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To: Amy J who wrote (182654)	11/10/2005 10:45:55 PM
From: GVTucker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Amy, Singapore is a parliamentary republic, not a dictatorship. They have a president, prime minister, and parliament.

To: Amy J who wrote (182654)	11/10/2005 11:43:18 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Most people I know in my age group think Communisim is efficient - we equate communism to China and Singapore's dictatorship as highly efficient. Possibly older people may perceive communisim as the inefficient, older East bloc USSR. You dont list your age group so this doesnt really help me understand your viewpoint much. I'm 30 and everybody I know who cares about this stuff, couldnt disagree more. As I stated in my prior post, "efficient communism" (or any state controlled economy) can work well for a while, until something goes wrong. We'll see how China deals with a recession or a depression. Will they be able to make the hard choices necesary to revive an economy? How will the people react when they are getting laid off by state owned enterprises? Even with all of its success, the words creative destruction arent something you associate with China....and that process is precisely what has made the US so resilient. Note that the words "efficient communism" just picks the winners. If a country fails (the Eastern Bloc), by definition it wasnt efficient. There are any number of dictators all over the world right now that are running absolutely miserable economies. China doesn't have the inefficiency from a lack of strong centralized power that ails a democratic nation where a zillion different fighting factions argue in India but nothing gets done. India's local govt is so corrupt and the centralized power is so weak, means India is at grid-lock when it comes to deploying nation-wide infrastructure, and that inefficiency is so bad that even India's govt acknowledged this by actually gave their energy infrastructure contract to Enron in hopes for something better than their brand of corruption, if you can imagine that. And of course, that probably will mean nothing will get done, other than a lot of useless arguing. If your argument is that a strong central goverment is better than a weak one, I will definitely agree. That does not extend to a centralized system making the economic choices. The construnction of a dam that takes 30 years (like the Narmada dam in India) is a political problem not an economic one. It is possible to have a strong central government and still allow the economy to function on its own. Capitalism was very alive in India during the 70s I believe it was when Mrs. Ghandi was booted out because the poor masses rejected her push for population control. I must be missing something. The 1970's might have been better than the 50's and 60's but the "License Raj" was alive and well. The entire economy was stultified at every level by regulations and foreign investment was nil. The reforms in 1990 were the start. The mid-1990's saw another level of deregulation and the fact that the current left-leaning government hasnt rolled back those reforms leaves me to believe that they are permanent (as much as anything can be in a democracy). We wont know for 20-50 years how all this works out, but my bet is that at some point we'll see the bloom come of the Chinese rose. Slacker

To: Amy J who wrote (182654)	11/11/2005 6:40:22 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 186894

OT Most people I know in my age group think Communism is efficient - we equate communism to China and Singapore's dictatorship as highly efficient. Possibly older people may perceive communism as the inefficient, older East bloc USSR. Singapore isn't communist. Neither are the most efficient aspects of China's economy. China's current greater efficiency is largely the result of allowing more capitalism. They still have large inefficient state industries though. Maybe reforming or eliminating them will provide for the ability to maintain their rapid growth for longer but its not going to be simple and easy. I think you are mistaking authoritarianism for communism. They aren't the same thing even if there is a connection. Capitalism was very alive in India during the 70s I believe it was when Mrs. Ghandi was booted out because the poor masses rejected her push for population control. 1 - Population control has little connection with capitalism. 2 - India had private industry but it was heavily regulated, and subject to very restrictive licensing, which reduced competition, encouraged corruption, and generally destroyed efficiency. Tim