[palmotea]

> We are doing state capitalism without China’s “serve the people” bit. Hm, maybe there’s a name for that type of government, idk.

Except China doesn't actually serve its people. Things are way more cut-throat there, with much less safety net. The Chinese government sees workers as grist for the mill, not something to be cared for.

[johnisgood]

> The Chinese government sees workers as grist for the mill, not something to be cared for.

I think this is universal, but perhaps China indeed may be worse.

[tsunamifury]

There is a significant difference in a population of 70 million educated workers who need to be maintained for high performance and 400 million low skill workers who are highly replaceable.

I am trying to make no judgement here, just explaining then 'motivational environment'

This math of course is in flux to a degree we haven't seen in maybe 1000+ years though right now.

[klipt]

> 70 million educated workers who need to be maintained for high performance

But what if AI surpasses human skill and now you have need for 0 educated workers. Not good for human citizens...

[tsunamifury]

Thus my final statement about this math being in flux

[pphysch]

A government-provided safety net is not an absolute good; you need to ask what holes are being filled.

Just because you have fewer full-body casts than someone who just got in a bad wreck, does not mean you are worse off.

[estearum]

Eh, quality of life has gone to the moon in China in living memory. Not nearly as much a positive delta here in the US.

[rtkwe]

I think you can it's just shifted by several decades because China took a long dark detour through the Cultural Revolution. QoL exploded in the US in the Post War period, partially imo because we were the only industrialized economy that didn't have significant homeland attacks during WW2 so the US got a straight shot to the top of the heap. China got a similar QoL lift through a similar path, mass manufacturing (this time business taken from the US by being far cheaper) and growth of in country expertise. Now even China is feeling a similar cost squeeze drawing some business to smaller neighbors. They're also just so much larger they can sustain a larger gradient between coasts that look closer to '1st' world costs and poorer interiors where cheaper manufacturing can be done.

[estearum]

Sure, but what's relevant is what sort of political and cultural pressures we're all experiencing now. Maybe China is just a few years behind on the same crunch trajectory we're on, maybe not, but that doesn't matter much to what's going on today.

[rtkwe]

Well if the complaint is China is experiencing/experienced much more recently a big uplift in QoL vs the US it's because China was behind the US in it's economic development so it had easier gains to make.

We're no where near experiencing the same political and cultural forces because the US and China are vastly different on many axes both in their structure and culture and importantly we're very very different economically.

[palmotea]

> Eh, quality of life has gone to the moon in China in living memory. Not nearly as much a positive delta here in the US.

The Chinese rural population still isn't eligible for local equivalent of social security in their old age (that's only for city folks), and IIRC there was a huge unwillingness to provide financial assistance to individuals during COVID.

[estearum]

Sure, and also quality of life has gone to the moon in China in living memory.

[Zigurd]

A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk.

[palmotea]

> A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk.

Not legally, IIRC China has an internal passport system, and workers who migrate to the city from the countryside typically remain must registered in the countryside (and are therefore denied access to city benefits).

[frm88]

hukou has changed a lot, particularly since 2014 and you'll find that it exist in its strictest form only for cities > 5 million inhabitants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou