How China (Actually) Got Rich

We're putting this video back up! We had to fix some stuff.

The economic rise of China is usually painted as a simple story: it was poor, it implemented "the free market," and now it's rich. But that picture is a simplistic one – and it's not accurate. China's rise is a reflection of its NOT implementing the ideological dictates of "shock therapy," but in its pursuing a state-led policy of industrialization. Russia's decline can be attributed largely to Western economists steering it in the exact opposite direction in the 1990s. Isabella Weber, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, explains.

0:00 The Chinese Miracle
1:32 The Russian Collapse
5:32 The Chinese Path
8:25 China's Success
9:40 Credits

[VincentBlue]

Russia submitting to “shock therapy” ignores that Yeltsin dissolved parliament, and attacked those who wanted the Soviet system back with tanks. He wasn’t “listening to the economic science” he was capitulating to the west and new oligarchs.

[Ironborn]

Whenever Milton Friedman says something is a bad idea, you know you are on the right path

[theredbar-cross]

You guys left out the role of the CPC.

Yes, China was poorer than most African countries. But its literacy and human development level was on par with most First World countries.

This allowed the CPC bureaucracy to actually implement the reforms mandated by Beijing, something that very few developing economies manage to pull off.

[Dahmey]

Money is an issue everyone needs for a better and luxurious life, life was hard for me untill i started investing in crypto/ stocks, regardless of how bad it gets in the market, still make over $25k monthly

[nitemare]

China understands how to run a country

[ilyatsukanov]

Thank you for mentioning Russia! Yes, under socialism we were an industrial, technological and military superpower. Now we are for three decades stagnating, robbing and fighting each other, dying out as a nation (this being compensated only by migration from even poorer post-Soviet republics) and reliant on imports for everything from nails to microchips. In the early 1990s our prime minister Gaidar asked why we needed an airliner manufacturing industry, a car industry, etc when we could just sell resources and buy them abroad. This thinking educated an entire generation of "effective managers" who still think the same way. They suffered a rude awakening in February when the West introduced its new sanctions.

[eyyy]

Yo, Gravel Institute, will you guys talk about urban planning at some point by having on Climate Town?

[ViraL_FootprinT.ex.e]

When I look at China's spiderwebbing high speed rail system I get so jealous that I feel like my blood will literally boil, lol. Meanwhile, here in the states, all we have is the Acela Amtrak line that only runs along the BosWas (WasBos?) corridor, and can't even run a sustained high speed due to a "slowdown" area along the line somewhere 🤦🏾‍♂️

I'm happy that the Chinese people get to reap the benefits of what they've accomplished though.

[audnu]

China did a few things right:
1. Get its population educated. Literacy rate increase from 15-25% in 1949 to 97% in 2018.
2. Break social class barriers. Cultural Revolution, yes, it's brutal, it caused enormous damage, but the Chinese society was completely rebuilt, it became more equal.
3. Thanks to decades of Western sanctions, China had to built the most complete industrial ecosystem in the entire world, it had to make everything themselves!
4. No more XXX-lisms, heads down, hands on. Another by-products of the Cultural Revolution, people had enough of chaos caused by doctrinal disagreements.
5. Effective top-down management. CCP is the most competent government of our world. Yes, I said it. it's the most competent government.

[michaelajustin]

This really portrayed China's 1980s reforms in a informative and objective way, especially when compared to PragerU, whose answer is "a few Chinese farmers taught Deng how to do the free market".

[mechafighter]

So glad this video is back, it was wonderful

[rjung_ch]

great analysis, thanks! (never trusted Milton Friedman)

[homelander]

"China will collapse"
40 years later: "any minute now"

[Asrahn]

I like the video overall, but I have to say that I have a big beef with referring to the Soviet Union as just "Russia". It was more than that, and many, many of them fared significantly worse than Russia did owing to Shock Therapy. Ukraine for instance had 2/3 of its economy annihilated, virtually overnight. If the Soviets or any other nation with similarly planned economic systems had, through military and economic pressure, forced a similarly radical change in a western nation and it somehow ended up with as catastrophic results as the fall of the SU did, it would have been held up to this day as one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever perpetrated. For the Soviets though, there are only crickets.

[stefanlvkc]

Excellent video. Unfortunately I had to punch my monitor when Milton Friedman came up since the mere mention of him sends me into a blind rage.

[JIIKX]

I wish the US invested in its infrastructure like China does

[ShubhamBhushanCC]

Anyone who listened to Milton Friedman ended up worse than before

[GuilhermePereira-vivc]

Watching this before it disappears again

[imoralesh]

I hope that you don't remove the video again and hopefully put Spanish subtitles. It is excellent material and needs to be shared.
Greeting from Chile

[New_Wave_Nancy]

What timing! I'm currently reading "Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism" by Michael Parenti (and learning so much about how the free-market created dramatic poverty and income inequality in former SSRs).