[nebula8804]

I don't know man, from the outside looking in it seems like despite this arrangement, the people doing the day to day work are fiercely competitive and they want it all. This is just an anecdote but I have seen talks where the Chinese look at the silicon valley grind culture of long working hours and sacrifice and think how can these people be so lazy?

Maybe state ownership will collapse it all, maybe the coming demographic implosion will do it. But it does not seem like your daddy's communism....more like a capitalism-communism fusion that combined with nationalistic pride and a desperation to account for all the over production might lead to surpassing what the soviet union could only dream of.

[kurthr]

Check out a couple of phrases on Chinese media (they are heavily censored): tang ping (躺平) bailan (摆爛)

If you just want English language go for SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/lifestyle/article/3194858/l...

The money has already been made by those in power and the only way to make more is to follow the government gravy train. For the last decade that has meant batteries, EVs, semiconductors, displays are all so heavily subsidized (factories are built with free government loans) that doing anything else (other than buying property) makes no sense. That doesn't mean the people aren't motivated, smart, and ingenious, but they won't be making back the $T in loans.

[nebula8804]

The lie flat movement is a legitimate movement that touches upon the same problems the youth are experiencing elsewhere around the world but it appears to be a fizzling movement everywhere. Even the US equivalent of quiet quitting and utter hopelessness is waning in the US with the slow demise of the far left and right.

[squigz]

> Even the US equivalent of quiet quitting and utter hopelessness is waning in the US with the slow demise of the far left and right.

This is all news to me.

[nebula8804]

Its easy to see this in the US. Ignore the news and Twitter and look at results. This election cycle Justice Democrats: the poster child of the progressive left has no choice but to just defend their existing seats having already lost one and some of their top stars nearly losing their seats last cycle.

Ignoring the age issue in the far right (not enough young people replacing the dying elders in the movement), we have repeated losses in special elections due to their stance on abortion indicating their current plan of action is not in sync with where the country is. That does not look long term promising for the movement. Either they move left or they will continue to cede power at all levels of the government.

[nindalf]

No one doubts that Chinese people work incredibly long hours. They do so because there’s been a strong link between input and output. The harder you work, the wealthier you get. That has been incredibly motivating … so far. In an economy that isn’t growing quite so fast, people might not see the same returns for their labour that they did between 2001-19. They might not work as hard.

That’s speculation though. What we do know is that the CCP is changing the way of managing the economy. Between 1992 and 2019 they leaned heavily on the private sector for growth. They would do anything they needed to help private enterprise succeed. That approach paid rich dividends, it’s obvious.

Xi Jinping is going a different way now though. He reckons he knows better than Deng, the architect of the Chinese economic miracle. His approach is to pick winners and losers. It may succeed because he’s picked good horses so far - EVs, solar panels, AI, semiconductors. And state led capitalism has had success in China, with major players like Huawei doing well despite major headwinds.

Because of this shift in approach you can’t extrapolate from the success of 2001-19 and say China’s future success is inevitable.

[Log_out_]

If a country were a company and Xi the CEO, would that be "ideologically kosher"?

[spaceguillotine]

there is zero link between hard work and wealth. There is a link between wealth and exploitation.

[logicchains]

If you define hard work as intellectually challenging work, there absolutely is a strong link between hard work and wealth in China. Even the corrupt bureaucrats have to pass a difficult exam to become bureaucrats.

[Log_out_]

Which one and why is cheating nepotism not as widespread as with everything else? In a company or functioning democracy in competition, if you nepotism, you kill the company..

[lazide]

Only if the person picked via nepotism isn’t competent.

Which is less likely (one would hope) than via other methods, but the correlation is not as strong as we’d all like.

[ChainOfFools]

> Only if the person picked via nepotism isn’t competent.

It'd be interesting to know how much this phenomenon would explain the stability of otherwise culturally ossified regimes that stood for four or five centuries before collapsing, where government was built almost entirely out of extreme nepotism in which the ruling potentate had 50 or 60 kids to choose from, and thus had a shot at picking the most capable from the, er, top of the class.

Or the most ambitious /ruthless pick themselves, taking the old man and/or their dangerously competitive siblings out of the picture.

Either way there is a little more competition involved then what we normally think of with a modern family unit.

[refurb]

Clearly not since even the middle class in the US holds trillions in wealth and the vast majority did it through work.

[adampk]

If you work more hours and take more overtime, you will make more money you can use to build wealth.

Seems like a clear link.

[nebula8804]

Yeah like I said it could still collapse, but I am not ready to write them off so quickly like others are, thats all.

[kiba]

This is just an anecdote but I have seen talks where the Chinese look at the silicon valley grind culture of long working hours and sacrifice and think how can these people be so lazy?

Working long hours isn't necessarily efficient.

[amou234]

Exactly. The OP didn't know any English teachers in China, or else they can verify that Chinese workers in private enterprises nap on the job/play on their phone/waste a ton of time, to get through the long working hours.

[com]

Interestingly I’ve heard this observation about American managers in US multinational businesses in Europe, that they seem to performatively do the long hours, for the sake of their own managers view of them, but that little of it is actual productive time.

I’ve not really observed it myself, and I’d suspect that part of it might be very different styles or ways of working. But maybe there’s a grain of truth there.

[nebula8804]

The output in relation to competitors is what matters in the end. At this point their results are impressive.

[refurb]

From what I’ve seen the motivation of Chinese workers is the same as any worker - to make money.

[nebula8804]

There is an argument to be made then when a country is on the rise and developing rapidly there is a sense of PMA(Positive mental attitude) among the people. Maybe you are just projecting American stagnation on Chinese?

[mharig]

You would be astonished how many people want to live a calm and good life, with making money as just one mean, and hence secondary, if you would come out of your capitalist bubble.

[refurb]

Stay on topic bro, now isn't the time for your anti-capitalist views.

We're talking about "the people doing the day to day work are fiercely competitive and they want it all".

Do you really think those people's main goal is "to live a calm and good life".

[amou234]

No state owned enterprises in the history of the world has the quality you've just described - fiercely competitive, nationalistic pride, desperation.

China is now Soviet Union, but with horrendous demographics, mind-numbing debt, and wealth flooding out of the country. China is old and broke. China is fucked.

[nebula8804]

You say that but then we see things like BYD introducing products like this.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izvdO-zdlKg

Unless you want to keep your head in the sand and pretend this is the soviet union all over again, you better start paying attention to how fast they are iterating.

>China is now Soviet Union, but with horrendous demographics, mind-numbing debt, and wealth flooding out of the country. China is old and broke. China is fucked.

Yeah this is the Peter Zeihan thesis but you know what, it might take a while for this to play out and in the meantime, China may not leave the arena until after they have taken out a large chunk of the western incumbents.

[amou234]

BYD is not a Chinese state enterprise...yet. And yeah, I'm not worried.

Nio Loses $35,000 A Car. https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/nio-loses-35000-a-car-that...

BYD lost its EV crown to Tesla after just one quarter as China’s EV market slumps https://fortune.com/asia/2024/04/03/byd-loses-ev-crown-to-te...

The EU just got a step closer to hitting Chinese EVs with additional tariffs—and may even apply them retroactively https://fortune.com/2024/03/07/eu-nears-hitting-chinese-evs-...

[nebula8804]

Ok feel free to not be worried.

I'd rather listen to Elon in this regard, this is one thing he does have experience in.

[1]:https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

>The EU just got a step closer to hitting Chinese EVs with additional tariffs—and may even apply them retroactively

The EU having no major tech giants to call their own has pivoted to regulation and tariffs against both China and the US.

[vikramkr]

You're really gonna take a statement from a CEO that it's important for the government to intervene in order to protect his profits at face value? Elon's made some stupid decisions in the past but I don't think he's stupid enough to be honest. Not lobbying for protectionist measures even if they aren't needed would probably be some sort of corporate malpractice.

[nebula8804]

When it comes to getting advice on where the EV market is going, I am definetly going to listen to the guy who is the leader of EVs in the US. Would I take relationship advice from him? Probably not, but we are talking about the EV market here.

[Turskarama]

Chinas situation is so incredibly far away from what the Soviet Union was. For one thing they aren't spending the majority of their GDP on a cold war.

[shiroiushi]

They've been massively increasing their defense spending, though you're right, it's not a majority of GDP.

In addition, they've been trying to massively increase their military capacity, but throwing money at it only does so much: you also need young men, and there's not that many that think being in the military is a great idea, and people aren't having kids any more. At least in the old Soviet Union, there was no lack of young men being raised.