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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35586 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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Of course China did liberalize their economy some forty years ago, and they did experience growth (although much less growth than Singapore did during their own liberalization, while taking in way more immigrants with “deep roots” in weaker economies).

Still, this is Nowratesh’s whole counterargument - Jones claims deeply rooted culture is what’s supposed to determine your economy, but if you can go from Maoism to Dengism within a decade without experiencing much immigration then clearly your economy isn’t that constrained by your culture.

Looks about the same to me.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=SG-CN

Fair, but the results are drastically different if we look at GDP per Capita. Either way the Jones position is that the cultural makeup of China should entail larger growth and a higher level of development, the opposite of what we see on both accounts.

Yea but that’s clearly because it was communist. Clearly. It’s like wondering why Eastern Europe is poorer than Western Europe. It’s possible that the institutions were destroyed by communism, but from what I’ve seen of the west recently it looks like the ex communist nations have dodged a bullet.

from what I’ve seen of the west recently it looks like the ex communist nations have dodged a bullet.

Varies a lot from country to country. In general, the countries that had more of a Germanic influence have done better than those with a Turkish or Russian influence: the Baltic States, Central Europe, and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire heartlands (Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia) have done best. At the opposite end of the spectrum are places like Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Macedonia, and Albania. In the middle are Romania and Bulgaria.

However, these differences also correspond to policy differences: the more successful countries underwent faster transitions to capitalism in the 1990s. Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia had already gone some way towards capitalism before 1989. But was it Germanic cultural influence that made them transition faster?! Social science is very complicated...

I guess I'm not clear what your point is, that's exactly what Nowratesh is saying: if any given culture can seismically change its institutions (ex: to communism and back again) then economic outcomes aren't fixed by culture.

My point is that China is poorer than other places with Chinese people because of communism. You see to not get that. As for Nowratesh, seems rubbish

No, communism did not leave China any poorer than Singapore; their GDP per capita was neck and neck in the early 70s. Yet it has been a very long time since communism and China now massively underperforms relative to modern Singapore, despite a fifteen head start on liberalization and more supposedly favorable demographics

Mao lives until 1976. China only really starts to grow in the 1980s. In 1980 the gdp per capita of Singapore is $5000

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-gross-domestic-product

China has gdp per capita at the time of $125

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capita

That’s the difference between a low median income country and a dirt poor one

If you compare their GDP per Capita in 1960, during the Great Leap Forward when China should be at its absolute poorest, they’re $428 vs $89.5, AKA both miserably poor, among the poorest countries in the world.

Nowadays, many, many years after Chinese communism, Singapore has about 72k and is one of the richest countries in the world. China has about 12k, middling and even poorer than Malaysia, the low SAT* nation whose immigrants were predicted to drag down Singapore.

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No, communism did not leave China any poorer than Singapore; their GDP per capita was neck and neck in the early 70s

Not according to the figures linked above:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=1971&locations=SG-CN&start=1960

Singapore was about 11 times richer in terms of per capita income in the early 1970s, and the gap was growing. Since Deng, Singapore's lead has shrunk to 6 times that of China.

Ah I stand corrected, they look the same on the fifty year time scale, presumably because both are so close to zero. I think the point stands that both were incredibly poor during China’s communist era but only the country that the SAT* would predict to fail has become wildly successful, while the likely winner remained middling despite liberalizing first (but I’ll eat that mistake either way).

If instead of 1970 you compare their GDP per Capita in 1960, it’s $428 vs $89.5, which is to say the ratio is lower than today, about 5x instead of our modern 6x, after both countries have been liberalized for decades.

The ratios, also, i don’t think tell the whole story even if they have grown in distance. Two countries producing <$500 a year per person are both going to be largely agrarian, pre-industrial economies; the difference between a country producing $72k a year vs one producing $12k is the difference between being near the richest country in the world and a nation that’s still in large part off the grid.

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It’s also been a long time since Communism in Germany, but the east is still poorer and generally worse off. Singapore is also a city state and China still has a massive rural hinterland that drags down GDP compared to the more developed urban centers.

Seems relevant to point out Taiwan is one of the wealthiest societies in the world, and that’s Chinese people. Singapore is as well, and it’s also mostly Chinese people.

Mao lives until 1976. China only really starts to grow in the 1980s. In 1980 the gdp per capita of Singapore is $5000

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-gross-domestic-product

China has gdp per capita at the time of $125

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capita

That’s the difference between a low median income country and a dirt poor one

This doesn’t really go against my claim that China is poorer than potential because it was communist.

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