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Kouros's avatar

Well balanced essay, really appreciate the desire to critically approach the issue.

Leaving aside that at this conjunction we should all be concentrating in general degrowth, with growth only on certain areas, China is too big to not fret about it. But peddaling too much on the issue of "authoritarianism" is becoming boring and Mr. Tooze is admirable in not giving much, if any weight to this aspect. Ultimately, the best government is the one the is the best administrator and has the best results and I would call the Chinese government quasi meritocratic. Dismissing the extremely captured political class in the US for instance by various lobbies (FIRE, Agri, MIC, Big Pharma) ab initio/ab ovo, Mr. Posen shows his profound bias and appears lame due to the fact that he has swallowed the democracy narrative hook, line, and sinker.

The US is a plutocratic republic that abhoors democracy, both internally and externally, and there are libraries written on the topic, with the best books written by Americans themselves.

As for China, mabe they should start applying land taxes to start with.

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Feral Finster's avatar

The idea that Western countries practice anything like a rule of law is a laugh.

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