Chinese Economics Thread

[Crang]

Recent posts in this thread demonstrate that small-minded vindictiveness is not limited to Anglos.

I would hazard it's just two people on this entire forum, hashtagpls and emblem, you're referring to. We don't have the time to worry about what Anglos think about us. Now about Anglos trying to bring us down, that we do have to think about and be concerned about. The latter is dominant in these forum posts about Anglos.

If anything, this forum is about Chinese military defence. On these so called Anglo military forums, there is rife talk about nuking China and re-colonizing India. That's just the way the world is. I think it's good that Chinese people don't talk about reparations from Westerners, talk about treating black people like inferiors, and even our occasional jokes about Indian defence capabilities mostly peaked after they 挑衅 us in extremely poor faith in Ladakh.

Actually we're pretty peaceful now that I'm thinking about it all On the other hand a surprising proportion/ratio of Westerners, Indians, Turkish, etc have weird fetishes and fantasies about power tripping other civilizations.

Especially Turkish people. They need to stop their Ottoman Empire fantasies.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Man seriously are you kidding us?

Man, can you read? The claim is that billionaires put far less back into the economy than the middle class and you have given no evidence, no data, but just repeated the claim.

Take Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, Trump and countless other names. Simply, billionaires and in fact anyone who has employees, extracts value from their work to make profits.

They employ people who are free to work for their money, or not. They create jobs and expand the economy. Bezos improves commerce all throughout America. If a worker feels exploited, they can leave and do their own thing; start their own business, find other better employment, or just be broke on welfare. These rich people present a choice for people to work and a choice is always better than no option.

Thats the cause he invests. If he didn't collect profits there is no reason to built a company or else. Thats the stracture of capitalism. And this is the basic problem of the mathematics of capitalism. The value of the wealth produced, is being haircutted and stored in billionaires pockets, then they reinvest a fracture of. This creates a death spiral that "economists" trying to solve with magic tricks like borrowing matter from the future. Such metaphysical nosense.

Yeah, your post is exactly that. We're talking about economics and you're talking about metaphysics.

This is the laughable system you are fan of.

I'm a fan of China's current system, which mints billionaires faster than any other country and pulls people out of poverty like never before in history. It's proven to work.

Lets get one step further. If PRC hadn't induced strict regulations in the stock market, we would probably face the same situation with Wall Street, were billionaires getting richer and richer in a stagnating economy, without investing a cent in the economy.

Let's keep your imagination out of this, ok?

Who wants to have the anxieties and struggle of managing a huge company to make profits while you can sit in you luxury villa and enjoy profits from stocks?

Every rich person. That's why greed is the strongest driver of wealth and growth. You clearly don't understand what rich people do with their money. They don't chill on it; they are constantly investing and expanding thinking about how to flip that money into more money.

Thats why financial capitalism prevailed to industrial. It's more easier...way to steal wealth from workers .

It's easy to blame your problems on others by accusing more successful people of stealing when they actually gave you your livelihood after you applied for the job and then promised them the best you can do for the salary offered at the interview .

You can also observe that PRC rules forbids storing money out of the country. And at BRI involves SOE's. You are smart, you can figure out why; Capital has not a motherland. It goes were the profit is. So be careful of your wishes if you don't want PRC smashing down into pieces like USSR.

This has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm in favor of capital controls.

An other worrying fact is that 1/3 of the private bussiness owners in PRC are members of CPC. This indicates two contradictionary things. Either is a new, high level of democracy occuring in PRC or, the system is rotting from inside. Let's wait and see

This has nothing to do with democracy and for your second one, members of the CCP will enjoy connections and perks and are more likely to be people of means to start their own business. There is definitely some corruption there as well but that is to be expected in every country and there is certainly no indication that it is getting worse in China.

Your entire post is self-contradictory in nature. On the one hand, you are talking about the superiority of China's system over that of Western capitalism. But you are also against the result, which is creation of billionaires, which China's system is doing faster than all the Western systems. You don't know what's good or bad and you don't know what you are criticizing.

 

[Crang]

It means that I'm disappointed by the rhetoric that I've observed from some posters here of late, though I can't say that I'm surprised. A rise in expressions of hostility and enmity of all kinds is an inevitable consequence of deteriorating government-government relations, but though predictable it is still regrettable.

I would prefer that folks were able to express their displeasure with the policies adopted by particular governments in ways that did not express an ethnic or cultural enmity or appear to celebrate the suffering of others. Unfortunately, there are relatively few who are able to resist the call of nationalism and its easy transition into hatred of the other. Until recently SDF has been a better environment than most in this respect, and I regret that that appears to be changing.

Bear in mind many here grew up in English speaking countries. Some were bullied and tormented growing up, and therefore would have a natural propensity to be wary of their tormentors.

Still, I think compared to literally every military forum there is, this forum is extremely moderate - without the rife fantasies that abound. Now there may be that one or two who post sensationalist content, but I would say the moderation as well as the self-discipline of forum posters themselves, especially those who were already tormented in childhood, is commendable. Godwin's Law paraphrased states that every military forum will most certainly devolve into ethnic slurring occasionally.

Actually I want to talk about how the CCP managed to rein in Chinese nationalism, if Chinese nationalism is even comparatively rampant to begin with. After Ladakh, after all the incidents in the South China Sea and East China Sea, they managed to moderate the ultranationalists online.

 

[Bob Smith]

Bear in mind many here grew up in English speaking countries. Some were bullied and tormented growing up, and therefore would have a natural propensity to be wary of their tormentors.

Still, I think compared to literally every military forum there is, this forum is extremely moderate - without the rife fantasies that abound. Now there may be that one or two who post sensationalist content, but I would say the moderation as well as the self-discipline of forum posters themselves, especially those who were already tormented in childhood, is commendable. Godwin's Law paraphrased states that every military forum will most certainly devolve into ethnic slurring occasionally.

Seriously, every other military forum wishes that the Three Gorges Dam would collapse every year during rain season and cheers when Chinese people die from natural disasters. The poster you responded to expects superhuman levels of restraint if he thinks the comments on this forum are anywhere near hostile compared to the rest of the world towards Chinese people.

 

[Crang]

And on top of that asian americans has now increasingly targeted in violence attacks, so you can't really blame that some of us has become "vindictive" towards the anglos

Actually hell that is a very good reason @baijingan mentioned. Despite being continually physically assaulted, Asians never retaliated by picking out other people for physical attack. I don't get why white people keep trying to ambush us physically. I must admit I am disappointed by my own expectations.

The violence needs to stop. Plain and simple.

 

[Crang]

No point of daily updates. The effect will be seen after a year when H&M and others will come up with their annual report. That will show whether the boycott was successful or not.

LOL remember Dolce and Gabbana sued for 700 million dollars in damages after they insulted Chinese people and Chinese boycotted their campaign. That was hilarious. And the most immoral. Imagine if I insulted you and sued you for 10 million dollars because you stopped smiling at me when we meet in public.

 

[canniBUS]

But be wary of complacency. There is also a role for the entrepreneur, the innovator, the creator of wealth through technology that never existed before. And what way to incentivize him then to tell him he is allowed to be rewarded for his creation.

The people creating technology that has never existed are scientists. An entrepreneur commands workers to perform manual or mental labour on existing technology. The key word here is command workers, it is not entrepreneur who does the work.

Allowing us to unleash our primitive desire, to chase wealth and power and women, and all the glory and adoration that may come with it, gives a man his main motivation to take massive financial and personal risk.
...
No, you take away a mans primary motivation for success; power, money, fame, women, validation... and there is no longer that incentive to risk life and limb for what is ultimately the greatest source of innovation, technological advancement, and wealth creation in human history.

This is an ahistorical and non-materialist understanding of human motivation. We've existed for about 200k years. Human society had no social classes for most of this existence. Only in the most recent 5 to 10 thousand years have social classes and hierarchy emerged. Greed being so emphasized and promoted is a direct result of capitalist social relations, it reinforces the rule of the capitalist class. "The dominant ideology of the era, is the ideology of the ruling class". What you wrote today is absurd as a catholic priest writing 1000 years ago that obeying the Church and the God is Man's motivation and the key to a prosperous society.

And sometimes those financial and personal risks taken upon by an individual, at no cost to the state or its people,

Everything has a cost. Wealth is the power to command the labour of others. When private capitalists command a large part of society's labour, you pay the cost of not having labour perform other tasks. Consider the American tech and financial "industry", how many PhD physicists and mathematicians are employed to squeeze money out of high-frequency trading or online advertisements. This is a gross misallocation of labour perpetrated by the capitalist class. The costs is borne by the whole of society in the form of slower scientific progress.

literally risking being homeless,

Don't be absurd. You act like if a wealthy person loses all their wealth in a bad investment they would have no way of making a living for them selves. A capitalist who goes bust doesn't become homeless except by choice. He becomes a worker like you and me, and he will have to work to survive. But, perhaps you are admitting that wealthy people are talentless parasites who are not even fit for unskilled manual labour?

But I disagree. I don’t think you’ll have people creating the kinds of technologies that have been produced in the capitalist world in your new Communist state. World history is littered with these experiments. They all went poorly. But of course we are always told, those experiments don’t count. The Soviet Union will do it better. Cuba will do it better. Now, China will do it better. It’s a dangerous path. Afghanistan isn’t the graveyard of empires. Communism is. There’s a reason the CCP only gives token appreciation to the policies of those regimes or it’s early history. It knows just as much as any learned man that what I’ve said is true. If it didn’t, why are there now at least as many billionaires in China as in the US? It could easily seize all of their funds right now, today, if it wanted to. Yet the CCP does not. They know.

Again you show your lack of historical knowledge and human motivation. Plenty of real scientific and engineering achievements were made in the USSR and China. Look at comrade Yu Min's accomplishments in nuclear physics as an example, a technology exclusive to China. Endless wealth did was not his motivation. The Communist Party knows the risk of letting capitalists run free, that is why China has strict capital controls and retains state control of finance and key industry.

You are also wrong when you claim desire for endless wealth is the driver of innovation. There have been studies shown that the motivation to work hard does not increase linearly with the magnitude of monetary compensation. The billionaires you praise are abnormal humans, deviant, sick, ill; who cannot be satisfied with enough. If they were not born rich and lucky they would be heroin addicts. Letting the insane wealth hoarders drive the economy and by extension society is insanity. We do not tolerate having an emperor rule over society anymore. We don't let a wise emperor rule, much less and insane emperor. China is under the people's democratic dictatorship, the citizens of the whole country are its master. Why should we tolerate mad emperors ruling over businesses? The people can run a country through collective decision making, this is known as democracy. In case you did not know, China is very democratic, moreso than the western "liberal democracies". Last I checked, running a country is far more complex than running a business. If the Chinese people through the vanguard party can run the country, they can definitely run businesses. No need for emperors whether good or bad.

I'm a fan of China's current system, which mints billionaires faster than any other country and pulls people out of poverty like never before in history. It's proven to work.

That's like saying you're a fan of China's current system because it pumps out the largest quantity of pollution. Learn to separate the good parts from the negative side effects.

 

[Crang]

Seriously, every other military forum wishes that the Three Gorges Dam would collapse every year during rain season and cheers when Chinese people die from natural disasters. The poster you responded to expects superhuman levels of restraint if he thinks the comments on this forum are anywhere near hostile compared to the rest of the world towards Chinese people.

Haha clearly that poster hasn't been subjected to twelve months of extremely intense racial harassment online, plus the already intense verbal attacks since the 2018 trade war, in addition to the lowburn racism for the past don't-know-how-many decades. Maybe if he were in our shoes. If he were in our shoes.

 

[horse]

Your entire post is self-contradictory in nature. On the one hand, you are talking about the superiority of China's system over that of Western capitalism. But you are also against the result, which is creation of billionaires, which China's system is doing faster than all the Western systems. You don't know what's good or bad and you don't know what you are criticizing.

That is why this China discussion in the forum in general is so fascinating.

After a while, Chinese realize, the most interesting thing is China!

What is going on now in China, is unknown, but it is working.

What is working? Communism. No, capitalism. Who cares! The Orange Cat catches mice. I think we should care, it is interesting.

China today, we cannot refer to any textbook. Classical Marxism had the proletariat and the bourgeois. One criticism against Classical Marxism, there was no middle class, as the middle class only rose later. Would Marx have thought differently if there was a middle class in his time? The middle class in America fervently rejects Marxism.

Today in China, it has kind of moved beyond that too. China has moved beyond the classical concepts IMHO.

One key difference between the west and China, in the west capital is above the government. In China, the government is still above capital. The CCP makes the policy, and not lobby backed by rich corporations.

Then in the practical day to day sense of running this, it just seems so weird and different. The Communist government of China, collects tax revenue, which is capital too, from enterprises earning profits in the free market. Talk about ironies of ironies. (Next, that tax revenue is recirculated back into the free market, perpetuating this process, along with solid economic growth).

(Logically, that would mean the communists are supporting the capitalist.)

That is why Gordan Chang thought is so persuasive. These contradictions should destroy China according to western sensibilities, exemplify of Gordan Chang though. But these contradictions are what propels China forward.

China is getting the better of America because it is practicing capitalism better, but this is a communist state, where we still read officials doing the self-criticism, sort like still in the GPCR days.

What will happen next? Who knows. The experiment of life and China continues.

 

[manqiangrexue]

The people creating technology that has never existed are scientists. An entrepreneur commands workers to perform manual or mental labour on existing technology. The key word here is command workers, it is not entrepreneur who does the work.

Then you try to command scientists to create something! Leadership, vision, direction, are all vital to success. Those who wish to play down the abilities of self-minted billionaires are simply trying to ease their indignation that they themselves cannot do it.

This is an ahistorical and non-materialist understanding of human motivation. We've existed for about 200k years. Human society had no social classes for most of this existence. Only in the most recent 5 to 10 thousand years have social classes and hierarchy emerged. Greed being so emphasized and promoted is a direct result of capitalist social relations, it reinforces the rule of the capitalist class. "The dominant ideology of the era, is the ideology of the ruling class". What you wrote today is absurd as a catholic priest writing 1000 years ago that obeying the Church and the God is Man's motivation and the key to a prosperous society.

Human society had barely any advancement until 5-10 thousand years ago, with the creation of wealth and classes, and suddenly, people went from sharp stones tied to sticks to airplanes and semiconductors.

Again you show your lack of historical knowledge and human motivation. Plenty of real scientific and engineering achievements were made in the USSR and China. Look at comrade Yu Min's accomplishments in nuclear physics as an example, a technology exclusive to China. Endless wealth did was not his motivation. The Communist Party knows the risk of letting capitalists run free, that is why China has strict capital controls and retains state control of finance and key industry.

And more technological advancement was made in the capitalist West at that time and much more in modern China with all its extra wealth and rich people than the China of decades ago that glorified poverty, suffering and equality. Of course, there are people who are driven by patriotism rather than wealth, but those are rare heroes. A country cannot, with its handful of heroes, compete against a rival that has elicited large swathes of its population by the their common greed.

You are also wrong when you claim desire for endless wealth is the driver of innovation.

He is right and you are wrong.

There have been studies shown that the motivation to work hard does not increase linearly with the magnitude of monetary compensation.

Because motivation is a human feeling and as such, cannot increase indefinitely. Rather, investment, the material input to the economy, can increase dramatically with barely any increase in motivation.

The billionaires you praise are abnormal humans, deviant, sick, ill; who cannot be satisfied with enough.

Those who do not understand the common universal lust for wealth are deviant and ill. It is not a matter of virtue but a matter of realism and in this real world, the majority of people are driven by the pursuit of wealth and those who attain it are rarely satisfied. Sometimes it is not even a matter of greed as they have more money than they can possibly spend but a challenge to see how far one can go. Your deviant hatred for the rich has created an imaginary world for you where "normal" people want just enough and nothing more while in the real world, "normal" people are exactly the opposite.

If they were not born rich and lucky they would be heroin addicts.

This discussion is about self-made newly minted billionaires.

Letting the insane wealth hoarders drive the economy and by extension society is insanity. We do not tolerate having an emperor rule over society anymore. We don't let a wise emperor rule, much less and insane emperor. China is under the people's democratic dictatorship, the citizens of the whole country are its master. Why should we tolerate mad emperors ruling over businesses? The people can run a country through collective decision making, this is known as democracy. In case you did not know, China is very democratic, moreso than the western "liberal democracies". Last I checked, running a country is far more complex than running a business. If the Chinese people through the vanguard party can run the country, they can definitely run businesses. No need for emperors whether good or bad.

No successful county is ruled by the masses but always lead by the exceptional few. Self-made billionaires were made because of their outstanding ideas. Denying it is pointless unless you can replicate their success. Their outstanding ideas and contribution serve the country by influencing and guiding the politicians with the power to make decisions. This is the foundation of every successful society. Your society of mob rule is seen in no successful society.

That's like saying you're a fan of China's current system because it pumps out the largest quantity of pollution. Learn to separate the good parts from the negative side effects.

You learn to separate what works from what doesn't. All the principles you praise drove China into an era where it lagged severely behind its competitors and all the principles that you vilify are what wrought China's modern ascent. As you had brought up, even cavemen made no advancements until they shook the principles that you herald and embraced those that you revile.