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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35515 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.

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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