[RamshackleJ]

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems.

Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

[jacquesm]

They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there.

As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart.

Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritarian regime isn't moving forward, and relative to the rest of the world they are moving at an incredible pace.

We, the West (assuming you are in the West like I am) should count our blessings that China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system because the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable.

[RamshackleJ]

They are catching up, which is a net good for humanity. The highbred command/market economy and the focused bureaucracy of the Party have has been amazingly effective at industrializing and modernizing China. They have lifted many people out of poverty in a very short time.

Catching up and innovating are different though. There is so much structure and even culture in China that will make getting ahead in tech and science very difficult.

The protected industries and closed internet incentivizes making copy cat businesses. The lack of established academic institutions hurts research. Innovation depends on individuals, and the lack of individual freedoms does make staying in china less appealing to talented individuals.

I really, really hope china can become more open and democratic. That would be an amazing win for humanity. More opportunity and freedom for more people! For a while they seemed to be on the path to doing that but with Xi staying in power indefinitely I worry that what the powerful and rich want is at odds with what would be best for the population.

[jacquesm]

Have a read:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpo...

[worldengineer]

You're wrong if you think the party actually cares about the people in poverty. for example

"Beijing’s migrants no longer welcome as city caps population"

https://www.ft.com/content/822e982c-1b40-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f...

"How the eviction of Beijing’s migrant workers is tearing at the fabric of the city’s economy"

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/212...

few hundred million of these migrants only make $500/month in the cities.

http://www.clb.org.hk/content/migrant-workers-and-their-chil...

[darkmighty]

Actually I'm not so sure if much would change (w.r.t. performance) if they switched to a more democratic regime.

In the end I were always a bit scared/reluctant about the US often touted ultimate justification for democratic capitalism that it is simply more efficient -- "Cultivate freedom -- after all, in the end it's just more efficient!". What if... it isn't?

China is turning the tables on this argument quite a bit. Heavy handed government control, aggressive state-sponsored corporate espionage, citizens surveillance and strict punishment of detractors, exploitation of workers, all combined with hand-picked aspects of market economy to lubricate the system. China is designing itself as an efficient economic machine with minimal regard for personal freedom or expression.

It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century.

[andygrovetheman]

The US has slid away from a free and fair market too. By moving to completely unregulated markets, they have given control to the biggest companies. In a totally unregulated market, inequality grows.

That’s bad for a society. Most free market economists (before “free market” was taken over by billionaires and plutocrats trying to increase their wealth) understood that regulations (anti-trust, anti-price fixing, anti-dumping etc) were needed to give small players and workers a fair shake.

When the US emerges from this national emergency, will it restore balance to markets as it did in the 1930s and 40s in reaction to the 1920s plutocrats? To me that is totally unclear. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope Europe joins it.

[hospes]

>> It's still unclear whether China will be able to achieve technological parity, but it's quite probable it will overtake the US as the foremost economy this century.

China is already #1 by GDP (PPP) with ~$23 trillions [1]. US is #2 with ~$19 trillions (numbers are from 2017). So here China already overtook US.

If you look at nominal GDP, then US is #1 with ~20 trillions and China is #2 with ~14 trillions [2]. With the government and political system that US currently has it will take very short amount of time for China to close this gap as well.

Another metric that shows that China will continue having growth in near future is human capital. China's school education system is better, they have number of pretty good universities, state supports STEM. Yes, they have a lot of problems, but they have good human capital to solve them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[adventured]

> With the government and political system that US currently has it will take very short amount of time for China to close this gap as well.

That's a pretty amusing claim given China is a wildly regressive Communist dictatorship and the world's most indebted nation (before they even get well-off at the median, which bodes very badly for their future). Not to mention that the people of China have few rights at all at this point, the little progress they had made has been revoked by dictator Xi. That extreme repression is going to get worse with time, dictatorships only tend to get more violent and repressive (as witnessed by Xi's million person Muslim concentration camps, one would have to assume that's just the beginning of his reign of terror). Ultimately it will break China if they don't topple the dictatorship. The system that Deng Xiaoping created that made the Chinese expansion possible, will not function under a Mao-like zero rights gulag system.

> China's school education system is better, they have number of pretty good universities, state supports STEM.

The US university system is vastly superior. The US has 45 of the top 50 universities on earth, and 19 of the top 20. China has nothing like: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, CIT, Hopkins, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, et al. China can't even match the second tier US schools. It'll take them generations to catch up in a best case scenario.

[hospes]

>> That's a pretty amusing claim given China is a wildly regressive Communist dictatorship.

That is true that China is a dictatorship and I am not suggesting that China's system is better than US's. Their dictatorship does not need to function as effective as US's political system, it can be pretty ineffective, yet they can surpass US and have higher GDP both PPP and nominal, and in a long run they can have higher influence in the world.

>> The system that Deng Xiaoping created that made the Chinese expansion possible, will not function under a Mao-like zero rights gulag system.

I agree, if they push too hard, they can reverse positive changes.

>>The US university system is vastly superior. The US has 45 of the top 50 universities on earth, and 19 of the top 20. China has nothing like: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale... It'll take them generations to catch up in a best case scenario.

I highly doubt that it is going to take them generations to catch up. In past ~30 years China moved out of poverty close to 1 bln people. Number of Chinese students studying abroad is growing, for example look at number of Chinese students studying in US [1], it is 350K students annually and number goes up each year. They do not need to have MIT in China, instead they can send their students to study in MIT and meanwhile invest in their own higher education system to catch up. Also, with modern technological advancements soon every major university is going to have all the classes available online for a fraction of full tuition or for free. China's school system is significantly better than US's and when online world class education becomes more affordable, China is going to have vastly more students studying in top universities than US has. We always underestimate the speed with which world changes, since it is hard for us take in account what technological advancements will take place in the future. If China's economy keeps growing, I do not think it is going to take generations for their higher education to catch up, I think it will take 5-10 years. They have one of the best school systems in the world and it is a good framework to build on.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/372900/number-of-chinese...

[janeroe]

> The US has 45 of the top 50 universities on earth, and 19 of the top 20

Right, and North Korea is the second best country in the world according to the research of North Korean scientists.

[dash2]

Actually, the best known ranking of world Universities is produced in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Univ...).

It broadly confirms the parent's point, though I disagree with the idea that it will take generations for China to improve.

[allenz]

> China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system... the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable

This is ideology. For growth, it is the outcome that matters. Democracies can make terrible decisions (Brexit) and authoritarian regimes can make great ones. In particular, government investment is a primary driver of economic growth, and China has a fabulous track record of five year plans for transportation, manufacturing, energy, technology, etc. Note that government investment represents state allocation of capital as an alternative to markets. On other aspects such as rent seeking or productivity, it is also unclear whether democracies would be better.

On the micro scale, I agree that markets are needed for efficient allocation and on this scale China is completely capitalist. It has private property rights and free markets. On issues such as consumer protections, China's markets are more free than those in the West.

[imtringued]

>isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system

No that's the dumbest thing china could do. They would lose their protectionist advantages like the great firewall and currency manipulation which resulted in decade long trade surpluses. China is doing the "walmart strategy" of price dumping and killing off competitors but on a global scale. On top of that stealing IP is a very cheap way to build manufacturing capability while avoiding expensive R&D costs. Homegrown innovation is only required if they no longer have competitors.

Trump's decision to implement tariff is a very conservative strategy to even out the imbalance of protectionism between china and us but unfortunately the execution of the tariffs is terrible, he's targeting components instead of finished goods and he is also targeting allies that are not excessively abusing the trade imbalance.

[lovich]

They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen

[hangonhn]

Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.

[394549]

> The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.

I would say that's debatable. The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane.

[jonhendry18]

"The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane."

Those are arguably issues of running out of resources, to some extent, not inability to innovate. At some point you need money to turn innovative ideas into reality.

[whb07]

Elon Musk got asked what’s the best way to get started on building a space oriented company and his response was essentially “build a billion dollar internet company first”.

By innovating and letting private individuals to do as they please in their own self pursuits the US was able to get that money for space.

[hangonhn]

A market based system and an authoritarian regime are not mutually exclusive. Singapore is very capitalistic but its political structure is basically a dictatorship. The same family has ruled it from the beginning. The Singapore model is very attractive to other countries who want to emulate the same. In fact, when Deng Xiaoping opened up China, Singapore was one of those places he visited and studied.

[andygrovetheman]

It’s good if you find the right family. But this is exactly what Tolkien was saying in Lord of the Rkngs with the ring metaphor (Tolkien’s work was a big allegory on European World Wars and politics).

Tolkien said Gandalf couldn’t take the ring because he would be corrupted by power and become an evil autocrat.

There are few rulers who can assume dictatoral power and not use it for ill. And once a family has autocratic power, it is difficult and bloody for the people to take power back.

[hangonhn]

In violent agreement with you and I love your comparison! This is precisely the trap the Chinese are falling into as they reverse their democratization and remove the guardrails put in place after Mao. People are attracted by the "glamour" of a strong authoritarian and the exercise of power to quickly get things done. But the moment that power falls into the hand of the corrupt, it's hell for everyone. We see this over and over in Chinese history: this is the heart of the dynastic cycle. China has tried to remedy this by trying to pound education into the heads of their rulers and have good advisers/ruling elite around the rulers. However, you can only go so far with that. The repeated rise and fall of Chinese dynasty is a manifestation of these failures.

[tzahola]

>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

Werner Von Braun would disagree.

[andygrovetheman]

On a mostly-unrelated note:

Apparently big difference between the US and Germany in the nuclear race was not science but instead engineering.

Fermi and Oppenheimer were useful to the US effort but Heisenberg probably had the intellectual firepower to do that for Germany.

The REAL advances the US made were in chemical and metallurgical engineering at an industrial scale. Dealing with gaseous and liquid uranium and plutonium compounds took a lot of innovation. And the plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge were ENORMOUS. So if Germany was going to build a bomb they would have needed a massive industrial complex. Not just physicists.

Apparently Leslie Groves commissioned a public report in 1945. He deliberately put a lot of physics in it, but left out the chemical engineering. Because he regarded the latter as the key difficult steps in bomb building. And the physics was mostly known.

[tzahola]

Maybe if Germans had not wasted their engineering efforts on idiotic “superweapons” like the Schwerer Gustav [0] or the 130m long V-3 cannon [1], they could have succeeded with their nuclear program.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon

[a1369209993]

There's something hilariously ironic about that, given the next couple of decades.

[erikpukinskis]

Given what?

[a1369209993]

The Cold War and how nukes turned out to be a much greater superweapon than anything the Germans built.

[blattimwind]

> Apparently big difference between the US and Germany in the nuclear race was not science but instead engineering.

The tl;dr is: mostly they didn't want to build it. Then funding was cut, because the project went on too slow.

[tormeh]

Germany also got rid of a lot of Jews and others that were undesirable for reasons not related to their political views. China is not doing that.

[tzahola]

My car has 18” rims with Continental tires.

This is about as related to the comment above, as yours.

(By the way, the death toll of Mao’s cultural revolution clocks in around 50 million.)

[blindwatchmaker]

50 million? What the hell, that's multiple cities worth of depopulation. There's no way that could be true

[oblio]

It's actually The Great Leap Forward, and even if it's "just" 20 million, which is most likely is, it's both true and atrocious.

[tzahola]

>A lower-end estimate is 18 million, while extensive research by Yu Xiguang suggests the death toll from the movement is closer to 55.6 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

[tormeh]

Well, it's supporting your argument, as I perceived it. Germany unnecessarily suppressed groups for reasons not related to maintaining its authoritarianism. During the First World War the German army had Jews like Fritz Haber. In the Second they didn't. I don't see China doing the same. If Germany is used as a model for what we can expect from China, then the values we would get have to be adjusted upwards to compensate for China not wasting its human resources* the way Germany did.

>(By the way, the death toll of Mao’s cultural revolution clocks in around 50 million.)

The 1970s wants its news back. China isn't doing that sort of thing anymore.

*There's of course a lot more to the Holocaust than "wasting human resources". Please read this in good faith.

[tzahola]

Hmm, ok that makes sense. I’ve misinterpreted it as China apologetism. Mea culpa.

And yes, it’s pretty scary to think about a WWII scenario with Jewish talent on the German side...