Random Thread

[zompist]

And that's why I talked about path dependency. How the regime changes determines what comes next. And it's 75% likely to be bad! Regime changes are usually violent and lead to a generation or more of trouble.

Cheering for regime change without proposing a plan for moving towards a viable alternative is a bad idea. I have seen no such plans, only Anti-Communist chest-beating. Are the Communists holding the Chinese back? Almost certainly, but that's not the only thing they're doing. If they fall, terrible things will probably happen, and there needs to be a plan to avert them.

I understand your sense of alarm, but this idea of a plan is baffling. Who is supposed to propose it? What powers do they have to implement it?

Yet, it's not 1924. China has the model of Taiwan to look at now, and so do we. It's not some inevitable law of history that Chinese states have to be authoritarian and regressive.

That's not how these things work.

It is exactly how things work. Nations imitate each other; writers of constitutions peer over each other's shoulders. The process runs with an almost comic regularity in Latin America: anti-Spanish elite revolutions in the 1820s, dictatorships in the Cold War, republics after it.

One reason things went so badly for China in the 1920s was the lack of models. Something like the US seemed completely unattainable. Intellectuals tended to think some sort of strongman was required, and both the KMT and CCP were modeled on the Soviet system.

As you say, a lot of outsiders rooting for regime change in China are repeating half a century of anticommunism. (In the 50s the cry was "Unleash Chiang Kai-shek!", as if Chiang ever did much good.) What the CCP elite wants, of course, is for the CCP elite to stay in charge. The interesting question is what the Chinese people want. What do you think that is?

[rotting bones]

zompist: The people are divided into factions. Chinese nationalists are often allied to the Communist Party. That's one contingent. The majority of the people probably want to live in a liberal democracy, but that's because they currently live under Communists. Their attitude probably won't last once the Communists are out of office. Strictly speaking, I'd have to say the people as a whole across all time and space want nothing in particular aside from the bare essentials. They want different things at different places and in different times. Moreover, leaders sometimes incite them to make certain demands or impute desires to them that are difficult to disprove as part of calculated moves.

You seem to think the majority's desire to live in a liberal democracy will outlive Communism. I'm less optimistic because you can't become wealthy by choosing to be. The source of income needs to exist in the first place. Post-Communist Russia really wanted to be a liberal democracy. Western Europe was a model that it wanted to emulate. The same core values are enshrined in the constitution of the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, Russia simply couldn't find the money to be free. Under disastrous social circumstances, they found a strongman who promised stability. Putin's traditionalism is a symbol of stability in an unstable society. His power is predicated on Russia's poverty.

I don't understand why China would be different. During their capitalist period, they occasionally ate babies to get by. The Communist Party's endless manipulation is barely holding the seams together. If you think Chinese officials are corrupt now, wait till they get poorer and making money becomes their only mantra. The way to avoid this outcome is to have some kind of proposal to get the amount of money needed to mollify the people into supporting a liberal democracy. There needs to be some general plan of action that whatever government succeeds the Communists can at least consider following. I'm skeptical whether any such thing exists because I have doubts as to whether it's realistic for China to earn that much money in the current global climate.

I hope you realize that conservatives see liberals in exactly the same light as you see Communists: Power-hungry radicals without a moral compass.

dhok: I haven't gone through your data yet, but one point that occurs to me is that, with the evolving situation, the Communist Party might help migrants entering the cities. They might not do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but they are terrified of popular opinion. Or maybe the Communist Party will try to install some form of central planning to cope with their capitalist limitations. I wonder how terribly that will go.

[zompist]

You seem to think the majority's desire to live in a liberal democracy will outlive Communism. I'm less optimistic [...]

I think you dearly want to argue with a phantom rather than listening to what I'm saying.

Didn't I say whatever followed regime change would be "75% bad"? Yet you want to act like the more knowing and cynical person. What are you disagreeing about? The likelihood might be more like 86.2% bad?

Post-Communist Russia really wanted to be a liberal democracy. Western Europe was a model that it wanted to emulate. The same core values are enshrined in the constitution of the Russian Federation.

It was a huge missed opportunity for the West, spoiled because we have plutocrats in charge, who a) don't believe in "handouts" to foreigners, and b) push austerity as the answer to everything.

So, if your proposal is some kind of post-communist Marshall Plan-- great, I'm in favor. But... well, the timing will be tricky. It's not going to happen if the US and Europe are still caught up in a reactionary wave.

[rotting bones]

What are you disagreeing about? The likelihood might be more like 86.2% bad?

100% bad if we don't even know the outlines of the next move. I thought I was reasonably clear about this.

Yet you want to act like the more knowing and cynical person.

I was trying to cast a wide net because I didn't understand why you think China has a fair chance (one in four) to transition into a liberal democracy at all...

So, if your proposal is some kind of post-communist Marshall Plan-- great, I'm in favor. But... well, the timing will be tricky. It's not going to happen if the US and Europe are still caught up in a reactionary wave.

...but now I do. I don't think the West would give handouts that massive even if they weren't caught in a reactionary wave. I hope I'm wrong.

[Moose-tache]

This whole "China is fundamentally undemocratizable" stuff would be more credible if all the major centers of Chinese political culture outside the PRC weren't already at least slightly more democratic than the PRC. What's our data set? Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, right? They run the gamut from "slightly better than the PRC" to "mostly democratic and clamoring for more." Are they all secretly Estonian in Taiwan? For that matter, what cultural and economic elements prevent China from democratizing that didn't apply to other East Asian countries? I don't think it would be very convincing to say that Japanese occupation was the only thing preventing the Confucianists from rolling back women's rights in Korea. So how do we know that regressive cultural elements in China will be victorious with such certainty?
I agree the push for Western-style democracy seems pretty minor right now in most segments of the population. But democracy in China could easily look like Japan one day: just let the hereditary politicians stay in place, without even knowing what day the election is or where the polling place is, or who your representative is, and then periodically panic like a stuck pig and throw everyone out of their seat when something goes wrong. Then forget why you did that and let the old boys dust off their chairs. It's not great, but it would be an improvement over the status quo. You don't really have to believe in democracy, whatever that means. You just have to be capable of getting occasionally very angry for some reason. Are Confucians so incapable of that?

[MacAnDàil]

Exactly, Moose-Tache. There's no need for any Marshal Plan or equivalent. The current Chinese government is very authoritarian, and this is of course. There is no telling how authoritarian a replacement government would be, but there are few governments more authoritarian. So, as long as a replacement government would neither resemble North Korea nor Saudi Arabia, China and indeed the world will be better off. If we don't hear the Chinese clamoring for democracy (outwith Hong Kong of course), it's at least partly due to censorship.

Rotting seems to be rooting for current Chinese government because he feels communism is a good idea. But communism is clearly better supported by looking at the best of it, like the democratising revolution in Nepal or the implementation of social security in France.

[rotting bones]

Yes, and Swiss Germans were freedom lovers while bowing to the Kaiser was German Culture TM. Other Chinese enclaves had sources of income that China doesn't have in proportion to their population. Eg. Hong Kong was a port city like I said, America gave a billion dollars to Taiwan until 1953 when it had 8 million people (I think?), and so on. "Clamoring for" democracy doesn't come from Culture TM, but money. (And if I'm honest, even baser things than that.) Guardians of Culture TM in China argue that totalitarianism is essentially Chinese TM, but they just as wrong as Germans were. Culture TM isn't important. It is mostly an outcome of which interests in society have money and which do not, which is then combined with irrelevant bits of historical trivia chosen to overpower the rational mind with artistic awe. The same goes for Muslim Culture TM, Russian Culture TM and Sub-Saharan African Culture TM. None of these societies are fundamentally anti-democratic. The idea that they are is the consensus among certain groups of "intellectuals", but it's all lies and I don't believe a word of it.

Having said that, it remains to be determined where to get the money needed to free these societies. In other words, I'm not saying China is ontologically undemocratizable, only that I've seen no proposals leading to that outcome and I have doubts as to whether one is realizable in the current climate.

Examples of counterarguments I'll accept include:

1. The Chinese will do better than the Russians. Maybe, but how? In the past, China might have enriched itself by going on a colonial spree extending beyond Tibet and Xinjiang. These days, that strategy runs the risk of starting a nuclear war. The safest bet is the slow colonialism of trade with Africa, which the Communist Party is already doing. Would the proceeds from ripping off Africans be shared more equitably after the fall of the Communist Party? Possibly. Would that be enough to keep the country afloat? Unlikely, but I can't prove it won't.

2. I'm overestimating the bully patrol that fights for totalitarianism in China. Maybe, but they seem very strong to me, at least currently. Many protesters at Tiananmen were actually Maoists demonstrating against the Post-Maoists.

Less likely scenarios include:

1. The West will bail out China. After all, the West did invest in other Chinese enclaves. Unfortunately, China is just short of a fifth of the world's population IIRC. I suspect that the very proposal to bail out one in every five humans on earth will create a reactionary turn in the West. The current wave has a lot to do with the Arab refugees the West created because it wanted cheap oil without polluting its local environment.

2. The Chinese are immune to the consequences of terror management theory or something to that effect. Now I'm grasping at straws. Chinese people are human, not the fantastic constructions of Chinese Culture TM. Nevertheless, there may be something unique about their context I've missed. Maybe they will turn out to be just as fanatical about liberal democracy as Islamists are about what they choose to call Islam, and they are going to do terrible things to the fascists. The effects of terror management theory will keep creating fascists, but the populace will beat the living daylights out of them, creating an Antifa society. It may be possible to create something like a meta-liberal democracy in this way. However, I can't say this is my impression of a majority, or even a militant minority, of the Chinese population. Social Justice TM is not that popular in China.

These lists are not exhaustive, just points that occur to me at the moment.

[MacAnDàil]

You seem to idealise cultures more than your purported opponents. This is realised in your saying Culture TM.

In any society throughout history, there is culture. Money is more recent. So no, culture is not just derivative of money.

[rotting bones]

You seem to idealise cultures more than your purported opponents. This is realised in your saying Culture TM.

I've addressed this:

Actual culture is an indeterminate list of suggestions that's changing all the time. Authentic Culture TM is necessarily a construction by some ideology as part of a cynical ploy to gain power.

In any society throughout history, there is culture. Money is more recent. So no, culture is not just derivative of money.

Maybe in the past, the construction was derived from direct social power or the control of concrete resources. I can't say for sure. At the moment, however, money is the universal solvent of commodities. Everything I've said is applicable primarily to the present moment. I don't claim to be expounding metaphysical truths.

Just to be clear, I do not support the Communist Party's totalitarianism and I want it to go away. If it can be gotten rid of by removing the Communist Party, I support its removal. Maybe you can give me an argument showing why that is likely to happen.

[MacAnDàil]

Well, the people that are being authoritarian should be removed from power. That would be a good start.

It is impotant to take into account other time periods to realise whether something really is universal or not.

[Moose-tache]

...Maybe, but how?...

This is the problem, I think. The course of history has proven to have far more imagination than those who see the world as a balance of easily-identified essential forces. If history were just a tug-of-war between timeless gods named "having money" and "being Chinese though," then there would be quite a few examples that cannot be explained. Maybe there are more forces at play? Even ones we (gasp!) don't perfectly understand yet, or (gasp of gasps!) haven't occurred to us yet.

[rotting bones]

We don't even have a bare inkling of how to proceed after the fall of the Communist Party. That's all I'm saying. Maybe you believe in God, but I don't.

[rotting bones]

Some things I want to add:

I forgot to mention Singapore, which is a hyper-authoritarian society and all but a one party state, although it's technically democratic. To understand what Singapore is like, consider that it is alt right guru Curtis Yarvin's poster child for his ideal monarchist society. Those Nazis on the streets? It's Singapore that many of them look up to! The only reason Western liberals don't mind it so much is that it's rich. There are no considerations of morality or cultural likeness involved whatsoever. (Edit: I mean, even the ban on homosexuality is sometimes enforced in Singapore.) Should Singapore be overthrown too to introduce diversity? (Edit: If you think Singapore is fine because it has fewer dissidents, it has fewer dissidents because it's rich. Also, it's a bad idea to glamorize dissidents. Many student uprisings under Mao were actually protesting his decision to educate African students in Chinese universities. )

Well, the people that are being authoritarian should be removed from power. That would be a good start.

Thank you. This is the best argument I've read so far. I'll have to think about whether it justifies gambling with the lives of millions.

ETA: America also bailed out Japan, BTW. Despite that, it's a bad idea to be poor in Japan. At this rate, I will keep listing the faults of every country on earth, so maybe I should stop.

[Moose-tache]

We don't even have a bare inkling of how to proceed after the fall of the Communist Party. That's all I'm saying. Maybe you believe in God, but I don't.

I understand; you've been very clear about that. But that, to me, doesn't seem like a very good argument against change. How often is there a convincing blueprint for life ten years apres le deluge? For the plan to have any chance of coming true, you'd need some authority that could plausibly carry it out. Sometimes that comes from a government in exile, but the closest thing China has to a government in exile is... the government of Taiwan. So not much change of this long-term plan you speak of actually happening. But that could be just fine. Most revolutions, whether intentionally or not, are followed by a pretty big question mark. That's true both for revolutions that ended badly and ones that ended well. Nobody knew what post-military government would look like in Korea or Argentina. But it turned out alright. And don't tell me any nonsense about how Argentinians are just better at Democracy at some deep, invisible level. Turns out, I don't believe in God either.

[rotting bones]

And don't tell me any nonsense about how Argentinians are just better at Democracy at some deep, invisible level. Turns out, I don't believe in God either.

Oh, I see. You haven't understood a word I wrote. There is no way you could have missed the leading paragraph of my last long post where I explicitly said that culture doesn't matter. Okay, let's proceed to the exercise in futility:

1. We have an example of Russia being unable to find the money. The Russian Federation's economy is 15 times smaller than the USSR's IIRC. (Edit: On second thought, maybe it is only five times smaller, and even that in a weak, comparative sense. Russia's economy is comparable to Brazil's. At it's peak, the Soviet Union was a third the size of the US. Now Russia is around a fifteenth. I should have looked these up, but I am on the phone. Sorry.) A lot of that corresponds to the gains from Soviet imperialism, but still. There is zero reason to think China will be different. What reasons have I been given? The wealth of Chinese enclaves outside China. Is that not cultural chauvinism and magical thinking? Isn't that like saying using a feather in your potion will confer the properties of lightness and flight? After all, the only thing China has in common with Hong Kong is being Chinese. What does that have to do with economics?

2. Revolutions normally have a plan to create a better society. Eg. Abolishing feudalism, establishing socialism, etc. These plans are based on some reason to think the new society will outperform the old. There is no such rational plan in the case of replacing the Communist Party with liberal democracy. On the contrary, because of point 1 above, there is every reason to think what will follow the reestablishment of capitalism is mass starvation and poverty.

Was that less incomprehensible?

[rotting bones]

And you're going with Argentina as an example of democratic civility? I don't even know what to say!

[dhok]

The USSR was a debt-laden petrostate by 1970, and was arguably felled by the double whammy of falling oil prices from 1980 onwards coupled with Volcker-era interest rates on its Western debt. Neither of these apply to China, which is a net creditor nation whose biggest resource is its manufacturing sector--one that would survive a transition to democracy pretty well.

There would obviously be a period of economic misery during any transition, but there's little reason to believe it would necessarily look like the Yeltsin years.

[rotting bones]

1. Really? Couldn't Post-Soviet Russia have sold military hardware? You think Chinese manufacturing can shore up the rest of the economy?

2. Ignoring the possibility that Trump succeeds in bringing those manufacturing jobs back to America (or at least out of China), don't you think wages will be slashed even further under a capitalist state? The fluctuating stock market makes me suspect that possibility.

Bannon, of course, says Chinese wages are low because commies are godless atheists, as if he doesn't understand the function of the market in making salaries fall. It scares me that he's the voice of the working class, apparently.

ETA: Of course, China's brain drain problem will get worse the instant the PRC falls.

[rotting bones]

More context about my old posts: Tiny trade nexuses like Singapore and Hong Kong get rich by acting as tax havens for international corporations. America bailed out South Korea too, BTW.

[malloc]

Sorry to interrupt an important political discussion, but what would you consider the best way to make a font for conlang purposes? It seems that plenty of professional font-making programs exist, but presumably most conlangers aren't spending hundreds to create fonts for their languages.