- cross-posted to:
- science@beehaw.org
- china@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science@beehaw.org
- china@sopuli.xyz
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4157628
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4157529
James Robinson, along with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the critical role institutions play in fostering national prosperity. In [this Q&A session]l with EL PAÍS, he explains that his work also seeks to highlight how the legacy of colonialism has impeded economic development in certain regions, particularly in Latin America and Africa.
James Robinson: […] we make a simple division, focusing on the presence of inclusive institutions or extractive institutions. Inclusive institutions create broad incentives and opportunities for all people equally, while extractive institutions concentrate benefits and incentives in the hands of a few. Many economists say that development comes from entrepreneurship and innovation, but in reality it comes from people’s dreams, creativity and aspirations. To be prosperous, you have to create a series of institutions that can cultivate this talent. However, if you look at countries like Colombia or Nigeria, talent is wasted because people do not have opportunities.
[…]
Institutions can be an obstacle to competitiveness. However, one should consider the impact that European integration had on countries such as Spain, Portugal or the former Soviet countries. These are remarkable success stories. There has been an almost unprecedented transition. It is true that there may be too much regulation or inefficient rules, but broadly speaking the effects of European institutions has been largely positive over the past 50 years.
[…]
[Immigration] is one of the big questions we have to solve. […] it can be difficult. It is not easy to quickly incorporate the millions of people who cross the Mediterranean [trying to reach Europe]. One of the possible ways is to help them develop in order to improve the terrible situation in their own countries. However, one of the biggest complications is that the policies recommended by Western institutions are not in tune with what is happening in these [developing] countries. At the World Bank, for example, you cannot talk about politics. How do we expect them to solve real problems when you cannot talk about them? Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. If we really want to change the world, we have to have honest conversations. I see that as a long way off.
[…]
The reality is that democratic countries have shown that they are better at managing public services and achieving rapid growth. You can find impressive examples like China among autocratic countries, but you cannot achieve an inclusive economy with an authoritarian regime and a model like the Chinese one.
[…]
I don’t think the Chinese model can continue. If you look at other authoritarian regimes, like Iran or Russia, they are incredibly weak economically and technologically. The economy cannot flourish in an authoritarian regime. Right now, technological dynamism is concentrated in one such country and in the Western world. However, one has to consider that, with Donald Trump, the institutions that have made the United States great are being seriously questioned. This could affect the context, and that is why the European Union and NATO are so important.
[…]
[Populism is linked to the growing disconnect between governments and citizens] and an example of this is Latin America. Democracy promised too much and did not always deliver. People’s lives did not change, and they sought new alternatives. There are various factors why democracy has not achieved transformations, such as clientelism and corruption. […] Venezuela was governed in a deeply corrupt manner, and Hugo Chávez was clever in taking advantage of it. You also see this with Donald Trump, who has gone far because he realized there was widespread dissatisfaction with traditional politics. The failures of democratic institutions are real, and that is why we have to think about how to make them more empathetic to what people need.
[…]
Artificial intelligence can be wonderful, but like all technologies, it depends on how it is used. If artificial intelligence is used to create replacements for humans, that could be devastating. […] It is all about how it is used, and that depends on our governments. I think that these decisions should not be left to the tech gurus. They only think about what makes them the most money, even if this is not related to the general well-being of society. In the case of artificial intelligence, it is very important, because it could have a tectonic impact on the world.
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Who believes that authoritarian regimes care about inclusivity?
What democracy? Is he talking about the oligarchy that rules the US?
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Alfred Nobel never created a Nobel Prize for Economics.
Instead what there is is the Swedish Central Bank Prize For Economics In Honor Of Alfred Nobel, which is not a Nobel Prize but they convinced the Nobel Committee (using a lot of $$$) to treat it as one.
Now, I don’t know if this guy is right or if he is wrong, but trying the whole Appeal To Authority thing using a “Nobel Prize” which is no such thing to throw some generic criticism on other Political models has a strong whiff of Propaganda.
PS: Also his arguments are very much cherry picking. For example I’m Portuguese and calling European Integration a “remarkable success story” for Portugal is hilarious - the actual reality was that Portugal grew massively when it kicked out Fascism (and the country was very Leftwing back then, so for example invested massively in Education and created a National Healthcare System) accelerated a bit when it joined the EU (because the money the EU sent to help with integration of what was then one of the poorest countries in the EU added up to a significant fraction of the GDP), then braked hard when the EURO came to be, culminating in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash with the country’s Economy significantly shrinking and the Troika coming over and forcing Austerity (which later even Cristine Lagarde admited was “the wrong thing to do”) and forced Privatization of actual profit-making state companies creating veritable anchors around the neck of the Economy in the country (for example, Telecoms are compared to average incomes very expensive in Portugal, a “rent” borne by the rest of the Economy which pulls down for example small businesses and kills business opportunities that rely on widespread digital access). Looking back all the best things that were done for Portugal were very much Leftwing such as investment in quality Public Education, a National Health Service and large programs of public housing (which were stopped decades ago, so now we have a giant house price bubble).
It wasn’t Capitalism that pulled Portugal out of the shitter, it was kicking out the Fascists and basically Social Democracy (and I don’t mean in the Portuguese Social Democrat Party, who are hard right with have nothing at all to do with the actual ideology in the name of the party), topped up with charity from the EU (in a way good while it lasted but then again went into all the wrong things, so the country has disgracefully bad rail-service everywhere but the North-South between the two main cities but lots and lots of underused highways built with that money).
Now, I get the appeal to authority, and the arguments against it. Obviously they wanted the cachet of the Nobel name for their economics prize, but economists often worry about the wrong thing. Yes, stagnant capital is bad for the economy, and a stagnant economy is bad for society, but having a vibrant economy doesn’t necessarily mean society is benefiting. Most economists don’t worry too much about that, and many businesses don’t, either. And that’s where the problems come in.
While companies are going about making profits, they rarely worry about the world or society they operate in. This is why they will happily pollute the planet, underpay their employees, or produce goods and services that maximize profits rather than better suit their customers’, and society’s, needs. Hence, fossil fuel companies desperately hanging onto their current profit model while storms rage and cities flood, or light bulbs being made to burn out (or, in the case of LEDs, just a certain component so they can be easily ‘recycled’). And this is where society needs to have strong government to step in and curb the ravenous hunger of capitalism and direct that energy in ways that help society.
So, for good or ill, more housing needs to be built, even if that means housing prices are stagnant or even drop. Food has to be affordable, or people with less income need to be supported so they aren’t starving. People need to be educated well, so they don’t make imprudent choices and have better opportunities in life. Healthcare needs to be accessible, so society is happier, healthier, and can also further drive that economy.
Keep capitalism for what it is good for (or find a way to replace it with something better, preferably without burning civilization down), which is finding innovative ways to get things done, and looking for new and interesting things to make society better. And use government to set limits and direction, such as incentivizing needed housing that isn’t profitable.
There’s a lot in there I agree with and a lot I find unconvincing, but the thing that really jumped out to me was this line:
Elites seek to concentrate profits. In our book Why Nations Fail, we compare Bill Gates and Carlos Slim. In the book, we point out that while Gates made his fortune through innovation, Slim did so by forming a telecommunications monopoly thanks to his close relationship with the government. It is an example of the link between monopolies and clientelism that has been seen throughout history in Latin America since colonial times.
I’m sorry, what? Does he not remember Microsoft losing perhaps the most famous successful American antitrust case of the last fifty years?
I don’t think this guy is dumb, but I don’t know how to fully take him seriously when he says something like this in passing.
I think perhaps you are misunderstanding what is being stated here. Billionaires everywhere are the same—they will maximum their wealth whether it helps or hurts others. The difference is that the US, with its stronger democratic elements, is much more likely to reign that power in than Mexico is. And that’s exactly what happened. In Mexico there never would have been an anti-trust case against Microsoft, or it would have been killed in the early stages.
Yes, I too find that irritating. Maybe what he means is that Microsoft was innovative in the very beginning of the company’s history, before PCs were part of everyone’s household. But Gates’ Microsoft soon started to pursue a very monopolistic policy. And it has been doing so to this day. (I can’t compare that to Carlos Slim’s conglomerate, though, due to a lack of knowledge about that.)
Income equality is just one of many other factors to assess a just society as we know. But as many focus on China’s GDP growth in its recent history, here are just numbers:
Between 2014 and 2022, in China the share of the bottom-50% income group (pre-tax) in the national income fell from 14.4% to 13.7%. In the same period, the shares of the top-1% and top-10% income groups rose from 13.7% and 41.5% to 15.7% and 43.4%, respectively. In a nutshell: the Chinese rich got richer, the poor got poorer.
For Western-style democracies, the numbers are diverse:
In European democracies like Germany and especially Norway, top income groups lost while the bottom-50% gained, while in countries like Finland all three mentioned groups gained, suggesting that the ‘middle class’ paid the bill. In other countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S., the numbers show gains for the top at the cost of the bottom half.
And in Australia, top income groups lost significantly more than the bottom-50% gained, suggesting the middle class benefited, while in countries like Canada and Japan there appear to be only slight or even no significant changes in the period between 2014-2022.
But as I said, we must also focus on other factors that make a good society (the four freedoms come to my mind: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear). Given the fact that some in this thread cite China’s growth of GDP and national wealth as a factor of societal success, it is clear that this argument does not hold, though.
[Edit typo.]
A lot of people who have never actually been to China don’t understand just how poor the rural areas actually are. China has invested a ton in major urban infrastructure but has largely let the countryside languish. The worst part is that you are born with something called hukou which makes it very difficult to establish permanent residence in these new cities, reinforcing what is effectively a regional caste system.
They also haven’t seen the shantytowns on the outskirts of the cities.
I absolutely agree with that.
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
I feel like worshipping the economy, and having it be the sole measure of society, inevitably leads us to the far-right. China is not going to magically crumble, and economic prosperity is achievable without societal progress.
We need to have societal progress as the goal, not some magic by-product of line go up.
The economy assigns a quantifiable amount, a number, to things and unimaginative people will know how much value it brings. Ask an unimaginative person to ascribe value to beauty, joy, contentment, they will find them worthless without a number.
The economy is a guide for helping people who can’t empathize or imagine. It has a purpose so we can’t get rid of it. But we can give a stated value to the things we cherish as inalienable rights. And that value isn’t a number, it is a priority. For example, I will turn down money if I am offered free time. No set amount of money would sway me, it would change day to day like market pricing, but I value time more than money.
I agree that we should dismiss “line go up” as a culture. Chasing money has only shown corruption. But we can shape the economy by giving priority to unvalued things.
I guess that’s my point, the economy should be a means to societal progress, and I feel a lot of people pretend it works the other way around.
Corporations should be slaves to bettering our lives, instead of our lives being slaved to bettering corporations.
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
Okay. 14 years under a relatively liberal democratic regime, and then 6 years of a fascist government seizing the property of anyone who was against the state, followed by another 6 years of a fascist government plundering nearby countries in order to fuel the war machine, all without providing a decent standard of living to its population. But hey, they had lots of guns, so I guess that’s success.
The only competent Nazi economist of note was sidelined less than 3 years into the regime’s rule.
Don’t get me wrong, I was not advocating for nazism. I know you by reputation to be knowledgeable about history, so if you could recommend some literature into it, I’d love that.
What I’m saying is more a kind of fear I have instead of a statement, I just saw that nazi regimes seemed like able to channel economic productivity into some societal goal - even though that goal was utterly despicable and evil, like a war - instead of just having the economy grow as a cancer.
Fuck, I found it. Not an article, I hope you will forgive me for linking to The Old Place™.
Or if you don't want to give R*ddit the click
I’m not super good at on the fly academic writing, but I’ll try to answer this as best I can, mostly because I am PASSIONATE about disproving the German economic ‘miracle’ that Neo-Nazi apologists cemented into the public opinion. So, be patient with me, and hopefully someone with more flowery writing can give you a better answer later :P
I point to you the Hossbach memorandum to say: they were not able to build such an army, but they did so anyway. The Hossbach Conference was a meeting between Hitler and some of the top dogs in the military establishment to determine how in God’s name Germany was gonna get out of the mess they created for themselves. Rearmanent had essentially sidelined the civilian economy to shove virtually everything into building a huge army. It worked fantastically, but as the 1940s loomed the Nazi Reich was in danger of imminent economic collapse.
Since disarming the military was not an option, Hitler instead outlined a plan to seize industry and arable land in the east, the Lebensraum you’re familiar with, to use it to stabilize and hopefully boon Germany’s economic trajectory. All present at the Hossbach Conference (including Hitler!) expressed doubts as to the viability of this adventure east, something I think should be shouted from the rooftops: the Nazi leadership thrust their nation into a war they thought they’d lose because they were fundamentally incompetent at governance. This ‘efficient Nazi’ myth needs to die. Hopefully I’m not getting preachy or moralistic here, I just want to stress how absurd this whole situation was.
Now, this economic weakness was no good for the Nazi Party. Nazi Germany was desperate to cement itself as the ‘law and order’ government, returning normalcy to a country wracked by revolutionary and economic chaos. They utterly failed to recover the economic situation beyond the general bounce back Germany had experienced since 1933ish, before the Nazi seizure of power. So, they had to divert attention away from how weak the economic structure was. Employing as many people as possible in the war effort was a good start, since less unemployed = less awareness of just how bad the civilian economy is, but it didn’t really cover up that the funds simply weren’t there.
They focused on community building exercises that masked the depressed economy. German wages never recovered to their pre-depression heights, so what did the Nazis do? Well, the Nazi-run labor union, the German Labor Front, launched a ‘Strength Through Joy’ program, offering Germans free vacations resorts like Prora or on custom built cruiseships like the Wilhelm Gustolf. The Volkswagen was launched for this purpose too; Germans paid an affordable amount for a brand new car! Sound too good to be true? It was! All the money went to the military and no one ever got a Volkswagen. Sorry suckers.
Propaganda blasted that the Nazi order was granting the people luxury and prosperity and pointed to these programs as proof. Please ignore that you still cannot afford groceries. After all, Goering needs the state funds to buy morphine and pet tigers.
So…if there was no solid economic foundation, how did Nazi Germany pay for massive rearmament? Conquest, fraud and neglect!
I’ll give you a solid example of how wacky the Nazi war economy was. Hjalamar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank the brains behind the German ‘economic miracle’ (which was largely a Nazi myth, but Schacht did great work), devised MEFO bills, which are a great example of this fraud. The Versailles treaty stipulated Germany was barred from a significant investment in war materials. Even if they were allowed, they simply did not have the money in reserve to afford it.
To solve this, Schacht set up a shell organization that printed ‘MEFO Bills’, and these essentially let the Nazi government pay for arms production without leaving a paper trail. These were, basically ‘IOUs’ that the government handed to war producers, who could later exchange these for currency. In case this sounds like an unsustainable scheme… you’re right. All it was was a way for Germany to run a massive deficit without getting caught red-handed they were spending all their money on war materials. This money needed paid back, Germany never significantly invested in civilian industry, the only way to pay it back was to seize foreign capital. So, war.
Schacht, mind you, was fired in 1939 because he was deeply opposed to how badly rearmanent was destabilizing the economy. Probably one of the brightest minds to ever work in the Nazi government, and he gets sacked and replaced by a total crank, Walther Funk, because he realized Nazi policy was utterly unsustainable.
Jewish businesses were ransacked and captured industry in Czechoslovakia would help re-arm Germany too, but for the most part the German war and civilian economy was incredibly weak, disorganized, and inefficient. Nazi Germany never really streamlined its war production the way the US and USSR would, and in fact did not even engage in total mobilization of the war economy (out of fear that the house of cards would come tumbling down and a repeat of November 1918 would occur) until 1943…after Stalingrad. Yikes.
As to why those other countries couldn’t match them: they could, and did. Mobilization began as Nazi’s poked the Anglo-French bear repeatedly, but kicked into high-gear after the Munich Conference and subsequent invasion of Czechoslovakia, when it became clear Hitler was insatiable.
You’re right that mobilization was not as forced as Germany’s, but this is due to the fact France and Britain were shellshocked democratic societies trying to avoid a second war; they couldn’t lie and hide mobilization like the Nazi dictatorship, and their government did not thirst for warfare like Hitler did.
Full-fledged mobilization would’ve been viewed as directed against Germany and heightened international tensions, and many anti-war activists in the West would have viewed such a move as unnecessarily aggressive on the Allied part. So, mobilization was delayed until the last minute, which is part of the reason Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to the Reich.
Still, despite their tepid mobilization, France and Germany were on par; for example, the French had about 4,000 tanks (a good number were obsolete but so were a good number of German tanks); Germany had about 3,000. France had about a million men in the field with another few million mobilizing or in reserves, Germany had about the same. Though Britain had a smaller force, its strategy was to send an elite force to France to hold the line while it mobilized a much larger army when the war began.
In fact, hopping back to the Hossbach Memorandum, the Nazi leadership realized that French and British mobilization would permanently eclipse them by about 1942, and the USSR not too soon after (The Red Army was on paper much stronger than the Germans, though it lacked trained officers and combat-ready equipment; Stalin himself expected the USSR to be fully armed and mobilized by about 43-44)
So, the war was launched when it happened, in the East and West both, as sort of pre-emptive strikes to destroy Germany’s enemies while they were still weak enough to be competitive. This didn’t work out, but for all the criticism Hitler gets for invading the West and Russia, it really was the only shot he had for Germany to defeat her neighbors before they grew too powerful. Still, we know today he never really had a chance to beat all three European great powers, and throwing the USA into the mix only sealed his fate extra…seally.
The Fall of France is a whole other story on its own, but Germany did not have an inherent material superiority here. They had a more flexible, determined, and confident command structure that was able to outmaneuver and decisively defeat the convoluted, nervous, indecisive Allied command. It was not quality of equipment or quality of troops, but a combination of good leadership and risk-taking on the German side, and poor communication and hesitation on the Allied side, that led to the German victory.
If you want a fantastic, comprehensive, easily digestible overview of what went wrong in France, check out Indy Neidell’s two-part video series on this here and part two here This team is just absolutely incredible at what they do and they deserve more love. They’re pretty solid historians, especially for what’s essentially a pop history channel.
Hopefully this answers your question to some extent :P
I’d also add that the mentioned MEFO bills were supposed to be paid back after a relatively short time, but a little clause in their issuance allowed their repayment to be delayed every 90 days, indefinitely, if memory serves. Guess what the Nazis did, every 90 days before they were supposed to pay it? :)
Amazing what you can get away with when everyone is so desperate to avoid a conflict they’re unwilling to call you out.
Oh, I figured you weren’t actually advocating for Nazism, it’s a very common misconception that the Nazis had some sort of economic competence up their sleeve that let them put their hideous plans into motion. The early Nazi economic moves were ingenious, but in a very shell game kind of way that was reliant on, well, like most Nazi endeavors, reliant on no other nations calling them out on their bluff. Very Bavarian fire drill - pretend that you’re supposed to be doing it and people, even on the scale of nations, will hesitate to call you out. It’s been years since I’ve done any serious reading on the subject, but I have a good short paper (or article? I need to organize these links at some point) lurking somewhere in my favorites on Hjalmar Schacht I can dig up once I’m done eating.
The Nazis overheated the German economy not entirely unlike what is happening in Russia right now. It wasn’t sustainable nor healthy.
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!aneurysmposting@sopuli.xyz is that way, buddy.
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
I mean more than two thirds of those 20 years were the Weimar republic, so if anything the credit goes to Weimar Germany here. The only contributions Nazis made to the economy were plundering Eastern European and Jewish wealth.
Germany didn’t build up middle class as much, more the lower class (that was saved from starvation), the added a lot to national wealth & common everyday lives via accessible public infrastructure (all of it basically, not just the roads & railroads).
And China is curbing it’s economical growth, and societal changes are happening, the first gens with mandatory education are now retired already.
I can’t really say how much and what directions it’s taking them, but no-one can prob - time will tell.
Oh boy, ml is going to be real mad about this one. 🫳🍿
Why would anyone be mad at an unsourced opinion piece from a person that got a feels prize in a non scientific category?
Yes, the person that dedicated their life to simping for capitalism to massively enrich themselves is going to say anything but their ideal version of capitalism will fail.
I wonder what that person who I talked to yesterday who was telling me that monarchies were superior to democracies would say about this?
I asked them who got to be king if the democracies were replaced with monarchies, but they wouldn’t tell me.
Hopefully not a Habsburg.
I’ve been watching The Great on Hulu. It’s an explicitly fictionalized account of Catherine the Great in Russia, and I generally recommend it as long as you keep its subtitle of “An Occasionally True Story” in mind.
Anyway, the actual Catherine the Great was one of the Enlightened Despots of Europe. For the sake of argument, let’s say everything she did was absolutely amazing, and raised millions of people out of serfdom and into education and opportunities that were completely closed off before. Basically, the absolute best case you can ever make for the monarchy.
6 generations later, Russia is ruled by Czar Nicholas II, and there’s no other way to put it: it’s a fucking disaster. Russia hadn’t been industrializing the way other powers had in the 100+ years between then and Catherine, but Nicky drags the country into a war against a country that had. The inevitable happens, and it gets so bad that Nicky gets shot by revolutionaries in a basement along with the rest of his family. As brutal as that execution was, it’s hard to say the Bolshoviks were wrong for doing so.
So even in the absolute best case scenario, better than any monarchy could ever do for real, it doesn’t last. It can’t last. You may get a good one once in a while–and even that is a stretch–but the next one could easily be a monster that undoes everything.
We can also look at the Habsburgs to see why bloodline rule leads to serious inbreeding.
Here’s Charles II of Spain.
Since this is a portrait, not a photo, this is the best they could make him look.
And his issues went beyond the physical. He was also significantly intellectually disabled. But he was part of that royal bloodline, so…
The last Hapsburg wasn’t much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQEG9IZpc8
The problem is that there was a glimmer of democratic hope between the time Tsar Nick was dispensed and when Lenin seized power. A lot of Lenin apologists like to gloss over this part when they pretend like the stuff he did was necessary. Yes, it was “necessary” because he positioned himself as tyrant from day 1.
I asked them who got to be king if the democracies were replaced with monarchies, but they wouldn’t tell me.
DIBS!!!
Can we please see your resume?
“Maybe Zoidberg could be king now, yes?”
Did they give you any reasoning?
Not reasoning I could understand. It was in the context of saying that democracy was a bad thing. They originally said that UBI was, somehow, the alternative to democracy. After pointing out more than once that you need people in charge to keep things running, even just to distribute the UBI, they settled on a king.
Curtis yarvin is a slime
Cool. Who gets to be king? You?
Edit: sorry, I thought you were agreeing with the monarchist. My mistake.
Ah yeah he’s a bit obscure but he’s been pushing this American Monarchism angle for a long time. Absolutely bizarre entry into the culture wars, decades later I can’t tell if he’s a really an American monarchist or just providing cover and beliefs to help totalitarian fascists.
Normally I’d apologise for making people aware of him but as you’re a mod on a big forum you sadly probably do need to know who he is
I always appreciate learning new things, so thank you!
Strangely enough, I think the CCP is a lot more of an inclusive institution than Robinson and his coauthors are happy to admit. A lot of the decisions the Chinese government makes are aimed at increasing national wealth and power. Narrow extractive behavior – siphoning wealth away to benefit the elites – definitely does happen in China, but not significantly more (and maybe less) than nominally democratic countries at a similar stage of development.
There’s plenty of scope to dunk on the CCP, e.g. human rights. But Acemoglu/Robinson political economy framework, based on inclusive/extractive institutions, isn’t the right argument for this.
That’s like saying the pre-bellum south was very inclusive because it strongly encouraged the ownership of the means of production among all citizens.
The means of production in this case being slaves.
Yes, exactly this - the first half of the title I was sure it was a comment on western economies.
And I do think that, we live under economic dictatorship.
When production is high enough that scarcity is only planned/artificial, and when you have (such excessive) inequality in labour compensation, it’s not in the overall economical systems interest to continue such nonsense (but ofc it’s in the elites, which have to constantly change and maintain the system in such a state).I think it superficially seems inclusive because the overwhelming majority, over 90%, of Chinese citizens are the same ethnicity of Han Chinese.
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Democracy is a fundamental value, but you still have to be able to take action on big stuff. There’s a time to gather all the best information possible and a time to make an actual decision that has consequences. Unfortunately, by not taking that lead, democracies are outsourcing the big consequential stuff to undemocratic corporations.
I suspect that democracy is a “good times” system. It works well enough when the problems are either low-stakes or widely agreed upon.
When you get into a world of hard choices-- for example, anything where we have to devalue some existing wealth – suddenly there’s going to be both a lack of consensus (likely manufactured) and leaders too afraid of losing the next vote to pull the trigger.
That’s why I expect to see China solve its climate change and housing problems faster than the West. Without the almighty polls lurking in the shadows, they can say “petrol is 100 yuan a litre to discourage its use” or “we’re nationalizing second homes and disbursing them to schoolteachers.”
In a piece published in November 2022, Nobel Economist Daron Acemoglu argues that China’s economy is rotting from the head.
For a while, [China’s leader] Xi, his entourage, and even many outside experts believed that the economy could still flourish under conditions of tightening central control, censorship, indoctrination, and repression [after Xi secured an unprecedented third term (with no future term limits in sight), and stacked the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with loyal supporters]. Again, many looked to AI as an unprecedentedly powerful tool for monitoring and controlling society.
Yet there is mounting evidence to suggest that Xi and advisers misread the situation, and that China is poised to pay a hefty economic price for the regime’s intensifying control. Following sweeping regulatory crackdowns on Alibaba, Tencent, and others in 2021, Chinese companies are increasingly focused on remaining in the political authorities’ good graces, rather than on innovating.
The inefficiencies and other problems created by the politically motivated allocation of credit are also piling up, and state-led innovation is starting to reach its limits. Despite a large increase in government support since 2013, the quality of Chinese academic research is improving only slowly.
[…] The top-down control in Chinese academia is distorting the direction of research, too. Many faculty members are choosing their research areas to curry favor with heads of departments or deans, who have considerable power over their careers. As they shift their priorities, the evidence suggests that the overall quality of research is suffering.
Xi’s tightening grip over science and the economy means that these problems will intensify. And as is true in all autocracies, no independent experts or domestic media will speak up about the train wreck he has set in motion […]
So I worked there during the mid-10s, basically when it was surging the most.
It was rotting from the everywhere back then, it just had enough core to push through. Unfortunately they balanced all the bad things on top of each other and pretended they didn’t exist (most of their GDP was split between manufacturing and construction, and the latter was unsustainable).
China was one of those things that: When something went wrong, it all goes wrong.
that’s just rehashed fukuyama
I feel bad for Fukuyama, dude got seriously Nietzsche’d.
He said some dangerous things, but it’s more like they took his editorialized thesis statements and said: “Welp, guess I never have to worry about morality anymore because we’re past that now!”
From what I can see, their whole Nobel is just claiming to have discovered things everyone in many other disciplines has known for decades (at the last). Maybe economists are just a bit slow.
Neoliberal hacks gonna hack I guess.
He’s right, but it can take a long time and people will suffer in the mean time. Would be nice to skip ahead.
Agreed. The economy and well-being of countries definitely suffer from authoritarian regimes in the long term, but…
What about their armies?
Their armies suffer too. Authoritarian regimes rely on repression, which rely on the military. This means that the military cannot be allowed to be staffed by competent men at all levels, or they might realize that THEY are the true power in the state, and overthrow the oligarchs to institute their own oligarchy. This is why so many long-lasting authoritarian regimes have massive armies that absolutely dissolve the instant pressure is put on them. They’ve been hollowed out by years of political maneuvering by rightfully-paranoid oligarchs.
You sure about that? China and Russia hiked their way up to the top 3 in what… 15 years?
You sure about that? China and Russia hiked their way up to the top 3 in what… 15 years?
Yes, I am absolutely sure about that. Russia managed to fuck up a surprise attack against an enemy directly on their border they had been making plans against for the past decade and that they outgunned by an order of magnitude, with a population and military 5 times its size, and ample intelligence and access to intelligence within the country.
That’s not the performance of a powerful military. That’s the performance of an authoritarian regime’s showpiece being put up to an actual test and failing miserably.
I don’t know if that’s a fair analogy.
Remember, Russians had the crippling handicap in this instance of being… Russians.
This could be the funniest documentary on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mdi_Fh9_Ag
Somebody has to explain to them that when you recommend pre-natal vitamins, vodka doesn’t count.
You seem to be under the impression that a stronger army will succeed in invasion of foreign territory by default. Also, are we not going to address how the west has been preparing Ukraine for such invasion for the same period of time? The only reason why Ukraine is NATO is for exactly what’s happening. Buffer warzone between Russia and the west.
I can appreciate your arguments, but I think complete conviction is unwise.
You seem to be under the impression that a stronger army will succeed in invasion of foreign territory by default.
The more advantages an army has, the more likely it is that it will prevail in any given task. Nominally, the Russian military had numerous and massive advantages over Ukraine, even with the limited NATO support offered to Ukraine 2014-2022. Yet it failed, and failed miserably. Why? Because it was hollowed out of competence, a shell of corruption and apathy polished to a shine with a large military budget.
I can appreciate your arguments, but I think complete conviction is unwise.
An authoritarian regime does not immediately destroy whatever military it inherits. But like I said - it’s a process. They, by their very nature, hollow their militaries out. The point isn’t even that authoritarian militaries can’t succeed in a given task; the point is that authoritarian regimes pretty inherently weaken their own military capacity compared to non-authoritarian regimes, and no amount of spending changes that fundamental fact. Saddam is another great example of this.
Vietnam and Afghanistan may like to have a word with your first argument. I understand your second point, but i don’t see supporting arguments backing the clear trend of authoritarian governments eroding their military forces by their very nature you are so convinced about.
A bad economy will definitely weaken military strength in the long run,just like the diplomatic and trade sanctions that often are imposed on authoritarian or anti US/West regimes will. However, do you really think if we isolated these effects, the war efforts of an authoritarian government with full control over its population and production is inherently worse off than a functional democracy with broad civil rights? You may argue that this effect isolation is a hypothetical fiction, but then we’d just be talking about economies vs economies… which wasn’t my point.
Look, friend, I’m in no way saying “therefore China wins the arms race”. I’m saying authoritarianism, in the short term, by its nature has the possibility of assigning and coordinating way more resources to war efforts than a democracy. Given 2 identical counties neighboring each other, on any given day, put a totalitarian regime on one, and a democratic government on another… Which do you think has the advantage?
I hope you understand I’m presenting my position and arguments from a place of good faith and respect.
Vietnam and Afghanistan may like to have a word with your first argument.
A bad economy will definitely weaken military strength in the long run,just like the diplomatic and trade sanctions that often are imposed on authoritarian or anti US/West regimes will. However, do you really think if we isolated these effects, the war efforts of an authoritarian government with full control over its population and production is inherently worse off than a functional democracy with broad civil rights? You may argue that this effect isolation is a hypothetical fiction, but then we’d just be talking about economies vs economies… which wasn’t my point.
No, no, I’m willing to accept this hypothetical - but in this hypothetical, the authoritarian regime is still weaker in the long run, for the reasons I laid out. Authoritarian regimes are inherently brittle, and cannot brook dissent - the higher-placed and more powerful the figure, the less dissent can be tolerated. Hence, the hollowing out of militaries - all important figures MUST be loyal above all, and competence either doesn’t matter, or is a threat insofar as it increases the power of the figure outside of the oligarchy. Economics doesn’t need to enter into it at all.
Democratic regimes have safety valves for dissent - meaningful elections. Authoritarian regimes, inherently, do not have that release. They, as JFK once said, ensure peaceful change is impossible - and in doing so, close off all possibilities except violent change. All dissident forces in an authoritarian society will end up backing ‘undesirable’ methods of change, and no one in an authoritarian regime, other than the oligarchy itself, is better placed to affect said methods of change other than the military. Either an authoritarian regime must castrate the military, or it will be overthrown (effectively or outright) by the military.
Look, friend, I’m in no way saying “therefore China wins the arms race”. I’m saying authoritarianism, in the short term, by its nature has the possibility of assigning and coordinating way more resources to war efforts than a democracy. Given 2 identical counties neighboring each other, on any given day, put a totalitarian regime on one, and a democratic government on another… Which do you think has the advantage?
Again, the democratic government.
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The democratic government has a reduced need for repression, making broad participation in the military less necessary to monitor. The number of people who are ‘political undesirables’ who must be reassigned away from positions of their competency in a total war scenario is much smaller, while a totalitarian government necessarily must prevent them from holding any important positions for its own long-term survival - and the decision-making of an oligarchy prioritizes its own long-term survival above everything, including success in war.
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The democratic government does not need to closely monitor its war output, unlike an authoritarian regime - democratic governments enjoy broad legitimacy when they are legitimately democratic, while authoritarian regimes always endure some amount of irrepressible dissent in the population that manifests itself in deliberate disobedience and sabotage of the government’s efforts - including war efforts. Furthermore, the looser controls that a democratic society holds over its production is a further advantage, as each government manager and overseer that is not needed to ensure compliance of production with the wishes of the state (unlike in a totalitarian regime, where government functionaries and strict orders are the primary means of communication of all behavior of production) is one who is free for other tasks for the war effort.
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The democratic government does not need the same level of distrust in its military figures - an authoritarian government is more at risk of a coup in wartime than any other period, as coups in an authoritarian society are easily justified by the same reasoning that the authoritarian government itself uses. Democratic governments in wartime are prone to democratic backsliding, but a significantly reduced risk of outright coups compared to authoritarian regimes, as a military coup necessarily demands a significant change from the basic and fundamental legitimizing reasoning of a democratic society - something which discourages many would-be coup plotters. This means that when General Patton asks for 99,000 troops on the north-eastern front, the demand is more likely to be fulfilled in accordance with the democratic government’s perception of military and political necessity than of the fear of those forces being turned against them - unlike, say, Prigozhin making requests of the authoritarian government or withdrawing his troops to the border of the Motherland.
Cooperation is very powerful, and it’s why democratic governments, or at least more democratic governments, have become widespread, while more naked autocracies and oligarchies have declined. Not because of some deep, moral yearning in mankind’s soul that was only awakened in the past ten seconds of civilization’s existence, but because the rise of coherent and stable national governments (as opposed to the ad hoc nature of dynasties) favors efficient methods of government, by simple process of natural selection if nothing else.
I hope you understand I’m presenting my position and arguments from a place of good faith and respect.
I do, don’t worry! I appreciate a good argument.
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