In the not-too-distant future is the 1-2-4 problem, where, due to the emphasis on one child per family, the result is the ratio of one child supporting 2 aging parents and 4 very aging grandparents. Experts (Peter Navarro) estimate this may hit hardest in about 20 years.
Your pedantic sniff is jusitified. I was more interested in a metaphor for capitalism run riot than in presenting a strictly accurate terminology, hence my use of the qualifiers “fucking insane”, which is generally not included in academic terminology.
Let me express the mildest possible regret for any confusion you may have endured.
Well, people in at least some countryside areas can have more than 1 child. Not sure if this is legal or just overlooked, but it is fairly prevalent near where I am. Also, if the parents are both from single-child families, they can have two children (even in the city). It’s still going to be a problem, but not as much as if it were strictly one-child.
For some things (like your Olympic forced movement example), this is certainly true. However, more nebulous edicts, especially ones dealing with the environment, don’t have nearly the same strength. Local corruption (especially outside the cities) is just too incredibly high. Even though the central government may really want to control things such as the polluting of natural water sources and issue decrees to such effect, in practice they’re widely ignored and used to line the pockets of local officials.
Is China really totalitarian? I would have thought authoritarian would be a more apt description of their government.
While there is a huge amount of corruption in the local governments, it is not like they will want to oppose the central government. In order to keep growth at such high levels, I’m pretty sure environmentalism and pollution laws will be pretty low on the agenda. China can choose to focus itself on high output sectors, with nothing to stop it. Along the way, corrupt politicians and management WILL get rich. Workers on the other hand are not part of the equation. They are pretty much replaceable parts of the machinery (that is until they get uppity.) They might get benefits, but it isn’t a necessary component.
Totalitarianism is simply the extreme form of authoritarianism, but I agree with your point.
I think that’s the first time I’ve heard totalitarianism described as an economic advantage in about 20 years. And it’s as hilarious now as it was then.
In a modern world, totalitarianism is a HUGE disadvantage. China isn’t totalitarian - it’s authoritarian. And that’s also a major disadvantage. Modern economies need to be nimble, quick to adapt, and they need to process and react to huge amounts of information, most of which isn’t even available to central planners. That’s why central planning is and always has been a disaster.
China’s economy didn’t start taking off until it started abandoning central planning. How far it winds up going depends on how much freedom the Chinese people ultimately wind up having.
Hmm I thought I already conceded that point in the previous post. To make clear, yes I think we can agree that China is authoritarian. My description was imprecise.
Is this a good comparison? Are you comparing a free market economy to authoritarianism? China is already starting to switch to a “free market” economy, yet it is still authoritarian, and can remain so even through a complete transition.
Are you comparing a centrally planned economy with a free market? That is an invalid comparison. China’s system is a mix of central planning and “free market” and can vary that in whatever way is best suited for the moment.
I agree, China can let the reigns go for a while, let the economy do it’s thing. Once it sees a need, it has all the power of the government to requisition land, convert factories and supply labor.
I think I made it pretty clear in my original post I was speaking hypothetically. Just because certain systems haven’t fared well in the past, doesn’t mean it will in the future, especially a hybrid system like China’s. Again, do I think it’ll happen? Probably not.
You cannot have authoritarianism and a free market at the same time. The degree to which you have free markets is the inverse of the degree to which you have authoritarianism. By definition, free markets require that individuals be free to act in their own economic interest.
You seem to think that there are times when the economy is ‘best suited’ for authoritarianism. Make no mistake - the success of China’s economy will be directly correlated to the amount of authoritarianism still extant. The more free the markets, the more growth there will be. There is never a point at which it’s a good thing to centrally control the economy.
And if they start doing that, they’ll start destroying their economy. See: Venezuela today.
There are good reasons why authoritarianism has not resulted in healthy, prosperous economies, and those reasons won’t go away in the future. Central planning is a poor second-best to the functioning of a well-regulated market system (by ‘well regulated’ I don’t mean lots of government control - I mean operating within the boundaries of civil society and within a set of rules that makes sure prices reflect the proper intersection of supply and demand, and the costs of transactions are visible to the parties and the costs and benefits accrue to them).
Central planners are not smarter than the market. They are not better at picking winning industries and technologies than are the people who built those industries and technologies. They are not better at knowing what the people want and need than are the people themselves. In fact, they operate largely from ignorance, and their mandates usually have more to do with the tradeoffs of political infighting and power-brokering than the true needs of the people. And even if their hearts were pure and they were all geniuses, they simply have no way of collecting and using the vast amounts of information that flow through a modern economy.
Not to quibble about definitions, but I’ll note that South Korea was an authoritarian market economy for quite a while. A military guy was elected in 1987, following authoritarianism from 1971-1987. The first civilian head was elected in 1992. ( Wikipedia).
They reportedly enjoyed growth rates of about 8% during this period. “Per capita GNP, only $100 in 1963, exceeded $16,000 in 2005.”, from the State Dept.
Here we see that the economy grew faster in the 1975-2001 period than from 1990-2001: they had apparently hit some limit. http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=45&Country=KR
Perhaps technological development isn’t especially compatible with authoritarianism. But technological adaptation? As long as the authoritarians are technocrats, no problem (alas).
I’d imagine if, after a couple dozen more recalls on the magnitude of the last several, the US refused to trade with China it’d have a fairly large impact on their economy. On the other hand, has anything but the excuse of commumism prompted a government sponsored boycott before?
I don’t have Sam’s disdain for central planners - some of them probably are smarter than many other people in the market. The problem with central planning is the same problem you have with private monopolies - you’re not getting enough choices. A good free market works by offering the consumers a variety of choices and letting them pick the ones they like best. If the consumers are only offered a single choice (regardless of whether that choice was made in Beijing or Bentonville) then it might be the best possible alternative or the worst possible alternative but either way they’re stuck with it. The odds are that is was neither the best or worst but probably some compromise in the middle - a good choice but not a great one. But in a free market you’re more likely to see a full spectrum of choices, including a lot of good choices and bad choices along with a few great choices and a few terrible choices - and you’re free to seek out the great choices from the pile.
cite?