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Comment by PavlovsCat | Hacker News Reader

> I have no idea whether the Chinese system of government is a good idea or an idea that will lead to the implosion of their society.

So if it doesn't implode, that makes it a good idea?

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China has gone from an undeveloped nation where people were literally starving to death by the tens of millions, to one of the most powerful and economically successful nations in the world. And they did this all in less than a single human lifetime. This trajectory of success is unlike anything we've seen anytime in human history excluding growth from military expansion. They're greatly outpacing the United States' rise from backwoods colonies to the most powerful nation in the world, and they've even exceeded reconstruction era Japan. If they can maintain even a fraction of their current momentum and trajectory, China is well on the path to becoming the most powerful nation in the world. And that role is implicitly accompanied by the privilege of being able to heavily influence the path of our entire world and, consequently, species.

So yes I think it's completely absurd to suggest they've achieved anything short of remarkable success with their system of development and governance. But the question is what will happen in the process of this success and whether the path they've taken is sustainable or not. Is their growth indeed on the current exponential it seems to be on? A sigmoid where this wildly exponential growth will start to level off, or perhaps even something like a bell curve where the rapid ascent will be met by a comparably rapid decline?

I am more hesitant to attribute this success to the success of their government system. After all, when the government exhibited more totalitarian control, tragedies like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution occurred, that killed a generation of progress and more. It was after Deng's restructuring and China's opening up of its markets that it saw unprecedented growth. But what I'm seeing right now is totalitarian elements being reintroduced into governance---thus I don't share your unbridled faith that there is something essentially right with China's current governance.

I'd debate the degree to which China opened its markets, but that's an aside -- I mostly agree with you in theory. But there's one nagging issue. Countless other developing nations that have done things such as open their markets and have had nowhere near the success to show for it that China has.

I think unforeseen consequences, both negative and positive, are a major part of how societies develop. We in general have nowhere near the foresight we like to image we do. And in particular, I'm more inclined to attribute China's success to their systems in large part because the only thing as large an outlier as their success is their governmental system. And the timing also fits quite well. If it's just e.g. open markets then it leaves you having to explain why China is thriving whereas most other developing nations following the WTO playbook have relatively little to show for it.

IMO China's success is quite belated. Much of the world was recovering from WWII with booming economies, and Asian economies especially saw rapid growth, hence the four Asian tigers as well. To the CCP's credit, they have managed to hold China together and given it stability when many have tried and failed for a century, and this I think is the greatest reason for China's success.

It's not possible to identify a unifying thread among countries that try to follow the WTO playbook that fail. Some fail because a totalitarian minority control a valuable natural resource. Some fail because of irreconcilable differences between nations (races) sharing the same political state. Still there are many other reasons.

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