China's Rise

[Mr.Yankees]

On Soviet Union, "technically half the population was unemployed since they didn't actually work", em, where your info comes from? Because my own memories are not like that. People worked but not the Western way of doing late hours working for endless promotions, they worked the Soviet way - doing minimum to get the salary, spending rest of their time for non-officially paid activities - like playing chess (not for money), growing flowers (big money), growing children (not instant money), drinking vodka (em, yeah)
But maybe my memories are like that because I looked at teachers, doctors, librarians, civil engineers. And I was too young to ever work myself (except for mandatory "talka"s on the potatoes field for school). Spent my time on reading books and playing with other kids.

Well on the other hand, not working the Western way might be seen as not working at all. That is a fair point

I think the Soviet way of working sounds great. It has potential as a cure for unemployment.

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

[JuliaAJA]

I think the Soviet way of working sounds great. It has potential as a cure for unemployment.

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

Cuba thrived until the fall of the USSR. If the whole world worked that way and united as one, the world could thrive that way.

[Opakidabar]

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

By inefficiency do you mean life-work balance mentioned in socialist economies or centrally guided planning?

[elryacko]

I think the Soviet way of working sounds great. It has potential as a cure for unemployment.

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

Cuba thrived until the fall of the USSR. If the whole world worked that way and united as one, the world could thrive that way.

Thrived? On the back of Russian subsides. Besides, the Russians were only competitive in military technology because of the Cold War. Competition is key. Any successful business has it (mainly internal competition of comparing managers or policies to each other).

[Mr.Yankees]

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

By inefficiency do you mean life-work balance mentioned in socialist economies or centrally guided planning?

I meant inefficiency as in: lacking the ability or skill to perform effectively. Now, if you are asking me why do I think the inefficiency occurred or would occur, then there are many answers to that, including the two you mentioned.

I think the Soviet way of working sounds great. It has potential as a cure for unemployment.

Yeah but it's inefficiency will destroy the economy a little step at a time. Very few successful economies (leaving room for some random one I don't remember or don't know about) can survive with that inefficiency. A very descriptive and currently ongoing example is Cuba.

Cuba thrived until the fall of the USSR. If the whole world worked that way and united as one, the world could thrive that way.

I wouldn't call it thriving. I agree with elryacko.

[JuliaAJA]

Cuba thrived until the fall of the USSR. If the whole world worked that way and united as one, the world could thrive that way.

I wouldn't call it thriving. I agree with elryacko.

I also agree, but what I meant was that as part of a system with the USSR they thrived. Alone they are not anywhere near as well off, but if there is a large enough system of Soviet style working hours it can thrive. It's only workable on a large scale.

[Amazeroth]

Well if you look at this kingdom/empire wise you are right. When you look at this language (at least written language wise), culture (songs, tales, religion), laws (Confucius) then (I might be wrong again, and I only have this feeling) I always felt of China being one unit.
I know today there is this large Islam Uighur minority etc, but they are small % of China (part of those 8% that are not Han Chinese).

Don't. Imagine China before the nationalists as like Western Europe ruled by a Portuguese Emperor.

China, even today, has many different languages - despite the efforts of the nationalists and communists to enforce Mandarin. It had more in the ancient times, and the cultures/religions/myths etc. were more divergent then than now, but they're still pretty divergent now.

If there was no Irish migration to USA then USA would speak German today. IMO.

Unlikely, on the basis that the most important colonies which formed the United States were English speaking, and the founding fathers were English speaking. Although I suppose you could say that the Irish immigration meant that the English speakers came to overwhelmingly outnumber the German speakers, cementing English as the language. And there are a lot of similarities in the way the Irish speak English and the way the Americans speak English, I keep thinking Irish people I meet are American, both are ugly accents and there are dialectal similarities. So perhaps you're right.

Still, language definitely does not equal culture.

Nice to see that I'm not alone here.