn. And they imprison the lawyers who represent them, as well as harassing their families. Of course they also block the news aout this and arrest repoerters writing about it. Very efficient indeed!
Oddly, I lived in the Bay and don’t know anyone who lost anyone in 1989. For some reason, our earthquakes kill handfuls, not thousands.
I suggest you spend some time in China and see what a paradise it is- and no cheating by going to a show city. Head inland.
It sure is efficient when the water out of your tap is laced with paracites and diseases we erradicated generations ago (and heavy metals from industrual waste, too!) Luckily a cheap bottled water industry has popped up. But you better hope you stay lucky, because typhoid rages through the bottled water. In the stores, thanks to low regulation, you can buy cheap food- yummy poisoned baby food, cooking oil skimmed from public sewers and clarified with a chemical containing aflotoxin (one of the strongest carcinogens), soy sauce distilled from human hair salvaged from medical waste bins, and even fake peas. You can drive there on roads full of unlicsenced drivers, and if they hit you you can go to the cash-up-front hospital. It’s awesome!