- cross-posted to:
- science@beehaw.org
- china@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science@beehaw.org
- china@sopuli.xyz
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4157628
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4157529
James Robinson, along with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the critical role institutions play in fostering national prosperity. In [this Q&A session]l with EL PAÍS, he explains that his work also seeks to highlight how the legacy of colonialism has impeded economic development in certain regions, particularly in Latin America and Africa.
James Robinson: […] we make a simple division, focusing on the presence of inclusive institutions or extractive institutions. Inclusive institutions create broad incentives and opportunities for all people equally, while extractive institutions concentrate benefits and incentives in the hands of a few. Many economists say that development comes from entrepreneurship and innovation, but in reality it comes from people’s dreams, creativity and aspirations. To be prosperous, you have to create a series of institutions that can cultivate this talent. However, if you look at countries like Colombia or Nigeria, talent is wasted because people do not have opportunities.
[…]
Institutions can be an obstacle to competitiveness. However, one should consider the impact that European integration had on countries such as Spain, Portugal or the former Soviet countries. These are remarkable success stories. There has been an almost unprecedented transition. It is true that there may be too much regulation or inefficient rules, but broadly speaking the effects of European institutions has been largely positive over the past 50 years.
[…]
[Immigration] is one of the big questions we have to solve. […] it can be difficult. It is not easy to quickly incorporate the millions of people who cross the Mediterranean [trying to reach Europe]. One of the possible ways is to help them develop in order to improve the terrible situation in their own countries. However, one of the biggest complications is that the policies recommended by Western institutions are not in tune with what is happening in these [developing] countries. At the World Bank, for example, you cannot talk about politics. How do we expect them to solve real problems when you cannot talk about them? Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. If we really want to change the world, we have to have honest conversations. I see that as a long way off.
[…]
The reality is that democratic countries have shown that they are better at managing public services and achieving rapid growth. You can find impressive examples like China among autocratic countries, but you cannot achieve an inclusive economy with an authoritarian regime and a model like the Chinese one.
[…]
I don’t think the Chinese model can continue. If you look at other authoritarian regimes, like Iran or Russia, they are incredibly weak economically and technologically. The economy cannot flourish in an authoritarian regime. Right now, technological dynamism is concentrated in one such country and in the Western world. However, one has to consider that, with Donald Trump, the institutions that have made the United States great are being seriously questioned. This could affect the context, and that is why the European Union and NATO are so important.
[…]
[Populism is linked to the growing disconnect between governments and citizens] and an example of this is Latin America. Democracy promised too much and did not always deliver. People’s lives did not change, and they sought new alternatives. There are various factors why democracy has not achieved transformations, such as clientelism and corruption. […] Venezuela was governed in a deeply corrupt manner, and Hugo Chávez was clever in taking advantage of it. You also see this with Donald Trump, who has gone far because he realized there was widespread dissatisfaction with traditional politics. The failures of democratic institutions are real, and that is why we have to think about how to make them more empathetic to what people need.
[…]
Artificial intelligence can be wonderful, but like all technologies, it depends on how it is used. If artificial intelligence is used to create replacements for humans, that could be devastating. […] It is all about how it is used, and that depends on our governments. I think that these decisions should not be left to the tech gurus. They only think about what makes them the most money, even if this is not related to the general well-being of society. In the case of artificial intelligence, it is very important, because it could have a tectonic impact on the world.
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There’s a lot in there I agree with and a lot I find unconvincing, but the thing that really jumped out to me was this line:
Elites seek to concentrate profits. In our book Why Nations Fail, we compare Bill Gates and Carlos Slim. In the book, we point out that while Gates made his fortune through innovation, Slim did so by forming a telecommunications monopoly thanks to his close relationship with the government. It is an example of the link between monopolies and clientelism that has been seen throughout history in Latin America since colonial times.
I’m sorry, what? Does he not remember Microsoft losing perhaps the most famous successful American antitrust case of the last fifty years?
I don’t think this guy is dumb, but I don’t know how to fully take him seriously when he says something like this in passing.
I think perhaps you are misunderstanding what is being stated here. Billionaires everywhere are the same—they will maximum their wealth whether it helps or hurts others. The difference is that the US, with its stronger democratic elements, is much more likely to reign that power in than Mexico is. And that’s exactly what happened. In Mexico there never would have been an anti-trust case against Microsoft, or it would have been killed in the early stages.
Yes, I too find that irritating. Maybe what he means is that Microsoft was innovative in the very beginning of the company’s history, before PCs were part of everyone’s household. But Gates’ Microsoft soon started to pursue a very monopolistic policy. And it has been doing so to this day. (I can’t compare that to Carlos Slim’s conglomerate, though, due to a lack of knowledge about that.)
Libs: There is no way to avoid genocide. You must vote for genocide!
Also Libs (accepting “nobel prize in econ”): Enjoy your democracy!
Income equality is just one of many other factors to assess a just society as we know. But as many focus on China’s GDP growth in its recent history, here are just numbers:
Between 2014 and 2022, in China the share of the bottom-50% income group (pre-tax) in the national income fell from 14.4% to 13.7%. In the same period, the shares of the top-1% and top-10% income groups rose from 13.7% and 41.5% to 15.7% and 43.4%, respectively. In a nutshell: the Chinese rich got richer, the poor got poorer.
For Western-style democracies, the numbers are diverse:
In European democracies like Germany and especially Norway, top income groups lost while the bottom-50% gained, while in countries like Finland all three mentioned groups gained, suggesting that the ‘middle class’ paid the bill. In other countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S., the numbers show gains for the top at the cost of the bottom half.
And in Australia, top income groups lost significantly more than the bottom-50% gained, suggesting the middle class benefited, while in countries like Canada and Japan there appear to be only slight or even no significant changes in the period between 2014-2022.
But as I said, we must also focus on other factors that make a good society (the four freedoms come to my mind: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear). Given the fact that some in this thread cite China’s growth of GDP and national wealth as a factor of societal success, it is clear that this argument does not hold, though.
[Edit typo.]
A lot of people who have never actually been to China don’t understand just how poor the rural areas actually are. China has invested a ton in major urban infrastructure but has largely let the countryside languish. The worst part is that you are born with something called hukou which makes it very difficult to establish permanent residence in these new cities, reinforcing what is effectively a regional caste system.
I absolutely agree with that.
Oh boy, ml is going to be real mad about this one. 🫳🍿
Why would anyone be mad at an unsourced opinion piece from a person that got a feels prize in a non scientific category?
Yes, the person that dedicated their life to simping for capitalism to massively enrich themselves is going to say anything but their ideal version of capitalism will fail.
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
I feel like worshipping the economy, and having it be the sole measure of society, inevitably leads us to the far-right. China is not going to magically crumble, and economic prosperity is achievable without societal progress.
We need to have societal progress as the goal, not some magic by-product of line go up.
The economy assigns a quantifiable amount, a number, to things and unimaginative people will know how much value it brings. Ask an unimaginative person to ascribe value to beauty, joy, contentment, they will find them worthless without a number.
The economy is a guide for helping people who can’t empathize or imagine. It has a purpose so we can’t get rid of it. But we can give a stated value to the things we cherish as inalienable rights. And that value isn’t a number, it is a priority. For example, I will turn down money if I am offered free time. No set amount of money would sway me, it would change day to day like market pricing, but I value time more than money.
I agree that we should dismiss “line go up” as a culture. Chasing money has only shown corruption. But we can shape the economy by giving priority to unvalued things.
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
Okay. 14 years under a relatively liberal democratic regime, and then 6 years of a fascist government seizing the property of anyone who was against the state, followed by another 6 years of a fascist government plundering nearby countries in order to fuel the war machine, all without providing a decent standard of living to its population. But hey, they had lots of guns, so I guess that’s success.
The only competent Nazi economist of note was sidelined less than 3 years into the regime’s rule.
The Nazis overheated the German economy not entirely unlike what is happening in Russia right now. It wasn’t sustainable nor healthy.
Russia is getting massive life and from the US and western sphere?
I would really love to have a conversation about how the Nazis had a great economy, capable of going from rebuilding from WWI to starting WWII in 20 years.
I mean more than two thirds of those 20 years were the Weimar republic, so if anything the credit goes to Weimar Germany here. The only contributions Nazis made to the economy were plundering Eastern European and Jewish wealth.
Germany didn’t build up middle class as much, more the lower class (that was saved from starvation), the added a lot to national wealth & common everyday lives via accessible public infrastructure (all of it basically, not just the roads & railroads).
And China is curbing it’s economical growth, and societal changes are happening, the first gens with mandatory education are now retired already.
I can’t really say how much and what directions it’s taking them, but no-one can prob - time will tell.
what‘s this inclusive economy he‘s talking about?
But not too democratic because then the economy suffers amirite? Like, in the democracies, the poors must always be kept on a leash otherwise they might start getting ideas, right? RIGHT?
See Hong Kong circa 2019
☂️<-pretend it’s yellow
OK, so show me this democracy, that had 30+ years f double digit economic growth.
I’m all for democracy, and will oppose anything else, but let’s not make our ideals cloud our vision of reality.
China is not succeeding despite or because of a 1 party rule, but because they’ve had economic policies that stimulated growth.Economies prefer open markets and stability and predictability, whether it’s delivered by a democracy or not is probably irrelevant.
Democracies tend to be the best guarantee for the conditions that benefit economy, but China has done a very good job at it too.I wonder what that person who I talked to yesterday who was telling me that monarchies were superior to democracies would say about this?
I asked them who got to be king if the democracies were replaced with monarchies, but they wouldn’t tell me.
Hopefully not a Habsburg.
I’ve been watching The Great on Hulu. It’s an explicitly fictionalized account of Catherine the Great in Russia, and I generally recommend it as long as you keep its subtitle of “An Occasionally True Story” in mind.
Anyway, the actual Catherine the Great was one of the Enlightened Despots of Europe. For the sake of argument, let’s say everything she did was absolutely amazing, and raised millions of people out of serfdom and into education and opportunities that were completely closed off before. Basically, the absolute best case you can ever make for the monarchy.
6 generations later, Russia is ruled by Czar Nicholas II, and there’s no other way to put it: it’s a fucking disaster. Russia hadn’t been industrializing the way other powers had in the 100+ years between then and Catherine, but Nicky drags the country into a war against a country that had. The inevitable happens, and it gets so bad that Nicky gets shot by revolutionaries in a basement along with the rest of his family. As brutal as that execution was, it’s hard to say the Bolshoviks were wrong for doing so.
So even in the absolute best case scenario, better than any monarchy could ever do for real, it doesn’t last. It can’t last. You may get a good one once in a while–and even that is a stretch–but the next one could easily be a monster that undoes everything.
The problem is that there was a glimmer of democratic hope between the time Tsar Nick was dispensed and when Lenin seized power. A lot of Lenin apologists like to gloss over this part when they pretend like the stuff he did was necessary. Yes, it was “necessary” because he positioned himself as tyrant from day 1.
We can also look at the Habsburgs to see why bloodline rule leads to serious inbreeding.
Here’s Charles II of Spain.
Since this is a portrait, not a photo, this is the best they could make him look.
And his issues went beyond the physical. He was also significantly intellectually disabled. But he was part of that royal bloodline, so…
Did they give you any reasoning?
Not reasoning I could understand. It was in the context of saying that democracy was a bad thing. They originally said that UBI was, somehow, the alternative to democracy. After pointing out more than once that you need people in charge to keep things running, even just to distribute the UBI, they settled on a king.
Curtis yarvin is a slime
Cool. Who gets to be king? You?
Edit: sorry, I thought you were agreeing with the monarchist. My mistake.
Ah yeah he’s a bit obscure but he’s been pushing this American Monarchism angle for a long time. Absolutely bizarre entry into the culture wars, decades later I can’t tell if he’s a really an American monarchist or just providing cover and beliefs to help totalitarian fascists.
Normally I’d apologise for making people aware of him but as you’re a mod on a big forum you sadly probably do need to know who he is
I always appreciate learning new things, so thank you!
In a piece published in November 2022, Nobel Economist Daron Acemoglu argues that China’s economy is rotting from the head.
For a while, [China’s leader] Xi, his entourage, and even many outside experts believed that the economy could still flourish under conditions of tightening central control, censorship, indoctrination, and repression [after Xi secured an unprecedented third term (with no future term limits in sight), and stacked the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with loyal supporters]. Again, many looked to AI as an unprecedentedly powerful tool for monitoring and controlling society.
Yet there is mounting evidence to suggest that Xi and advisers misread the situation, and that China is poised to pay a hefty economic price for the regime’s intensifying control. Following sweeping regulatory crackdowns on Alibaba, Tencent, and others in 2021, Chinese companies are increasingly focused on remaining in the political authorities’ good graces, rather than on innovating.
The inefficiencies and other problems created by the politically motivated allocation of credit are also piling up, and state-led innovation is starting to reach its limits. Despite a large increase in government support since 2013, the quality of Chinese academic research is improving only slowly.
[…] The top-down control in Chinese academia is distorting the direction of research, too. Many faculty members are choosing their research areas to curry favor with heads of departments or deans, who have considerable power over their careers. As they shift their priorities, the evidence suggests that the overall quality of research is suffering.
Xi’s tightening grip over science and the economy means that these problems will intensify. And as is true in all autocracies, no independent experts or domestic media will speak up about the train wreck he has set in motion […]
So when china eventually surpasses all other countries economically and the BRICS countries prosper as a whole, will this guys ideas be disproven or will he have excuses?
Anyone who mentions BRICS like it’s a coherent organisation disqualifies themselves from being taken seriously.
I mean Chinese GDP per capita is below the worldwide average so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. China has a mildly conscientious government so they’re doing well for an autocracy, but make no mistake they’re not coming close to Western countries if you account for population differences. Also don’t forget that China is one mad dictator away from completely falling apart (remember Mao?) so statistically they’re not gonna survive long enough in their current state to beat the West.
They also have a youth unemployment rate of over 20%.
Angry youth is not a good thing for a regime.
China was doing better when it was an oligarchy; Xi’s consolidation of power will not end well for China. Or it won’t end well for Xi. One or the other.
I also have hopes and dreams.
He’s right, but it can take a long time and people will suffer in the mean time. Would be nice to skip ahead.
Agreed. The economy and well-being of countries definitely suffer from authoritarian regimes in the long term, but…
What about their armies?
Their armies suffer too. Authoritarian regimes rely on repression, which rely on the military. This means that the military cannot be allowed to be staffed by competent men at all levels, or they might realize that THEY are the true power in the state, and overthrow the oligarchs to institute their own oligarchy. This is why so many long-lasting authoritarian regimes have massive armies that absolutely dissolve the instant pressure is put on them. They’ve been hollowed out by years of political maneuvering by rightfully-paranoid oligarchs.
You sure about that? China and Russia hiked their way up to the top 3 in what… 15 years?
You sure about that? China and Russia hiked their way up to the top 3 in what… 15 years?
Yes, I am absolutely sure about that. Russia managed to fuck up a surprise attack against an enemy directly on their border they had been making plans against for the past decade and that they outgunned by an order of magnitude, with a population and military 5 times its size, and ample intelligence and access to intelligence within the country.
That’s not the performance of a powerful military. That’s the performance of an authoritarian regime’s showpiece being put up to an actual test and failing miserably.
You seem to be under the impression that a stronger army will succeed in invasion of foreign territory by default. Also, are we not going to address how the west has been preparing Ukraine for such invasion for the same period of time? The only reason why Ukraine is NATO is for exactly what’s happening. Buffer warzone between Russia and the west.
I can appreciate your arguments, but I think complete conviction is unwise.
You seem to be under the impression that a stronger army will succeed in invasion of foreign territory by default.
The more advantages an army has, the more likely it is that it will prevail in any given task. Nominally, the Russian military had numerous and massive advantages over Ukraine, even with the limited NATO support offered to Ukraine 2014-2022. Yet it failed, and failed miserably. Why? Because it was hollowed out of competence, a shell of corruption and apathy polished to a shine with a large military budget.
I can appreciate your arguments, but I think complete conviction is unwise.
An authoritarian regime does not immediately destroy whatever military it inherits. But like I said - it’s a process. They, by their very nature, hollow their militaries out. The point isn’t even that authoritarian militaries can’t succeed in a given task; the point is that authoritarian regimes pretty inherently weaken their own military capacity compared to non-authoritarian regimes, and no amount of spending changes that fundamental fact. Saddam is another great example of this.
Vietnam and Afghanistan may like to have a word with your first argument. I understand your second point, but i don’t see supporting arguments backing the clear trend of authoritarian governments eroding their military forces by their very nature you are so convinced about.
A bad economy will definitely weaken military strength in the long run,just like the diplomatic and trade sanctions that often are imposed on authoritarian or anti US/West regimes will. However, do you really think if we isolated these effects, the war efforts of an authoritarian government with full control over its population and production is inherently worse off than a functional democracy with broad civil rights? You may argue that this effect isolation is a hypothetical fiction, but then we’d just be talking about economies vs economies… which wasn’t my point.
Look, friend, I’m in no way saying “therefore China wins the arms race”. I’m saying authoritarianism, in the short term, by its nature has the possibility of assigning and coordinating way more resources to war efforts than a democracy. Given 2 identical counties neighboring each other, on any given day, put a totalitarian regime on one, and a democratic government on another… Which do you think has the advantage?
I hope you understand I’m presenting my position and arguments from a place of good faith and respect.
Vietnam and Afghanistan may like to have a word with your first argument.
A bad economy will definitely weaken military strength in the long run,just like the diplomatic and trade sanctions that often are imposed on authoritarian or anti US/West regimes will. However, do you really think if we isolated these effects, the war efforts of an authoritarian government with full control over its population and production is inherently worse off than a functional democracy with broad civil rights? You may argue that this effect isolation is a hypothetical fiction, but then we’d just be talking about economies vs economies… which wasn’t my point.
No, no, I’m willing to accept this hypothetical - but in this hypothetical, the authoritarian regime is still weaker in the long run, for the reasons I laid out. Authoritarian regimes are inherently brittle, and cannot brook dissent - the higher-placed and more powerful the figure, the less dissent can be tolerated. Hence, the hollowing out of militaries - all important figures MUST be loyal above all, and competence either doesn’t matter, or is a threat insofar as it increases the power of the figure outside of the oligarchy. Economics doesn’t need to enter into it at all.
Democratic regimes have safety valves for dissent - meaningful elections. Authoritarian regimes, inherently, do not have that release. They, as JFK once said, ensure peaceful change is impossible - and in doing so, close off all possibilities except violent change. All dissident forces in an authoritarian society will end up backing ‘undesirable’ methods of change, and no one in an authoritarian regime, other than the oligarchy itself, is better placed to affect said methods of change other than the military. Either an authoritarian regime must castrate the military, or it will be overthrown (effectively or outright) by the military.
Look, friend, I’m in no way saying “therefore China wins the arms race”. I’m saying authoritarianism, in the short term, by its nature has the possibility of assigning and coordinating way more resources to war efforts than a democracy. Given 2 identical counties neighboring each other, on any given day, put a totalitarian regime on one, and a democratic government on another… Which do you think has the advantage?
Again, the democratic government.
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The democratic government has a reduced need for repression, making broad participation in the military less necessary to monitor. The number of people who are ‘political undesirables’ who must be reassigned away from positions of their competency in a total war scenario is much smaller, while a totalitarian government necessarily must prevent them from holding any important positions for its own long-term survival - and the decision-making of an oligarchy prioritizes its own long-term survival above everything, including success in war.
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The democratic government does not need to closely monitor its war output, unlike an authoritarian regime - democratic governments enjoy broad legitimacy when they are legitimately democratic, while authoritarian regimes always endure some amount of irrepressible dissent in the population that manifests itself in deliberate disobedience and sabotage of the government’s efforts - including war efforts. Furthermore, the looser controls that a democratic society holds over its production is a further advantage, as each government manager and overseer that is not needed to ensure compliance of production with the wishes of the state (unlike in a totalitarian regime, where government functionaries and strict orders are the primary means of communication of all behavior of production) is one who is free for other tasks for the war effort.
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The democratic government does not need the same level of distrust in its military figures - an authoritarian government is more at risk of a coup in wartime than any other period, as coups in an authoritarian society are easily justified by the same reasoning that the authoritarian government itself uses. Democratic governments in wartime are prone to democratic backsliding, but a significantly reduced risk of outright coups compared to authoritarian regimes, as a military coup necessarily demands a significant change from the basic and fundamental legitimizing reasoning of a democratic society - something which discourages many would-be coup plotters. This means that when General Patton asks for 99,000 troops on the north-eastern front, the demand is more likely to be fulfilled in accordance with the democratic government’s perception of military and political necessity than of the fear of those forces being turned against them - unlike, say, Prigozhin making requests of the authoritarian government or withdrawing his troops to the border of the Motherland.
Cooperation is very powerful, and it’s why democratic governments, or at least more democratic governments, have become widespread, while more naked autocracies and oligarchies have declined. Not because of some deep, moral yearning in mankind’s soul that was only awakened in the past ten seconds of civilization’s existence, but because the rise of coherent and stable national governments (as opposed to the ad hoc nature of dynasties) favors efficient methods of government, by simple process of natural selection if nothing else.
I hope you understand I’m presenting my position and arguments from a place of good faith and respect.
I do, don’t worry! I appreciate a good argument.
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Democracy is a fundamental value, but you still have to be able to take action on big stuff. There’s a time to gather all the best information possible and a time to make an actual decision that has consequences. Unfortunately, by not taking that lead, democracies are outsourcing the big consequential stuff to undemocratic corporations.
I suspect that democracy is a “good times” system. It works well enough when the problems are either low-stakes or widely agreed upon.
When you get into a world of hard choices-- for example, anything where we have to devalue some existing wealth – suddenly there’s going to be both a lack of consensus (likely manufactured) and leaders too afraid of losing the next vote to pull the trigger.
That’s why I expect to see China solve its climate change and housing problems faster than the West. Without the almighty polls lurking in the shadows, they can say “petrol is 100 yuan a litre to discourage its use” or “we’re nationalizing second homes and disbursing them to schoolteachers.”
that’s just rehashed fukuyama
From what I can see, their whole Nobel is just claiming to have discovered things everyone in many other disciplines has known for decades (at the last). Maybe economists are just a bit slow.
Neoliberal hacks gonna hack I guess.
