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Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

1 Jan

From a Chinese independent video covering the Ant (Ali Baba) case (excerpts from 快看資訊). A very strong text.

If the unhealthy development of business enters a stage of monopoly, it will unconsciously devour all societal resources and cannot help make a quick buck from usury.

For example, in the United States, high-quality education and medical care are only provided to the elite, the bottom has sank further, and social strata solidify...The 40 years since China's “Reform and Opening Up” have completed 200-300 years of capitalist countries development

[But] 1,200 families in China now control 4,000 listed companies. This reflects a problem; China's wealth [inequality] is going to extremes. However, China is a socialist market economy and pursues common prosperity.

Read 8 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

31 Dec 20

For entertaining and enlightenment, here are some of my debates in 2020.
Is middle class stagnation a myth (with Donald Boudreaux)
pairagraph.com/dialogue/320a8…

@tylercowen

On covid deaths, with @tylercowen
Willing meaningful deaths and unwilling meaningless deaths
glineq.blogspot.com/2020/11/willin…

On Trump, with extremist bi-coastal liberals, and neoliberals
What we owe to Donald J Trump
glineq.blogspot.com/2020/11/what-w…
Trump as the ultimate triumph of neoliberalism
glineq.blogspot.com/2020/04/trump-…

Read 7 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

28 Dec 20

Chateaubriand's Memoires d'Outre-tombe are extraordinary both because of the spread of events (from before 1789 to 1840s) and places (Europe, Middle East, USA) they cover and the quality of observations.

I loved this sentence that does not apply to France only.
"En France, l’oubli ne se fait pas attendre."

Or, a very early formulation of the question that Orban is asking today:

Recevrons nous le chatiment merité d’avoir appris l’art moderne des armes à des peuples dont l’état social est fondé sur l’esclavage et la polygamie? Avons-nous porté la civilisation au dehors, ou avons-nous amené la barbarie dans l’interieur de la chretienté?

Read 6 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

27 Dec 20

Reflections & predictions.
After spending a year in North America in 1790-91, and after traveling a lot and meeting people (incl. George Washington), Chateaubriand wrote, probably in 1820s, this assessment of the USA.

The North & the South have different interests. Western states are far from the rest. Can unity of the country be safeguarded? Will it be done by war?
Can the US maintain its hegemony in the Western hemisphere as new independent republics are created in Mexico and further South?

Will long peace that helped US develop sap the ability of the population to face emergencies?
Mercantile spirit is everywhere: "l'interet [commercial] devient le vice national."
A chrysogene (neologism from Greek for wealth) aristocracy is being born.

Read 4 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

21 Dec 20

Here is (for whoever may be interested) the list of books on China that I have read in the past 5-6 years;
in no particular order, with my assessments: 5 stars is the best, 2 the worst.
Books I reviewed on my blog are noted with ++.

John Palmer, The death of Mao, Faber & Faber, 2012 **
Jonathan Fenby, Will China dominate the 21st century, Polity, 2014 ***
Quan Yanchi, Mao: Man, not God ***
Jacques Gernet, Daily life in China on the Eve of Mongol Invasion 1250-76, Stanford UP, 1962. ****

++Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century, Verso, 2007. *****
Minxin Pei, China’s crony capitalism, Harvard UP, 2016. ****
Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition, Harvard UP, 2006. ***

Read 10 tweets

Branko Milanovic

@BrankoMilan

19 Dec 20

There is a sort of "declinism" literature that appears 20 years. In the 1980s, it is "the missile gap" w/ the USSR and "The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union" by the eminent historian Edward Luttwak.
amazon.com/Grand-Strategy…

When that grand strategy somehow did not materialize & the USSR collapsed, the threat (and books) were forgotten.

There was also, starting in the 1970s, the Japanese threat whereby Japan will buy the entire America.

When Japan went into two decades of no growth that threat too was forgotten.

The most recent variant is the "China threat". China is indeed increasing in importance but is just going back, in relative economic power, to where it was in 1500.

Read 4 tweets

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