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Notes -
Mostly agree with the historical stuff, but re. central planning: My experience is different.
In the US, the government is all carrot, no stick. It will subsidize, it will throw a couple billion dollars in in kind incentives into an industry (Me, in this case) to piss away on stock buybacks or other nonproductive bullshit (This won't even tell you what industry I was in because it has happened multiple times!), and then it will throw up it's hands like "I just have the absolute power over life and death in this nation, nothing I can do", where the dudes I've worked with in China say it is NOT that way.
Yes, it's market based, but if you fuck up you don't get a gentle pat on the back from the state and a managed bankruptcy, you just fucking go out of business; the government might not pick winners but it absolutely picks losers to make an example out of.
Not soviet style central planning, but way more central than your post makes it out to be.
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