It's probably obvious to say, but I think a nation's most important resource is people. And if you can just order them around and kill the dissenters and not care about what individuals want, then you can achieve quite a bit, be it industrialization or war or agricultural surplus.
There are many more countries with violent governments that don't tolerate dissenters than there are ones that have the technological success of China.
Most of them are much less strategic about what they drive for. But a "more free" state could certainly be more strategic as well about aims, goals, and definition of success; the US has done it before to various extents, for instance.
The claim has often been that it'll eventually collapse like in the Soviet Union—because "not caring about what individuals want—has been believed to be a major limiting factor, not an advantage. But it hasn't yet.
I'm not saying that the economy or markets are everything; however, if you don't have dissidents you don't as much friction. If China wants to move your mother's grave for a factory, there's not a lot you can do. Whereas in democracies you can try to draw it out with legal action, etc.
The phenomenon of "nail houses" testifies against the notion that the Chinese government will expropriate whatever land it wants, although nail houses aren't graves. Graves are less of a concern, because the dead by law must be buried in public cemeteries: isolated rural burials are uncommon.
Nail houses always lose. They have their services and access cut-off by private developers without any recourse to the courts. The nail houses exist only for the duration of arbitration proceedings over compensation for the property. FMV value is usually determined by prices before the area was considered for development, which in poor areas is a pittance. But in arbitration the villagers are merely postponing the inevitable.
Also, IIRC, nail houses are rare as outside cities private ownership of property was not common, at least into the early 2000s. (Not sure how common it is now.) And they only became a thing circa 2004 when China amended their constitution to require legal process for expropriation, but that process provides much fewer protections than it does in, e.g., the US.
Among all these pictures there is exactly 1, the first one that would be an example of someone living in an important place, a middle of a road, and refusing to move.
And the occupied place isn't very important to the state, but rather only to a couple of residents.
All others just show that demolitions have started, and there are houses not yet demolished.
0/1.4 billions of people is actually convincing the other way you intended.
This reply doesn't make a lick of sense. You're just making things up off the top of your head.
The point is that China doesn't "just crush" dissenters. This is ignorant Western fantasy which is used by people to justify the dismantling of their own rights. China needs a Bill of Rights like the US's, and most of the US populace needs to stop being such a sucker for nearly century-old propaganda that it doesn't burn its own treasure in service of elite-propagated paranoia.
Yes, eminent domain is there. In the case you linked to, it started in 1998 and took until 2005 for the Supreme Court. Sure new cases may happen faster, but it still takes year with due process and the courts.
Comments
It's probably obvious to say, but I think a nation's most important resource is people. And if you can just order them around and kill the dissenters and not care about what individuals want, then you can achieve quite a bit, be it industrialization or war or agricultural surplus.
There are many more countries with violent governments that don't tolerate dissenters than there are ones that have the technological success of China.
Most of them are much less strategic about what they drive for. But a "more free" state could certainly be more strategic as well about aims, goals, and definition of success; the US has done it before to various extents, for instance.
The claim has often been that it'll eventually collapse like in the Soviet Union—because "not caring about what individuals want—has been believed to be a major limiting factor, not an advantage. But it hasn't yet.
I'm not saying that the economy or markets are everything; however, if you don't have dissidents you don't as much friction. If China wants to move your mother's grave for a factory, there's not a lot you can do. Whereas in democracies you can try to draw it out with legal action, etc.
The phenomenon of "nail houses" testifies against the notion that the Chinese government will expropriate whatever land it wants, although nail houses aren't graves. Graves are less of a concern, because the dead by law must be buried in public cemeteries: isolated rural burials are uncommon.
While the photos of nail houses tell a story of state-tolerated individual defiance, the reality is actually the opposite: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/6194/1/Driven_to_...
Nail houses always lose. They have their services and access cut-off by private developers without any recourse to the courts. The nail houses exist only for the duration of arbitration proceedings over compensation for the property. FMV value is usually determined by prices before the area was considered for development, which in poor areas is a pittance. But in arbitration the villagers are merely postponing the inevitable.
Also, IIRC, nail houses are rare as outside cities private ownership of property was not common, at least into the early 2000s. (Not sure how common it is now.) And they only became a thing circa 2004 when China amended their constitution to require legal process for expropriation, but that process provides much fewer protections than it does in, e.g., the US.
That’s not true at all. China is known for its “nail houses” for example.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/apr/15/china...
Among all these pictures there is exactly 1, the first one that would be an example of someone living in an important place, a middle of a road, and refusing to move.
And the occupied place isn't very important to the state, but rather only to a couple of residents.
All others just show that demolitions have started, and there are houses not yet demolished.
0/1.4 billions of people is actually convincing the other way you intended.
This reply doesn't make a lick of sense. You're just making things up off the top of your head.
The point is that China doesn't "just crush" dissenters. This is ignorant Western fantasy which is used by people to justify the dismantling of their own rights. China needs a Bill of Rights like the US's, and most of the US populace needs to stop being such a sucker for nearly century-old propaganda that it doesn't burn its own treasure in service of elite-propagated paranoia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
Yes, eminent domain is there. In the case you linked to, it started in 1998 and took until 2005 for the Supreme Court. Sure new cases may happen faster, but it still takes year with due process and the courts.