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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Meanwhile, there are lots of countries with essentially zero drug use. . . . China . . . [doesn't] have drugs. And unlike the Prohibition Al Capone memes, [it] also ha[s] very few if any gangs.

I doubt this, given that China is a major producer of fentanyl. I find it very hard to believe that the Chinese megacities don't have their (albeit probably smaller) share of strung-out junkies and losers. There's no magic property of Chineseness that protects against drug abuse or opioid addiction - ask Lin Zexu!

Similarly, I find it hard to believe that there isn't significant organized crime in China, even particular to drug manufacture. Instead I would expect that, in a society without strong rule of law norms and heavily dependent upon petty corruption and personal connections, the crime would just have a blurrier relationship to official power than it has here in the U.S.

There's no magic property of Chineseness that protects against drug abuse or opioid addiction

No, they simply have the state capacity and population buy-in to prosecute drug dealers. It's not a Western country, things are different. They really do have almost zero street drug use or street crime.

This is the kind of thing that is easily falsifiable. Just visit their cities. Many visitors have Paris Syndrome in reverse. Westerners think that crime and squalor are just "part of living in a city" but Asian cities have none of it.

You are of course correct that China does have lots of official corruption.