Comment by gnfargbl
8 months ago
China may be market-based, but does China actually allow successful entrepreneurs to actually retain the fruits of their successes, or are those fruits confiscated in ways unrelated to taxation? Look at Jack Ma, for instance.
This is why the rule of law is so important. It's a Maslow's Hierarchy type situation, and if the choice is between creating value in a system which will tax a good proportion of it away (current EU) and creating value in a system which may capriciously confiscate it (current China) then I argue that people are more incentivised in the first case.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvyl710jpo
Hard to say for sure about Jack Ma, did anything actually happen to him, and if so, was what happened to him fair? He seems better off than me.
China still has many billionaire and millionaire entrepreneurs, so it does appear that they have the concept of markets and capitalism on a leash in such a way that wins for the people of the China, the central government, and the entrepreneurs. Even if some of that isn't perfect, they live in a country of rising prosperity, and I live in a country of 30 years of stagnation where billionaires just bought the government to turn us into an impoverished 3rd world feudal state.
Even if I'm completely wrong about about China and it's all a lie or bubble, my country isn't exactly offering a future.