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First of all you should've checked out why Switzerland and Germany have lower home ownership, there's a reason and story behind that and it's not as simple as "one doesn't need to own a home to have a family". The policy and law of property isn't the same in every country.
And housing price is just part of the reason why HKers are angry. There are certainly more to that. I am not bringing that out because I know you won't listen.
Btw Taiwanese and South Korean people didn't fight for democracy after we become wealthy. It dated back to Japanese colonization. After WWII, the dictators of both countries were both ruthless and blood-thirsty, however, people were still trying. The establishment of democracy happened after we become richer, but the process was long and struggling.(actually Taiwan is still struggling now, South Korea is doing much better)
And the establishment didn't happen just because we have "become rich". The leaders of both countries answered to people's quest then, were it for anyone else, both countries would probably stay the same.
Singapore has always been a weird case. It's pretty much the only developed country out there that remains a dictatorship.
Bangladesh isn't that democratic to begin with. It's a hybrid regime.
source: wikipedia
The greenest countries on this map are pretty much the richest countries out there.
I know you won't listen to this but one can't say that China would be as poor as India were it a democracy, simply because it has never been tested. Maybe it would, or maybe it would do even better than the US.
And I find this sentence to be extremely sarcastic, since the person that said it is currently living in one of the most democratic countries in the world.
That's precisely my point. We don't know what could happen to any country in a parallel world under a different political system.
China is fumbling for years and managed to find a way for rapid increase in living standards and they don't want to throw it away in exchange for some ideological achievement. We don't know what democracy will do China - there might be a brief chaos and long term prosperity, and the country may also just go downhill forever. We don't know.
You said China is an exception as an authoritarian regime. You are probably right (although Singapore comes into mind as well), but since it is largely working, why change it? Look around, there are 160 democratic countries in the world, some are as rich as US and Germany, some are stuck in poverty and chaos. There is no assurance by adopting a completely new political system, people's lives will be improved consistently - that's the ultimate goal of running a country, not some fancy dream where everyone can vote. Even among democratic countries, voting turnout is decreasing, sometimes as low as 25%.
Western people like to point fingers on their high-horse: give the Chinese people democracy, give them freedom, raise their wages, let them have as many kids as they like (as it is human rights). Of course they can say whatever they want. They don't need to live in China, and if it leads to catastrophes, they don't need to suffer the consequence. So why not let other country do their business?
I can point to Americans and say: why does everyone have to drive a car and live in those big 2000sf houses wasting so much energy every day. Why shouldn't they all live in small apartments and the world will be a much more efficient place. Why can't they all take public transit like the Asians do? You know, judging someone is easy. It is not your life after all.
I agree with this.
The history of US and China are nothing alike, and therefore the political and economic systems cannot be compared. there is no one size fits all policy that can be applied to every country, unlike what we americans want to believe.
and if we really want to get past the smoke screen, the US political system is more of a plutocracy while the chinese employ meritocracy.
Right, so your preference would be....intelligence tests, prior to voting? That type of thing was tried in the US, and was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Oh well.
there's a lot of morons in the US, and in the world. there should be a vetting process.
Singapore is a city, and Vietnam's growth over the past 6 years is nothing worth writing home about. It's so underdeveloped and poor that there's no way to go but up. Try harder.
and yet they are, while many others that are in the same boat are not.
The US only goes to was to defend people from Communism or Islam. China is not now strongly in those camps. What did the US do to defend social or economic interests in Congo or Myanmar or Venezuela?
The same as the number who knew that Kuwait never was.
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