At 15:17 24/12/2012, you wrote:
(AC) Perhaps both China and the US will meet somewhere in the middle!!!
(KH) I think they will! What also appears to be growing in both
countries (and the UK) is the use of focus groups. If well-led, and
if groups are sufficiently representative, they are able to tap into
views and feelings which many of the participants might find
embarrassing or difficult or sometimes impossible to discuss in
ordinary life. Focus groups bitterly criticized or laughingly
poo-pooed from all sides when used for political purposes, but then
they are bound to be because they're the only real method of
compensating for the lack of sufficient upward-flowing information in
hierarchical pyramids of bureaucracies and governments of left or
right. In principle, politicians (at least in the West) offer direct
personal access to any of their constituents but they only have small
amounts of time available for that. All told, the "democracy" (full
adult suffrage once every few years) that Western politicians are so
proud about is a travesty of real democracy -- of the sort that used
to happen in Athens' market square when decisions needed to be taken.
Keith
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 7:13 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Arthur Cordell
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The coming recruitment war between the US
and the PRC
At 21:41 22/12/2012, ,, AC wrote:
(AC) It could be one scenario. Things would have to continue to
deteriorate in
the US and China would have to continue to be more open and accepting of new
ideas and slowly but surely move away from its centralized police state.
(KH) I wouldn't be sure that China will become less centralized.
Bureaucracies of any sort of government, left, right or centre,
become increasingly centralized as they expand. Chinese provinces
and some of the major cities have, if anything, more legislative
freedom and much more economic decision-making power than American
states. (And, at the same time, we may note that the use of CCTV and
police drones is growing in all US cities.)
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[ mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 12:32 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] The coming recruitment war between the US and the PRC
The last great orator we had in this country, Aneurin Bevan, said that
England was a nation that is "mainly made of coal and surrounded by fish"
(1945). He said this in the context "that only an organizing genius" could
produce a shortage of coal and fish. (Well, without going into further
detail here, UK governments and the EU between them have certainly become
geniuses!)
I wonder what Bevan would have said today? As it happens, about half of
England is sitting on top of the cheapest and cleanest fossil fuel that has
ever been discovered. I speak of shale gas, of course. One gasfield of 8,000
square miles (20,000 square kilometres) straddles England from east to west.
Even before this is touched, there are enough other large pockets to be able
to supply all our energy needs for centuries to come.
Bevan couldn't make an exception of us today because there are huge
gasfields under all continents and many are undoubtedly larger.
Almost all countries will now have access to as much as they want.
The reason for this is that millions of square miles of ocean bottoms with
3,700 million years of rotting organic life have been subducted under all
the major land masses.
America, with 35,000 wells, has already gone all out to develop shale gas.
It is only pausing at present until it modifies many of its oil-fed power
stations and builds more gas-fed ones. It will also reduce its considerable
imports of oil and gas. Within a few weeks of UK discoveries and further
prospecting, the UK is undergoing the most radical change ever made in its
energy policies.
Most countries are dilly-dallying, so far. Not China. It saw the writing on
the wall immediately. From what one is able to gather, it is already
prospecting widely. It is going to produce widely, too. It was already
running short of conventional fossil fuels. This will also now be its golden
opportunity to develop a new swathe of industries and bring the rural poor
(700 million) into the 'ghost cities' it has already built. Besides, China
now knows that it will have to face the most enormous resumption of American
manufacturing
-- and, more to the point, exporting to countries that China now exports to
almost exclusively.
Until the 1980s America was by far the greatest economic power on earth. A
very considerable part of the reason for this was that, for the most part of
the 20th century, America had been recruiting hundreds of the best
scientists that Europe produced and, latterly, many from Asia. This is why
America is at the forefront in almost all engineering and scientific areas.
In recent decades America may have lost out to China in the production of
consumer goods but not of the cutting-edge producer goods. China is unable
to create the latter.
Its government admits that its young people are uncreative because of its
Confucian culture. Its problem is that, try as it may, it has been unable to
correct the situation.
Thus China will always trail America economically until it, too, starts
recruiting the best of the world's scientists and gradually developing its
own creative culture. What it needs to do is offer as much funding as a
research scientist needs. The rest, such as lovely houses in superb
locations and any type of school that scientists and partners want for their
children are relatively easily supplied.
China started its Green Card system some ten years ago when it realized that
it needed a great number of experienced managers in banking and industry and
teachers of English (which is now becoming China's second official language
[unofficially so far!]). Shale gas, if developed as quickly as America is
going to do, or, more likely, even more rapidly, will enable China to
promote itself into the Research and Development league where it really
needs to be.
Keith
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