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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>This worked because China had very strong regulatory frameworks and made sure the wealth was redistributed.

Source? Aside from some lip service paid about "common prosperity", China definitely does not have a strong wealth redistribution system. I can't find good metrics on size of welfare systems specifically, but using the crude metric of government revenue as % of GDP, it's clear that China isn't some sort of global leader in redistribution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Government_revenues_as_a_...

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> Aside from some lip service paid about "common prosperity", China definitely does not have a strong wealth redistribution system

I don't think this does your argument any favors because by your words, it didn't work. Because you're right, China's "let a few people get rich" idea led to massive wealth inequality but redistribution was always at the center of the idea and what I'm talking about are recent reforms that Xi is taking to accelerate that redistribution such as and introducing salary caps, increasing taxes, and creating more social security programs the rich have to pay into. So China is right now building their strong wealth redistribution network.

> what I'm talking about are recent reforms that Xi is taking to accelerate that redistribution such as and introducing salary caps, increasing taxes, and creating more social security programs the rich have to pay into. So China is right now building their strong wealth redistribution network.

and its gdp growth, prosperity, and investment rate going down at an exactly same rate…

Prosperity according to which metric?

"GDP growth" and "investment rate" are just really terrible proxy indicators for the thing most people actually care about, i.e. quality of life for the common person. Without context they're just distasteful weasel words that strongly imply that GDP is somehow representative of the quality of life, which only serves to trick people into voting against their own interests.

So? Quality of life has improved and they have virtually eliminated extreme poverty by focusing on this redistribution[0]. Ask those people how they feel about GDP growth slowing down. They don't care.

[0] https://msadvisory.com/quality-of-life-in-china/

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