Did you know that China is run by engineers? I didn't.
omniorthogonal.blogspot.com
omniorthogonal.blogspot.com
(me injun)
It was hard in USSR to buy degrees and many USSR leaders actually have degrees. But our former leaders successfully exploited various loopholes in the education process and got good grades for social/political activities, not for education achievements.
So all in all, those looking for power will find their way through any system.
I'm disappointed I couldn't find the article cause it was interesting to see the dominance in various countries: engineers in china, businessmen in japan, lawyers and legacy wealth in the us, lawyers in the uk, teachers and doctors in france, etc.
I dont remember where I read this- Singapore government had a similar policy of choosing extremely qualified people as their top level politicans- Look at what they have achieved in such a short time!
Would love to learn more about what shaped Singapore politics and their economic miracle-Please post links, if you have any.
Start with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew-Singapore/d... - It's basically a free ranging interview with Lee Kuan Yew, the man who essentially engineered Singapore.
if you dont want to get the book, just google him and read. Lots of very interesting articles.
Confucianism is not very cool: it's all about respecting your parents, your spouse, your boss, your friends, and educating well your kids. Not a trendy form of gouvernment, as it may not allow open rebellion against authorities, but it worked not so bad for nearly two millenaries, before collapsing under its own weight. In China they would like to get it back somewhat. NB: Confucianism is only very remotely related to Confucius' actual teaching.
at any rate, I certainly have no problem with china rising, but i sure hope the China model doesn't gain credit and acceptance, with economic growth at the expense of sacrificing the environment and personal liberty. I don't know if the US was anything like this at a comparable stage of economic development, but lving in beijing for just a couple of days and you'll realize the heavy environmental toll that the Chinese are paying.
Well, first of all the "lunatics" running the US (and for that matter almost all democracies) at least don't kill their own citizens for disagreeing with them. Quite an accomplishment in my view.
Besides you have to put Chinas growth in perspective. They started with an economy that was closer to the mid-ages than anything. Growing from this base makes it much easier to get high percentage growth rates over the years. The GDP per capita ist still more than 12 times higher in the US than in China which as a whole is still a developing country (according to the IMF).
Hoover was an engineer, but that was a long time ago.
I think a country needs more historians at the helm. They might take a slightly longer view.
The same goes for foreign policy majors, who actually run our country.
That'll only be true if Hoover ran the country like a mine, or Reagan ran the country like a movie set.
Are you considering all of China? I'm pretty sure the U.S. overall infrastructure is still better than theirs. They wouldn't build up anything that wouldn't profit the state.
Maybe eventually that will change.
Their subway system in Beijing was very large and well connected but was still overcrowded to the point of being unusable during rush hour.
Such a large population - must be an engineers dream.
Love those words. I think the same. All those deficiencies in India and China, they are great technical and business opportunities to be tapped. Just massive opportunities that will keep growing at a fast clip for decades to come.
Now, now, don't get me wrong guys. There is nothing wrong with helping people and making money in the process. That's also the sustainable way to make lives better.
To effectively lead big nations or corporates, doesn't one need to be able to comprehend and deal with issues much beyond just ones education or work background?
Wouldn't it require an engineer who understand the non-engineering aspects or vice-versa?
Once, I got a list of CEOs of fortune 100 companies compiled with their education background researched. The education column was half full, my contractor could not find the education of all (nor I think, I could). Of those, whose education we could find, it was all over the place, engineering, psychology, accounting, law, chemical and what not.
That was definitely very admirable, for a country in their position, where they have to bring out large masses of people out of poverty, as quickly as possible, you need such leadership.
The Japanese attacks ravaged a lot of the wealthiest parts of China, then the Chinese civil war destroyed a lot more infrastructure, and then the cultural revolution killed millions of talented people. Deng Xiaoping inherited a real mess, very little, and it's amazing how he turned it around. Probably the greatest statesman of the last 100 years, Deng Xiaoping.
The United States is still ahead of China, but USA is trending slowly downwards where China is trending moderately quickly upwards. Still a lot of advantages for the United States, and it could get turned around. But yes, a government run by lawyers and lobbyists is not a sustainable governance model. We'll see though, things could get turned around pretty quickly in America. Still the best place in the world for technology, inventing, entrepreneurship, and research, which is huge. China seems to have emerged as a legitimate world power though, no doubt about that.
The growth that China has seen over the last 20 years has surpassed anything that any other country has ever achieved - even the US.
And if a country throws up a George Bush for 10 years and then an Obama who doesnt seem to deliver much, democracy has already lost. Similarly with India, democracy simply does not work, and Singapore where communism has done wonders.
Somehow I have always seen an American corporation as having a communist structure and rarely experimented (mostly unsuccessfully) with a democratic one.
Moreover, China's growth is nothing compared to Japan's economic miracle. The fact of the matter is that China has far better national resources than Japan ever did, and should have succeeded decades ago. It was the early leadership that held it back.
Their government picked some key industries like semiconductors and invested a lot of resources towards training a workforce and stimulating business. It has paid off in huge dividends. All done democratically.
Additionally their recent environmental push is driven by local people and very democratic - individual recycling rates have skyrocketed. It will be interesting to see if they can do the same with renewable energy.
Similarly for Singapore. I understand China to be a lot more capitalist than India for example. It is true that Japan and a lot of european countries have done better with democracy, however they typically have a lot homogenous populations - very unlike of bigger countries like the US, China and India and also unlike some smaller countries like Singapore.
Even then there is little reason to believe if a communist form of government would not have done better in these countries also.
It is a very Confucian form of democratic society, but democracy it is.
I do think that China's more enlightened leaders are probably hoping that they'll be able to use Singapore as a model for their own society at some point in the future.
India is a democracy, but the state is hardly transparent, tolerance has given way to appeasement for vote politics and the court/legal system does not work anymore.
That is a joke. I read somewhere that the US is more socialist than China these days and I would have to agree. US has social security and apparently China has done away with the state income to people or something like that.
China is just an authoritarian(currently) country marching towards capitalism and actually democracy also - they have started experimenting with some low level elections. It cannot sustain itself as a authoritarian nation in the long run. When people start being materially well, then they will focus more on demanding intellectual freedom. With increased technology it will also be difficult for the government to control people forever. The electronic great wall of china will fall down sooner or later like the berlin wall.
Moreover, communism, as great the ideal of equality is, in practice it simply cannot survive the most predominant characteristic of human nature - the 'self'.
Would have to admire the way the Chinese leadership does things in measured increments but more or less sure footed way. Russia is too much of a bad example on what will happen when a government system changes suddenly without preparation. It took them almost 10 years to recover.
India is definitely a lot more socialist than China and even the US. My guess is also that US is more socialist than China now, but this was not the case 20years ago - this also is indicative of the strengths of a communist form of governance.
It completely depends on the nature, intentions and wisdom of the leadership.
On India, being socialist, yes in the official name. For practical purposes, it was(please note the past) controlled semi-capitalism, where the control was used to line up the politicians and bureaucrats pockets. - if you are an indian, you might recognize this term "license raj"
Thank god for capitalism, it ain't perfect, but its the best out there.
About the indication of the strengths of a communist form of governance, nope your example doesn't take into consideration certain very important factors working here. If you compare India and China - China had a head start of 20 years, when Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the West for setting up their factories, in the 70's. India started opening up only in early 90's under P.V. Narasimha Rao (and, to give due credit - Dr. Manmohan Singh the then Finance minister and current Prime Minister)
So, its more an example for 'its better to have wise leaders as early as possible' than 'communist form of government is better than non-communist governments'
my $0.0000002