On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 4:52 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
I do not think it is a good idea for the U.S. to become an economic colony > of China, incapable of manufacturing any core technology for ourselves. It > is difficult to know how we can avoid that without the government playing > an active role to counteract the Chinese government. One thing we can sure > of is that they will not play our rules. > > It is not an easy question. Arguments on both sides have merit. I go not > think there are clear answers. > Exactly. We should be up front in admitting to ourselves and others that we are all in new territory. There are no pat answers. Singapore did not become an economic powerhouse overnight through economic liberalization. It had an authoritarian government that directed money to various sectors during one big, extended social engineering experiment, and during this time it used trade protection and subsidies and so on without hesitation. I've been to Singapore. It's a clean, prosperous, pleasant country. And I've been to China as well and have no ill will towards it. If one is concerned about economic competition, think of China as Singapore writ large. They do not care about our scruples about the free market and trade liberalization and human rights and so on. They will plow ahead, sometimes efficiently, sometimes less so. What they have, which we're still struggling to figure out, is a government that can learn lessons, plan for the long-term and move forward. Most western democracies are more decentralized than that, and the US is a limiting case -- it's completely fragmented, and its elected representatives are in a big cat fight. In such a context, one imagines that the lessons have to be learned by society itself. Let's hope that people are up to the challenge and are able to adopt a humble attitude towards it all. Eric
