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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32065 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Richard Hanania's recent article about how, according to him, this year has shown that liberalism is stronger than many had previously thought inspired me to wonder about what comes first, the liberalism or the success. I would guess that this question is probably meaningless since the answer is that they arise at the same time. At the very least, it is probably not as simple as the liberalism coming first and the success resulting from it.

I was wondering what people here would think about the matter so I will re-post my comment here:

I suspect that a common mistake is to think that liberalism is the state of being of a civilization in which most people support liberalism, whereas the reality is more that liberalism is the state of being of a civilization in which no authoritarian group has managed to completely dominate the others. I suspect that most people who consciously believe in liberalism would become dictators if they could. They do not think that they would, but if the avenues to total rule opened for them they would easily find rationalizations to make total rule by themselves seem altruistic - for example, "we need temporary authoritarianism with us in charge in order to guarantee the long-term survival of liberalism". So liberalism is not the state of being of a civilization which is populated mostly by actual liberals. It is the state of being of a civilization in which multiple competing wannabe authoritarian groups are managing to keep each other in check with none succeeding at gaining total power and completely dominating all the others.

And if this is true, then maybe it is worth it to revise the theory that liberalism leads to successful societies and to say that yes, that is probably true but it may be even more true that successful societies lead to liberalism. It takes a vigorous society to have multiple competing power centers none of which ever manage to come to completely dominate the others. On the other hand, for a society to have only one truly successful power center is a sign of weakness. Such a society lacks the vigor to produce more strong power centers, hence its politics becomes unipolar as one pole crushes the rest.

If this is true - not that I am convinced it is, but if it is - then it is easy to see why liberalism is associated with successful societies. Authoritarian societies are ones that are too weak to prevent themselves from being dominated by one single power center. Liberal societies by definition are those which have been strong enough to have multiple successful power centers that have endured.

I think Hanania and the rest of the 'another 100 years of US hegemony, liberalism has won, end of history for real' is totally wrong.

Everyone (Hanania especially) seems to have gone insane over China's lockdowns, saying it's a neurotic, autistic society. If it's neurotic and it works, then it's not that bad. China didn't have huge death tolls like the US or the rest of the West. The US had about 3000 deaths per million, the Chinese had 4. Even if they're lying by an order of magnitude, they still did an immensely better job at avoiding deaths than the West did. If long COVID turns out to be real and significant, they win there too.

China isn't suffering from stagflation right now like the rest of the world. They have inflation of about 2%, there are worries about inflation being too low. This is because they didn't print huge amounts of money as stimulus. And the damage to the Chinese economy? According to the Asian Development Bank, Chinese growth will drop to 3.3% this year thanks to Omicron and these lockdowns. US growth is somewhere around 1.5% and there's a recession looming. The US and the rest of the West is being forced to raise interest rates to reduce the growth that we paid for with stimulus.

The Chinese got higher growth than we did, with less stimulus. And they won't have to pay the price for that stimulus in inflation.

All in all, China's response to COVID is probably the best in the world. If it turns out that COVID was just the beginning of a new epoch of biowarfare, then they obviously will come out on top there too. And then there's the overwhelming strength of their industrial capacity. The Chinese actually know how to build things, America does not. The program to build the Seattle bike lane will apparently take as long as the entire space race, pic related.

/images/16675172852794697.webp

A French company abandoned the US high-speed rail effort to go somewhere with less political dysfunction - like North Africa:

Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the tortured effort to build the country’s first high-speed rail system is a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.

Let's not forget the $8 Trillion the US spent on the War on Terror, which it decisively lost. The Taliban rule Afghanistan and Iraq is now falling into the Iranian camp.

China didn't have protestors trying to storm Zhongnanhai last year, China doesn't have homeless people with 18 prior arrests raping joggers in their richest, most prestigious city. Leading Chinese politicians do not have their spouses threatened by hammerwielding weirdoes in their own home. China actually surpassed the US in life expectancy this year.

Now American private enterprise has done a pretty good job in technology, in rocketry and so on. But that's not really the role of the state. Not losing wars, maintaining public order, achieving stable economic growth, building infrastructure, maintaining public health, these are all standard roles for the state. China does better (often vastly better) in these sectors than the US, is perhaps worse on the environment while education is unclear (and a lagging indicator).

If anyone's ideology has been discredited, it's the US's anarcho-obstructionist liberalism, not China's party-state.

Part of the definition of stagflation is high unemployment, which we don't have.

China isn't suffering from stagflation right now like the rest of the world. They have inflation of about 2%, there are worries about inflation being too low. This is because they didn't print huge amounts of money as stimulus. And the damage to the Chinese economy? According to the Asian Development Bank, Chinese growth will drop to 3.3% this year thanks to Omicron and these lockdowns. US growth is somewhere around 1.5% and there's a recession looming. The US and the rest of the West is being forced to raise interest rates to reduce the growth that we paid for with stimulus.

I see absolute figures for two groups that did not start with same absolute numbers.

China didn't have protestors trying to storm Zhongnanhai last year, China doesn't have homeless people with 18 prior arrests raping joggers in their richest, most prestigious city.

While it's been a decade since I've lived in China, I just have to disagree with this. Living in China and talking to Chinese people opens up a vast pool of "common knowledge" that is just not available to Westerners since it's not reported in the media and since there are a lot of pro-Chinese westerners in China or Westerners who are (rightfully) afraid of posting anything critical of the govt online. There is a shit ton of stuff that happens in China that you'll never hear about. Most of what happenes, actually.

Homeless dudes might not rape you in the park in China (though then again they might, if you are one of the non-persons living in a slum or migrant laborer camp!) but a well connected person like a school principal, police officer, etc very well might sexually assault you or your daughter, multiple times, and there'd be nothing you could do about it. For extremely obvious reasons this stuff never gets reported -- most people just STFU about it to avoid any retaliation. Another example -- you might also get your ass kicked by local thugs who pay money to the cops, and nobody will ever hear about it. You could also get defrauded or robbed, and the cops are either too apathetic or again, on the take, so nothing will be done.

All of that to say, don't believe that China is some sort of "law and order" society. It is, but in the same way the late stage USSR was. The laws exist to protect and advance the interests of the powerful, and crime statistics serve to burnish the country's image, not to actually document how much crime is taking place.

All of that to say, don't believe that China is some sort of "law and order" society. It is, but in the same way the late stage USSR was. The laws exist to protect and advance the interests of the powerful, and crime statistics serve to burnish the country's image, not to actually document how much crime is taking place.

Compared to what came afterwards, post-Stalin USSR was "law and order" society. Do not look at statistics, look at what Soviet people complained at the time (lots of things, but fear of violence and crime was not one of them), or ask elderly people who remember - they would tell you safety was the main thing they miss from the old times.

they would tell you safety was the main thing they miss from the old times.

Doesn't that run into the issue of what they perceived to be safe? If they perceive themselves safe, or nostalgia blinds their view, then you're getting a perception, not truth.

Official propaganda at the time claimed that harvests are record breaking, shops are full and all Soviet citizens live in great prosperity. Nevertheless, Soviet people perceived things differently.

If violence was omnipresent and streets were gang free fire zones, Soviet people would notice it too.

Read memories of Soviets who immigrated to US - they were doubly shocked. Once positively, with American standard of life and how such unimaginable luxury was seen as normal, and once negatively, with American crime and violence and how such endless carnage was seen as normal.

China isn't perfect. But aren't we forced to conclude that it's safer for your average middle-class person than the equivalent US city? They do fiddle the figures, that's why I'm focusing on high-profile, hard to hide things.

Even so, could they really cover up 75% of crime, the minimum they'd need to be on par with the US? https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/China/United-States/Crime

People get sexually assaulted by those in positions of authority all around the world. It's a very opaque topic, hard to gauge. We had those rape gangs in Britain who were somehow hidden for 20 years.

But generally, people getting raped by strangers, getting their catalytic converters stolen or having a high-profile politician's house broken into by some weirdo - that's more obvious. People notice murders, they notice drug-addicts in the streets, broken glass and so on.

But aren't we forced to conclude that it's safer for your average middle-class person than the equivalent US city?

It's apples and oranges. First, "middle class" in the way that Americans would understand it is ridiculously infinitesimal proportion of the overall population. Not based on income parity, but on the trappings of a middle class lifestyle. By almost all standards the vast, vast majority of Chinese, even city dwellers in "tier 1" cities, are still living in poverty.

Second, there's almost certainly less random street crime in China, but that's because the local/provincial/national government has a monopoly on crime. It's like living in cartel-controlled territory, you're not gonna get mugged by a freelancer, but if a cartel member wants your car or your wife or whatever, you're fucked. Which leads to my next point...

Even so, could they really cover up 75% of crime, the minimum they'd need to be on par with the US?

I don't know, but maybe! A lot of people report crimes in the U.S. because there's string faith in the police and justice system (well, until recently perhaps). To extend the above metaphor, who are you going to call when you get your ass kicked by a cartel member? The police? lol! So the crime that was committed against you never officially happened and it doesn't end up in the stats, along with the vast majority of crimes. Look at our low crime rate! Obviously the metaphor doesn't work completely because cartels do have to vie against the police and federal govt for power, but in a place where the government is essentially just one large corrupt mafia, there's no such need. And we haven't even gotten into how Goodhart's Law affects crime statistics if your party boss has tasked you with reducing X crime by Y percent, it's an open secret that official stats are often tweaked or fabricated.

We had those rape gangs in Britain who were somehow hidden for 20 years.

This is IMO analogous to my example above in that the city government and police force were in cahoots to cover this up for two decades. Only imagine that there are no independent journalists or disinterested higher levels of government to blow the lid off the systematic abuse, and in fact you're liable to end up imprisoned or dead if you dare try to expose thr powerful people behind the coverup.

But generally, people getting raped by strangers, getting their catalytic converters stolen or having a high-profile politician's house broken into by some weirdo - that's more obvious. People notice murders, they notice drug-addicts in the streets, broken glass and so on.

The Chinese government has a tremendous amount of control over the online narrative and complete control over traditional media. You and your neighborhors might notice that there are more killings of robberies, but if state finds that fact embarrassing, good luck getting the news out. I'll concede that in the tier 1 cities (esp Shanghai and Beijing) they are much more likely to actually keep the streets safe, but for the other 99.9% of China where there are fewer foreigners and the population is less Westernized/internet savvy, almost anything could be going on.

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