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[GreatJustice]

If the economy got sufficiently bad, in your opinion would the government cave in to calls for reforms? And if there's sufficient change in the west, how do you think that will impact it? Say people get a taste for it and America becomes predominantly liberal.

America in the 1920s is a decent example of China as it stands now, but I'd say Germany in the 1840s-1880s is a bit closer.

Germany at the time was growing very quickly from industrialization, but the reactionaries and conservatives were facing problems from rising bourgeois middle class, which advocated liberalism (in the European sense, though in the 1800s that was leaning towards libertarianism). The upper classes, which controlled the factories and provided the officers for the Prussian army, were largely content and supportive of the monarchists. The lower classes were poorly educated, and politically apathetic in central and western Germany (though the more bourgeois in a given area, the more likely the lower classes were to be liberals as well). In Prussia, eastern Germany and Poland the lower classes were largely illiterate and basically serfs, and served as the backbone of the Prussian military. It was only the rising middle class that posed a problem to the Junkers, and they rose up on separate occasions throughout the 1800s. On one occasion, they very nearly overthrew the Kaiser and instituted a republic.

But the monarchists were quite good at making the best of a bad situation. First, when the liberals were at their strongest (the 1840s-1850s), they instituted reforms that created a limited republic and parliament. Then they consolidated their industry in a fairly heavily State influenced direction, with the government being backed heavily by the industrial interests and vice versa. Once Communism began to spread, they indirectly supported the socialists at the expense of the liberals, and began aggressive imperialist wars to direct national attentions abroad so as to create a nationalistic pro-Kaiser fervor. By the 1890s, the liberals were basically powerless, and were completely overridden in 1914, the result of which I think we all know. By 1932, the liberals had effectively ceased to exist as a political force, and the last three or so liberal MPs voted alongside Hitler in giving him complete power.

Similarly, the pro-democracy types in China are relatively few and limited to educated people from the coastal areas. The people in the inland, who compose a large portion (if not a majority) of the army aren't sufficiently educated to consider democracy as an option and the present upper class is doing exceptionally well and doesn't want to rock the boat. There are only two ways I see China moving in the direction of democracy; the first is that the economy keeps going for long enough to create a substantial middle class, which would then support reforms which the ideal CCP of the future folds in on and accepts. This is unlikely (as a large portion of China's growth comes from nonsensical and unsustainable projects like empty cities in Inner Mongolia or from the rest of the world being in happy economic straits buying Chinese goods), and would only occur after a very long period of time. The other possibility would be that China falls apart and some of the SEZ's become vaguely Western influenced like Hong Kong. Neither is especially likely.

But also that massive debt thing is mostly a bunch of crap.  Yeah there is debt but it's in very low interest bonds (actually negative interest inflation adjusted).  Paying them off isn't that hard, our situation is only a little bit more adverse then it was in 1993 and a lot less adverse then it was in 1946.  All we need is for democrats to control the government like they did in 1993 and for the country to not be in the middle of the worst financial crises in 70 years.

The deficit is quite a bit worse than in '93, actually. Not only that, the tried and true Clinton deficit reduction plan, specifically, looting the SS fund to make the balance sheets look good, won't work because the SS fund doesn't have much left to loot. Even the greatest of tax increases, assuming no economic problems resulting thereof, wouldn't come close to balancing the budget alone. Since the Republicans won't touch the military and Democrats won't touch entitlement programs, the chance of necessary spending cuts allowing for a balanced budget are basically nil, too (though just cutting the military or just the entitlement programs wouldn't be quite enough, even if one of the two sides did buckle).

[mainiac]

...there is no contradiction between being a socialist and being a liberal.  The social democrats in Germany were a powerful faction that ran the government for a while and were the principle opposition to Hitler's rise.  I don't really get why you are drawing this whole germany comparison though as I don't see the similarities you are trying to make.

The deficit is quite a bit worse than in '93, actually. Not only that, the tried and true Clinton deficit reduction plan, specifically, looting the SS fund to make the balance sheets look good, won't work because the SS fund doesn't have much left to loot.

I'm sorry but this just isn't true unless you bend over backwards to make Clinton look bad.  You have to count liabilities against him that would occur decades after the years in question.  That would mean counting tax revenues in 1990s dollars while counting the liabilities in mid 21st century dollars but weighing the dollars the same!  Suffice to say any accountant who thought that was a good way to run a budget would get thrown out on his ass.  But politicians and fox news are happy to repeat this ludicrous standard just to try to hide Clinton's good budgeting practices.

"Raiding" social security is a term we should reserve for the act of confiscating the social security trust fund and appropriating it for general revenues, something that Clinton never remotely did.  Furthermore even by the bend-over-backwards-to-slander-Bill-Clinton standard the national debt rapidly shrunk during his time in office compared to GDP which is the important thing.  And even by this standard Clinton still racked up surpluses for three years.  Racking up surpluses means that accounting for economic growth the governments ability to pay debt is rapidly improving.

Try looking at this: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Even the greatest of tax increases, assuming no economic problems resulting thereof, wouldn't come close to balancing the budget alone.

I don't know where to begin except to say that this is wrong.  For this to be true federal spending would need to be too high to sustain when in fact it's lower then most of the 1st world.  Look at this graph: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/debt-mountain-chart.jpg

If it weren't for the tax cuts, wars and 2007 crises we would be below our 2001 levels of debt.  That's even accounting for the normal business cycle (typical recessions like in 2001).

Since the Republicans won't touch the military and Democrats won't touch entitlement programs, the chance of necessary spending cuts allowing for a balanced budget are basically nil, too (though just cutting the military or just the entitlement programs wouldn't be quite enough, even if one of the two sides did buckle).

Democrats passed a major reform to medicare payments in 2010 that will save more then 700 billion this decade and more then that in decades to come.  It was an item that democrats campaigned upon and that republicans labeled "death panels".  Little thing called "ObamaCare", you might have heard of it.  Both republicans and democrats have released budgets that keep these payment reforms so it's likely that they will stick.  So you are saying that democrats won't pass entitlements despite the fact that Democrats passed a major entitlement reform last time they controlled the government.

Basically just one dense chunk of long debunked right wing misinformation.  Ho hum.

[GreatJustice]

...there is no contradiction between being a socialist and being a liberal.  The social democrats in Germany were a powerful faction that ran the government for a while and were the principle opposition to Hitler's rise.  I don't really get why you are drawing this whole germany comparison though as I don't see the similarities you are trying to make.

Didn't I just go over this? In Europe, a liberal is a right-wing reformer. In Europe in the 1800s, a liberal would be a right wing reformer with a distinct libertarian bent. Progressives came later.

"Raiding" social security is a term we should reserve for the act of confiscating the social security trust fund and appropriating it for general revenues, something that Clinton never remotely did.  Furthermore even by the bend-over-backwards-to-slander-Bill-Clinton standard the national debt rapidly shrunk during his time in office compared to GDP which is the important thing.  And even by this standard Clinton still racked up surpluses for three years.  Racking up surpluses means that accounting for economic growth the governments ability to pay debt is rapidly improving.

Yes, he took the so-called SS "surpluses" to pay off the debt (mind, this created intergovernmental debt, but I'll get to that). He was able to do that because the Dot Com bubble was still going strong and the economy was in fairly good shape, two things we presently lack. Clinton shrank public debt to be replaced by intergovernmental debt, a bit like paying off your credit card debt with loans from your coworkers. National debt didn't actually decrease because such a huge amount of the "surplus" was just shuffling money around the government.

I don't know where to begin except to say that this is wrong.  For this to be true federal spending would need to be too high to sustain when in fact it's lower then most of the 1st world.  Look at this graph: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/09/debt-mountain-chart.jpg

Haven't we had this discussion before? A "deficit reduction plan" that's success comes down to "and then God hisself/the Fed recovers the economy and we roll in tax revenues for a while" is not a plan, its a cop out.

Democrats passed a major reform to medicare payments in 2010 that will save more then 700 billion this decade and more then that in decades to come.  It was an item that democrats campaigned upon and that republicans labeled "death panels".  Little thing called "ObamaCare", you might have heard of it.  Both republicans and democrats have released budgets that keep these payment reforms so it's likely that they will stick.  So you are saying that democrats won't pass entitlements despite the fact that Democrats passed a major entitlement reform last time they controlled the government.

I don't think I could begin to explain how wrong this is, so I'll just say that the CBO's track record (and that of its predecessors to boot) is lacking to say the least when it comes to medical costs.

I will point out that Massachusetts, which has had this system for a while, recently instituted price controls, though. Hardly an example of successful price cutting.

[RedKing]

And this is another reason why the Chinese don't want democracy....they look at our perpetual dysfunction and in-fighting and say "fuck that shit". 

[scriver]

...there is no contradiction between being a socialist and being a liberal.  The social democrats in Germany were a powerful faction that ran the government for a while and were the principle opposition to Hitler's rise.  I don't really get why you are drawing this whole germany comparison though as I don't see the similarities you are trying to make.

Didn't I just go over this? In Europe, a liberal is a right-wing reformer. In Europe in the 1800s, a liberal would be a right wing reformer with a distinct libertarian bent. Progressives came later.

He's right, mainciac. The classic political divide looks like this:

Spoiler: The "|" in the middle marks the left/right divide (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]


                          /--- Liberalism
                         /
Socialism ---------|---<
                         \
                          \--- Conservatism



Not about Progressivism, though. Liberals were the first progressives, Voltaire, your "Founding Fathers", all in their vein, back when Conservative = Nobility, Royalism/Loyalism, and Ancien Régime. Then the liberals became the Establishment, The Man, and the Torch of Progress was taken up by us socialists.

This is also the reason that if you search my post history, you'll find a lot of "damn dem libruls!" when I complain about European or non-American politics in it. Because for most of the world, Liberal = Greedy, Self-Serving, Corpo-Plutocratic Capitalist Swine. It's basically just the US (and I believe, sometimes the UK) that sees liberals as left wing.

[RedKing]

While in the modern PRC, the far Left is the Right (i.e. the neo-Maoists are the reactionaries trying to roll back reforms) while the moderates are the Left (i.e. democratic socialists and market liberals represent radical reform).

Which just shows the standard Left/Right dichotomy is more or less broken.

[mainiac]

Didn't I just go over this? In Europe, a liberal is a right-wing reformer. In Europe in the 1800s, a liberal would be a right wing reformer with a distinct libertarian bent. Progressives came later.

No, you are projecting 20th century libertarianism onto an era in which is made no sense.  You can't be against the welfare state when there is no welfare state to oppose.  Liberals of the 19th century were often very interventionist.  Look no further then America's most famous 19th century liberal Abraham Lincoln.  He is remembered for winning the civil war but it's often ignored how he engaged in massive government intervention into the economy to create the railroads.  Or take Adam Smith who is the intellectual founder of 19th century liberalism and was strongly in favor of public works and public welfare spending.  Just because the economy was different back then didn't make them libertarians.

National debt didn't actually decrease because such a huge amount of the "surplus" was just shuffling money around the government.

Now you are just mixing up your arguments.  If you want to talk about money not involved in shuffling around intragovernmental money then Clinton comes out even better: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=aiq

Clinton got that national debt under control.

Remember, the proper argument to slime Clinton is that the surplus in government liabilities to parties outside the government doesn't matter because of the money owed to the social security trust fund (which is comparing 2050 apples to 1995 oranges as I've said before).

Haven't we had this discussion before? A "deficit reduction plan" that's success comes down to "and then God hisself/the Fed recovers the economy and we roll in tax revenues for a while" is not a plan, its a cop out.

And it's a very mendacious argument to say that budgets should be evaluated against the baseline of the worst economic crises of 70 years.  It's also astoundingly bad economics.

I will point out that Massachusetts, which has had this system for a while, recently instituted price controls, though. Hardly an example of successful price cutting.

I'm not talking about general healthcare cost price controls like in Massachusetts, I'm talking about Medicare overpayment rates through Medicare Part D for treating healthy seniors.  They are vastly different creatures.

I don't think I could begin to explain how wrong this is, so I'll just say that the CBO's track record (and that of its predecessors to boot) is lacking to say the least when it comes to medical costs.

The CBO estimates that you dismiss out of hand here are at the heart of your previous arguments.  Future Medicare costs are a very large portion of the future liabilities that you used to argue against the Clinton surplus.  If you dismiss the CBO estimates out of hand without providing good reasons then you dismiss your own arguments out of hand.

And this is another reason why the Chinese don't want democracy....they look at our perpetual dysfunction and in-fighting and say "fuck that shit". 

I don't think it's that bad.  We engage in debate but don't shoot at each other.

He's right, mainciac. The classic political divide looks like this:

Not to be petty here but how on earth could you actually back that statement up?

[RedKing]

Many would agree that the main reason China retains it's position among its people is directly tied to it's economic growth

Yup, and it's based on an economy where as soon as it stops growing, it goes down the shitter.

Most economies are. To their credit, their economic planners are aware of the need to position China for a "soft landing" if the economy flattens off. Their real hope is to grow the middle class enough that they can hit a sort of critical mass to where internal demand can drive most of their production and sales. Instead of making and exporting 100 million toothbrushes to the West, they'll make and sell 100 million toothbrushes to themselves. Obviously doesn't work for everything, but it could sustain the consumer products manufacturing that is crucial to GDP, especially in the South.

[Zangi]

And this is another reason why the Chinese don't want democracy....they look at our perpetual dysfunction and in-fighting and say "fuck that shit". 

I don't think it's that bad.  We engage in debate but don't shoot at each other.

Well... I don't believe Chinese politicians shoot at each other either...  so... its about equal in that regard?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Their real hope is to grow the middle class enough that they can hit a sort of critical mass to where internal demand can drive most of their production and sales.

Large middle class societies have this nasty habit of demanding rights and democracy, you know.

Well... I don't believe Chinese politicians shoot at each other either...  so... its about equal in that regard?

It depends. The PRC does tend to shoot at the politicians of the illegal parties.

[RedKing]

Well... I don't believe Chinese politicians shoot at each other either...  so... its about equal in that regard?

It depends. The PRC does tend to shoot at the politicians of the illegal parties.

No, not really. Imprison, maybe. But rarely if ever shoot, at least post-Mao. This isn't Libya/Syria/Zimbabwe. In fact, in many ways you're free to belong to another political party all you want. You just won't be eligible for any elections. And distributing political literature may earn you a visit from the PSB because you're inciting unrest/criticizing the government/etc.

I'm not gonna sugar-coat it...the CCP does maintain a strangehold on the one-party thing. But I do think they get unfairly excoriated for it.
Especially when the KMT did the same thing in Taiwan for 50 years, the PRI did the same thing in Mexico for 70 years, and (with a brief interruption in 1960) South Korea was essentially a one-party state from 1948 to 1987.

[Ancre]

So, the question I had, is Taiwan. If China do collapse in a way, does Taiwan have any chance of restoring order or something ? After all, if I remember well, Taiwan is officially claiming all of China as its territory. Basically how would Taiwan be affected by a chinese revolution, and does it have any chance of doing something interesting in it.

[Zangi]

So, the question I had, is Taiwan. If China do collapse in a way, does Taiwan have any chance of restoring order or something ? After all, if I remember well, Taiwan is officially claiming all of China as its territory. Basically how would Taiwan be affected by a chinese revolution, and does it have any chance of doing something interesting in it.

There is simply so many people in China...  Theoretically...
To bring law and order... in the case of a collapsing China... I think you would need lotsa massive number of boots on the ground to get stuff done...  There would have to be a massive Propaganda campaign to bring in former Chinese military AND its civilians to join 'your' side...  And then you will have to deal with provinces/warlords deciding to go there own way... and others banding together to try to reform the PRC or some such thing. 
There is also the chance that many of them would not look kindly at foreign interests claiming former Chinese territory and be hostile enough about it to band together and expel 'the imperialists' before turning on each other, maybe.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Taiwan and China really need to give up on the whole "we both own the other thing". That kind of political situation never goes anywhere.

[RedKing]

So, the question I had, is Taiwan. If China do collapse in a way, does Taiwan have any chance of restoring order or something ? After all, if I remember well, Taiwan is officially claiming all of China as its territory. Basically how would Taiwan be affected by a chinese revolution, and does it have any chance of doing something interesting in it.

HeheheheheNO.

And actually, the KMT has steadily moved away from its claim to the mainland over time (I think they unofficially dropped the claim altogether around 1991, but there's rumbles that Ma Ying-jeou is considering reintroducing it). The DPP, for the handful of years they were in power, NEVER made any claim to the mainland, because they *want* to be a seperate state. I think most of the modern KMT would be fine being a province of the PRC, but they want assurances of autonomy better than what Hong Kong got, and they want to make sure that they're still running the show on the island.

For the PRC's part....I just don't see them ever rescinding their claim to Taiwan, unless it was part of a peace settlement after they'd been utterly defeated. Same for Tibet and Xinjiang.