Comment by jqm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jqm | Hacker News Reader

I read a theory somewhere that one of the the reasons Japan and Germany did so well in the post war years was that the war had completely cleaned out the rot and corruption from their institutions and they were starting over with a clean slate.

I have no idea how true this is. But I do suspect some of the troubles in America are more than economic... they are structural. Corruption in boardrooms. Profits without production. Institutions far deviated from their original purpose. Workers showing up and barely going through the motions with a sense of entitlement. Managers who have long since ceased to serve any useful function holding on to their jobs and perniciously cutting out anyone who would threaten them by innovating or producing. It's no one persons fault. It's not even the systems fault. It's just I think what happens when systems grow stale and a bit corrupt. Maybe there does inevitably have to be a real reset before things can get better again.

The situation is getting a bit like the late Qing dynasty, the late Ming dynasty, the late Ming dynasty, the late Song dynasty and before that, the late Tang dynasty, the late Jin dynasty, and the late Han dynasty before them.

The corruption amongst the wealthy and the powerful, as well as overreach of power from the central state causes instability in the empire, and with revolts, crisis and invasions abound, the empire collapses, and a new one arises like a phoenix out of ashes, along with a new era of prosperity where government officials work to the benefit of the people.

Dynasties in China rarely last more than 300 years before the corruption and the reach of the state expands too much and collapse the dynasty with it. The current global hegemon is the United States of America...How long has it been since the last rebellion in the Americas, against the last global hegemon before them, the British Empire?

239 years.

I am optimistic my future grandchildren will live in more optimistic times than my future children will.

> where government officials work to the benefit of the people.

hahahahahahahaha

Sounds funny now, but it happened in the early-Han, early-Song, early-Ming and early-Qing. In each of those times the new government had fewer regulations to begin with, needed popular support (to raise more armies and crush the remaining opposition) and would pass reforms that would allow prosperity to happen. Each of those periods are considered one of China's golden ages. Perhaps you might also want to take a look at: http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/... which describes these cycles well.

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