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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

What were the means? Centrally planning the cities and pouring a lot of investment into infrastructure projects like paved roads?

I guess FDR’s government should have never built that interstate highway system, eh Comrade? Not like it led to an explosion of wealth in logistics, transportation, malls, franchises, and delivery to every city.

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What were the means?

The 10s of millions killed in the “great leap forward”. The millions of non-Han in the present day in “re-education camps”. The massive environmental damage.

US is doing far more environmental damage per capita, and its current democratic government and large portions of the electorate are doubling down on doing more damage. Bolsonaro was elected democratically in free elections and Brazil probably does more environmental damage than anyone on the planet at the moment, and looking to evict “non-Brazilian” natives from the rainforest and seize land by force, to chop down the rainforest so they can sell soy to the Chinese and beef to the rest of the world. An area the size of Hong Kong was cleared in august alone. And all this is for encouraging profit Are you suggesting the forces of free market capitalism has less environmental damage?

Aa far as the humanitarian issues I am with you! I am not arguing for national sovereignty over human rights. In fact the opposite — I am saying sanctions don’t hurt the government (realistically, the Chinese govt isnt gonna peace out due to a trade war) and are actually a bandaid on a system of sovereign nation states who can do anything they want inside their own borders. Please see your sister comment and answer there.

I am certainly not advocating extreme measures like Holodomor or Great Leap Forward. Other countries offered aid but Russia/China refused to accept it. Similarly now with Venezuela. “National sovereignty” over “human rights” and “humanitarian concern”.

But guess what under the Irish Potato Famine it was also exacerbated due to national sovereignty of England. And guess what — there the interests were purely capitalist, to safeguard profits of landlords. Same in famines in India under the British Raj.

There is no easy solution along the lines of a capitalism - socialism dichotomy. Nor is central planning less efficient — look for example at you posting on Facebook or HN, verses some kind of decentralized site. No, we need to decentralize power to safeguard human rights, and that means lower respect for national sovereignty. At the same time we need inter-national institutions to solve collective action problems that otherwise will if not solved ultimately leave the planet ravaged by the collective human organism. And here we are talking about left vs right, capitalism vs socialism.

US is doing far more environmental damage

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Look at both the numbers and the trends.

I agree about decentralised powers FWIW.

Let’s be fair here and not take words out of their context. The two words following your quote (and part of the sentence) were per capita. Your link supports what I said. The trend is tapering off but Chinese people still have a smaller carbon footprint than Americans.

That said... sustainability is not just about CO2. It’s about ecosystems like the Baikal lake being ravaged. If the Chinese get to move into Siberia we may start to lose some of the largest natural ecosystems on the planet. But Bosonaro is doing that already.

Anyway, besides this point, I am sure there is a lot we agree on.

The damage to the environment caused by Chinese industry is less than the damage to the environment caused by (e.g.) burning of forests for fuel and profit in industrially undeveloped parts of the world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, if you consider it on a per-head-of-population basis.

>The 10s of millions killed in the “great leap forward”

At least partially caused by the China trade embargo, another form of the sanctions being being recommended here to limit their influence.

The interstate highway system was begun by Eisenhower after he saw first-hand how effective Hitler's Autobahn was. The first sections opened in 1956.

Thanks for the correction! I learned something.

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