[johnnybgoode]

It's true, my views are not mainstream, but I think even mainstream observers would disagree with you here. In the last 50 years China has seen the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the transition to a corporatist economy in the Deng era.

What was the last change in the US approaching this magnitude? Possibly the New Deal, but even that is quite a stretch. It does not really compare to going from the deadly Great Leap Forward (20-43 million dead, 53% poverty rate under Mao) to the current corporatism (around 6% poverty rate) in less than half a century.

That being said, I'm not sure if or why you're using flexibility in governance as a metric for good government. The government having the ability to change policies quickly is not necessarily a good thing all the time. It seems to me the actual policies themselves matter more.

[chrischen]

Actually I'm going to have to agree with Johnny here. Not only is the US government designed to be ineffective by giving more factions power, it certainly has manifested it's intentions in reality. Despite democrats controlling congress and the presidency, has Obama been able to pass his progressive healthcare reforms? Anything much? No, and this shows that the US is the one more capable of incremental reform, if anyhing because opposing factions have equal power to counter each other. China, on the other hand is one party, one entity. They want something done, nobody will stop them. The can suggest seedig rain and the next thing you know the skies are clear. Most likely none of the over 1 billion people are consulted. No opposition, no resistance. Things get done faster, but here's more risk since there's less diversity of opinion.

I think you are disregarding johnny's points and assuming he's a brick wall. Take a minute and make sure that you are not doing to Johnny what you think he is doing to you.

[DanielBMarkham]

It seems to me the actual policies themselves matter more.

Not at all.

Look at it this way: what do you want, to be able to get the answer exactly right the first time, or to have a bunch of iterations optimizing each time?

Societies are complex chaotic systems. There probably is no "right" answer. Instead, it's important for there to be a dance between policy and marketplace. The dance is much more important than the policy itself. [insert long economics discussion here]

[johnnybgoode]

To clarify, I don't mean the actual policies just at any one time.