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Comment by dougmwne | Hacker News Reader

Everything you said might be right, I don't know. I think though that your facts are just as political as the facts the western countries use to justify market-based deregulation.

I've spent some time near Washington politics. It gave me the opionion that our system is purposefully designed to create gridlock in order to tie up political energies. Political energies that would have otherwise been used to create rapid change. I think the entire point is to create a relatively stable climate for business investment.

So that's the exact opposite philosophy as how you described the Chinese system. Central planning and proactive decisions made by a few vs. market driven and reactive desisions made by many.

I'm not even sure if it's possible to determine which system is better or what the exact best middle ground would be. It may have complexity beyond our scientific tools' ability to study.

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I partially agree with your analysis, though I think our system is definitely better, just by reasoning about human nature.

An oligarchy is efficient but can be oppressive. Also, the ancient Greeks figured that an oligarchy naturally evolved into an even more efficient government, a dictatorship (see Xi's purges of rivals, and preparing the stage to retain power indefinitely). And a dictatorship eventually always ends up in the hands of an incapable, uncaring, or downright cruel person, leading to misery for everyone.

My understanding is that was why we put so many checks and balances in the US government, we'd rather do things our own complicated way than submit to a tyrant.

The only problem would be if the US system becomes so weak that it was vulnerable to being conquered by a tyrannical system that was at the height of its power.

> Political energies that would have otherwise been used to create rapid change. I think the entire point is to create a relatively stable climate for business investment.

The flip side of this is, once a few bad decisions seep into the legal system, its incredibly hard to take them out. Which sets the country many years back while others develop rapidly.

I think there is a natural system of balance found in a true free market. When thinking about longer term ideas such as climate change it is ultimately up to the average desire of the population of comsumers as a whole. Even though this has shortcomings I think it is a more "fair" system because it is just a reflection of the psyche and desire of the people and not a controlling party or politburo.

When thinking about things like unsustainable growth rate and ghost cities in China I think that is the negative side of the top down model of central control. The ability to change policy quickly might be a benefit but I don't think we will know the true result in terms of benefit to civilization or country until we can look back and compare systems in the future.

>I think there is a natural system of balance found in a true free market.

This is not borne out by the examples we've seen thus far of deregulated markets. It's important to distinguish between a free market and a deregulated market, as pundits often conflate the two so regularly.

The benefits you state, a system aligned with "the psyche and desire of the people" does not, in fact, naturally emerge from deregulated markets. Every entity participating in a market would benefit by being the only participant in that market, so they do things like externalize costs, acquire competitors and leverage network effects to grow their share of that market.

Once that state is achieved, the people hoping to have their various desires met by various participants in the market will have but a single option.

A deregulated market devolves into central control.

> I think there is a natural system of balance found in a true free market. When thinking about longer term ideas such as climate change it is ultimately up to the average desire of the population of comsumers as a whole. Even though this has shortcomings I think it is a more "fair" system because it is just a reflection of the psyche and desire of the people and not a controlling party or politburo.

Not when capital is not spread out evenly enough. And even then, larger capital will eventually eat smaller ones and then influence gov't and risk invoking a demagog like Trump (oh we already did huh). These mega corp that are controlled by groups of people called executives will do everything to influence the opinion and desire of the people into their favor. The people barely able to feed themselves will have no time to think about climate change. This is _practically_ the same as a controlling party.

The idea of owning a piece of the earth to yourself (and inherited by your descendant) is ridiculous anyway. Resources of our planet is limited. Usable land is limited. Our population grow by the day exponentially. What happens to those who don't have access to these resources and barely have a livable life? Do you expect them to care about climate change? Now you might call me some labels since this idea is not compatible with capitalism and free market, but I would appreciate a thoughtful reply to my questions in this paragraph.

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