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Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

bbc.com

41–50 of 164 posts

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#41
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

Corporate-like government would work perhaps only if citizens can buy social security against failed government. Corporates go bust all the time so that only those with good cerntral planning are left.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#42
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

The belt and road initiative is actually a response to the failure of Chinese central planning. So much of China's economy is specialized in construction at this point that they can't risk the mass unemployment that would result from popping the construction bubble, so instead they're doing everything they can--building high speed trains to nowhere, building infrastructure in other countries, building entire cities that nobody lives in--to keep the ball rolling.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#43
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

You don’t need to compete with it. The chinese dictatorship model (like Soviet union before it) will collapse within time. One man decision making and the need to save face means it is incapable of making quick responses to changing environments. State owned model means there are tons of inefficient companies making inefficient investment decisions. Oppression means it will force others against it.

Thus China currently has a 400% debt to gdp, private firms defaulting and failing while state firms hoards and makes inefficient investments, most of the free world economies aligning against China, more than 1/3 of rich people in China wants to/ are in the process of leaving, etc

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#44
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

> Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment

Only if you have competent leadership (which they seem to have right now). When you have a bad leadership and a dictatorship, there's no safeguard to prevent a total disaster to happen. The main advantage of a democracy isn't the power to the people but the separation of power, that's sometimes the last safeguard available to prevent a country to collapse.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#45
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because everyone is just flourishing under the US world order.

I think the US ideals of freedom of speech/thought/religion are great, but unfortunately the US "ideal" of greed seems to be what the US is better at exporting.

Strange take. I’m socialist and communist countries, the rich make their money off government corruption. In the US rhe rich make their money off providing value to people in the free market.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#46
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because everyone is just flourishing under the US world order.

The lesser evil, any country with Western norms has my vote. Nothing is perfect

For you, east is China, Mideast and subcontinent only, right?

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#47
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

> Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making

Centralized / decentralized planning and democratic / autocratic decision making are orthogonal concerns.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#48
post #32

> "The seemingly innocuous move comes at a sensitive time for Europe and the European Union, where there is suddenly a great deal of trepidation not only about China, but about working out how Europe or the EU should adapt and react to a changing world," Prof Frankopan told the BBC. Forgive my ignorance, but aren't many EU decisions required to be unanimous? So if China has close ties to Italy, could it use it's infl…

Yes. That is my major concern. In fact, it has already happened! We have already Greece (with its China owned ports) blocking an EU statement:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-block...

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#50
post #33

Centralised planning will beat democratised decision making if they indeed manage to respond in time to a changing environment. The advancements in tech and communication allows you today to be more effective than ever. Think about global corporations with offices around the world. They are effectively operating under a centralised model and they do it very well. What China learnt in the past 4 decades was how to man…

Some people still think China's economy is a centralized one. No it's not. It's a mix of state owned and private - the former really good at long-term planning for national strategic goals, maintaining economic stability and building infrastructures with no short term returns, AND vibrating private sectors that drive innovation and employment. How they keep the balance of the two is mythical to many. However the Chinese came to this mixed system not by design, but with some luck. It needs to be studied and whether it can be replicated elsewhere remains a question.
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