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What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#11

Post by dyauspitr »

chubot wrote: post #6

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one. It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progres…

That’s not true, India had the largest GDP for the vast majority of human civilization.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#13

Post by comte7092 »

jmclnx wrote: post #3

This starts in the 50s and and seems they argue for Land Reform. Maybe that was part of it. But I say these are far better reasons: 1. A local government friendly to the US. Gov type did not matter. 2. US Workers starting to want medical benefits, by the late 60s, hardly anyone would take a job without benefits. This includes sick time. 3. Environment Controls starting in the 60s. I think this is a big one. 4. High W…

Your argument lays out a number of push factors as to why firms left the US, but there are numerous locales that are and were cheaper than the US. This article is about what cause industry to flourish in East Asia specifically.

None of the bullet points you laid out are specific to East Asia.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#14

Post by chubot »

achow wrote: post #9
chubot wrote: post #6

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one. It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progres…

> Roughly speaking, China had the largest GDP in the world for more than 1000 years For a continuous duration of nearly 1700 years from the year 1 CE, India was the world's largest economy, constituting 35 to 40% of the world GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

OK I tracked down that claim to Michael Cembalest of JP Morgan, in a 2012 article

https://archive.is/kQNT4#selection-1577.155-1581.525

https://archive.is/Z2qEu

Although there are problems with the analysis that are mentioned in both articles:

A major caveat: If you looked at the chart in any depth, you probably noticed a big problem with it. The time periods between data points aren't equal -- in fact they are not close at all

---

So, one way to read the graph, very broadly speaking, is that everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world

But the analysis for China is equally flimsy, so I edited my comment to say "China and India" and "likely"

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TBH now that I see this data, I think both claims are a little flimsy. I was more referring to Dalio's analysis, which covers the last 500 years only, and probably got a few claims mixed up.

For some reason Dalio does not include India much in his analysis -- it is mostly focused on China, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the USA. That could be his bias, or perhaps a definitional issue with what counts as "India" (and similarly what counts as "China"), which is a difficult question over 500-1000 year time frames

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#15

Post by chubot »

avmich wrote: post #8
chubot wrote: post #6

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one. It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progres…

The problem with cyclical view appears as soon as one tries to review the underlying causes why this movement happens. You can have rises, prosperity, overshoots, bad habits, slowdowns and depressions coming one after another in a mostly closed system. Or you may consider a system which can be affected by externalities, those which can be so powerful as to cause opium depression or technology copying rise. It's a lit…

It's true, but really it's both ... there is "progress" and there are also cycles. Dalio explicitly superimposes them on each other

I don't think I believed this until 2017 or 2020 or so, but it seems clear that the USA is on a natural downcycle and probably will be for several decades

I think the causes are pretty well laid out in the book - basically having the global reserve currency is kind of an unfair advantage, and it leads the population to become decadent and unproductive, it leads to institutional decay, etc.

---

That brought to mind the tweet/slogan "what if your whole personality depends on low interest rates?", and now I see that something similar was discussed on Hacker News too:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33946342

Basically people live in a particular part of a cycle, which lasts longer than their lifetimes

(but there are also non-cyclical changes / progress, and yeah there are big flaws with trying to go back 1000 years)

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#16

Post by namaria »

selimthegrim wrote: post #5
jmclnx wrote: post #3

This starts in the 50s and and seems they argue for Land Reform. Maybe that was part of it. But I say these are far better reasons: 1. A local government friendly to the US. Gov type did not matter. 2. US Workers starting to want medical benefits, by the late 60s, hardly anyone would take a job without benefits. This includes sick time. 3. Environment Controls starting in the 60s. I think this is a big one. 4. High W…

PRC?

ROC is Taiwan I believe.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#17

Post by namaria »

achow wrote: post #9
chubot wrote: post #6

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one. It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progres…

> Roughly speaking, China had the largest GDP in the world for more than 1000 years For a continuous duration of nearly 1700 years from the year 1 CE, India was the world's largest economy, constituting 35 to 40% of the world GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

Estimating economy sizes and growth before a couple hundred years ago is at best an exercise in educated guessing.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#18

Post by miningape »

comte7092 wrote: post #13
jmclnx wrote: post #3

This starts in the 50s and and seems they argue for Land Reform. Maybe that was part of it. But I say these are far better reasons: 1. A local government friendly to the US. Gov type did not matter. 2. US Workers starting to want medical benefits, by the late 60s, hardly anyone would take a job without benefits. This includes sick time. 3. Environment Controls starting in the 60s. I think this is a big one. 4. High W…

Your argument lays out a number of push factors as to why firms left the US, but there are numerous locales that are and were cheaper than the US. This article is about what cause industry to flourish in East Asia specifically. None of the bullet points you laid out are specific to East Asia.

I think that's kinda the point. It's not EA specific but general economic forces with a large difference in development.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#19

Post by comte7092 »

miningape wrote: post #18
comte7092 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument lays out a number of push factors as to why firms left the US, but there are numerous locales that are and were cheaper than the US. This article is about what cause industry to flourish in East Asia specifically. None of the bullet points you laid out are specific to East Asia.

I think that's kinda the point. It's not EA specific but general economic forces with a large difference in development.

There’s nothing really general or abstract to what OP was stating though. Their argument is essentially “it has nothing to do with anything that East Asia did, it was essentially random that they ended up being the place where industrial development expanded to next” which doesn’t seem to be a strongly evidence based position in my view.

Re: What Fueled the 'East Asian Miracle'?

#20

Post by daymanstep »

achow wrote: post #9
chubot wrote: post #6

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one. It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progres…

> Roughly speaking, China had the largest GDP in the world for more than 1000 years For a continuous duration of nearly 1700 years from the year 1 CE, India was the world's largest economy, constituting 35 to 40% of the world GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

Was India even a country before 1700? It's like saying "Asia was the largest economy"
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