Re:On Cultures That Build
by abecedarius on Friday June 19, 2020 @10:43AM
(#23574999)
But China's current dynamism kicked off when its government started to allow people to work to get rich. It seems very odd to claim we have more of that motive, indeed so much more that it makes a huge difference. It must be about the channels this motive has available to be directed into, I'd think. Does the invisible hand push you more to rent-seek or to build?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
This may be overly obvious, but...
Just because some of a thing is judged to be good does not necessarily imply that more of it would be better.
Re:On Cultures That Build
by discreteevent on Friday June 19, 2020 @02:36PM
(#23577513)
Yes that's exactly the problem. Thinking that if something is good, more of it has to be better. Its the same with regulation. Of course too much registration is bad but this fundamentalist idea that good will just emerge from pure free trade is nonsensical.
It's like seeing the benefits of event sourcing and then deciding that if we use that everywhere a stable system will just emerge.
Re:On Cultures That Build
by abecedarius on Friday June 19, 2020 @06:12PM
(#23579366)
Above you blame America's not building on the "motive to get rich above all else", contrasting China. I'm saying only that this seems a strange and unsupported place to pin the blame, going by what actually changed in China and in America. I didn't say that more greed causes more building; I'm saying that more greed for profits, as a candidate cause for less building, is not a relevant thing that has changed in the relevant way. It seems closer to the opposite in what I know about China's history.
Are you saying you think China went from too-low profit motive to the Goldilocks zone, while America went from Goldilocks to too high? Or is this really about something other than profit motive?