Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” | Hacker News Reader

Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity”

reuters.com

49 pointsnixass56 comments

Before WWII, companies in NL did this kind of stuff to make the lives of their employees better.

Philips built housing and sportsclubs in Eindhoven, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSV_Eindhoven.

Bata ( shoes ) built housing for their employees in Batadorp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batadorp.

The Dutch railroad built a 'Tuindorp', including school, in Haren, which I grew up in, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuindorp_(wijk)

There are more.

Alibaba isn't doing this voluntarily... They disappeared Jack Ma for re-education and he came back with wonderful ideas about donating all profits to the CCP.

Poor Jack could have been in outer space with Jeff now ...

Are you implying he deserved it?

I was making a joke.

But I don’t know? Would it have been better, more fair that Jack went into space in a billion dollar rocket than he was forced to spend the money on “common prosperity”?

There is similar thinking in "classical" American capatalism from Henry Ford's idea that his factory workers needed to make enough money to buy the cars they produced to all sort of concrete projects for the broader society.

This is a story about housing built by the Ford motor company:

https://askus.thehenryford.org/faq/169797

I am sure there are many other examples.

If you read a biography of Ford you'll find this story just isn't really true. He couldn't find workers and had to raise the wages, and in doing got a lot of PR by spinning it as being good for workers to buy cars.

Same in Poland before WW2. These greedy capitalists from late XIX/ early XX c. had felt necessity to build housing for their workers and nurseries for workers children.. What a waste of productive capital.

My grandfather had been worker / specialist and my family had been living in factory’s housing (free rent, electricity and coal provided). And grandfather had been earning a decent wage too. Some long forgotten small steelwork company…

(On the other hand my grandfather had no sense of work-life balance. He had been living for his factory. Even when retired he had been going to factory every day to check if he can help with something).

From my Moms side many relatives had been railwaymen and their families also lived in housing projects provided by Railway company..

This is a pretty bizarre approach; surely it would make more sense just to _tax_ them? This is for practical purposes a targeted tax anyway.

It seems like everyone is picking a different way of extracting money from the tech companies. America seems to favor taxes, EU fines, China donations.

EU is surely for taxes. But the US tech companies try to avoid this as much as possible.

+ The fines are for breaches/violations/abuse and they are way too low to have any significant social impact.

Eg. for the fine of today, Facebook when they acquired WhatsApp:

> Facebook told the commission that it was not able to link the accounts of Facebook users and WhatsApp users.

....

Personally, I think the fines are way too low. Companies are not above the governement.

Slush fund where Xi doesn’t even have to worry about what the CCP wants, he can just point to what his priorities are and ‘poof’ it is done.

With this scheme, Alibaba still have "prerogative" on how to spend the fund, hence invest. Also, historically even Xi's poverty eradication didn't exclusively depend on the party apparatus, but also the private player which have their own strength e.g. e-commerce infrastructure like Alibaba.

I don't know. If it's actually going to happen, I somewhat like the idea. You transform the money directly into action without losing a good chunk of it in state bureaucracy, without corruption where bureaucrats hand out subsidies for favors, and probably much more quickly and efficiently.

If it happens, that is. It might also just be a way to funnel money to party apparatchiks in a more direct manner.

I mean, it's better than nothing, but it seems needlessly messy vs a supertax on giant companies.

This is a more clear and effective demonstration of Xi's power though. Keeping a company subservient out of nebulous fear enforces social order.

The rule of law lets companies hit the boundaries of what is legal without fear, and that is not the goal here.

A higher corporate tax would mean having to compare with other nations over a number.

I'm going to take a stance here and state my disappointment towards the NH crowd whenever China comes up as a subject. Instead of looking at it through engineering eyes, and debating the benefits and / or drawbacks, so far I see only accusations towards China and apologies for the US & EU model.

I believe the tax model is outdated in globalism as tax avoidance can be practiced to no end, and the 'fines' EU model that someone was mentioning can hamper innovation and scare companies into doing business elsewhere.

While I do believe China has its faults, I also believe this method could unlock investment money that would be directed by actual professionals in a corporate environment rather than be lost in bureaucracy. If anything, I am interested in how it's going to be implemented and what the results will be.

You're half-right. It's true that China solves problems china has by clever means that ought be appreciated as engineering successes.

However, China also has problems the communist party of china has created. And I think the "accusations" target this.

Tell me more about the benefits of disappearing CEOs, scholars, philanthropists and entertainers who (might?) challenge the Party.

The end of the Chinese gilded age.

I think this would be the beginning. China has taken notes from the Soviet's downfall and they're not making the same mistakes here. They have no desire or intention to nationalize everything, but instead to stay in the shadows and poke and prod (and in some cases, disappear) entities that won't fall in line.

The CCP is out here drafting 100 year plans while a democratic society like the U.S. flip flops between adding to and then repealing laws as the head of the executive oscillates between left and right -- I think that should show you their long term intentions on growth and supremacy.

Their system is more efficient at getting things done. So are most all developing dictatorships. That is, of course, you ignore the human anguish and toll it brings.

It is a mistake to think that their system is more efficient, or necessarily better than ours.

You have to think about how they are more efficient than us in what way, and in what way that they are making strategic blunders.

Take it look at this way, what is the weakness and strength of the US in space? We have SpaceX which are doing bold things with resuable rockets and NASA. NASA is setting new directions, but weighted down by a congress that thinks NASA is just a job program. We have defense contractors that had ceded their leadership in space that cared more about making a buck now rather than take risks with projects.

I agree with your comment's parent. Russia does that sort of shit currently to their tech (VK and Yandex). While they are strong in Russia, they have no more chances to compete outside of it.

The CCP’s Tutoring Crackdown and Political Risks in China

https://sinoinsider.com/2021/07/the-ccps-tutoring-crackdown-...

Do they have a say where they can invest that money? Or the Chinese government will dictate that?

3rd para fta:

> The government-backed Zhejiang News website said Alibaba's funds will go towards areas such as subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises and improving insurance protection for gig economy workers such as couriers and ride-hailing drivers.

Sounds like a somewhat sensible plan.

The price of Jack's indulgence to the Church of Xi.

I feel like Jack etc. didn’t have a choice…

Yeah, it used to be Jack's Alibaba. Now it's China's Alibaba, as the title says.

Was it ever really Jack's Alibaba?

Sure, until all the hard work was done.

There is plenty of terribleness in the Chinese government, but this particular program sounds wonderful. I wish American and European companies were doing something on a similar scale (but I guess I would have just preferred more agressive progressive taxes as that would be less susceptible to corruption and strongarming).

Where do you really think the money's gonna go?

Please enlighten us.

I know there is immense corruption in that government (or at least a different, more viceral, type than what is present in the US). But I find it intelectually lazy to use that fact to shoot down everything, without actually knowing it applies in the current case.

Hard disagree. We need to apply taxes and laws fairly, and uniformly. This is the philosophical underpinning of our entire system.

Thankfully, the US constitution forbids Bills of Attainder.

Superficially, this is not a bill of attainder. This is a donation seemingly administered by the donating entity themselves. Is it really all that different from how the US government encourages private entities to contribute to cultural life (the Smithsonian institution being funded privately for much of its budget, plenty of landmarks of significant cultural importance being in private hands but still shared with the public, the way Olympic sports are administered, Gates/Rockefeller/etc philanthropy). Maybe you are implying there was some strong arming behind the scene, which would indeed be despicable? But on the surface, this seems great.

And then you end up with a overly complex tax code with a million loopholes that can be exploited given the resource and time.

I'm not convinced that the US government is the best example of a body free of corruption and strongarming.

uhm... Reread the comment you responded to. It is in agreement with your remark, so phrasing it as a counter seems weird.

I read your GP comment as "I would prefer to force the collection of more money for the US [and European] governments as that spending is less susceptible to corruption". My claim is that that's not obviously a way to reduce corruption (as compared to voluntary, private charity).

I never used/implied/thought of anything related to the use of force or pseudolegal intimidation. That would be quite despicable behavior, and yes, regretably plenty of governments engage in it.

I would not call taxation or PR-inducements for donations "use of force", but some people might (reasonably?) disagree here.

Is China devolving into semi-official crony-capitalism?

Devolving? That's already what it is.

It worked well for Japan and S. Korea to 'rebuild' after the wars, and it seems it took China just a little longer to get with the program.

But each of Japan, S. Korea and China have had to forge their own path after the low-hanging fruit of 'reconstruction' are gotten.

I would argue China is entering this phase.

GDP growth is now officially 5% but probably a little bit lower, the same as US only 20 years ago.

Clamping down hard on companies and wiping out their market caps.

Severely controlling kids access to video games etc..

The 1990-2020 version of China's ascension is going to be a different phase than what we see going forward and the pandemic I think will effectively be the demarcation point.

Of course.

But this seems to me to cement the situation. This 'aid' shoud be coming from government, paid for by properly taxing these crony corps, not by obvious direct coercion, etc.

> Severely controlling kids access to video games etc..

As I understand it, the games to which they're controlling access are basically gambling and designed to be addictive.

Getting with the program? You seem to have the idea this happened spontaneously, but it was nothing but: Japan and Germany's reconstruction and re-industrialization was by design, as part of the Bretton Woods system, Marshall Plan, and Truman Doctrine. Those countries were intended to be industrial hubs of Asia and Europe respectively: The US would invest in and build factories in those countries.

> To encourage long-term adjustment, the United States promoted European and Japanese trade competitiveness. Policies for economic controls on the defeated former Axis countries were scrapped. Aid to Europe and Japan was designed to rebuild productivity and export capacity. In the long run it was expected that such European and Japanese recovery would benefit the United States by widening markets for U.S. exports, and providing locations for U.S. capital expansion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

When Chinese becoming isolated after 1949, they couldn't become a market for Japanese goods, we instead geared Japanese manufacturing for the Korean War effort. The US occupiers of Japan created the centrally-planned Ministry of International Trade and Industry to help build the equipment the US needed for the Korean War effort. It was an astounding success, and provided Japan the boost it needed to become a global industrial power even as the US waned.

If there's any phase China is entering, it's the New Dealer and Keynesian-dominated policies that were successful for the US after WWII, following Dengist liberalization of the economy. Except instead of investing in war, they're investing in infrastructure, and it's working.

The missing word in your thesis is 'Mao'. Or 'Communism'.

While Western support of Japan and Korea was obviously relevant, China 'had access' to the entirety of the rest of Asia.

'Dengism' could have happened in 1950, in which case they would be further head.

China has already been through the 'New Dealer and Keynesian-dominated policies' as you state, that was 1990 to 2020.

We are past that.

There is no roadmap for anyone at this point.

I think that's an excellent plan and there's a bunch of companies in the US which should do the same.

This is what the west needs imo. China seems to be making big moves lately, even though I may disagree with some of their methods.

Even the worst country in "The west" has more social security than China.

What we certainly do not need is a dictator that is disappearing CEOs.

Yes but we have a gdp per capita that is so much bigger. We could do way better.

No thanks, I don't think the west needs a secret police to make CEOs disappear and require a ransom in return.

Do you think we need to do that to apply such a policy?

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