Comment on Why does China have so many multi billionaires if they are aiming to be a communist country?
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 week agoYou linked a source repeating your earlier claim about the raw number of people lifted out of poverty. Again, I ask, what about per-capita income?
This is a ridiculous comparison. Taiwan received substantial foreign aid from the US because of it’s strategic value against the mainland, while the PRC was subject to a massive economic embargo.
China received extensive aid from the USSR.
That… what? I don’t follow what you’re saying here at all.
Do you understand what “per capita” means? It would be far more impressive for a country of one million people to lift 950,000 people out of poverty than for a nation of 1 billion people to lift 800 million people out of poverty.
It’s much easier for a small country to modernize in a short period of time, especially with outside help. It’s very difficult to reach all the people in all the rural areas of China, it means more infrastructure has to be built, more people have to be educated, etc.
Why? I see no reason for this. Larger countries have more resources. Everything you need to lift people out of poverty scales with population. If anything, it’s actually EASIER for large countries to lift themselves out of poverty. A tiny micro-nation with a population of 10,000 isn’t going to be building an aircraft factory. There’s a lot of minimum-size requirements on certain national infrastructure. If anything, the bigger, the easier it is to modernize. Yes, the larger population creates greater needs, but you also have more people to address those needs.
And China was not unique in having disconnected rural populations. Small countries and big countries both have isolated rural areas.
I don’t agree that per-capita is the relevent statistic for the above reasons.
It’s the only meaningful way to compare countries. Otherwise you just end up making brain-dead conclusions like, “the big country has the big number. Therefore it’s better.”
Objection@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Yeah, because I didn’t make any claims about per-capita income. That’s how sources work.
Lol? That’s a joke right?
You never heard about a little thing called the Sino-Soviet split? Even before that, the Soviets had plenty of their own problems, they were nowhere near as wealthy as the US and were struggling to survive and rebuild from WWII, and again, that much smaller aid for a much shorter period of time was distributed to a much larger population.
Yes I know what per capita means.
Not really, no.
Because modernization in developing countries is dependent on foreign technologies that have to spread to a much wider area, and that takes time.
I don’t really understand why we’re comparing countries.
That is not remotely close to anything I’ve said or believe.