Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy

Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy by rdtsc on Thursday April 21, 2016 @10:14PM (#11546629)

The most interesting part is that up until recently Capitalism and Democracy were considered (at least for propaganda purposes) to go hand in hand. That was often sold to third world countries as a package deal. "It's ok if there is a bit of brutality and less freedoms, as long as the capital revolves, because democracy will come in time, it has to, right...". But it is interesting that in cases of countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan? maybe other Asian countries have shown the two don't have to go hand in hand.

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Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy by simonh on Friday April 22, 2016 @12:08AM (#11547009)

For how long though? China has had a market economy, in some sectors on its economy only, for a couple of decades. The UK has been struggling with democracy since Cromwell. You can't expect them to converge in a time scale measured in less than generations.

Taiwan and South Korea were both authoritarian within my lifetime. Now both are clearly dynamic democracies. Not perfect ones by any means, but dramatically transformed in a single generation.

Some will change faster than others, and who can say when any given country will pass the tipping point? But can't you really authoritatively say that it's never going to happen?

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Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy by rdtsc on Friday April 22, 2016 @12:50AM (#11547121)

But I don't see them converging. In other words even if takes a long time, you can estimate a bit by looking at current trends. I

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Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy by ArkyBeagle on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:49AM (#11547633)

Okay, so maybe democracy is the anomaly. It maybe just happened that the American Constitution showed up around 1790, right before the Industrial Revolution. Causal? Coincidence? We dunno so much. But we can always hope that increased material prosperity leads to less oppression.

China/Singapore/Taiwan are not just unspeakably evil places - that's the system they got by walking their path

Perhaps this hope is in vain. But I still hold to it.

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Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy by rdtsc on Friday April 22, 2016 @10:08AM (#11549291)

> are not just unspeakably evil places - that's the system they got by walking their path

Yap. And I think on the other side is the realization that people are not willing to trade progress, jobs, health insurance, peace, stability for democracy.

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