You don't need to brand efficiency and structure-at-scale as "authoritarian"; how painfully American of you. I know it's a completely foreign concept for anyone that has grown up in America, but it's actually within the realm of human possibility for the government and the individual to be aligned and want the same thing. Typically this is evidenced by tremendous social progress, which we see in evidence with the rapidly rising standard of living in China over the last few decades.

It's easier when your government is proposing "hey, let's build all the factories the best way we can" and not "hey, let's impose illogical and continually-changing tariffs on everything and let Howard Lutnick's kids steal all the proceeds". You're right as an American to be skeptical of the government - it's not operating in your best interests unless you're one of the elite insiders. That doesn't mean it has to be that way.

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superxpro12 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

For all the progress, you lose me immediately with the "social credit" system. If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent.

Only need to look to the recent changes in Hong-Kong and the obviously hostile takeover of a democratic government to see how "pure" these changes really are.

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hamandcheese 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent.

This makes no sense. It is possible for a totalitarian government which is threatened by dissent and concepts like "democracy" to also work in the interest of improving overall quality of life.

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resters an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Snowden's revelations showed that the same stuff exists in the US.

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xtn an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are bad things in China, but there is no "social credit" system being used.

	▲	Saline9515 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes there is. Why deny it? It's pretty public. In this french documentary, which was later aired on the parliamentary tv channel, the author films his daily life with his chinese wife, who has a social credit account, and interviews officials speaking openly about it. It's 4 years old. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6txLM_LLs

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shimman 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Dude come on, the US already has a social credit system. Where do you think China got the idea of credit scores from? Try getting a good loan in the US if your credit score is under 400. You're barred from having certain jobs if you don't have a good credit score.

Get some new talking points, you're like 40 years out of date.

	▲	Saline9515 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The difference with China is that the US credit score is limited to your banking activities.

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typ 30 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

If that were the true secret sauce of the economic success in China, why had it not taken off before the 2000s? Like, they have been that "aligned" and "want the same thing" and "run by engineers" since the 50s, no?

	▲	wat10000 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It kind of did. GDP per capita grew at around 6% per year from 1952-1980. It was starting from such a low base that it was still pretty low in 1980, but it was much improved. And Mao was not an engineer.