Abstract
The birdcage economy that Zhao Ziyang so abhorred has served China well. By ignoring much of the Washington consensus, China has been able to avoid the pitfalls that other communist countries encountered after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Deng Xiaoping’s call to let some people get rich first has created an economic growth model that can feed on itself. China went through the industrial revolution in the time it takes to change a light bulb and it may master the robot revolution just as quickly. For rich countries, the redistribution of income from capital to labor is most urgent. Rather than the infinite concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, the Western world seems to teeter on the brink of a revolution.
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Notes
- 1.
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- 11.
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- 12.
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- 15.
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- 16.
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- 17.
There is a lot of anxiety, though, among the Chinese upper middle class that they may lose it all. This is not surprising in light of China’s recent history.
- 18.
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- 25.
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- 30.
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The interest rate convergence associated with the introduction of the euro, which sparked the housing bubbles in the euro area ’s periphery, is in principle a one-time event.
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Mees, H. (2016). What Lies Ahead?. In: The Chinese Birdcage. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58886-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58886-9_12
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