China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.
maybe. a considerable number of chinese projects are very flashy and the planning doesn't take into account upkeep. a good example is country gardens forest city:
That's not really a sign of central planning failure, any more than, say, California City — failure, sure, but not due to what distinguishes economic central planning from capitalist diversity's self-balancing.
They still get some optimization and some otherwise-impossible-projects. I'd say the jury is still out on this strategy.
A caveat I'd add is that the Chinese government is subjective to the party. China's accomplishments are significant but they tend to be secondary to the political wellbeing of the CCP.
That wellbeing is secured though the harsh and thorough quashing of dissent.
I'd criticize China but CCP's most repressive aspects seem to be finding widespread appeal here in the US.
And so does Russia, which is another effective repressive dictatorship. From my perspective, they're just exceptionally adapt at pushing their propaganda abroad.
Historically, the USA was the only one doing that, but it's no longer the only player. (To be clear, I meant spreading propaganda abroad. The USA is at least currently not a repressive dictatorship. And I doubt it will become so before I die.)
How much longer will the jury be out? Will it come back in my lifetime?
The question is whether the Chinese economy will take a similar trajectory now to the Japanese one in the late eighties and through the nineties, with a period of extreme growth followed by mostly stagnation.
It could very well be that the Chinese model is good at catch-up growth so to speak, up to the level of an advanced economy.
I agree with the op that the jury is out on this and it might go different ways.
and yet, are the citizens getting their fair share of said productivity growth? Or has it been obsorbed by the CCP, in which the wealth is then allocated to something that said citizen would not have chosen to allocate to?
People tolerate the CCP because of the clear material gains they have seen in their lives. If some strongman authoritarian stood with a megaphone on Main Street and credibly promised Americans one tenth of that gain in prosperity, they'd elect him dictator for life.
they know they won't be - people's demand continues to grow, and not just material wants, but "spiritual" wants (aka, they want more representation in the political system to make decisions). Of course, this only manifests after some material wealth threshold has been reached.
It's also why i conspiratorially believe that the CCP is deliberately ensuring chinese yuan is continuously debased, and kept artificially low. It ensures that the people's wealth in general is not high enough to reach that threshold i mentioned above.
I wanted to give China a chance, but if you don't... :)
Also they march people out into fields and execute them at point blank range. Worth keeping in mind.
Some of us think the US's predicament with lethal injection drugs is quite funny and bringing back firing squads would improve things.
Socialist or Communist countries did some good projects, I saw quite a lot. Implementation, management and long term operation went bad.