I wasn't referring to the ownership patterns of their companies, where indeed many are as you say, crony billionaires.
The Chinese mastery of capitalism lies in their manipulation of currency markets, buying US Treasury bonds to hold the renminbi exchange rate, keeping Chinese exports going and ensuring that others cannot compete. Some years ago, we used to marvel that the Chinese could supply simple pen-type FM radio receivers that could retail in India for IRs 30 and below. Including batteries and headphones. Complaints were made about dumping, but that isn't the right description of what they are doing. Still, all this is really OT to understanding whether to use nomenclatures like 'capitalism' without qualifiers should be included in an acceptable definition of 'public' software. On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 11:48 AM, jtd <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tuesday 14 September 2010 21:33:11 A. Mani wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 5:29 PM, Vickram Crishna > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Today, the world's leading economic power happens to be a country > > > that professes to be communist, while in fact practising and > > > leveraging most of the rules and processes that characterise > > > classic capitalism, including some of its classic abuses > > > (currency manipulation, for instance). Just yesterday, one of its > > > leaders informed our government that they envy our leadership in > > > the area of IT, or software (of course, perhaps his exact words > > > were mistranslated, or am I being too cynical?) > > > > If you are referring to China, then they do not practice 'classic > > capitalism'. They have a strong public sector and have been partly > > conquered by MNCs. They are much ahead in FOSS and are more > > self-reliant in IT. > > I have been to China several times in the 80's around the time they > went ballistic on capitalism. They were more "capitalistic" than > countries claiming to be so. With one caveat. You had to be a party > official above a certain rank to start a business - any business. Or > you had to be a foreigner with foreign exchange. > > This is not capitalism. It is cronyism, wherein qualifying critirea > did not have any logic whatsoever. It was gifting away of the > commons. No better than obtaining Jagirs from the king for being a > loyal henchman, in implementing arbitrary diktats. > > I > If you were a party-man you wrote a one page letter asking for a > government plot which came pre installed with electricity, water, > phone and a RCC road connecting to the nearest (afaik national) > highway. The allotment took a maximum of 4 weeks, though usually > around a week. You may also state the number and nature of employees > you want in your letter, and usually the next day 10 times that > number would turn up on your allocated plot. > If you were a foreigner the caveat was "you could check in anytime you > like but you may never leave" - with your money that is. 100s of HK > and Taiwanese companies flooded the country, followed by S'pore and > Japan. And the world saw an economic miracle. > > BTW the revolutionary Fidel Castro has recovered from his alternate > reality, according to the press atleast. > > -- > Rgds > JTD > _______________________________________________ > network mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in > -- Vickram http://communicall.wordpress.com
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