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Raenir Salazar posted:Sir Isaac Newton loving worshiped China and their governmental and societal structure as being superior to white peoples disorderly mess. His opinion was fairly typical of European intellectuals up until Imperialism driven by the Industrial revolution and trade interests gained momentum. China was certainly known for a long time by a number of peoples. Sir Isaac Newton believed in the curative power of leeches.
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Jan 21, 2016 04:53
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Older but one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D827IxEJVS4
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Jan 21, 2016 05:13
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Raenir Salazar posted:Sir Isaac Newton loving worshiped China and their governmental and societal structure as being superior to white peoples disorderly mess. His opinion was fairly typical of European intellectuals up until Imperialism driven by the Industrial revolution and trade interests gained momentum. China was certainly known for a long time by a number of peoples. Also Voltaire made fun of him: wikipedia posted:"was never sensible to any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor had any commerce with women—a circumstance which was assured me by the physician and surgeon who attended him in his last moments." Ceciltron fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 05:31
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Well I mean Voltaire poo poo on Leibniz too, that's sort of his thing. Sure he says that about Newton, but he wrote loving Candide in response to the optimism of Liebniz. Lets call that one a wash.
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Jan 21, 2016 06:53
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Ceciltron posted:Isaac Newton was a weirdo pissbaby permavirgin who was not nearly as cool as Liebniz, who figured out almost all the same stuff at the same time while being mildly interesting. Was Newton gay?
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Jan 21, 2016 07:17
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Since this is the china hate thread now, I hope when American troops are occupyibg Beijing and
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Jan 21, 2016 07:19
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tekz posted:Since this is the china hate thread now, I hope when American troops are occupyibg Beijing and I completely agree, tekz. Elephants are more important than some chinese man's insecurity over his size. Until China quits being the world's leading importer of poached ivory, I say let their economy burn. I support Trump's proposal for a tarriff war with China. Free trade with freedom-loving Asia; tarriffs with the commies
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Jan 21, 2016 07:21
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Fojar38 posted:I think that "center" is dictated chiefly by geography rather than sheer size, hence why I think that historically the Middle East was Eurasia's "center of gravity." Sino-European trade always had to go through the Middle East in some fashion, so whoever dominated the Middle East tended to benefit the most from Eurasian trade, and what's more they also tended to make the rules. One of the reasons Europeans began to scout the Atlantic more is because the Ottomans seized control of the Middle East and hence controlled East-West trade. China's prominence in that the demands of the Chinese market had a substantial influence on the global economy is also a recent phenomenon that wasn't really seen until Europeans showed up wanting to trade directly. Prior to that, when most trade occurred via an Indian Ocean-Middle East-Mediterranean corridor there were so many proxies that the only group whose demands dominated global trade was whoever had the most influence over this corridor. Often this was multiple states, sometimes it was only one or two. Okay but that's literally not what center of gravity means. I think it's also telling that, by your own narrative here, Europe wasn't desperate to trade with the Middle East (I mean, it was nice, and they did it a bunch) but getting at that sweet sweet China market without needing to go through intermediaries is why Europeans flung themselves across the globe. The whole thing is that, despite the number of proxies, a->b->c->d... z the only reason there's profit in the arbitrage is because a and z want poo poo the other has. A larger number of proxies simply means that the price can get jacked up more along the way, indicating a high level of demand. And for the most part it was goods going west, metals going east. The intermediate is their but, as you so rightfully point out, that's entirely conditional on the end points and the middleman, by definition, is someone who can be cut out. quote:The various powers that be at the time definitely cared about trade that was going through their realms because you could tax trade, and if you didn't tax trade you were a massive sucker who probably wasn't long for the world. And unless you were going to hoof it through Siberia or Central Asia like a suicidal retard you'd go by the ocean, and ocean trade requires ports, and ports require infrastructure, and infrastructure is supplied by states who levy taxes for use of their port. The Mongols weren't really any exception to this, although their control of the Persian Gulf was mostly via proxies. The point is that up until the mid-14th century Persia was controlled by the same dudes who ruled from Karakorum and later Beijing. In my opinion it's this fact that allowed China to dominate Eurasia's economic center of gravity during the Ming Dynasty and if there was any notion that China was ever "the center of the world (read: Eurasia's) economy," it was at this point. So here's an analogy. I have (metaphorically) just told you that petrochemicals are an important part of anthropogenic warming. You respond that fire is hot. While true, this means nothing about your thesis regarding the Yuan Dynasty. Now, plenty of hoofing was done in Central Asia (a good deal less through Siberia, but occasionally, I'll grant you) and people got fabulously loving wealthy along the way. The Mongols followed those trade routes along their way, looting a great many of them. Later on they set up shop and got on doing the taxing trade poo poo, as one does. However, that had gently caress all to do with China 'dominating' the center of gravity. For one, the Mongols were terrible administrators* and that whole Pax Mongolia disappeared as fast as, well, any other fleeting empire. For another, one does not 'dominate' a center of gravity. A thing is or is not, and China, by about any metric, had a larger economy than any classification you chose to use save perhaps China v. Rest. This had some effects, notably, pointing flow of trade vs. flow of currency etc. etc. Remember, this conversation started with who might have the bigger economy (in this metaphor, I suppose, dick, since it does mean dickall compared to certain other matter.) The question was 'does China have the biggest dick' (no) perhaps 'would it have the biggest dick if...' (possibly, but of course you'd have to meet those conditions) The point I'm making is that the region now know as China did, in fact, have the world's biggest dick for a while, and how that dick, uh, affected dickonomics in other places of the world** but in between being just plain wrong about history you're yammering about condoms and dicksheathes and going on about the exploits that these different dicks got up to, but ultimately you're wrong because we're not talking about dicks we're talking about economies but you're wrapped up in epistemologies that are about as useful to this conversation as an extended dick metaphor. *Or, more accurately, the first generation wasn't great at it and they outsourced a lot of those tasks, it took them a while to get good at it. We're talking ~16th Century. In India. ** All good metaphors breakdown eventually.
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Jan 21, 2016 08:09
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Voltarie used Confucianism as a rhetorical stand-in for idealized rationalist liberalism, in polemics against the political and religious structures of his day. His 'Confucianism' had very important differences with real Confucianism and arguably doesn't resemble it much at all. As for economics, the constant droning that China was the center of the world or whatever sounds incredibly insecure and shrill, driven by an obsessive need to cheerlead China and poo poo on the 'West'. Premodern and Early Modern international trade mostly revolved around high-margin, low-volume luxury goods like silk, spices, tea, porcelain, etc. which not only China but also India and SE Asia had and Europe didn't. In that sense China and India were central to the trade in some way, but Western Europe (and Japan, BTW, Tokugawa Japan is also a huge producer of silver in the early modern period) were equally important, especially after 1500 and the discovery of New World silver, because they're the ones buying the stuff. Europe was in no way dependent on Chinese goods, and they spent the entire Early Modern period trying and then succeeding at finding sources of those goods that were under their political control, like building porcelain factories in Europe, introducing silk cultivation to Italy, growing tea and spices in the New World on plantations. And Asia ultimately turned out not even to have any political power as a result of this trade, because finally the Europeans just cut to the chase and took Asia itself politically. Arguably part of the reason that Britain and friends didn't do the same in China that they did in India was that they realized that actually governing India was a pain in the rear end and not worth the trouble, so they ended up just dictating its trade policy on favorable terms and even trying and failing to prop up the Qing government to maintain internal stability Even in terms of raw GDP early modern China and India aren't super impressive IMO, because despite each having double the population of Western Europe their GDP was only 25% or so higher. On a per capita basis, even by 1500 Western Europe is ~30% richer than China and India, and by 1820 that's increased to twice as rich. The fact is that both China and India were big, and that's about it. They did not have meaningful economic or political power vis-a-vis Western Europe even in the Early Modern period. Otherwise they wouldn't have been, you know, colonialized. In light of that, I think the characterization of China and India as in any way 'dominant' or even some kind of 'center' is ridiculous.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 08:19
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Even more silly about 'Confucianist China as the historical center of the world economy' is that for the majority of its history - especially after the mongols - there was no actual Chinese participation in international trade. Muslim migrants from central asia dominated China's import/export business with a complete monopoly on the silk road. Even on the seaborne routes, muslims usually competed with Thai and Vietnamese merchants. China's international trade scheme usually benefited central and south asian empires more than China itself. Even the director of shipping during the Song dynasty (before the mongols) was usually a Muslim.
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Jan 21, 2016 09:08
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Yeah the central political administrations of both China and India in the pre and early modern periods were profoundly weak, which is almost always ignored by the China As Number 1 people. The Mughal Empire imploded almost as quickly as it formed, and the Qing Empire barely lasted much longer, for reasons mostly unrelated to European interference. Commerce was conducted not by Asian states but by Muslim traders, then the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the British, in that order of succession. To insist that China was somehow dominant when all of their foreign trade was being conducted by the British and Dutch is ridiculous
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 09:29
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icantfindaname posted:Yeah the central political administrations of both China and India in the pre and early modern periods were profoundly weak, which is almost always ignored by the China As Number 1 people. The Mughal Empire imploded almost as quickly as it formed, and the Qing Empire barely lasted much longer, for reasons mostly unrelated to European interference. Commerce was conducted not by states but by Muslim traders, then the Portugese, then the Dutch, then the British, in that order of succession. To insist that China was somehow dominant when all of their foreign trade was being conducted by the British and Dutch is ridiculous Uhhh...where did you learn history exactly?
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Jan 21, 2016 09:35
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icantfindaname posted:Voltarie used Confucianism as a rhetorical stand-in for idealized rationalist liberalism, in polemics against the political and religious structures of his day. His 'Confucianism' had very important differences with real Confucianism and arguably doesn't resemble it much at all. I think we're in agreement here, mostly? I've said a bunch before that that economic size is all I'm talking about. Which, btw, your chart helpfully illustrates. Check that shifting scale at the bottom; China + India are casually sitting at twice, literal double the size of Europe and the Middle East. That pattern holds steady regardless of fojar's precious Yuan or not. That stays more or less the same until Europe claws up in 1500 by looting the gently caress out of the new world and slowly poking at trade in the Indian Ocean. Even then most of that growth is coming out of them loving the poo poo out of the Middle East by, holla, cutting them out of the India/China trade. The point is, unless your markets are literally-ocean-apart-no-trade seperated (so, pre-Columbian America) then the simple laws of supply and demand mean that things happening in {zone with more economic activity} are going to mean bigger 'things' for the global economy than {zone with less economic activity.} For example, since everyone is so wrapped up in this power-of-a-state nonsense, a state that could pass (and, rather importantly, impose) a law that could effect that zone has relatively more effect on the economy of the world than a power enforcing laws on an economy half that size. For example, the Chinese decision to collect taxes in silver. The delightfully named "Single Whip Law" demanding that their economy suck up an assload of silver and move it into circulation since now every Tom Dick and Jerry needs to be able to convert his kind into silver currency at least once a year) had huge effects on the world's economy because it was a mandate enacted over a huge proportion of the market. Note that, long term, this wasn't great for the state that enacted the law. The inflation was bad for the Ming, it helped Spain deal with it's own inflation by sucking off a lot of the excess, and it made direct trade with China a lot more lucrative. Then in 1800 Europe goes absolutely-loving-meteoric because, hang on, let me quote my first few posts in this dumbass derail: quote:some assholes in Manchester really got their heads around steam and spinning jennies and took a good look at the putting out process Suddenly population doesn't mean nearly what it used to. It's not that China's economy disappeared at this point, steam power just loving rewrites the fundamental loving rulebook of how the world works. As you helpfully note, this happens largely due to changes in per-capita GDP and not because of a mass cloning incident in Lancaster or something. That's something I've been hammering. This also, as you have pointed out, meant gently caress all as far as the capacity of whatever states happened to nominally be ruling over the area in which this action occurred to 'dominate' or 'conquer' or 'demand' anything if the states in question couldn't tap that power.
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Jan 21, 2016 09:53
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tekz posted:Uhhh...where did you learn history exactly? Mughal Empire: 1555 – 1857 British Raj: 1858–1947 RIP poor fuckers couldn't even make the century. Your epistemologies are bad and you should feel bad.
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Jan 21, 2016 09:57
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the JJ posted:I think we're in agreement here, mostly? I've said a bunch before that that economic size is all I'm talking about. Which, btw, your chart helpfully illustrates. Check that shifting scale at the bottom; China + India are casually sitting at twice, literal double the size of Europe and the Middle East. That pattern holds steady regardless of fojar's precious Yuan or not. That stays more or less the same until Europe claws up in 1500 by looting the gently caress out of the new world and slowly poking at trade in the Indian Ocean. Even then most of that growth is coming out of them loving the poo poo out of the Middle East by, holla, cutting them out of the India/China trade. The point is, unless your markets are literally-ocean-apart-no-trade seperated (so, pre-Columbian America) then the simple laws of supply and demand mean that things happening in {zone with more economic activity} are going to mean bigger 'things' for the global economy than {zone with less economic activity.} For example, since everyone is so wrapped up in this power-of-a-state nonsense, a state that could pass (and, rather importantly, impose) a law that could effect that zone has relatively more effect on the economy of the world than a power enforcing laws on an economy half that size. For example, the Chinese decision to collect taxes in silver. The delightfully named "Single Whip Law" demanding that their economy suck up an assload of silver and move it into circulation since now every Tom Dick and Jerry needs to be able to convert his kind into silver currency at least once a year) had huge effects on the world's economy because it was a mandate enacted over a huge proportion of the market. Note that, long term, this wasn't great for the state that enacted the law. The inflation was bad for the Ming, it helped Spain deal with it's own inflation by sucking off a lot of the excess, and it made direct trade with China a lot more lucrative. China's not dominant because it doesn't have any agency, and it's not central because Europe doesn't actually need Chinese trade to industrialize or operate And states are the most important unit of analysis here, because it is they who have actual agency. China's ports weren't opened by macro-changes in per capita GDP, they were opened by the British Navy. And honestly I'm not entirely sure the British couldn't have forced open China's ports at any time since the early 1600s, I don't think naval technology had advanced that much between then and the early 1800s. the JJ posted:Mughal Empire: 1555 – 1857 The Mughal Empire's power is completely broken by the year 1740, from that point until 1857 the Mughal Emperor basically has control over a city block in Delhi. In addition it never really secured control over the southern half of the country and was mostly limited to the northern heartland icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 10:05
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The Mughals were the dominant power in India (until they started getting poo poo on by the Marathas) for at least two centuries. The extreme south of the country and Lanka are the only parts they didn't control at their zenith, it's bizarre to suggest that they collapsed as quickly as they were formed and they only had control of the northern heartland just because you want every little factoid in history to fit into your anti-China/uppity Asiatics thinking they were bigger'n'their'boots narrative. Also this is getting way off topic for the china economy megathread.
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Jan 21, 2016 10:19
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icantfindaname posted:So you agree that China is not meaningfully 'dominant' or 'central' to the world economy at any point in history? Define 'dominant' or 'central.' Or, for that matter, 'China.' The economy occurring in the geographical vicinity of the modern state of China was, for most of recorded history, one of the largest, more than double the size of the economy encompassed by the zone now known as Europe. As such, effects there had a big 'weight' on the market. The market there did a lot of dictating, and access to it was a primary motivator for some world changing events. Generally, any entity comprising 25-30% of a market can be said to 'dominate' it, especially when compared to, as was at the beginning of this conversation, an entity sitting at roughly 12%. That's about all I've been saying this whole time. icantfindaname posted:And arguably the jump in European per capita wealth has more to do with the Black Death and the search for agricultural productivity in the face of labor shortages than anything to do with the New World. America is almost solely important as a giant silver mine You're underselling the value of New World sugar here. The capital and mercantile seeds to kick start the IR start there. I also agree that per capita wealth is way more important than absolute wealth when judging, say, where I'd like to live or societal end goals or what have you. But that's not the question at hand, so the Black Death was still (knock on effects aside) a net loss for the European economy. quote:The Mughal Empire's power is completely broken by the year 1740 from that point until 1857 the Mughal Emperor basically has control over a city block in Delhi. In addition it never really secured control over the southern half of the country and was mostly limited to the northern heartland By the metric you yourself proposed two posts ago, judging an empire by it's length of tenancy: You're bad model posted:Mughal Empire imploded almost as quickly as it formed You're saying that one city block had more power than the entire Raj. Sooooo was that one city block more significant than the British Raj, or are you using a bad model for understanding history? I'll let you pick. e: Or hey, you made a snap judgement on what you thought history was like based on biased assumptions about how history really happened, and then, after a trip to wikipedia, you doubled down instead of trimming sails. Call it option 2b. the JJ fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 10:27
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tekz posted:The Mughals were the dominant power in India (until they started getting poo poo on by the Marathas) for at least two centuries. The extreme south of the country and Lanka are the only parts they didn't control at their zenith, it's bizarre to suggest that they collapsed as quickly as they were formed and they only had control of the northern heartland just because you want every little factoid in history to fit into your anti-China/uppity Asiatics thinking they were bigger'n'their'boots narrative. The Mughals go from their political zenith right around 1700 to having Delhi sacked and tens of thousands of its inhabitants carried off as slaves and all their territory taken over by Marathis by 1740 or 1750. Seems pretty fast to me. As for the south of the country it's only controlled for 50 or 70 years, the empire is expanding right until the decline starts And this isn't really a derail, it's very relevant because of the narrative that because Asia was dominant economically and politically at some point in the past, it's destined to be again. Besides the fallacious historicism and past-is-prologue thing, it wasn't actually dominant, unless engaging in trade while while having no effective state control over trade policy automatically makes you dominant icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 10:32
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the JJ posted:Define 'dominant' or 'central.' And what I've been saying this whole time is that it doesn't make any sense to call something 'dominant' if it doesn't have any agency. The Qing state didn't, otherwise it would have been able to control its own trade policy. And the market didn't either because 'the market' is a composite of countless individual actors which does not have independent agency on a collective level quote:You're underselling the value of New World sugar here. The capital and mercantile seeds to kick start the IR start there. I also agree that per capita wealth is way more important than absolute wealth when judging, say, where I'd like to live or societal end goals or what have you. Do you have any sources for New World capital making a meaningful difference to European industrialization? I've read it was not, although I do not have sources handy. quote:By the metric you yourself proposed two posts ago, judging an empire by it's length of tenancy: I'm judging it by its length of tenancy of actual effectual power. The Mughal Empire had that for maybe 150-200 years, ending in the mid 1700s. You don't seem very good at reading icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 10:39
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icantfindaname posted:The Mughals go from their political zenith right around 1700 to having Delhi sacked and tens of thousands of its inhabitants carried off as slaves and all their territory taken over by Marathis by 1740 or 1750. Seems pretty fast to me. Not really. France went from being at its strongest in the 1910s to being entirely overrun by Germany in 1940 and losing almost its entire colonial empire in the 50s and 60s. Same amount of time. And that was a nation-state, much more resilient than a feudal dynasty like the Mughals. icantfindaname posted:The Mughal Empire had that for maybe 150-200 years, ending in the mid 1700s. That's still almost as long as the United States' entire history, and certainly not the same thing as: icantfindaname posted:The Mughal Empire imploded almost as quickly as it formed
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Jan 21, 2016 10:52
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fishmech posted:That's total bullshit. Maybe if you have hosed up feet that need excessive custom cobbling. he's right. a nice pair of cole haans or john varvatoses will do you wonders
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Jan 21, 2016 11:01
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Kassad posted:Not really. France went from being at its strongest in the 1910s to being entirely overrun by Germany in 1940 and losing almost its entire colonial empire in the 50s and 60s. Same amount of time. And that was a nation-state, much more resilient than a feudal dynasty like the Mughals. It completely implodes, from its zenith, in 50 years tops. From the enthronement of Humayun in 1555 it takes 50 years to secure control over the North and the next 100 years is spent slowly creeping south. Like, the statement that the Mughal Empire was not a particularly internally robust or long-lived state isn't super controversial. Most premodern states weren't, and my entire point is that it makes no sense to call such a state dominant especially in comparison to early modern europe and the nascent nation-states there icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 11:05
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icantfindaname posted:And what I've been saying this whole time is that it doesn't make any sense to call something 'dominant' if it doesn't have any agency. The Qing state didn't, otherwise it would have been able to control its own trade policy. And the market didn't either because 'the market' is a composite of countless individual actors which does not have independent agency on a collective level See, the color blue in the Starry Night doesn't have any agency in the painting. Sure, it's mostly blue. But it doesn't control its own trade policy. Like you're still coming at this from a position of state power and, as the CCP is finding out everyday as they demand that the economy and the state move in lockstep, that's just not how the market works. Like... clearly the NYSE isn't a dominant force in the global economy because... people get pickpocketed in Times Square? The market is countless actors taking countless composite actions accruing countless tiny bits of utility and value and, for most of recorded history, a hell of a lot of that utility and value was happening in China. Sorry bruh, just the facts. icantfindaname posted:The Mughals go from their political zenith right around 1700 to having Delhi sacked and tens of thousands of its inhabitants carried off as slaves and all their territory taken over by Marathis by 1740 or 1750. Seems pretty fast to me. As for the south of the country it's only controlled for 50 or 70 years, the empire is expanding right until the decline starts. Again, I'm going to give the side eye to the British Raj and ask you to tell me that that didn't mean gently caress all because Ghandi chased them out by waving his walking stick at them. quote:And this isn't really a derail, it's very relevant because of the narrative that because Asia was dominant economically and politically at some point in the past, it's destined to be again. Besides the fallacious historicism and past-is-prologue thing, it wasn't actually dominant, unless engaging in trade while while having no effective state control over trade policy automatically makes you dominant I agree that the 'past-ergo-future' argument is hella stupid and have pointed to the gigantic middle finger textile producers in Manchester gave to the old order as both a tremendous example of just that and a tremendous example of the fallacy that size-of-economy = power-of-state because that several millennia run of biggest baddest market meant dick all when the gunboats came sailing in. Or the Japanese invaded. Or, for that matter, when steppe nomad flavor of the month came screaming over the hills. I also think that China- as an economy, note the thread title- regaining top seed if we assume that a. there's a ceiling on per capita productivity that the USA, Germany, et. al. have hit. This was the case way back, the Biological Ancien Regime was kinda a bitch. Note the relative stability of the old order in your chart, how much that had to compress that to fit in the goddamn wild growth in the 1800's. Note too, it's relative agnosticism to any changed not potato or coal related. If per capita production in China were to then hit that hypothetical productivity cap, ipso facto by way of math the old order would reassert. That's a poo poo load of ifs and I don't think that the CCP is competent enough to manage that in this modern-by-the-historian's-definition-of-a-modern-state-modern age when state policies maybe matter more. quote:Do you have any sources for New World capital making a meaningful difference to European industrialization? I've read it was not, although I do not have sources handy. And the Raj... oh yeah, RIP, couldn't even make the century. Scrubs. That Alexander guy. Died after like 30 years. Wasn't even king for most of them. Must have been, like, the least significant monarch ever. 150 years is actually, as far as states go, not a bad length of time to be on top. Like, it's no Steph Curry, but it's pretty drat respectable. Maybe, I dunno, Carmelo or something.
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Jan 21, 2016 11:19
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Are you Tom Friedman IRL?
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Jan 21, 2016 11:41
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fishmech posted:That's total bullshit. Maybe if you have hosed up feet that need excessive custom cobbling. Not true. A lot of people wear Allen Edmonds and other more expensive brands around that price point for over a decade, only needing to resole them as they wear down. That kind of longevity isn't something you see in $100 shoes. There's that idea that gets tossed around that if you have a wealthy guy that spends $300 on one pair he's going to spend less than the guy buying $50 shoes over the lifespan of the $300 shoes, and the $50 shoes end up being a lot more expensive over time because you have to keep replacing them as they wear down. What I'm saying is stick to trains.
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Jan 21, 2016 11:55
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icantfindaname posted:Are you Tom Friedman IRL? ... no?
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Jan 21, 2016 12:00
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the JJ posted:Define 'dominant' or 'central.' Again, while China was large, it was not central, and often not the largest. Comparing it to poor medieval europe is not constructive. China never chose or controlled the market - the fatimids, Timurids, khanates, Mughals, and Ottomans did. Before the Dutch golden age the center of the world economy was southwest and south asia and was controlled by local empires in the region with no Chinese or European involvement. Myriarch fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 13:27
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Myriarch posted:Again, while China was large, it was not central, and often not the largest. Comparing it to poor medieval europe is not constructive. China never chose or controlled the market - the fatimids, Timurids, khanates, Mughals, and Ottomans did. Before the Dutch golden age the center of the world economy was southwest and south asia and was controlled by local empires in the region with no Chinese or European involvement. Would a Chinese emperor be comprable to a Roman Catholic Pope?
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Jan 21, 2016 13:53
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In real China news, the government injected 400 billion yuan into the markets -- the most in three years -- yesterday to prop up the markets, but they still plunged more than 3 percent.
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Jan 21, 2016 14:25
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Anyone know what percentage of the stock market is de-facto owned by the government at this point? I guess the line between government and private is really blurry sometimes (ie pension funds and such).
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Jan 21, 2016 14:36
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the JJ posted:The economy occurring in the geographical vicinity of the modern state of China was, for most of recorded history, one of the largest, more than double the size of the economy encompassed by the zone now known as Europe. As such, effects there had a big 'weight' on the market. The market there did a lot of dictating, and access to it was a primary motivator for some world changing events. Generally, any entity comprising 25-30% of a market can be said to 'dominate' it, especially when compared to, as was at the beginning of this conversation, an entity sitting at roughly 12%. That's about all I've been saying this whole time. You moved the goal post. I don't think big overall size but small per capita was the intent of the original discussion. The idea was floated that China couldn't help but come to dominate the world economy due to it's size. I think that's wrong and I pointed out a period where China despite being massive in physical and population size was not the dominant economic force on the globe. Not even close. In fact they are not now despite still having those advantages.
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Jan 21, 2016 16:11
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Freezer posted:Anyone know what percentage of the stock market is de-facto owned by the government at this point? I guess the line between government and private is really blurry sometimes (ie pension funds and such). All but one of the largest 20 Chinese companies as listed by Wiki are directly state-owned. So, a whole lot, probably the majority of all activity on the stock markets are just the government shuffling money between its accounts. The reason China even started encouraging a stock market in the first place was as a cargo cult approximation of what Western countries have instead of any kind of genuine need for private capital investment (as many of the companies listed are straight up state owned to begin with) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_Chinese_companies Myriarch posted:Again, while China was large, it was not central, and often not the largest. Comparing it to poor medieval europe is not constructive. China never chose or controlled the market - the fatimids, Timurids, khanates, Mughals, and Ottomans did. Before the Dutch golden age the center of the world economy was southwest and south asia and was controlled by local empires in the region with no Chinese or European involvement. Quite honestly the world prior to the modern era didn't actually have an 'economic center', the economy of Eurasia was decentralized, the vast majority of trade was within a particular region and not between regions, and most regions were roughly as wealthy as each other. Remember they're not trading primary industry materials with each other, they're trading luxury goods, which did not actually have that great an economic impact. The fact that after 1453 the Europeans got locked out of overland trade with the rest of the world because Muslims was as much a geographic coincidence as any indication of the ability of the Middle East to dictate trade via a strong state or superior organization, and the ME in the late medieval period was not doing so hot because of massive depopulation from the Mongol and Turkic invasions which pretty much knocks them out of the game for the early modern period. The constant, desperate insistence that *Insert Asian Country Here* was actually the undisputed king of the world at some point before the perfidious Europeans temporarily got hold of superior technology is just so blatantly politically motivated and ahistorical. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 16:12
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This discussion of the historical economic prominence of China is interesting and all (I'm lying, I skipped over it once I realized what it was), but maybe it's not the most relevant to the modern Chinese economy?
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Jan 21, 2016 18:13
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Murgos posted:For pretty much all of recorded history China has had an enormous population, only rarely has their economy been really outstanding. This was the goalpost the whole time. All I was saying was, hey, this wasn't true because, for most of human history, there was a cap on per capita production so, yeah, China by being a big and agriculturally rich area had a much larger and more active economy than most other arbitrarily defined zone. That changed when the British broke the sound barrier and went for broke. That's not a spin that's just the facts. My first comment on it (regarding whether or not China's population would Once Again Allow It To Rule The World) was that they probably wouldn't because multipliers to per capita output matter so much more and that CCP policies have hosed them so bad that it's unlikely they'd even reach absolute parity with, say, the USA, much less per capita output. But I did think it was worthwhile to challenge the Orientalist "oh China was never important despite its enormous population" because that's an Orientalist view point formed at a time when that was true (1850-1950sish) but isn't really true if you actually break down poo poo historically. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/daily-chart-19 Here's a nice break down of what I meant by center of gravity. Note the rock solid positioning there, the ever so slight drift for 1500, and then the bonkers push to London. We can see there's already been some correction, but I'd be the first (and was from the start) saying that that was the result of a bigass change in the basic human paradigm w/r/t the economy. Everyone else wants to layer on poo poo about state powers and control and poo poo about perfidy and moral judgements about aesthetics. And also making some weird ahistorical calls on size of economy vs. strength of states, or even, like, value of regions of some poo poo. I don't think it has much to do with perfidious Brits. I mean, slavery was lovely and they did a lot of underhanded poo poo to get the goods to fuel that growth, but it's not like agricultural economies never depended on cohersion or committed atrocities. I dunno, I guess I didn't think I'd have to spell out "Oh, btw, I don't judge the moral rightness of an action solely by it's effect on global GDP" but if y'all wanna approach the issue from a Randian perspective we can do that. e: Whatever, gently caress it, I'm done with Logos or whatever. Time to appeal to authority. Woo Columbia University. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s5/s5_4.html Again, it's nothing to do with Chinese governments being great or anything. They needed the silver because they invented paper money but hosed up by printing too much. "Pesos were so familiar in China that they had cute little names for them. One of the kings of Spain, whose image was on the peso during his reign, looked to the Chinese like Buddha, so they referred to this as the "Fat Buddha" coin or the "Buddha Head" coin. And they were so used to this that, in fact, they drove world demand for this particular coin. Long after this particular Spanish king was dead, other people discovered that the Chinese wanted coins with this particular image on them, so the price of the coins rose. As a result, people such as the Dutch were making coins with the face of a particular long-dead Spanish king on them because the Chinese wanted them. (Much as people today make fake Prada handbags to satisfy consumer demand.) The Chinese market for coins, essentially, set the global standard." Or yeah, but they were these inscrutable Orientals and their economy wasn't linked to the world. "These coins were also so common in China that land contracts normally had a price in copper or some local medium, and then in a little handwritten note on the side next to the standard price, they told you how much that was in Spanish or Mexican pesos. It was just a part of life there." the JJ fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 23:44
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I, for one, open the China Economy Megathrad to read 10 paragraphs about dutch coins from the 17th century or whatever the gently caress horseshit that was.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:25
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Morbus posted:I, for one, open the China Economy Megathrad to read 10 paragraphs about dutch coins from the 17th century or whatever the gently caress horseshit that was. Especially when China just announced 400 billion RMB in quantitative easing. Not one post about that.  Seriously, shut the gently caress up about this pointless historical pissing contest, nobody cares.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:32
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Franks Happy Place posted:Especially when China just announced 400 billion RMB in quantitative easing. Not one post about that. Here, I summarized the relevant parts for you guys: the JJ posted:Again, it's nothing to do with Chinese governments being great or anything. They needed the silver because they invented paper money but hosed up by printing too much.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:36
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Ron Paul can fix China.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:53
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Have standards here gone up, or are things still the same in the Chinese car industry? I suppose it's probably the same. Edit: For the China qualitative easing thing, didn't the US do something similar during its recession? I forgot how much money we spent but it was a sizable amount and the economy still suffered. More than a trillion I think. Edit: Yeah, like 3 trillion. Artificer fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 01:11
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Artificer posted:Have standards here gone up, or are things still the same in the Chinese car industry? I suppose it's probably the same. 3 trillion and not a bit of inflation. There was a podcast, Planet Money I think, that talked about inflation in the 1970's and how bringing money creation to a stretching halt did absolutely nothing to curb inflation. A huge component of inflation is people's expectation of rising prices/wages and not actual extra money. So we add 3 trillion and nothing bad happens, because unemployment was high and people thought the economy was worse than it was. Plus no one's gotten raises for the last decade so increased wages weren't putting pressure on prices. Surprisingly enough QE is considered one of the reasons we have 3% growth and Europe is still around 1%. The European Central Bank is now looking at using QE to try and stimulate their economies.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:54
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