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Comment by luuurker | Hacker News Reader

> Meanwhile in China

Outside China, companies and governments usually have to be careful when making investments. They can't decide to start building transmission lines/housing/fast train lines/deploy 5G everywhere and spend huge amounts of money if the return is small/non existent... And so usually things are only built or improved when there's a demand for it.

China can make a 5 year plan to build UHVDC everywhere and the grid operator won't go under no matter what. This has been working for them so far (even though it creates some serious problems) and certainly gives them an advantage, but you can't do that in most places.

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> has been working for them so far

It works in the wake of a decimated economy. War. Natural disaster. Cultural revolution. There is so much slack in the system virtually anything will be put to productive use.

In that state, you can build a road to nowhere and people will put it to use, not because it’s a well-placed road, but because it’s the only road in the vicinity.

China’s is not a decimated economy and they haven’t been in cultural revolution for decades. Their government functions much more like a corporation than the popularity contest that will likely give a reality TV star his second term.

> China’s is not a decimated economy and they haven’t been in cultural revolution for decades

Correct. I’m describing the era of anything-goes growth. Because, without exaggeration, anything went.

America saw this in its Manifest Destiny era. (Suppose I should add depopulating conquest to the list.) Switching gears was existentially painful.

> government functions much more like a corporation

This was the pre-Xi CCP. A genuinely-effective meritocratic oligopoly. Now it’s a bog-standard dictatorship, with Chinese characteristics.

Also, good analogy. Corporations are mortal. States, theoretically, are not. The problem with dictatorship is it trades immortality for temporary stability. The deal with the devil is in the difficulty of swapping back.

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