Patrick

I’ve never understood how the most labor intensive jobs pay the least.

First fourth world country in the history of mankind

Argentina's Peso is officially worthless.

China urges Europe to stop backing the “illegal” South China Sea ruling to avoid harming ties. Europe should be careful. Almost every European country has its own territorial wounds, separatist questions, border disputes, colonial leftovers, or unresolved historical claims. If Europe wants to fly across the world and stir fire in the South China Sea, China can also learn the game. Catalonia. Scotland. Northern Ireland. Corsica. Kosovo. Cyprus. Gibraltar. The Balkans. Do you really want Beijing to start issuing “rules-based” statements about all of them too? Europe is not a South China Sea claimant. It is not an Asian coastal party. It is not the judge of Chinese sovereignty. Stop pretending your colonial map addiction is international law. If you internationalize China’s backyard, do not cry when China internationalizes yours.

Before people copy random things the Chinese have done, they need to sit back and think more carefully. China did a lot of things. Some of them were important to their success; others hurt; others still are such that they may have worked there but won’t work in your country. All the clever folks in DC selling you simple stories — “socialist market economy” and whatnot — do not understand the challenges faced by situated modernizers the world over. In particular, they are ignorant of the social rigidities of your anthropology. Development is hard work bc you are pushing against the grain of your society which mobilizes to defend itself with its plentiful ‘weapons of the weak’. You need to break some eggs. Killing your landlords may just do it — or not. It depends! Killing your landlords is not going to make Ali to show up on time. Anyone who thinks there is a simple formula is a moron. Had there been one, most countries would’ve made it by following the formula. It does not work like this. Some things we know for sure. Others we don’t. Investment in human capital is a no-brainer. So are fair and impartial rules-based governance. Tariff protection and industrial policy come with a substantial risk of rent-seeking, corruption and incompetence. Anticorruption drives rarely work; removing the fat of the land does. Incentive structures matter a great deal, etc. Beyond this, very little can be said. And what is being peddled are idea balloons, not a solution to your developmental challenge.