Ok last post on China for awhile…
Stiglitz and Wolf both hold up China as an example of a developing nation that has flourished with globalization. Stiglitz writes on how China has averaged near 9% growth for the past 3 decades (11) and has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty (23). While Wolf attributes this success to deregulation and the opening up of special economic zones, and Stiglitz attributes the success to careful management of a potential hazardous boom bust cycle, it is important to remember that following the Cultural Revolution, China was an extremely poor, vulnerable and economically depressed country. This podcast details the spark that arguably started China's meteoric rise. In 1978, farmers in a small town took a revolutionary step and started farming for themselves. This was extremely illegal in Communist China, where all goods were supposed to be collected by the government and redistributed. The end of result of these Chinese farmers' experiment has to be considered one of the most compelling arguments for the benefits of a capitalist system in the past 100 years (at least on a micro level). Check out this Podcast from NPR's Planet Money!
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