[quote=sdduuuude]I know many are bullish on China these days, but I can’t help but wonder if their long-term prognosis looks very similar to that of the former Soviet Union.
The thing about centralized planning is – if you make a mistake, you affect billions of people all at once and it doesn’t make them happy. China seems destined for some social unrest in the long term.[/quote]
Take it from someone who did live in the Soviet Union (however briefly). Modern China is nowhere like the Soviet Union.
Unlike the Soviet Union, China does not attempt to regulate its subjects’ lives anywhere near as finely. In fact, I don’t even think that modern China truly qualifies as a communist state. It’s more of a semi-capitalist dictatorship.
For example, in the Soviet Union prior to 1985, private enterprise was banned and punishable by jail time. You could go to jail for something as simple as buying a pair of jeans from an American tourist and then reselling them for profit to your neighbor. 99% of the stuff we see here with the “Made in China” label is made by private companies with only minimal government oversight.
The scope of possible mistakes in the Chinese system is vastly narrower than that in the USSR, and there’s a legally permitted mechanism to correct these mistakes.
