Comment by gnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnerd | Hacker News Reader

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China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor.

> Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly.

It is perhaps a bit silly. I mean, there are actual examples of mining rights being held from colonial times, Dutch East India company, Haiti being forced to pay for slaves freedom from rebellion for 140 years etc. and some of those do still have influences, but I don't think they are the primary ones. I don't, however, think all of these values are always exclusively western though. Japan has worker rights, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance on Wikipedia.

Assuming India wants, or needs foreign influence, Japan is just as good a place to get it.

Westernized might have been the wrong word. Perhaps modern would be better. And yes, both India and the us can (and have) adopt some Japanese business practices as well.

And we certainly can learn from India - that's a blog post idea. A bit more emo hipster than what I usually post, but maybe I'll do it anyway.

I hope you learned your lesson about using words to make your point. Next time, try to express yourself in pure telepathy, avoid giving people an opportunity to flame your diction and dismiss your ideas.

Are you seriously using the most westernised Asian country as an example of non western business practices?

Your point still stands, but Singapore is far more western than Japan.

I was just picking a country that seemed to me to be as good a country as any, with their own methods of law, their own values etc. who has remained productive as a nation.

I think I may be learning I might not have the same definition of "western" as some people. I had always imagined Western as referring to Western Europe and the US but now I think there is a colloquial phrasing that uses western as a synonym for modern. If that is the case I think this next century is about to get really confusing...

Western as in "white people showed up and ran everything". (like singapore, or Hong Kong)

Japan before WWII but after the West showed up, based it's whole economy and work system on Germany, after WWII it was essentially run by the US. They are completely "Western" (as in white people) when it comes to their way of business and economy.

I think you need to google salaryman. There is nothing equivalent in any Western country, not in scope, extent, social significance, prevalence. Nothing. It may be unique to Japan. The "Organization Man" was as close as the West ever got and it's been a long time since most professional business people worked like that, if they ever did.

Nothing equivalent to someone who works for a salary, does overtime, but isn't overly passionate about there life... yep that's unique to japan... what was I thinking.

/s

> China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. Having the second largest GDP doesn't mean much if you have more than 10x as many people as number three on the list.

Agreed. But I am talking from a "Wealth of Nations" perspective rather than a per-capita basis. The brand, "China" is not poor and is only getting richer, not saying anything else than that. There are certainly poor people in China and will be for some time to come.

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