[evilgenius]

To some extent this conversation is moving into the realm of what it is that constitutes originality. In the sense that many think originality requires something entirely new, while there is another camp that rationalizes that we can't create anything outside of our influences (there is nothing new under the sun). Deconstructionists battled to prove the first point, even to the extent of offering blank white canvases. The second group points out how things like the alphabet or 4 amino acids can be used again and again to produce different results. They look past the similarities and glory in the incremental.

As far as democracy goes, it is a challenge to figure out why the Western World has been so successful at it. We can point to things like communication or the prevalence of money, but those don't answer all of the questions. It may be that memes in the form of taboos hinder the West's descent into mob rule. Further these memes may not live in a vacuum, but have counter memes that effectively cause society to bounce along within a kind of social stasis, still vulnerable to the violation of certain taboos, but having so far avoided them. Then, of course, there is the gravity of empire, statecraft and class struggle to think of......

[Tyler_JC]

Why do we credit authoritarianism for China's success?

Burma is authoritarian, as is China. Both countries were equally oppressive in the 1960s/1970s. Both countries adopted a form of central planning according to their own interpretation of Marx.

Both countries were miserably poor.

Then one of them decided to allow a little free enterprise and property rights.

Suddenly China pulled ahead and became one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The same story can be told in India.

If you allow people to make their own decisions, even if they aren't operating 100% independently, they will make far better decisions than some group of central planners.

As Milton Friedman said, where are we going to find these omnipotent angels to run our government?

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I')bon, Can I respond to this further tomorrow - just about to finish work? I wonder if part of the chinese satisfaction is due to indoctrination, topic of thread.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'W')hy do we credit authoritarianism for China's success?

[americandream]

This is where we disagree. I am not a great one for conspiracy theories but the enthusiasm with which Wall Street waits on every word of a regime that calls itself "communist" raises flags for me.

The primary beneficieries of Chinas economic miracle are Western capitalists and corrupt politburo cadres, not the average Chinese person. An incidental effect will of course be the elevation of Chinese living standards just as was the case with workers in America (and Japan). However, the lesson to learn from this is the embarrassing haste with which the American capitalist dumped the "overpaid" American worker for the Chinese labourer (as is also the case in Japan and Europe). The next step in the marginalisation of all global labour will be full automation of all labour as is reasonably possible and Chinese workers will feel the cold hand of unemployment.

Confusing whats occurring with Confuscianism is the equivalent of confusing the American workers much vaunted resilience of days gone by with his Presbyterian work ethic. Profit knows no loyalty other than personal gain.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'W')hy do we credit authoritarianism for China's success?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', ' ')Ibon, you are probably right in saying that an authoritarian central command free market approach works for China at the moment. But can this be sustained, and will other countries adopt their policies? Perhaps some policies but I think that ultimately humans would prefer some sort of democratic society like Sweden where individual members can express freely their views.

[americandream]

Ibon

I am less inclined to be as optimistic about China given its close ties with Wall Street. Had it been more independently positioned in it developmental model, I would have been more inclined to see them as an alternative to capitalism. As things stand, I think that in China we are seeing capitalism's authoritarian face of the past (corporatist national socialism) back to the future. The underlying premise of limitless growth now stands unrestained and subject only to the heavy hand of the state which is fully at the service of capital.

It will require a revival of a clear breakaway faction within the politburo, one that frightens Wall Street away, to usher in a new model of economy that would say to me, yeah, new dynamics are at play.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'A')s things stand, I think that in China we are seeing capitalism's authoritarian face of the past (corporatist national socialism) back to the future. The underlying premise of limitless growth now stands unrestained and subject only to the heavy hand of the state which is fully at the service of capital.

[americandream]

China's advantage and the goose that is laying Wall Street's golden egg over there is its labour costs. In essence, China is the West's most lucrative source of dividend income. The existing model where we had a manufacturing China and a consuming West, worked perfectly to generate massive profits for Western investment pools. That model is under stress at the moment as Western consumers, many of whom have lost jobs to China, are increasingly finding it difficult to consume the products of this offshore factory.

Investors are turning instead to the Chinese to take up the slack but are caught between a rock and a hard place. How do you secure the same return selling to consumers vastly underpaid compared to Western consumers? Obviously there will be some uptake in Chinese consumerism but the fall in dividend income to Western investors will be nothing short of catastrophic. Increasingly, the monopoly money economy of securitisation will also come to the fore in a bid to take up the slack but as we have seen with sub-prime mortgages, the stage is being set for future meltdowns and the ultimate one that will spell the end of the capital markets.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'A')s things stand, I think that in China we are seeing capitalism's authoritarian face of the past (corporatist national socialism) back to the future. The underlying premise of limitless growth now stands unrestained and subject only to the heavy hand of the state which is fully at the service of capital.

[Graeme]

The China of the past is not the China of today. May they continue to surprise us.

Game-changing China (1)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ig hydro, big solar photovoltaic (PV) and big wind – these are the usual focus of accounts of low-carbon technologies in China. But a very different type of innovation, ranging from a farm cooperative in Yunnan, to woodchip and corn pellets in rural Beijing and air-conditioning using just salt and water in Hangzhou and Shenzhen, could be even more significant as examples of how to achieve a low-carbon economy and society for China and the world.

Low-carbon innovation in China is an issue of key global significance. This is not just because of the large and growing carbon footprint of the Chinese economy as a whole, but also because China’s spectacular social and economic growth represents a unique opportunity to develop and roll out low-carbon innovations. China’s capacities in science and innovation are also improving rapidly. And, following the financial crash of 2008, it is clear that China’s growing geopolitical influence has entered a new phase, which will be a crucial determinant of global efforts to respond to climate change.

[evilgenius]

Graeme, are you saying that you think that China today represents a new potential model for development in terms of division of labor and diminishing marginal utility? Do you think that they have an edge when it comes to innovation? This is an interesting point to consider. It is common to think that monetary incentive is what drives people to innovate, but actually monetary incentive drives people to produce and an entire system of rewards drives them to innovate. Money gets people to do things that can be easily understood in terms of a correlation between increased work and increased pay. It takes a system of rewards that can satisfy the diverse needs of the group of quite extraordinary people who can and do innovate in order to get them to create new things. It takes the kind of rewards that open-source developers find in their endeavors, in other words. To date I think the Chinese leadership has been providing an environment wherein creative people can flourish. I don't know if their model is significantly different from that of the West when it comes to fostering innovation, however.

China is on a new track. Whether their government will respond to the coming property market crash and global deflation with policies that continue to provide that environment or brutally crack down is anybody's guess at this point.

[Graeme]

The reason I said that "may China continue to surprise us" is because yesterday I posted in the global warming thread an article from the nyt in which the IEA stated that China is on track to dramatically increase their carbon emissions. But today, I found the one I posted above. The key point in it is this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne form of low-carbon innovation that offers considerable opportunities, but that is usually overlooked is “disruptive innovation”. Disruptive innovation challenges many of our common assumptions about innovation. As originally developed by US business professor Clayton Christensen and applied to low-carbon innovation by a previous report by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), disruptive innovation involves “cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives to existing products or services often produced by non-traditional players that target previously ignored customers” and/or use in novel contexts and combinations. It is primarily characterised by a social redefinition of a technology, as opposed to improvement of the technology along established trajectories. Disruptive innovation will likely offer lower than cutting-edge functionality, according to established definitions, but for different uses and to neglected customers.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')The primary beneficieries of Chinas economic miracle are Western capitalists and corrupt politburo cadres, not the average Chinese person. An incidental effect will of course be the elevation of Chinese living standards just as was the case with workers in America (and Japan). However, the lesson to learn from this is the embarrassing haste with which the American capitalist dumped the "overpaid" American worker for the Chinese labourer (as is also the case in Japan and Europe). The next step in the marginalisation of all global labour will be full automation of all labour as is reasonably possible and Chinese workers will feel the cold hand of unemployment.

[americandream]

ibon

I never discount the adaptability of capitalists. To underestimate the capitalist, no matter what his hue, is to fail to see the nature of the process at play. The impulse to personal gain where it confers power, is compelling, and to the extent that there is value available for extraction, whether it be Wall Street or a Plitburo member, extracted it will be. But like I pointed out to Graeme in a thread somewhere in this forum, capitalism and closed loop cyclicality are an oxymoron...unless of course we develop [u]deep[/u] interstellar technology that overcomes staged rockets and orbital dumping and can take us directly to new resourcing frontiers in one round cost efficient trip, or resource alchemy.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', ' ')capitalism and closed loop cyclicality are an oxymoron...

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'H')ow many fold has Western capitalist investment into China increased?

So on the one hand, we have a natural flow of capital from the heartland of capital into low cost labour zones and a reverse flow from labour zones into the heartland of capital. And in the meantime, wide spread cnditioning works to tweak the process to its maximum efficiency in ensuring that both sides of that equation are in perfect equilibrioum (and that calls for some independent thought on what those components are Graeme, not regurgitating what you're being conditioned to bleat.)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Investment Immigrant to Canada Doubles

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he number of Chinese investment immigrant applications for Canada has doubled over the past six months and soon may surpass the number of applications filed by technology immigrants, the Canadian newspaper "The Daily World" reports.

Guan Guorong, President of the Jiahua International Study and Immigration Center, said China has been the main origin of technology immigrants who have gone to live in Canada for the past 10 years, although that has now started to change. He also said Chinese immigration to Canada has experienced three peaks over the past 30 years. The first occurred when Chinese students started to go to Canada to study. The second one was the technology immigration trend that happened 10 years ago. And the third one -- the current investment immigrant trend -- began at the end of last year.

According to Canadian immigration law, the application fee for those who apply for investment immigration is C$400,000. Of this amount, C$280,000 will be returned after the immigrant has lived in Canada for five years, so that the actual fee is C$120,000.

Another reason for the increase in the number of investment immigration applications is that Canadian officials plan to raise the application fee, and many Chinese want to apply before the increase goes into effect.

Nevertheless, many Chinese investment immigrants still desire to move to Canada to provide a better educational environment for their children and enjoy better social security benefits.

[americandream]

You've just described communism. At the end of the day the contrast between capitalism and communism is a simple one when you remove the hype.

Capitalism, Marx noted, was the bastard child of feudalism, a form of wealth ownership that revolved around land based growth. European feudalism, in experiencing it peak land crisis, triggered a flight to new forms of wealth creation as well as new land prospects. A sort of contemporaneous flowering of caitalism and expansion of feudalism to the new world. Capitalism triumphed (the American Civil war) and promptly commenced making the entire globe in its image, in the process conquering all attempts at jump starting communism within nations. Hitler was capitalism's response to the upsurge in communist sentiment across post WWI Europe. Perhaps unwarranted as communism is doomed to fail until all surplus worldwide has been exhausted as you will see below.

Communism is a technical civilisation based on the needs of its members, working non-owners. The consumer impulse is absent due to the absence of ownership and the impulse for annual growth (the growth cycle). It is a post surplus society in other words. The fact that the USSR and China assumed elements of capitalism is testimony more to the fact that communism is not sustainable in a world where surplus is available and yet to be developed. The impulse to profit overwhelms needs based management. Communism however, is neither evil nor good. It is simply a child for its time and now is not its time.

Capitalism in contrast is technical civilisation premised on management by the private, their reward being ownership and profit derived from the labour surplus I have averred to above. It is neither evil nor good as well simply being a child for its time. The function of capitalism is profit by way of growth for the private or the growth cycle. Growth is as much a function of profit as is your breathing, your living. Obsolescence is equally central to this impulse and is something that should be immediately evident as a function of annual growth. The growth cycle is open resource wise as it turns annually, the result being that resources fed into the cycle, escape as each obsolescence cycle (and there are as many as there are products) does a full turn. Attempts at mitigating this effect must be cost effective in terms of annual profit hence the lamentable failure at comprehensive recycyling.

Now bar the development of deep interstellar mining with craft able to overcome all the logistical issues of transiting the earths orbit repeatedly or resource alchemy enabling us to conjure up the plethora of resourcing from fresh air or some other commonly available resource such as sand, capitalism MUST fall on its own sword. And it is at this interface that we are confronted with transition to the communalism contemplated by Marx.

Hence my misgivings about state capitalist China which is, I suspect a beleagured capitalists wet dream in his hopes for innovation and continued surplus, especially given that we still depend on that antiquated propuslion system, internal combustion.

It's not to say that we may never excel ourselves but I suspect that it's a race with time as capitalism seeks to close its bleeding obsolescense cycle with technology that has barely changed from its inception. I note that the new flavour is the "Singularity".

Well, as I said above, unless the singularity can conjure up resource alchemy or designs a spacecraft that is commercially viable for mining deep space, capitalism is dead and I give it 5 decades max (mid century in other words)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', ' ')capitalism and closed loop cyclicality are an oxymoron...

[efarmer]

Are we talking voluntary cells of Communism where property and work is shared by member for the common good, similar to some early Christian communities, or do you think the centrally controlled version of involuntary Communism is the form which emerges by need in the wake of capitalism
having the air sneak out of it?

Do they teach you how to get good at taking turns in Communism, or do the big dudes and hotties get the goodies like they do in Jungleism, Feudalism, and Capitalism?

[SeaGypsy]

China is far from being alone in it's citizenry's desire to emmigrate.
All over Asia most people want to get out.
Innovation is an interesting phenomena in suppressive countries. The art coming out of China leaves the entire world in it's wake. Paradoxicly freedom breeds complacency, which is anti innovation. Suppression breeds struggle, struggle can be a great motivator.

[americandream]

What hotties? Where might these hotties be?

Edit: Unless of course, you are contemplating peak women and the communalisation of sex?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'A')re we talking voluntary cells of Communism where property and work is shared by member for the common good, similar to some early Christian communities, or do you think the centrally controlled version of involuntary Communism is the form which emerges by need in the wake of capitalism
having the air sneak out of it?

Do they teach you how to get good at taking turns in Communism, or do the big dudes and hotties get the goodies like they do in Jungleism, Feudalism, and Capitalism?