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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11631 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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But they are more long-term.

I keep hearing this about the country that implemented the one child policy, the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, and, my favorite, the four pests policy.

the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, and, my favorite, the four pests policy.

The local SJWs and ardent supporters of these policies, unlike in Western societies, were never permitted to grab structural control over social life after marching through the institutions, and were only deputized as mindless executors of the political moves of the supreme leader. Once he was dead, all power was stripped from them by his successors, they were suppressed and their legacy was undone under the official slogan of Setting Things Right. (I briefly described this period here on the old subreddit.) Due to political and cultural peculiarities I’m afraid this great feat is something that will never be achieved in any Western country. If anything of this sort will ever come to pass, it can only happen through bloodshed and complete collapse. In this sense, I think OP is right – the Chinese are doing it all better.

With respect to the one-child policy I think it needs to be pointed out in defense of the Chinese commies that pretty much everyone else in the world was falling for the same nonsense back then. The notion that runaway overpopulation was causing mass poverty, famine and wars seemed irresistible.

With respect to the one-child policy I think it needs to be pointed out in defense of the Chinese commies that pretty much everyone else in the world was falling for the same nonsense back then. The notion that runaway overpopulation was causing mass poverty, famine and wars seemed irresistible.

For a hilarious snapshot of this, I highly recommend the 1973 film Soylent Green. Which featured a tremendously overpopulated and unemployed, IIRC, NYC, where crowds of people were literally just lying on the streets and stairwells, getting in the way of the protagonists going about their work. Wealth inequality was also one of its themes, with super-high-end apartments being sold with came with bang maids included.

With respect to the one-child policy I think it needs to be pointed out in defense of the Chinese commies that pretty much everyone else in the world was falling for the same nonsense back then. The notion that runaway overpopulation was causing mass poverty, famine and wars seemed irresistible.

Sure, but "we think in centuries while the gwailos think in decades" China went above and beyond what any other country did in regards to stopping the "population bomb".

They've pivoted pretty hard since then and a lot of the Maoist stuff was integral (maybe unintentionally or as a side effect) of breaking the rural system and allowing for industrialization to really take off under liberalization.

You're correct and if anything you are actually underselling the point. Maoist China itself actually was able to manage a very high rate of economic growth, to the point that it outstripped Germany, the USSR and Japan during their modernisation periods. According to Maurice Meisner, in Germany the rate of economic growth for the period 1880-1914 was 33 percent per decade. In Japan from 1874-1929 the rate of increase per decade was 43 percent. The Soviet Union over the period 1928-1958 achieved a decadal increase of 54 percent. In China over the years 1952-1972 the decadal rate was 64 percent. China’s modernisation was actually wildly successful from the start and unlike the Soviets they didn't end up disintegrating, stagnating and lapsing into kleptocracy, though the whole "millions must die" situation is an obvious and big caveat.

The early PRC under Mao went from an industrial base smaller than Belgium to the sixth largest in the world, and this occurred without much external help, except for stuff like limited Soviet aid in the 1950s paid back in full by the 1960s. It was almost entirely endogenous. People always praise Deng but the capability to take over the world's factories didn't come out overnight in 1979. Deng essentially ended up inheriting an already-industrial China with the potential for huge further growth, so long as the right incentive structures were introduced (and they were).

In general, I'm kind of convinced that quick modernisation requires a dictator with the intent and willingness to move fast and break shit, though that approach is certainly not a sustainable system to run a state with over the long term. It also contextualises to me why Mao is still regarded in China, in spite of public perception of him having soured and even the CCP being willing to openly condemn many of his excesses.

I wouldn't consider myself a deep Chinese historian but I've always figured that the back half of Mao gets a large amount blamed on his health/wife taking over for the Cultural Revolution. Plus general party continuity with the massive run of affluence afterwards means that there hasn't really been much of an opportunity for revisionist backlash. The powers that be aren't really interested in letting one of their foundational myths get trashed

"they are more long term" here referred to the demographic problems predictably developing into a problem only on the scale of decades, not to any inherent civilizational differences in discount rates. The idea that Chinese government inherently is better at long term planning is a useful domestic myth/international propaganda.

The way that Bureaucratic/political careers and incentives work in the Chinese system makes it easier to take a long-term view of things than when you're eternally having to defend yourself on 3-4 year electoral cycles. This doesn't necessarily mean that it always works out but it's been solid for the last few decades

when you're eternally having to defend yourself on 3-4 year electoral cycles.

The Communists worldwide (including China) are pretty famous for Five Year Plans. How are those distinct than the American system with 4-year presidential mandates?

5 year plans are more about providing KPIs to work towards/sprints than 'the people who are currently administering have a 50% chance of being removed in 4 years and replaced with people actively working in the other direction'

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