Ambition in capitalist society

Ambition, writes Lucy Kellaway, is both necessary and corrosive. She omits an important aspect here, which adds to its corrosiveness – class.

Class influences the level of ambition through two channels. One is that it distorts your awareness of opportunity. In Michael Apted’s superb TV series Up, the privately-educated Andrew knew (16'21" in) at the age of seven that he would go to Cambridge and become a lawyer. For the rest of us, our path to even modest success is not so pre-determined. I never thought about Oxford University until a teacher told me I could get in, and I never met anyone with a degree who wasn’t a teacher until I was in my 20s. If you’re not aware of the possibilities, you are less likely to be ambitious.

Another mechanism is that class sets the reference level of our income. When I realized that I would not have to worry about the leccy bill or becoming homeless, my ambition drained away. I was once one of those men brilliantly described by Adam Smith – a “poor man's son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition”. But I was lucky enough to have learned before my deathbed that “wealth and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility.” If you’ve nobody you want to impress, money soon loses its point.

By contrast, those from posher backgrounds can feel failures if they don’t emulate their father’s success. For many of them, wealth and greatness are not of frivolous utility but are instead the benchmarks by which they compare themselves to their parents and contemporaries.

Both these mechanisms help explain the fact that people who have experienced poverty as children earn less as adults even controlling for education.

But they also tell us something else. What seems to be ambition is in fact fear – whether it be the fear of poverty or the fear of falling short of parental expectations.

In this context, Lucy’s advice that we must sometimes slough off ambition is a counsel of perfection. It’s fine for those of us who have paid off the mortgage and so no longer fear homelessness. Younger people facing high rents or mortgage payments cannot afford a lack of ambition, even if they are consumed by anger when it is thwarted.

Again, class matters. It limits your options.

Here, though, we must ask: ambitious for what? Alasdair MacIntyre distinguished between goods of excellence such as mastery of a craft and goods of effectiveness such as wealth and power. Sometimes, pursuit of one brings the other: achieving the good of excellence in football will bring with it wealth, fame and at least some influence: Marcus Rashford’s campaign against child poverty would have been less successful if he’d played for Stockport County.

In other cases, however, the two conflict. I doubt that the country’s most excellent journalists are the best-paid. Being an excellent academic won’t necessarily bring you the big money that comes from being university vice-chancellor. Prime Ministers aren’t always drawn from the most excellent MPs or ministers. And bosses aren’t necessarily the people who were best at the jobs their underlings do.

One component of that slippery term “neoliberalism” is, I suspect, the valorization of wealth, power and hierarchy over goods of excellence such as professional standards and craft skills.

Ambition for the goods of effectiveness can, though, be corrosive not just for individuals but for the economy. The man who is hungry for power and income will seek advancement even where he is not equipped for the job. And because employers (and voters) don’t always know (pdf) what they are doing they will sometimes hire that man. Hence the Dilbert principle, of which Gavin Williamson is perhaps only the most prominent of many examples.

Here, incentives matter. Where there are disproportionate rewards in terms of income, power and status for advancement, people will seek promotion even when they are unsuited for it. You might prefer to be a first-rate coder than a third rate boss, but if being that boss means a big pay rise you will go for it. And so talent will be misallocated. What we have here therefore is yet another way (of many) in which big inequalities are bad for the economy.

To see my point, imagine an egalitarian socialistic society in which inequalities of power and income are small; there is less social distance between rich and poor families; and whose culture celebrates the goods of excellence in professional and craft work more than those of effectiveness: it would be a MacIntyrean or Walzerian-type utopia.

In this society, there’d be less incentive to be Dilberts like Gavin Williamson because you could earn a decent living as a first-rate coder (or third-rate fireplace salesman) and so have less need to “get on”. What John Stuart Mill called “the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels” would diminish. And those who did “get on” would find their new roles, and the people they surround themselves with, less alien. So their ambition would not be the curse Smith thought it was. In these ways ambition would be less damaging to individuals and society.

You might think it hard to imagine such an environment. But then, as someone said, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Comments

[Kevin Carson]

"One component of that slippery term 'neoliberalism' is, I suspect, the valorization of wealth, power and hierarchy over goods of excellence such as professional standards and craft skills."

Worse than that -- the understanding of "professionalism" itself has morphed from collegiality and enforcement of standards of practice against outside authority, to a middle-class white-collar "niceness" characterized mostly by compliance and deference to management.

At one time, defying management in order to enforce collegially defined standards of practice against watering down would have been a textbook illustration of "professionalism." Now it's seen as just the opposite.

[Phil]

"Being an excellent academic won’t necessarily bring you the big money that comes from being university vice-chancellor. "

A friend told me about a conversation he'd had with a colleague who was going for VC at another university.
"I don't understand - why are you putting so much effort into going into *management*?"
- It's not about management! I want to be... a LEADER!
Enough said.

As for your MacIntyrean utopia, I realise (rather late in the day) that I've built my career on the assumption that this was in fact how the world worked - perhaps not in the area where I was currently employed, but certainly at some other employer, or else in some other profession, which would suit me a lot better if I could only get into it. But I guess I've been living in Gavin Williamson's world all along. Or maybe Kevin Carson's right, and I've actually experienced one area where MacIntyrean principles did apply - and lived long enough to see it disappear.

So, um, thanks for that.

[Jim]

Once upon a time I joined a management consultancy - to learn something about management. This was a drop in pay from being a hired coder - but look to the future.

What I found was the place was full of folk who might have become 'managers' but for whom there was no room in industry - the world only needs so many managers. Many lost souls there. And instead of coding I did all manner of interesting but essentially useless things and learned that the real management consultants were 'the bast^&ds' who lived on the 3rd floor. Their job was to be horrible to people, to kick ass and develop great strategic plans - that were rubbish. I learned that I was no good at being horrible to people and was too honest for my own good. There was a lot less to management consultancy than met the eye.

A technologist friend ended up with a very high tech company that had a dual stream pay structure. They kept experienced technologists on and paid them well. Good engineering is a tricky difficult business. That company was top of its game - until some bast^&ds hived it off to a private investment vehicle.

[LJC]

Someone I knew many years ago (this would be the late 1980s) had a small company where, as the sole boss, he enforced a maximum salary range of 10:1 between the highest and lowest paid. It seemed to work well in a small company with a few 10s of employees, but I always wondered whether it could be scaled to work in a big company with more than one layer of management or whether competition between managers would kill it.

[ltr]

One component of that slippery term “neoliberalism” is, I suspect, the valorization of wealth, power and hierarchy over goods of excellence such as professional standards and craft skills....

[ Really incisive comment. ]

[Boyo]

Thanks Chris. You’ve written about this issue of ambition several times over the years, often referring to the “leccy bills”. I’ve found your reflections to be very helpful towards taming my own ambitions, making me aware of their unhelpful provenance and - possibly - setting me on a more fulfilling path.

I reflect at this point that I’ve been reading your blog for nearly 15 years from my 20s into my early 40s. And I’m very grateful for what you’ve written for public consumption.

[Chris Purnell]

What a wonderful critique of social class and its impacts.

[ltr]

What a wonderful critique of social class and its impacts.

[ Agreed completely. Thank you so much. ]

[D]

Great post..

Excellence v effectiveness chimes with my experience of the civil service. Where there the incentives were far more on keeping the boss happy than properly understanding our work so as to make better policy decsions.

Although, perhaps a more modest terminology of adequacy v effectivenes would be more accurate. No one was excellent at what we did, but a fair amount of good could be effected by achievng adequacy.

On the class side of things. I wonder if there are some benefits of having reduced ambition in the sense of being happy with what you have and being less likely to be promoted to your level of incompetetence - which surely implies losing the satsifaction and fulfilment of doing your job well.

Related - I often wonder if one of the main bias of public debate is a bias towards ambition. People who want their voices to be heard will likely tend towards ambition versus the population average...

[rsm]

》Younger people facing high rents or mortgage payments cannot afford a lack of ambition, even if they are consumed by anger when it is thwarted.

Why isn't the obvious solution basic income?

From the Walzer link:

》how society distributes not just wealth and power but other "social goods" like honor, education, work, free time,even love.

Why should the state be involved? Unless coercion enforced with state violence is a necessary part of the utopia? Why can't you establish a floor that rises with inflation, without constraining the largely virtual wealth of any class?

If land scarcity is your concern, why not buy back private land as it comes on markets and return it to commons?

[ltr]

RSM:

If land scarcity is your concern, why not buy back private land as it comes on markets and return it to commons?

[ Really interesting. Is there a precedent for this? I would think so, but a precedent does not come to mind. Singapore, possibly? ]

[ltr]

RSM:

If land scarcity is your concern, why not buy back private land as it comes on markets and return it to commons?

[ This sort of planning strategy is precisely what is needed in Hong Kong, and could begin to happen after the coming elections. China is already intent on limiting land speculation on the mainland. ]

[ltr]

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1426860331603795969

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Both Republicans and degrowthers insist that there's a tight link between economic growth and emissions. But consider the UK, where per capita CO2 is back to the levels of the 50s — the *1850s*

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E8052euWYAIRShO?format=jpg&name=small

6:56 AM · Aug 15, 2021

[Blissex]

«Both Republicans and degrowthers insist that there's a tight link between economic growth and emissions. But consider the UK, where per capita CO2 is back to the levels of the 50s — the *1850s*»

https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/dataelectrukfallbyregion2005to2015.png

https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/dataelectreuothersconsperhead1960to2015.png
https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/dataenergyeuuschjpperhead1960to2015.png

https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=eg_use_elec_kh_pc&idim=country:DEU:ITA:GBR:FRA:ESP:GRC:CHN:JPN:KOR:MYS:THA:BRA:MEX:TUR:IRL:SGP:IND

[Nick Drew]

In a rather different kind of society - Russia in the late Soviet era - there was arguably a strong degree of income-egalitarianism; almost everyone lived in whatever apartment the state allocated; and at least lip-service was paid to the goods of excellence (even if laziness and drunkenness prevailed in many workplaces).

Putting to one side that tiny class at the very top where the disparity of power was extreme (plus an official Zil and a holiday dacha) this all sounds as though the ambition thing might have been de-fused. But no. There was a whole sphere of ambition based around acquiring things that had been accorded positional value: everyone knew who was "doing well" even though they may have lived in the same block of flats as people who were not. The way they dressed; what they hung on their walls in that apartment; how many locks they put on their front door; whether they had a red telephone on their desk at work as well as the standard black one ...

People (well, some people) will finds things to be ambitious about because they really, seriously, like to be superior to their fellow man - by some metric or other. Please don't make this about capitalism / neoliberalism, 'cause it ain't. It's about human beings.

[Blissex]

«because they really, seriously, like to be superior to their fellow man - by some metric or other. Please don't make this about capitalism / neoliberalism,»

The big difference is that multimillionaires and billionaires have the means, at their whim, to ruin and destroy people and to purchase officials and politicians, and people who just have some status symbols with positional value (the way they dress, what they hang on walls, ...) have a lot less opportunity to do so at their whim, even if they have positions of power in some organization, because those positions are not theirs to do as they please like a huge pile of money enables them to do.

The wealth of rich people gives them a lot of power to affect politics and impact the lives of other people.

[ltr]

China recorded only 13 new coronavirus cases yesterday. So the test and trace and isolation procedures strictly followed appear to have contained any spread of the delta variant with remarkable efficiency.

The question I am trying to answer and relates directly to the UK, is has there been a loss of growth for China in these last weeks? Correspondingly, what has happened to UK growth in the wake of the delta variant?

[ltr]

The 13 new coronavirus cases in China were domestic cases:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-16/Chinese-mainland-reports-51-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-12LzxBaHD8c/index.html

August 16, 2021

Chinese mainland reports 51 new COVID-19 cases

The Chinese mainland recorded 51 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with 13 being local transmissions and 38 from overseas, the latest data from the National Health Commission showed on Monday.

In addition, 20 new asymptomatic cases were recorded, while 495 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.

This brings the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland to 94,430, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-16/Chinese-mainland-reports-51-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-12LzxBaHD8c/img/6774660e1ea34a27a1a76113b09ffe67/6774660e1ea34a27a1a76113b09ffe67.jpeg

Chinese mainland new imported cases

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-16/Chinese-mainland-reports-51-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-12LzxBaHD8c/img/6e55d0c6239340bd8f10a497293a9fe9/6e55d0c6239340bd8f10a497293a9fe9.jpeg

Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-16/Chinese-mainland-reports-51-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-12LzxBaHD8c/img/7cf3dbeb13124e3f852fbf773856b2fb/7cf3dbeb13124e3f852fbf773856b2fb.jpeg

[Blissex]

«Both Republicans and degrowthers insist that there's a tight link between economic growth and emissions. But consider the UK, where per capita CO2 is back to the levels of the 50s — the *1850s*»

Just to be sure, the data on CO2 and the additional graphs on electricity trends show that “Both Republicans and degrothers” are fairly right: energy consumption and "growth" have simply moved from "Atlantic Alliance" countries to other countries with lower wages; there have been high rates of growth in China-mainland, Korea-south, Malaysia, China-Taiwan, and really modest growth in the UK.

The CO2 graph is simply a proxy for degrowth in industry, as the UK economy has been switched from factory work to light services and rentierism. By far and away most growth in the UK economy has been the result of booming property prices and lending against them, and that is wonderfully ecological, because since it involves no work and no productive activity, a housing boom is entirely carbon-neutral.

In an ideal world the UK could cut CO2 much more if every UK resident was a buy-to-let landlord living entirely off their rents in their nice mansion with a large garden with many trees instead of commuting and working, which are polluting. :-)

[Blissex]

«The CO2 graph is simply a proxy for degrowth in industry, as the UK economy has been switched from factory work to light services and rentierism.»

Just to make this even more explicit, a region of the world can get an income in three ways:

#1 In a very polluting way with agriculture and manufacturing. A steel smelter or a dairy farm produce a lot of CO2.

#2 In a much less polluting way with light services like administrative work. A fast food restaurants or an accounting practice produce a lot less CO2 than a steel plant or a dairy farm.

#3 In an even less polluting way by enjoying capital income. A mansion with trees in a garden around it produce much less CO2 than fast food or accounting work. The so-called "industrial revolution" is being unwound.

Switching from #1 to #2 and then from #2 to #3 by moving first #1 and then #2 to other countries is a wonderful way to reduce pollution, and to turn the whole of England into a very ecological country estate, a "green and pleasant land" where everybody are investors who can live comfortably off their capital profits. :-)

What about the countries that get the nastier #1 work and the somewhat less nasty #2 work? Who cares, those rubes are many thousands of miles away. :-)

[ltr]

Blissex:

Just to be sure, the data on CO2 and the additional graphs on electricity trends show that “Both Republicans and degrothers” are fairly right: energy consumption and "growth" have simply moved from "Atlantic Alliance" countries to other countries with lower wages; there have been high rates of growth in China-mainland, Korea-south, Malaysia, China-Taiwan, and really modest growth in the UK....

[ Excellent response. The question then is whether the greening efforts of China will be sufficient to lower per capita emissions there while not passing off emissions to other developing countries? This is the explicit policy intent of China.

There is no day that passes without a Chinese focus on greening. ]

[ltr]

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-02/China-s-green-loan-expansion-picks-up-speed-in-the-first-half-of-2021-12p4ouXggeI/index.html

August 2, 2021

China's green loan expansion picks up speed in the first half of 2021

https://cepr.net/cheap-talk-from-the-fed-on-global-warming/

August 13, 2021

Cheap Talk from the Fed on Global Warming?
By DEAN BAKER

[ltr]

Blissex,

Thank you so much for being remarkably incisive and helpful. Also, RSM.

We are experiencing multiple laboratory conditions in economics just now...

[Joe]

LJC: Berkshire Hathaway

CEO Warren Buffet, $100,000. Median $54,000. 2:1 ratio.

Given that most of us know Warren Buffett is one of the three richest people in the world, it surprised me his company appeared at the top of the list, at first. But then I didn't know he only collected a CEO salary of $100,000, nor did I know the average worker at Berkshire makes "only" $54,000, both of which skews the ratio tremendously.

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/new-data-reveals-20-companies-with-lowest-pay-gap-between-ceo-worker.html

[rsm]

@Blissex: why not pay industry to be more mindful? Are their insurance costs cheaper than preventing forest fires, or oil spills? Why not have central banks fund green bonds that reward extractors for recycling?

@ltr: what if the CCP had listened to democracy protestors in 1989? Would China be even farther advanced?

[Blissex]

«whether the greening efforts of China will be sufficient to lower per capita emissions there while not passing off emissions to other developing countries?»

Indeed, The three main strategic issues for China (both PRC and ROC) are imports of oil, food, chips, because all these imports are controlled by the USA government and/or could be blockaded by the vietnamese or japanese governments. The USA could destroy the chinese economy by "sanctioning" those imports (and that might lead to the breakup of China). The oil and food import issues are linked by the notion of "carrying capacity":

* Oil means economic development, and that means Chinese cities and industrial areas need to expand, and since these are often built on plains, their expansion reduces the amount of productive agricultural land, and IIRC it was some years ago already that this meant that China cannot become self-sufficient in basic staple food because of the loss of agricultural land to urbanization, and so depends utterly on USA controlled food imports for survival.

* An alternative to oil is coal, of which China-mainland still has more than of oil, but coal is even more polluting, especially if used in cities, and pollution, whether from fuels or other sources, further reduces the extent or fertility of food producing land, as well as the health of people and animals.

So indeed the China-mainland government has a colossal incentive to avoid the fates of 1940s Japan and the 1980s USSR and attempt to become self-sufficient in fuels and staple foods (and chips), in a "green way", and part of that on the demand side way was the "one-child policy" to reduce population below the carrying capacity of China's natural resources. On the supply side though the problem is that no fuel as cheap and energy dense as oil has been found yet, and that will be pretty difficult to achieve.

[Blissex]

«The USA could destroy the chinese economy by "sanctioning" those imports (and that might lead to the breakup of China).»

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40396396
"Opening and dividing China", The World Today, May 1992:
“Needless to say, not all these regions are like to have the same views on foreign policy questions. Coastal regions would be less willing to see relations with the United States deteriorate, or take a hard line with Honk Kong or Taiwan.”

«on the demand side way was the "one-child policy" to reduce population below the carrying capacity of China's natural resources. On the supply side»

There is also a big problem on the political side that relates to both;

* The CPC committed the terrible mistake of making their overall financial system utterly dependent on property prices, 90% of chinese people own property and are utterly depend on it for their savings, and I would guess that most middle class people and in particular party officials have significant property portfolios.

* This *inevitably* creates a strong political pressure for hard-right politics and in particular for policies to pump up the price of property, such as avoiding population reduction and favouring population growth to put pressure on existing property by increasing the number of tenants and buyers.

I think that China is past the point of no-return on this, even if the CCP now tries to limit property speculation, because that means that they are trying to make middle class people and party officials much poorer, as they have put into property most of their savings and their expectations for profit-making, like upper-middle and upper class people do in China-HongKong, China-Taipei, Korea-south, Singapore (and UK etc.).

The switch to the "three-child policy" is looks one of the results, so that China-mainland will most likely will remain an archipelago of property-speculation driven local economies like Hong-Kong and Taipei are, completely dependent on USA controlled imports of food and oil (and chips) to sustain the population increases needed to pump up property prices for the benefit of incumbent owners.

Perhaps our blogger should write another post on "Ambition in a rentierist society" because in the UK, Hong-Kong, Taipei, and much of China-mainland "ambition" largely means an aspiration to property speculation.

The only country so far that managed to break the politics of property and reverse the political domination of the related vested interests lobbies and switch to a non-declinist economic strategy is Japan, I think because their elites and population have a very strong instinct for collective survival (living in a very poor, mostly mountains, quake riddled island). But Japan while also having every incentive to spend massively into researching alternatives to oil will never be allowed to do so by their USA "protectors".

[ltr]

The three main strategic issues for China...are imports of oil, food, chips, because all these imports are controlled by the USA government and/or could be blockaded by the Vietnamese or Japanese governments....

[ This is completely and importantly incorrect. A critical planned aspect of Chinese development has been insuring strategic self-sufficiency. An example would be the US cutting off China in 2011 from work with NASA on space exploration and any work on International Space Station programs.

China right now has a rover on Mars, a rover on the far side of the Moon, has just retrieved crust from the Moon, has a manned "international" space station, has an advanced global positioning system, has an advanced telescope system...

China is now energy, food and chip independent and focusing on becoming more so. There are multi-year reserves of prime foods such as grains, vegetables, pork... Trade is of course important for China, but China is too resource rich, too productive, too technically advanced to be strategically "blocked" from advancing. ]

[ltr]

"What if the CCP had listened...in 1989?"

The CCP did and does listen. What has increasingly characterized the CCP is policy flexibility. Listening and policy adaptation and flexibility has meant lifting tens of millions of Chinese families from severe poverty, through the country and even in this globally fraught time:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F7Xa

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2020

(Percent change)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F7Xg

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 1977-2020

(Indexed to 1977)

[ltr]

The USA could destroy the Chinese economy by "sanctioning" those imports (and that might lead to the breakup of China).

[ Good grief, this really is impossible.

The Chinese economy is already larger than that of the US, and China has been concerned with strategic independence for generations. This is a country the size of the US with Alaska, and remarkably productive for decades. Here too is a leadership that studies and learns and adopts responsive policy.

The Chinese leadership has already limited and will continue to severely limit property speculation, while building homes. The property experience of Japan has been carefully recorded. ]

[Blissex]

«A critical planned aspect of Chinese development has been insuring strategic self-sufficiency.»

That is an ambition more than a plan. The "three child policy" switch shows that the real goal is growth (in particular of property prices) at any cost of increasing dependency.

«China is now energy, food and chip independent and focusing on becoming more so.»

That is again an ambition. The South China Sea and Djibouti bases, and the vast purchases of agricultural lands in Africa, are there to protect vital imports of food and oil, not exports.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/10/17/china-is-the-worlds-largest-oil--gas-importer/?sh=579a8c915441
“For Chinese leadership, this continuous need to rely more on outside help to get the energy to grow the economy is ultimately problematic. [...] China relies on imports for around 75% of its total oil usage. China also likes to buy crude when prices are low to stockpile its security inventories, a “rainy day” supply that could currently cover about 80 days of imports.”

«“The USA could destroy the Chinese economy by "sanctioning" those imports (and that might lead to the breakup of China).”
Good grief, this really is impossible.»

Not so impossible: while USA+EU food sanctions against Russia have been survivable even if very painful, the chinese economy currently is in a phase where much investment (including in property) is driven by expectation of further growth fueled by imports of raw materials. If the economy becomes raw materials constrained it will stop growing, and much investment will stop and will even be liquidated. It used to be that the maoist chinese strategy was absolute autarky, but it was abandoned with the "southern strategy":

https://chinapower.csis.org/china-food-security/#toc-2
“Chinese leaders faces the dual challenge of maintaining economic growth while feeding the country’s growing urban population with a countryside that features only 0.21 acres of arable land per capita.”

«a leadership that studies and learns and adopts responsive policy. The Chinese leadership has already limited and will continue to severely limit property speculation, while building homes. The property experience of Japan has been carefully recorded.»

I have the same impression of the central leadership, it is a new-style engineering rather than literature based "mandarin" class, of very good quality, and certainly dedicated the the substance of the "mandate of heaven" aka Deng's "So many of my comrades and their families were not tortured or killed for the chinese to remain poor".

But the question is whether the central leadership has the *power* to destroy most of the wealth of the upper-middle class and provincial party leaders, like in Japan, or whether the upper-middle class and the provincial party leaders will replace any central leadership that sets out to destroy much of their wealth, and will submit to USA "protection" to keep increasing population densities to pump up property prices.

As to the loyalty of many upper-middle class and party officials, so many of them have exported much of their wealth (and children, that to many chinese mothers are pension wealth) to countries under USA "protection", just like the UK upper-middle classes and political classes did when after WW1 they realized that they could no longer protect their wealth themselves. That is the deal that suzerain empires offer to the elites of "protectorates": be rich under our "protection", or be poor and independent and constantly under threat from our support of your opponents. See Kuwait or Chile or England or Indonesia.

Politics and policies change *a lot* when the ambition" of most upper-middle class and political class scions is the ambition to work in finance and/or own property that rapidly inflates in price.

The only hope for China-mainland is that since the USA is much further ahead on this declinist rentierism strategy it will stop being able to afford being an empire before China-mainland stops being able to afford being somewhat independent.

[ltr]

«A critical planned aspect of Chinese development has been insuring strategic self-sufficiency.»

That is an ambition more than a plan. The "three child policy" switch shows that the real goal is growth (in particular of property prices) at any cost of increasing dependency.

«China is now energy, food and chip independent and focusing on becoming more so.»

That is again an ambition....

[ Please know this is thoroughly and completely incorrect. CSIS, by the way, is an unfortunate, always incorrect source.

Please try to understand just how developed, strategically self-sufficient, technically advanced and united China is. The idea that China is not completely secure in domestic food production is simply incorrect. China stores several years of prime agricultural products, and protects and expands and improves agricultural production yearly.

Please do try to learn what China has accomplished. ]

[ltr]

The selected sources on China are incorrect or distorted, with chosen quotes or surmises that are sadly, though likely inadvertently, prejudiced.

China has developed in an historically singular and dynamic and successful way these last 44 years. Please try to understand what has been accomplished. Importantly, the UK will benefit the closer relations with China are.

[ltr]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=G3L9

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and China, 1977-2020

(Percent change)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=G3Lg

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and China, 1977-2020

(Indexed to 1977)

[Blissex]

«CSIS, by the way, is an unfortunate, always incorrect source.»

But the source for the 0.21 acres per person is the World Bank statistical site, which I am guess sources it from official PRC statistics.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.HA.PC?end=2018&locations=CN-US-GB-BR-IN-JP-FR-MX-PL-TH&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=1961&view=chart

«Please try to understand just how developed, strategically self-sufficient, technically advanced and united China is.»

"Strategically self-sufficient" seems still an unrealized ambition to me (there are nice expositions of the debate in the second part of Zhao Ziyang's memoirs), and "united" is something that the USA and Japan, and in part also ASEAN, are very keen to see ended, and as the 1992 paper that I mentioned says there are huge tensions among the interests of various PRC regions. For now the local party elites are less independent-minded than they were in the 1960s-1970s, but who knows what will happen when their property investments crash.

«The idea that China is not completely secure in domestic food production is simply incorrect. China stores several years of prime agricultural products, and protects and expands and improves agricultural production yearly.»

I don't deny that, but the sanctions against Russia started in 2014. Can China really stockpile more than 6 years worth of food imports? Of course not. It may avoid a permanent famine, but it surely would be tough. What would be the political effect of food scarcity, rationing and inflation?

Would that be a property crash and/or a "color revolution"? The chinese in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution were hungry and many died, but they did not call the Chiang gangster back because they knew he was as bad as (or worse than) Mao, they called Deng back, but now that they have got a taste for the nice things, and the ambition of young chinese people is for more meat among the lower classes and bigger property prices among the middle and upper classes. Would they tighten their belts a lot or sell out? The central leadership is clearly very, very worried that they got the dragon by the tail and if they let go...

[ltr]

Can China really stockpile more than 6 years worth of food imports?

[ Thank you so much, but this is ridiculous. Completely so, and becoming ridiculously scary and offensive. The idea of China being effectively sanctioned is beyond ridiculous.

China is and will be fine, and will assist and partner with appreciative countries. China is a thoroughly benign and remarkably productive country. China only deserves to be appreciated. ]

[ltr]

Can China really stockpile more than 6 years worth of food imports?

[ I would be incapable of writing such an absurd and offensive sentence. Please try to move beyond pretense and prejudice. Pleasse.

China is and will be fine, and moving beyond prejudice could offer the UK very, very much. ]

[rsm]

» The CCP did and does listen.

Can you do a search for Tiananmen square incident in China, and get back to me?

[ltr]

Can you do a search for ---- incident in China, and get back to me?

[ Can you control the crazy prejudice? Get back to me when the prejudice is controlled, not before.

After all, there really is a time to control such prejudice. We really ain't ever returning to the days of the Opium Wars. ]

[ltr]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F7ZN

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and United Kingdom, 1977-2020

(Percent change)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F801

August 4, 2014

Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and United Kingdom, 1977-2020

(Indexed to 1977)

All is splendidly well, and will improve from here.