Monied Interests – Page 2 – The Scholar's Stage

When “Engagement” Backfired: The Story Behind Pro-Communist Private Enterprise

29 August, 2020Monied Interests, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Image source Min Ye’s The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998–2018 is an interesting, if dense, examination of Chinese development politics. I dislike the jargon Ye has invented to convey her ideas, but am delighted with the evidence she marshals in support of her arguments. Ye wants to focus our understanding of […]

6 Comments

The Problem Isn’t the ‘Merit,’ It’s the ‘Ocracy’

30 December, 2019By The People, Community, Monied Interests, Political Theory, Wealth

Image Source Two weeks or so ago Liam Bright posted the following tweet: Liberal technocrats give us literally no reason at all to think their interests are aligned with the great majority of people, yet when they are attacked as a governing class they stress their credentials and competency. But it’d be worse if they’re […]

5 Comments

Fissures in the Facade

08 December, 2019Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny

Alessandro Rizzi, “Man in Xidan Shopping District,” Getty Images (Source) There are many aspects of Chinese society that I understand poorly. For example: the peasantry. I know the Chinese peasantry—as opposed to their close kin, the migrant workers—entirely in the abstract. I have spent no time in rural Chinese villages. I have watched documentaries about […]

20 Comments

The Utterly Dysfunctional Belt and Road

08 May, 2019Entangling Alliances, Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Image Source It is not luxury and pomp that make a king a king. It is when his orders are never disobeyed that he has entered a title such as yours. —Mudrarakshasa 3.99 [c. 300 AD] The always excellent Stella Zhang directed me to a newish paper by political scientists Lee Jones and Zeng Jinhan […]

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Notes From All Over (8/1/14): Tech Giants, Asian Media, and Japanese History

08 January, 2015Demographics, Europa Regina, Geography, History, Japan, Military Affairs, Monied Interests, Notes From All Over, Political Theory, Religion, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny, Wealth

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014“Ben Thompson, Stratechery (16 December 2014). One of the defining characteristics of the three major epochs of consumer computing – PC, Internet, and mobile – is that they have been largely complementary: we didn’t […]

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Can China Liberalize in Time? Keep Your Eyes on Shandong

27 December, 2014Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Shandong is the red one. Map by Uwe Dedering. Wikimedia. Things are looking up for President Xi Jinping. Arthur Groeber sums things up well in a challenge he recently gave China File readers: “Name one world leader with a better record.” [1] Mr. Groeber has a point. All those who predicted that the Hong Kong […]

2 Comments

Notes From all Over (14/09/14): China’s Economy, Samurai, and Adam Tooze’s Take on Europe

14 September, 2014Bactria, Climate, Cognition, Demographics, Entangling Alliances, Europa Regina, Geopolitics, History, Japan, Monied Interests, Notes From All Over, The Legislature, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “What Does a “Good” Adjustment Look Like?“ Michael Pettis, China’s Financial Markets (1 September 2014). This essay is long but excellent. It is also the best thing I have read about the Chinese economy in months. Two quotes to give readers the flavor of […]

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Passages I Highlighted in My Copy of “Red Capitalism”

16 August, 2014Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Carl Walter and Fraser Howie’s Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise is a hard book to review. It follows the style of the fox more than the hedgehog; with so many useful figures, facts, and insightful asides between its covers it is impossible to reduce the book to a summary of […]

3 Comments

The Next 40 Years in Twelve Hundred Words

19 July, 2014By The People, Complex Systems, Crazy Stuff That Costs Way Too Much Money, Demographics, Futuristics, Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom

Info-graphic taken from Peter Turchin, “The Double-Helix of Inequality and Well-Being,” Social Evolution Forum (8 February 2013) Recently in a discussion at a different venue I wrote the following: I am extremely pessimistic about the near term (2015-2035) future of both of the countries I care most about and follow most closely, but very optimistic […]

4 Comments

Notes From All Over (22/06/14): Rise of the West, Island Disputes, & Too Much Stuff About China

22 June, 2014Demographics, Dogs of War, Geography, Geopolitics, History, Military Affairs, Monied Interests, Notes From All Over, Political Theory, Southeast Asia, Strategy, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit.TOP BILLING“The Little Divergence“‘Pseuderoerasmus,’ Pseudoarasmus (12 June 2014) In this blogpost I will argue the following : While very few economic historians now dispute that East Asia had lower living standards than Europe well before 1800, …there is no agreement on whether European economies prior to 1800 were “modern” […]