I agree, you have defined and described things about the current state of the world that I've been seeing but unable to articulate. Of course, it"s a work in progress, as the world is as well!
Interesting and well written! I find fascinating that from the 1980s until quite recently, China operated under a internal economic and political-economy design that resembled America’s Old Republic more than contemporary America does. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms deliberately decentralized the state and federated authority across provinces, prefectures, and municipalities. Local governments controlled significant levers of industrial planning, banking, trade, infrastructure, education, and science policy.
This was not just functional devolution, it was ideologically supported by internal debates that drew from some foreign examples, including the one that it most resembles: America’s pre ww2 decentralized political economy (they reference the work of the Jaclsonians! i found out about this long go from reading old, old then too I mean, wapo and nyt article, but who do a usual trick I've seen of saying it ended in the 1860s, the local shanghai cpc branch mentioned it carried on until after ww2, that was my first source for that, which i didnt chase at the time but years later I did, is SAD that I needed the local shanghai cpc branch to learn a profoundly important part of amercan history because america's own information ecosystem lies about it!!!!). Notably, internal documents from the Guangzhou Municipal Party School in the late 1970s and from the Shanghai Economic Research Institutes in the early 1980s referenced the Jacksonian-Van Buren system explicitly, using it as an example of how regionally and locally federated semi-sovereign economic governance could drive growth, resilience, and political legitimacy
But under mean Xi , this framework has been facing systematic dismantling in pursuit of a centralized, unitary state. The current push for a “grand unified national market” and central enforcement over local discretion reflects this shift. But importantly, signs of institutional pushback have emerged in recent months, including from localities and ministerial factions, against the erosion of policy autonomy and economic discretion. These aint anomalies; they are structurally predictable within a system that still retains elements of the Jackson-Van Buren model. That design includes wired in safeguards meant fight for its survival
Nicely put. Yes, one would read about internal CCP debates that had a real sense of grappling with ideas and possibilities. It was also clearly the case that the state apparatus had increased freedom of action.
The traumas of the 1989 Beijing massacre and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to have created pushback against that. The latter seems to have, if anything, gained over time in its effects, through the Central Party School becoming apparently obsessed with it. Especially under its 2007-2013 head, one Xi Jinping.
One wonders if Western triumphalism on that score might also have had an unfortunate impact. The creation (and timing) of the Great Firewall of China suggests so.
Historian Stephen Kotkin compares Xi Jinping to Khrushchev, as a “second wind” of belief in the system. What is currently happening “under the hood” is hard to determine. The ongoing purges of PLA generals and admirals, now including those Xi has appointed, is striking.
When I read shit like this, it just confirms my belief that social science is just 21st century alchemy but even less useful. I feel this both for the arguments you presented and the things you're critiquing.
This is one of the best things you've written, summing up many other articles as well providing new information. Well done.
Ta. My thought remains a work in progress.
I agree, you have defined and described things about the current state of the world that I've been seeing but unable to articulate. Of course, it"s a work in progress, as the world is as well!
Brilliant, as always.
Interesting and well written! I find fascinating that from the 1980s until quite recently, China operated under a internal economic and political-economy design that resembled America’s Old Republic more than contemporary America does. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms deliberately decentralized the state and federated authority across provinces, prefectures, and municipalities. Local governments controlled significant levers of industrial planning, banking, trade, infrastructure, education, and science policy.
This was not just functional devolution, it was ideologically supported by internal debates that drew from some foreign examples, including the one that it most resembles: America’s pre ww2 decentralized political economy (they reference the work of the Jaclsonians! i found out about this long go from reading old, old then too I mean, wapo and nyt article, but who do a usual trick I've seen of saying it ended in the 1860s, the local shanghai cpc branch mentioned it carried on until after ww2, that was my first source for that, which i didnt chase at the time but years later I did, is SAD that I needed the local shanghai cpc branch to learn a profoundly important part of amercan history because america's own information ecosystem lies about it!!!!). Notably, internal documents from the Guangzhou Municipal Party School in the late 1970s and from the Shanghai Economic Research Institutes in the early 1980s referenced the Jacksonian-Van Buren system explicitly, using it as an example of how regionally and locally federated semi-sovereign economic governance could drive growth, resilience, and political legitimacy
But under mean Xi , this framework has been facing systematic dismantling in pursuit of a centralized, unitary state. The current push for a “grand unified national market” and central enforcement over local discretion reflects this shift. But importantly, signs of institutional pushback have emerged in recent months, including from localities and ministerial factions, against the erosion of policy autonomy and economic discretion. These aint anomalies; they are structurally predictable within a system that still retains elements of the Jackson-Van Buren model. That design includes wired in safeguards meant fight for its survival
Nicely put. Yes, one would read about internal CCP debates that had a real sense of grappling with ideas and possibilities. It was also clearly the case that the state apparatus had increased freedom of action.
The traumas of the 1989 Beijing massacre and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to have created pushback against that. The latter seems to have, if anything, gained over time in its effects, through the Central Party School becoming apparently obsessed with it. Especially under its 2007-2013 head, one Xi Jinping.
One wonders if Western triumphalism on that score might also have had an unfortunate impact. The creation (and timing) of the Great Firewall of China suggests so.
Historian Stephen Kotkin compares Xi Jinping to Khrushchev, as a “second wind” of belief in the system. What is currently happening “under the hood” is hard to determine. The ongoing purges of PLA generals and admirals, now including those Xi has appointed, is striking.
Wouldn't the correct word be nonaccountable? As in accountability simply doesn`t count?
When I read shit like this, it just confirms my belief that social science is just 21st century alchemy but even less useful. I feel this both for the arguments you presented and the things you're critiquing.
You should try and articulate what you mean when you comment. We might all learn something. Vague rage is boring.