Great Leap Forward

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, Atahualpa, Boeing 747, Columbian Exchange, correlation coefficient, double helix, Drosophila, Easter island, European colonialism, Great Leap Forward, invention of gunpowder, invention of the wheel, invention of writing, language acquisition, longitudinal study, out of africa, phenotype, planned obsolescence, Scientific racism, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the long tail, the scientific method, trade route

I shall argue that human art also had that role originally, and often still does today. Since art, unlike language, does show up in archaeological deposits, we know that human art did not proliferate until the time of the Great Leap Forward. Agriculture, the subject of Chapter Ten, has an animal precedent, but not precursor, in the gardens of leaf-hopper ants, which lie far off from our direct lineage. The archaeological record lets us date our 'reinvention' of agriculture to a time long after the Great Leap Forward, within the last 10,000 years. That transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is generally considered a decisive step in our progress, when we at last acquired the stable food supply and leisure time prerequisite to the great accomplishments of modern civilization.

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These two chapters deal with the evidence of bones, tools, and genes—the evidence that is preserved in the archaeological and biochemical record, and that gives us our most direct information about how we have changed. Fossilized bones and tools can often be dated, permitting us to deduce just when we changed. We shall examine the basis of the conclusion that we are still ninety-eight per cent chimps in our genes, and try to figure out what in the remaining two per cent was responsible for our great leap forward. The second part (Chapters Three to Seven) deals with changes in the human life-cycle, which were as essential to the development of language and art as were the skeletal changes discussed in Part One. It is restating the obvious to mention that we feed our children after the age of weaning, instead of leaving them to find food on their own; that most adult men and women associate in couples; that most fathers as well as mothers care for their children; that many people live long enough to experience being grandparents; and that women undergo menopause.

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If we as the third chimpanzee decide that the other two chimpanzees are worth saving, those of us in the richer countries will have to bear most of the expense. From the point of view of the apes themselves, the most important effect of what we have recently learned about the Tale of Three Chimps will be on how we feel about footing that bill. TWO THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD What happened at that magic moment in evolution around 40,000 years ago, when we suddenly became human? As we saw in Chapter One, our lineage diverged from that of apes millions of years ago. For most of the time since then, we have remained little more than glorified chimpanzees in the ways we have made our living.

China's Good War by Rana Mitter

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 9 dash line, Admiral Zheng, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, colonial rule, COVID-19, Deng Xiaoping, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Internet Archive, land reform, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, sexual politics, South China Sea, Washington Consensus

Of course, such an event did happen, less than two decades later—the famine that occurred during the Great Leap Forward, which killed more than twenty million people. The authors of 1942: Starving China may not have mentioned the Mao-era disaster by name, but others were not so circumspect. One of the effects of the release of the film 1942 was to provide a vehicle for discussion of that later famine by analogy. Murong Xuecun (the pen name of the well-regarded novelist and blogger Hao Qun) made an explicit link between the film’s topic and the Great Leap Forward famine. Quoted by Voice of America radio, Murong said: “We all know that the famine in 1942 was not the most severe [in recent times], the most severe was the 1959–1962 years,” adding, “but I can understand very well why Feng Xiaogang did not portray the famine of the 1960s.”

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.… For the same reason, and even more so, people should look back at the great famine of 1959–1962 that took place in the central plains, as well as in the entire country, during times of peace.”96 One Weibo contributor declared, “I watched the movie and, as a result, I went and downloaded the book about the 1959 famine, Tombstone.”97 (This is a reference to the journalist Yang Jisheng’s monumental account of the Great Leap Forward famine, which was banned in China.98) Feng himself could hardly make such a direct statement about the film’s intentions, although he used his status as “China’s Spielberg” in 2013 to criticize “ridiculous” film censorship and to declare that there should be more Chinese films analyzing the Cultural Revolution.99 Feng’s film, however, contained many elements that could be seen as allusions to the Great Leap Forward, according to the critic Wendy Qian. In one scene, notes Qian, a bureaucrat declines to report details of the famine to Chiang Kai-shek; similarly, during the Great Leap Forward, one reason that the famine worsened was that lower-level bureaucrats were too frightened to inform their superiors about what was happening in the countryside.

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In one scene, notes Qian, a bureaucrat declines to report details of the famine to Chiang Kai-shek; similarly, during the Great Leap Forward, one reason that the famine worsened was that lower-level bureaucrats were too frightened to inform their superiors about what was happening in the countryside. In another scene, starving refugees are shown being blocked by police from entering the city of Luoyang; peasants were likewise forbidden from coming to the cities during the Great Leap Forward famine.100 The reappearance of the Henan famine in the public sphere is another example of the ambiguous nature of the recovery of wartime memory in China’s public and private spheres.

Modern China: A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter

banking crisis, British Empire, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, invention of gunpowder, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, new economy, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, South China Sea, special economic zone, stem cell, urban planning

Y. 1–2 G Gang of Four 58 Germany, Shandong province and 33, 34 global financial crisis (2008–10) 104–5 global role 2–3, 32–3, 51, 68, 84–5, 105–7 Google 3 Gorbachev, Mikhail 62, 64–5 governance 18–20, 69, 70 Great Leap Forward 53, 54–6, 75, 102 H Han Feizi 8 health care 3, 41–2, 60, 82, 105 ‘heavenly goodness’ (tianliang) 20 Heshang (River Elegy) (television series) 123–5 hierarchy 7–8, 19, 69 Hong Kong 9–11, 21, 86, 91, 94 Hong Xiuquan 22 Hu Jintao 66, 67 Hu Shi 114 Hu Yaobang 63, 64 Hua Guofeng 61 Hundred Flowers movement 119 Huxley, Aldous 131–2 I imperialism 4, 9, 14, 18, 21–2, 25, 27, 31, 34, 84, 98 industrial revolution 98 industrialization 41, 43 see also Great Leap Forward inequality 3, 81–2 inflation 28, 47, 64, 79, 103 intellectuals 63–4, 111 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 96 internet 3, 85 Islam 86 J Japan 17, 23–4, 26, 103, 107 see also Sino-Japanese War Japanese imperialism 4, 31, 34, 84 Jiang Qing 58 Jiang Zemin 66–7 K Kang Youwei 24, 73 Khrushchev, Nikita 53 L land reform 44, 47, 49, 52, 54, 55, 92 language reform 112–14 Lao She 117 law 83, 110 League of Nations 43 Lee Teng-hui 91 Lei Yu 63 Li Dazhao 35 Li Yu 72 life expectancy 81 Lin Biao 52, 60 literature 6, 33–5, 114–20 Liu Shaoqi 58 Long March 43, 45, 48 Lu Xun (Zhou Shouren) 34, 115–16 M Manchuria, Japanese invasion of 41, 49 ‘Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literature 117–18 manufacturing 102, 103–4 Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing) 116 Mao Zedong 6, 12, 29, 34, 35, 39, 47–50, 53–61, 70, 71–2, 73, 88, 100–2, 111, 118–19 Marx, Karl 22 Marxism 35, 56 May Fourth Movement 15, 33–4, 64, 124 meaning of ‘China’ 6–11 Meiji Restoration 17, 23–4 Mencius 8, 19 middle-class 26, 81, 107–8 migrant labour 1, 4, 31, 81 migration 95 Ming dynasty 73, 111–12 modern, meaning of 11–16 mortality rate 40, 41–2, 81 Mo Yan (Guan Moye) 119 N Nanjing Massacre (Rape of Nanking) 45–6, 80 national or ethnic identity 6, 7 nationalism 17, 68–9, 80 Nationalist (Guomindang or Kuomintang) Party 30, 35, 36, 37–8, 39, 40–50, 52, 70, 75, 79, 92, 93 Nerchinsk, Treaty of (1689) 9 New Culture movement 33–5, 114 New Life Movement 43–4, 53, 87 Nixon, Richard M 60 Northern Expedition (1926–8) 18, 36 O Olympics Games (Beijing, 2008) 2, 88–90 one-child policy 76–7 opening up (gaige kaifang) 1, 61–4 ‘Opening up the West’ 102, 108 openness to outside influences 5, 129–30 Opium Wars 21, 78 overseas investment 3, 97, 106 P Paris Peace Conference (1919) 33, 34 patriarchy 19, 20 Patten, Chris 94 peaceful development or ‘peaceful rise’ (heping jueqi) 2–3 Peking University 24–5, 34, 35, 58, 64 Peng Dehuai 56 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 47, 50, 60 People’s Republic of China, establishment of 6, 29, 50, 52 personal cultivation (xiushen) 86–7 personality cult (Mao Zedong) 53, 58–9 political dissent 4, 40, 62, 83, 92, 127 political prisoners 83 pollution 3–4, 107, 109 Pomeranz, Kenneth 98 population 2, 7, 21, 76–7, 98 population quality (suzhi) 87 poverty 3, 29, 81 progress, idea of 12–13 Q Qing dynasty 2, 5, 6, 9, 19–29, 78, 91, 112 R racism 31 Rape of Nanking 45–6, 80 rectification (zhengfeng) 49–50 Red Army, see People’s Liberation Army Red Guards 57, 58–9, 60, 84 reform, see economic reform; land reform; language reform; opening up (gaige kaifang); Xinzheng (new governance) reforms ‘reform era’ 61–3, 64, 80, 81, 82, 100, 121 religion 12, 13, 14, 86 representative government 18, 26, 47, 49 Republic of China 29–35, 40–50 Ricci, Matteo 112 River Elegy (Heshang) (television series) 123–5 Roosevelt, F.

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Their work underpins the futuristic skylines in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing © Gideon Mendel/Corbis 2 A wealthy Chinese woman in the early 20th century, with expensive clothes and bound feet © Underwood & Underwood/Corbis 3 Chiang Kaishek was China’s leader from 1928 to 1949, and ruled over Taiwan until his death in 1975 Photo by Jack Wilkes/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images 4 The Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45 tore China apart Photo by Central Press/Getty Images 5 The Long March of 1934–5 helped Mao rise to paramount leadership of the Chinese Communist Party Photo by Keystone/Getty Images 6 Land redistribution in the early 1950s was a time of joy for many peasants, but it also led to a deadly terror campaign against those judged to be ‘landlords’ © Bettmann/Corbis 7 Chairman Mao with representatives of China’s younger generation in his birthplace of Shaoshan during the Great Leap Forward in 1959 © Bettmann/Corbis 8 On 4 May 1989, exactly 70 years after the original May Fourth demonstrations in 1919, students once again ask for ‘Mr Democracy’ in Tian’anmen Square. A month later, tanks and soldiers would clear the Square by force, killing large numbers © Peter Turnley/Corbis 9 Beijing geared up for Olympic fever after being awarded the Games in 2001 China Photos/Getty Images 10 A woman wears a smog veil as she rides her bicycle in Beijing in 1984.

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By the time Mao declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, China’s path was not in doubt The year 1949 was not in itself the turning point, but the result of choices made in 1945: China was going to have a communist government allied to the USSR and largely closed to the West. Mao in power Mao’s China was very different from Chiang’s in a variety of ways. Perhaps, overall, the most powerful change was encapsulated in the slogan ‘Politics in command’, which was used during the Great Leap Forward campaign of 1958–62. Chiang had been concerned to create a politically aware citizenry through campaigns such as the New Life Movement, but these had failed to penetrate very successfully. Mao’s China had much greater control over its population, and did not hesitate to use it. Its politics was essentially modern, in that it demanded mass participation in which the citizenry, the ‘people’, saw itself as part of a state project based on a shared class and national identity.

Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World by Robert Lawson, Benjamin Powell

Airbnb, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, business cycle, cognitive dissonance, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, Kickstarter, means of production, Mont Pelerin Society, profit motive, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, single-payer health, special economic zone, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

His first goal was for China to overtake the economic output of Great Britain, and the result was his ambitious plan—called the Great Leap Forward—for the Communist government to industrialize China. The Great Leap Forward became the great Chinese famine. But as Dikötter explains, referring to this tragedy as a mere famine “fails to capture the many ways in which people died under radical collectivization. The blithe use of the term ‘famine’ also lends support to the widespread view that these deaths were the unintended consequence of half-baked and poorly executed economic programmes.” In fact, “coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the foundations of the Great Leap Forward.”1 The Great Leap Forward could not even be justified under the usual socialist excuse of breaking a few eggs to create an omelet.

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Dikötter’s examination of Chinese Communist Party records shows that at least two and a half million people were summarily executed or tortured to death during the Great Leap Forward. Millions more starved because they were intentionally deprived of food as punishment, or because they were regarded as too old or weak to be productive, or because the people ladling out the slop in the chow line simply did not like them. Our friend Li Schoolland remembered that during the later years of the Great Leap Forward, “We ate everything that didn’t kill us. I refused to eat rats. But my brother, he was a growing boy. He was so hungry. He ate it.

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3 Eventually, however, the Communist Party had to relent in order to avoid complete catastrophe as the tens of millions of casualties piled up. By 1962, the Great Leap Forward had been abandoned, and some private farmland had been reintroduced. But it was a short-lived respite. In 1966, Mao and the Communist Party launched the “Cultural Revolution,” inflicting a new hell on the Chinese people. The Cultural Revolution aimed to purge or reeducate the counterrevolutionary bourgeois elements of Chinese society. It also served to reassert Mao’s power after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Senior officials, including the future reformer Deng Xiaoping, were purged from leadership in the Communist Party.

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Robert J. Gordon

3D printing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airline deregulation, airport security, Apple II, barriers to entry, big-box store, blue-collar work, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, cotton gin, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Detroit bankruptcy, discovery of penicillin, Donner party, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, feminist movement, financial innovation, food desert, Ford Model T, full employment, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Golden age of television, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, immigration reform, impulse control, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflight wifi, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of air conditioning, invention of the sewing machine, invention of the telegraph, invention of the telephone, inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, Lewis Mumford, Loma Prieta earthquake, Louis Daguerre, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market fragmentation, Mason jar, mass immigration, mass incarceration, McMansion, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, Norbert Wiener, obamacare, occupational segregation, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, payday loans, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, pink-collar, pneumatic tube, Productivity paradox, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, refrigerator car, rent control, restrictive zoning, revenue passenger mile, Robert Solow, Robert X Cringely, Ronald Coase, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Skype, Southern State Parkway, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, streetcar suburb, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, undersea cable, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, warehouse robotics, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, working poor, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, yellow journalism, yield management

The book concludes with a “postscript” minichapter that outlines some of the policy directions that seem most likely to be fruitful. Part III THE SOURCES OF FASTER AND SLOWER GROWTH Chapter 16 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD FROM THE 1920S to the 1950S: WHAT SET OF MIRACLES CREATED IT? I refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities. I cannot discover that anyone knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. —Henry Ford INTRODUCTION The Great Leap Forward of the American level of labor productivity that occurred in the middle decades of the twentieth century is one of the greatest achievements in all of economic history.1 Had the economy continued to grow at the average annual growth rate that prevailed during 1870–1928, by 1950 output per hour would have been 52 percent higher than it had been in 1928.

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The statement that productivity growth was the slowest in the 2004–14 decade refers to cyclically adjusted productivity growth and does not apply to decades ending in recession years when the level of productivity was temporarily low—for example, 1923–33. 16 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD FROM THE 1920S TO THE 1950S: WHAT SET OF MIRACLES CREATED IT? 1. The title of this chapter, “The Great Leap Forward,” is not the first to identify the transition from the 1920s to the 1950s as a “great leap.” My own attention to this puzzle began in my Ph.D. thesis, which was motivated by the doubling of the average productivity of capital in Kendrick’s (1961) data between the 1920s and 1950s (Gordon, 1967, p. 3).

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See country stores genomic medicine, 478 Germany: autobahns of, 389, 390; automobile invented in, 131, 150 germ theory of disease, 207, 213, 218–19, 242, 245; medical opposition to, 232 Gibbons, William, 303–4 GI Bill (1944), 364, 512, 544 GI generation, 517 Glaeser, Edward, 649 globalization, 633, 637; decline in employment tied to, 350, 604, 614; decline in manufacturing tied to, 369 global warming, 590, 633–34; carbon tax on, 650 The Godfather (films), 421 Goldin, Claudia: on educational attainment, 624–25, 636; on education and productivity, 15; on education of women, 284, 507; on gender wage gap, 509, 510; on Great Compression (1945–1975), 345, 503, 542, 613; on work hours of women, 260 Goldman Sachs (investment bank), 619 Gone with the Wind (film), 202–3, 205, 420 Goodwin, Barry, 71 Google, 434, 579; driverless cars of, 600; robots in, 596 government debt, 607, 629–30, 638 Grand Union, 78 Graphophone, 187 Gray, Elisha, 181, 574 Great Compression (1945–1975), 345, 503–4, 542, 613, 642 Great Depression, 18; consumer debt and, 297; Great Leap Forward and, 563; health insurance during, 236; mortgage financing during, 302–3; movie attendance during, 201, 202; pension funds during, 515–16; radio during, 196 Great Leap Forward (1920s to 1950s), 535–38, 540, 562–65; causes of wage increases during, 541–43; educational attainment in, 543–44; innovations as cause of, 555–62; magnitude of, 538–41 Greeley, Horace, 27 Green, David A., 626 Green, Harvey, 247 Grennes, Thomas, 71 Griffin, D.

The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor, and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car by Tim Harford

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, business cycle, collective bargaining, congestion charging, Corn Laws, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, information asymmetry, invention of movable type, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, market design, Martin Wolf, moral hazard, new economy, Pearl River Delta, price discrimination, Productivity paradox, race to the bottom, random walk, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, sealed-bid auction, second-price auction, second-price sealed-bid, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, special economic zone, spectrum auction, The Market for Lemons, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, Vickrey auction

Meanwhile, agriculture had to be a priority for any Chinese government because there was barely enough fertile land to feed the country’s hundreds of millions of people. From the window of the train to Zhengzhou I was looking out over Henan, China’s most densely populated province. It is a freezing desert. This two-pronged push was called the “Great Leap Forward.” It seemed to make sense, but it was the greatest economic failure the world has ever seen. Mao conducted economic policy based on the hidden premise that if people tried hard, the impossible would happen. Zeal alone was sufficient. Villagers were ordered to build steel furnaces in their backyards but had no iron ore to put into them.

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Some villagers melted down good iron and steel— tools, even doorknobs—in order to meet the quotas demanded • 233 • T H E U N D E R C O V E R E C O N O M I S T by the state. Even Mao’s personal doctor worried about the wisdom of a policy to “destroy knives to produce knives.” The steel that emerged from the furnaces was unusable. If industrial policy was a farce, agricultural policy was a tragedy. The Great Leap Forward had already pulled many workers off the land to labor at the furnaces or in public works like dams and roads. Mao ordered the people to kill grain-eating birds, and the population of insect pests exploded as a result. Mao personally redesigned China’s agricultural techniques, specifying closer planting and deeper sowing to increase yields.

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The government also purchased and redistributed food from regions that produced a surplus, but did so at a severely depressed price, discouraging more fertile regions from making the most • 235 • T H E U N D E R C O V E R E C O N O M I S T of their agricultural land. Many rural workers were underem-ployed. The very system that was designed to boost China’s agricultural output and make the nation self-sufficient was undermining it. China’s output of grain, per person, was as low in 1978 as it had been in the mid-1950s, just before the Great Leap Forward. Deng had little time for such folly and immediately embarked on a program of reform, announcing that “socialism does not mean poverty.” To improve agriculture, he had to get the incentives right. He started by raising the price paid by the state for crops by nearly a quarter. The price paid for surplus crops rose by more than 40 percent, substantially increasing the incentive for fertile areas to produce more crops.

Reset by Ronald J. Deibert

23andMe, active measures, air gap, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, augmented reality, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Bellingcat, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Brexit referendum, Buckminster Fuller, business intelligence, Cal Newport, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon footprint, cashless society, Citizen Lab, clean water, cloud computing, computer vision, confounding variable, contact tracing, contact tracing app, content marketing, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, data is the new oil, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, dual-use technology, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, fake news, Future Shock, game design, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, information retrieval, information security, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, license plate recognition, lockdown, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, megastructure, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, natural language processing, New Journalism, NSO Group, off-the-grid, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, post-truth, proprietary trading, QAnon, ransomware, Robert Mercer, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, single source of truth, Skype, Snapchat, social distancing, sorting algorithm, source of truth, sovereign wealth fund, sparse data, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, techlash, technological solutionism, the long tail, the medium is the message, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, TikTok, TSMC, undersea cable, unit 8200, Vannevar Bush, WikiLeaks, zero day, zero-sum game

Classification: LCC HM742 .D45 2020 | DDC 302.23/1—dc23 Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk Text design: Ingrid Paulson We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada. For Jane: my love, my lifeline, my morning coffee confidante CONTENTS Introduction Chapter One: The Market for Our Minds Chapter Two: Toxic Addiction Machines Chapter Three: A Great Leap Forward… for the Abuse of Power Chapter Four: Burning Data Chapter Five: Retreat, Reform, Restraint Notes Acknowledgements Index “Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go … To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.”

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Although many factors have contributed to the recent descent into tribalism and social polarization, there can be no doubt the environment of social media has created conditions favourable for their flourishing. Chapter 3 broadens out and scrutinizes the ways in which social media and other related digital technologies have contributed to what I call a “great leap forward in technologies of remote control.” In a very short period of time, digital technologies have provided state security agencies with unparalleled capabilities to peer inside our lives, both at a mass scale and down to the atomic level. Part of the reason is the booming surveillance industry, which crosses over relatively seamlessly between private-sector and government clients, and has equipped security agencies with a whole new palette of tools they never previously could have imagined.

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Part of the reason is the booming surveillance industry, which crosses over relatively seamlessly between private-sector and government clients, and has equipped security agencies with a whole new palette of tools they never previously could have imagined. But part of it is because the social media platforms upon which civil society relies are replete with insecurities. For most people, these insecurities create risks of fraud and other forms of personal data exploitation. For high-risk users, these insecurities can be life-threatening. This great leap forward in the technologies of remote control has taken place mostly in the shadows and in the absence of any compensating measures to prevent abuse. We now have twenty-first-century superpower policing governed by twentieth-century safeguards. As a consequence, already existing authoritarian regimes are tending towards a dystopian system of big-data population control, as exemplified in China’s Orwellian “social credit system.”

Jaws by Sandra Kahn,Paul R. Ehrlich

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, clean water, desegregation, Edward Jenner, epigenetics, Great Leap Forward, hygiene hypothesis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Indoor air pollution, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, language acquisition, longitudinal study, Louis Pasteur, meta-analysis, out of africa, randomized controlled trial, twin studies, Wall-E, women in the workforce

It is hard to recognize that such a seemingly minor, everyday activity can have such profound effects, but it can. CHAPTER 3 THE DIET, POSTURE, AND HOUSING REVOLUTIONS Perhaps the least-understood but most consequential aspect of human history is the great flowering of cultural evolution and development of complex language that occurred some 70,000–100,000 years ago—what Jared Diamond has called the “Great Leap Forward.”1 Suddenly (in terms of geological time) people could accomplish things rapidly not by changing their genes but by changing the body of nongenetic information their groups possessed—their culture. Those changes could be passed down generation to generation, by example, by word of mouth, eventually by text as well, and then photographs, TV, computers, and cell phones.

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The implication of those cultural transformations is profound: more and more human beings, equipped by our deep historical and evolutionary genetic experience to live as nomadic hunter-gatherers, have taken up life in a radically different, modern industrial cultural environment. There is no evidence that human genes involved in jaw and face development have changed significantly since the Great Leap Forward. Very few human beings suffer from inherited (as opposed to environmentally induced) deformities of the teeth and face. Occasionally unlucky individuals are born with a genetic deformity of the jaws. Therefore it is what we do, what our oral posture and toughness of diet were when we were young, not the genes from our parents, that largely controls the size and basic health of our jaws and related details of configuration of our faces.

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But there is little sign that one male chimp could improve his dominance over another by being “better looking.” He’s dominant because he is big, “kicks ass,” and is good at building coalitions with other males. Likewise, we doubt if our human ancestors a million years ago had our sense of beauty on which to base mate selection. We can probably thank instead the Great Leap Forward for the origins of appearance’s importance in our culture—not as an indicator of health but as part of the cultural evolution of human esthetic tastes. For the first time people could discuss, and gossip about, each other’s looks. Tacit social agreements about attractiveness could be reached, and those agreements could change in response to the looks of prominent individuals—just like today.

The Science of Language by Noam Chomsky

Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Alfred Russel Wallace, backpropagation, British Empire, Brownian motion, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, dark matter, Drosophila, epigenetics, finite state, Great Leap Forward, Howard Zinn, language acquisition, phenotype, public intellectual, statistical model, stem cell, Steven Pinker, Stuart Kauffman, theory of mind, trolley problem

S. 51, 53 Hale, Kenneth 17, 62 Halle, Morris 21 Hamilton, William D. 104 Harman, Gilbert 100 Harris, Zellig 38, 80, 81, 86 Hauser, Marc 100, 109, 286evolution of communication 12, 58 faculty of language 60, 170, 172, 268, 269 hearing 48 Helmholtz, Hermann von 73, 97 Herbert of Cherbury 181 Higginbotham, Jim 129, 130 Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy 196 homunculus 37, 290 Hornstein, Norbert 29, 183, 265 human behavior 138–151, 286 human evolution 2, 13, 71developmental constraints on 41 ‘great leap forward' 13, 70, 77 human nature 95–102, 108–112 and biological capacities 95 Chomsky on 95–102 determined and uniform 95, 99 distinctiveness of 176–179 enlightenment conception of 142 and evolution 103–107 ‘great leap forward' 179 moral agency 101 plasticity of 121 humanitarian intervention 121, 122, 287 humans, genetic variation 13 Hume, David 26, 90, 99, 106, 179color problem 247–248, 286 theory of moral nature 63, 99, 109 Huxley, Thomas 23 I-beliefs 153–156 definition of 156 I-concepts 153–156 definition of 155 I-language 81, 153–156, 164, 239, 258, 266intensional specification of 167 imagination 70, 161 inclusiveness 62, 281 induction 88, 90, 95 inference 73, 165, 221 information 208, 213, 218, 228, 229, 254pragmatic 30 semantic 29, 260 innateness 39–45, 60, 89, 91, 255, 267, 284 innatism 123 innovation 71, 74, 95, 177, 178, 185, 282technological 145 insects, study of 147 instinct 96, 143, 178, 181, 247, 248, 287 instrumentalism 211 intention (see also nativism) 163 internalism 6, 228, 248, 262–263, 269, 287and concepts 188, 190, 209, 255–257, 260, 272 intuitions 125, 126 island sentences 50 Jackendoff, Ray 170, 172 Jacob, François 24, 53, 60, 243 Joos, Martin 145 justice 120 Kahneman, Daniel 140 Kant, Immanuel 90 Kauffman, Stuart 21, 22, 266 Kayne, Richard 55, 84, 241 Keller, Helen 45 Kissinger, Henry 101, 107, 113, 287 Klein, Ralph 111 knowledge 70, 193See also information Kripke, Saul 126 Kropotkin, Peter 103, 111 languageand agency 124–128 as an animal instinct 178 and arithmetical capacities 16 and biology 21–30, 80, 235, 284 biophysical explanations of 208 and brain morphology 46 capacity for 70, 164 characteristic uses of 11–12 cognitive benefits of 2 competence and use 63 and complex thought 1 complexity of 52, 146 compositional character of 37 computational theory of 174, 272 and concepts 71, 198 conceptual resources of 212 displacement property 16 distinctive features 22 domination 232–238 expectations for 54 externalization of 52, 78, 79, 153, 222, 278 flexibility 95, 162, 197, 210, 224, 227 formal languages 16, 17, 289 formal theory of 21–30 functions of 11–20, 164, 165 generative capacity 49 head-first 240 hierarchical structure 232–238 I-language 153–156, 164, 239, 258, 266 interface conditions 25 internal 37 internal, individual and intensional 37, 154, 167 internal use of 52, 69, 124, 153, 160, 197, 262–263, 272–274 a ‘knowledge' system 187, 193 localization of 46, 59, 69–74 and mathematics 181 modularity of 59 movement property 16, 85, 108, 264–265 as a natural object 2, 7 nominalizing languages 155 open texture of 273 and other cognitive systems 271 phonetic features 42 phonological features 42, 57 precursors of 43, 77 properties of 22, 37, 60, 62 public language 153, 288 purposes of 224 and reason 181 result of historical events 84 rules of 165, 221, 223, 224, 225, 283, 284 and science 124–128 sounds available in 282 structural features of 42 structure of 236, 277–278 study of 36, 76, 79, 154See also linguistics theories of 164, 193, 239, 243, 285 unboundedness 177, 262 uniqueness to humans 150 variation in the use of 164, 239–242 language faculty 74, 172, 177, 243, 260, 261, 270adicity requirements of 198, 199 perfection of 50 language of thought 27, 71, 189, 190, 220, 230, 269 Lasnik, Howard 85 learning 95, 180, 200, 226, 281, 282empiricism and 173, 179 learning a language 187, 225, 226 Lenneberg, Eric 21, 43, 47, 59 Lepore, E. 195 Lewis, David 153, 165, 220, 222, 223, 224 Lewontin, Richard 58, 157, 170, 172, 173, 175, 231 lexical items 62categories of 234 origin of 46 liberalism 98 linguistic communities 222 linguistic development 39See also development linguistic practices 221, 223 linguistic principles 237, 276 linguistics 19, 36, 82, 145and biology 150 first factor considerations 45, 96, 148 and natural science 38 and politics 152 procedural theories in 149 second factor considerations 148, 277 structural 80 theories of 87, 265 third factor considerations:separate entry Locke, John 26, 125, 267personal identity 31, 271 secondary qualities 256 logic, formal 251 Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory 84–85 Lohndal, Terje 57 Lorenz, Konrad 21 Marx, Karl 122 mathematics 127, 165, 214, 215, 266capacity for 15, 136 formal functions in 166–169 and language 181 semantics for 251, 252 Mayr, Ernst 174 meaning 29, 98, 199, 206, 250, 252, 270, 273computational theory of 213 construction of a science of 226–230 externalist science of 209–220 methodology for a theory of 226, 227 study of 261 theories of 221 theory of 212, 214, 217, 226 Mehler, Jacques 55 Merge 16, 77, 91, 181, 236, 243, 263, 279–280 centrality of 41, 60, 62, 176, 245 consequences of 17 and edge properties 17, 41 Merge, external 17, 166, 201, 238, 263 Merge, internal 16, 25, 29, 85, 201, 238, 264 mutation giving rise to 43, 52 origin of 14, 15 Pair Merge 201, 264 and psychic identity 28 uniqueness to humans 25, 200, 205 metaphor 195 metaphysics 125, 157 Mikhail, John 63, 99, 100, 109, 129, 286 Mill, John Stuart 121, 122, 287 Miller, George 81 mindas a causal mechanism 138 computational sciences of 247 computational theory of 280 philosophy of 186, 255 place of language in 69–74 representational theory of 162, 188 science of 138–151, 212, 288 theory of 14 Minimalist Program 24, 83, 84, 233, 235–236, 237, 245, 246, 264and adaptationism 172 aim of 42, 199 simplicity and 80, 243, 285 modes of presentation (MOPs) 187, 190, 217, 219, 275roles of 218 morality 99, 100, 109, 287character of 110 conflicting systems 114 generation of action or judgment 110 moral truisms 101, 102 theories of 110, 135 trolley problems 109 and universalization 113–117 Moravcsik, Julius 164 morphemes 81, 149 morphology 52, 54, 195distributed 27 and syntax 200 Morris, Charles 250 Move 108 mutations 14, 43, 170, 171survival of 51, 53 mysterianism 97 Nagel, Thomas 98 Narita, Hiroki 57 nativism 187, 217, 283 natural numbers 204 natural sciences 18, 38 natural selection 58, 76, 104, 143, 157 Navajo language 277 neural networks 225 neurophysiology 74 Newton, Isaac 66, 67, 72, 88, 127, 134alchemy 67 nominalism 87, 91 non-violence 114 Norman Conquest 84 objective existence 169 optimism 118–123, 288 parameters 39–45, 54, 239–242, 277, 282, 283and acquisition of language 241 choice of 45, 83 developmental constraints in 243 functional categories 240 head-final 55, 240 headedness macroparameter 241, 276 linearization parameter 55 macroparameters 55 microparameters 55, 84, 241 polysynthesis 55 and simplicity 80 Peck, James 288 Peirce, Charles Sanders 96, 132, 184, 250abduction 168, 183, 246, 248 truth 133, 136 perfection 50–58, 172, 175, 263–264, 279 person, concept of 125, 126, 271, 284‘forensic' notion of 125 persuasion 114, 116 Pesetsky, David 30 Petitto, Laura-Ann 48, 78 phenomenalism 211 philosophers 129–131, 282, 283contribution of 129 contribution to science 129 philosophy 181accounts of visual sensations 255–257 of language 35, 273 of mind 186, 255 problems in 286 and psychology 140 phonemes 81 phonetic/phonological interfaces 161, 194, 253, 278 phonology 28, 40, 52, 54, 57, 109, 208 physicalism 187 physics 19, 65, 106, 144and chemistry 65 folk physics 72 theoretical 18, 65, 73, 100 Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo 140, 246, 279 Pietroski, Paulconcepts 47, 199, 200, 209 semantics 198, 211, 223, 229, 254 Pinker, Steven 166, 170, 172, 176 Pirahã language 30 Plato 115 Plato's Problem 23, 195, 236, 244, 246, 266 Poincaré, Henri 65 politics 116, 119, 145, 146, 152 poverty of the stimulus observations 5, 23, 40, 177, 200, 227, 233, 262 power 120 pragmatic information 30 pragmatics 36, 130, 250–254, 289definition of 250 and reference 253 principles and parameters approach to linguistic theory 24, 53, 235, 236, 240, 245, 276language acquisition 60, 82, 83, 149 and simplicity 246 progress 118, 145, 183 projection problem 83, 89 prosody 37 psychic continuity 26, 205, 207, 271 psychology 219of belief and desire 138, 141 comparative 21 evolutionary 103–107, 111 folk psychology 72, 141 and philosophy 140 rationalistic 255 scientific 140 psychology, comparative 21 public intellectuals 122 Pustejovsky, James 164, 195 Putnam, Hilary 95, 126, 138 Quine, W.

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. , just an outburst of creative energy that somehow takes place in an instant of evolutionary time – maybe ten thousand years or so, which is nothing. So there doesn't seem to be any indication that it was there before, and it all seems to be the same after. So it looks as if – given the time involved – there was a sudden “great leap forward.” Some small genetic modification somehow that rewired the brain slightly. We know so little about neurology; but I can't imagine how else it could be. So some small genetic change led to the rewiring of the brain that made this human capacity available. And with it came the entire range of creative options [C] that are available to humans within a theory of mind – a second-order theory of mind, so you know that somebody is trying to make you think what somebody else wants you to think.

…

And most of it is thinking and planning and interpreting, and so on; it's internal. Well, mutations take place in a person, not in a group. We know, incidentally, that this was a very small breeding group – some little group of hominids in some corner of Africa, apparently. Somewhere in that group, some small mutation took place, leading to the great leap forward. It had to have happened in a single person. Something happened in a person that that person transmitted to its offspring. And apparently in a very short time, it [that modification] dominated the group; so it must have had some selectional advantage. But it could have been a very short time in a small [breeding] group.

The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor

activist lawyer, banking crisis, corporate governance, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, financial innovation, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, income inequality, invisible hand, kremlinology, land reform, Martin Wolf, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, old-boy network, one-China policy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pre–internet, reserve currency, risk/return, Shenzhen special economic zone , South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Upton Sinclair

Even to ask the question itself was political dynamite, because of where the answer would lead–to Mao and his fellow leaders, and their direct responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions of their citizens. Mao had ordered Chinese farms to be collectivized in the late fifties, and forced many once productive peasants who had grown grain to put their energy into building crude backyard blast furnaces instead. As part of this ‘Great Leap Forward’, Mao’s acolytes predicted food production would be doubled, or even tripled, in a few short years and steel production would rocket up to surpass output in advanced western countries. By this time, the brutal political controls reinforcing the emerging personality cult around Mao had started to take hold.

…

Troublemakers, as the Party likes to call its most dogged critics, as if they are naughty schoolchildren, can be removed from their jobs, silenced with quiet threats to their families, excluded from the media and shamed by being labelled unpatriotic. As a last resort, they can still be put in prison or forced into exile, where they invariably lose touch with the rhythms of local life and politics. The horrors of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ have been documented in the west and are familiar to any overseas student of recent Chinese history. The Party’s grip on the past in China ensures a very different story gets told at home, if it gets told at all. Yang survived the book’s publication and still lives at his Xinhua-sponsored home in Beijing.

…

The debates over history are invariably held in secret and often conducted in code. There is none of the overt public jostling and conference-floor debate that characterizes wrenching ideological changes in left-wing political parties around the world, such as Britain’s Labour Party or the French Socialists. On events such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the suppression of the Tibet uprising in 1959, the pro-democracy protests in 1989, and so on, the Party simply announced its verdict after internal deliberations. Party officials are bound by these pronouncements on history, whatever they think as individuals, somewhat in the same way that ministers in the Westminster system are bound by Cabinet decisions.

Twilight of Abundance: Why the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short by David Archibald

Bakken shale, carbon tax, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, deindustrialization, energy security, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Great Leap Forward, Herman Kahn, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), means of production, Medieval Warm Period, mutually assured destruction, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, out of africa, peak oil, price discovery process, rising living standards, sceptred isle, South China Sea, University of East Anglia, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

Combined with the potential increase in grain production, the carrying capacity of the planet is 8.7 billion people in a steady-state situation. After the Second World War, the world’s population growth rate rose to nearly 2 percent per annum by the mid-1950s before falling to 1.3 percent during China’s Great Leap Forward in which about 45 million died. It then rebounded to 2.2 percent in the early 1960s and has been falling since. Nevertheless, the momentum in population growth will take the world’s population to its carrying capacity of 8.7 billion in 2035 in the absence of a deterioration in climate. Soybeans now also play a major role in keeping the world fed, mainly by conversion to animal protein.

…

In protein-content terms, world soybean production of 250 million metric tons equates to wheat production of 750 million metric tons. TABLE 1: WORLD POPULATION AND GRAIN PRODUCTION IN MILLION METRIC TONS, 1930, 1975, AND 2010 Apart from one major war and some errors in public administration (such as Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which killed 45 million Chinese), population growth in between 1930 and 2010 was largely unconstrained by war, disease, pestilence, or famine—especially not famine, because grain production outran population by a wide margin. From 1930 to 2010, the world’s population increased by 250 percent while world grain production increased 392 percent.

…

It was first popularized in 1915 in response to Japan’s Twenty-One Demands on the Chinese state that year. From 1927 to 1940, there was an official holiday in Nationalist China called National Humiliation Day. The notion was largely forgotten after the Communists took over China in 1949. Through the Great Leap Forward (45 million dead) and the Cultural Revolution, individual Chinese were more interested in personal survival than angst over ancient insults. More recently the rise of the great bulk of China’s population out of poverty has allowed the self-indulgence of worrying about China’s past to be taken up again.

Water: A Biography by Giulio Boccaletti

active transport: walking or cycling, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, clean water, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, energy transition, financial engineering, Great Leap Forward, invisible hand, John Snow's cholera map, joint-stock company, land reform, land tenure, linear programming, loose coupling, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, Medieval Warm Period, megaproject, Mohammed Bouazizi, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peace of Westphalia, phenotype, scientific management, South China Sea, Suez crisis 1956, text mining, the long tail, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, Washington Consensus, Works Progress Administration, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

It was hardly a sector able to produce the surplus required to support industrialization. Grain requisition targets, which were already high and tended to be set independently of what peasants needed to survive, were set at absurd numbers. The slogan of the Great Leap Forward was “more, faster, better, cheaper.” The target was set for around four hundred million tons of grain per year. The tragic failures of the Great Leap Forward descended from this absurd expectation. The American experience, alongside that of India and many other countries, had seemingly shown that the most important way of rapidly and decisively increasing the productivity of agriculture was to invest in irrigation infrastructure.

…

It was hardly a sector: Meng et al., “The Institutional Causes of China’s Great Famine, 1959–61.” The tragic failures of the Great Leap Forward: Chen, “Cold War Competition and Food Production in China, 1957–1962.” One estimate suggested: Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 25. The implementation through the provincial leadership: Chen, “Cold War Competition and Food Production in China, 1957–1962.” For a system that was already so vulnerable: Li and Yang, “The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster.” Famine and starvation followed: Ó Gráda, “Great Leap into Famine: A Review Essay.”

…

While Mao’s swim across the river would become part of the mythology for the successful creation of the largest piece of river infrastructure on the planet, the Three Gorges Dam, it is easy to forget that water first tragically took center stage during one of the darkest periods of China’s recent past. Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in May 1958. Its origin lay in China’s difficult relationship with its neighbor to the west. In 1956, Khrushchev had embarked on a process of revisionism and critique of the Stalinist experience. Mao profoundly disagreed with Khrushchev’s direction and saw China as the true heir of Marxism-Leninism and of the Stalinist project.

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy by George Magnus

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, 9 dash line, Admiral Zheng, AlphaGo, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, business process, capital controls, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, cloud computing, colonial exploitation, corporate governance, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, industrial robot, information security, Internet of things, invention of movable type, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land reform, Malacca Straits, means of production, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Minsky moment, money market fund, moral hazard, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, old age dependency ratio, open economy, peer-to-peer lending, pension reform, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Shenzhen special economic zone , smart cities, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, speech recognition, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, trade route, urban planning, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working-age population, zero-sum game

Personal possessions, food and labour were pooled and the communes were assigned the responsibility for managing local administration, tax collection, healthcare, education and the supervision of production.7 The government’s strategy reduced agricultural land and supply, and directed 30 million workers into rural factories, including backyard steel mills, while erroneous ideas about the 1958 harvest led to a significant rise in the procurement of compulsory deliveries.8 The famine engendered by the Great Leap Forward cost at least 30 million lives between 1959 and 1961, though the total could have been as high as 40–45 million. Much of what the Great Leap Forward sought to do was reversed or modified in the following years, and by the mid-1960s the economy showed some signs of recovery, with new investment and construction in agriculture, and in industry in the coastal provinces.

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After the surrender of Peking in 1949, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was summoned to Beijing, where Mao declared: ‘Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.’ Mao was in power until he died in 1976, and will always be remembered for his role in visiting upon China the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Yet relatively soon after he died, Deng Xiaoping came to power, initiating a process of economic and social reform which set China on a path to become what it is today. Deng’s reforms in the 1980s were followed and amplified by those of his successor Jiang Zemin.

…

The Korean War in 1950, and the trade boycott imposed by the West, certainly didn’t help China kick on, but the far bigger problems it faced were home grown. These included early reforms, such as radical changes to the system of land distribution and property rights as the government sought to change China’s direction, and, crucially, two massive shocks, the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966, which caused political instability and great suffering. With the Party maintaining internal order and a monopoly of power to mobilise resources for defence and economic development, China’s goals were to change the socio-political order, improve China’s geopolitical standing, and boost economic growth.

The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis

Able Archer 83, American ideology, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, British Empire, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, full employment, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, land reform, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Potemkin village, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Sinatra Doctrine, Strategic Defense Initiative

Let them become fertilizer.”45 Then he decided on something even more dramatic: he would merge the industrialization and collectivization campaigns by transforming peasants into proletarians after all, but by means that went beyond anything Stalin had ever considered. He ordered farmers throughout China to abandon their crops, build furnaces in their backyards, throw in their own furniture as fuel, melt down their agricultural implements—and produce steel. The result of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” was the greatest single human calamity of the 20th century. Stalin’s campaign to collectivize agriculture had caused between 5 and 7 million people to starve to death during the early 1930s. Mao now sextupled that record, producing a famine that between 1958 and 1961 took the lives of over 30 million people, by far the worst on record anywhere ever.46 So Mao did wind up surpassing the Soviet Union and everyone else in at least one category.

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“Of course most of humanity remained poor,” Hobsbawm acknowledged, “but in the old heartlands of industrial labor what meaning could the [communist] Internationale’s ‘Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers’ have for workers who now expected to have their car and spend their annual paid vacation on the beaches of Spain?”56 Hobsbawm found it easier to catalog this phenomenon than to account for it, however: “[T]here really are no satisfactory explanations for the sheer scale of this ‘Great Leap Forward’ of the capitalist world economy, and consequently for its unprecedented social consequences.” It might, he thought, have reflected an upturn in the long cycles of economic boom and bust that extended back several hundred years, but this did not explain “the extraordinary scale and depth of the secular boom,” which contrasted so strikingly with that of “the preceding era of crises and depressions.”

…

At the same time, Mao treated Khrushchev as a superficial upstart, neglecting no opportunity to confound him with petty humiliations, cryptic pronouncements, and veiled provocations. Khrushchev could “never be sure what Mao meant. . . . I believed in him and he was playing with me.”50 Mao did so, at least in part, because picking fights abroad—whether with adversaries or allies—was a way to maintain unity at home, a major priority as he launched the Great Leap Forward.51 That had been one of the reasons for the second offshore island crisis, which had brought China to the brink of war with the United States during the summer of 1958. But Mao had already by then picked a separate fight with the Soviet Union. The Russians had made the mistake of proposing the construction of a long-wave radio station on the China coast, together with the establishment of a joint Sino-Soviet submarine flotilla.

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl

Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, British Empire, colonial rule, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial independence, friendly fire, full employment, Future Shock, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, income inequality, industrial robot, Internet Archive, Kickstarter, land reform, land tenure, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Mont Pelerin Society, Neil Kinnock, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, price stability, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , single-payer health, special economic zone, The Chicago School, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Winter of Discontent, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, Yom Kippur War

In 1960, prompted by Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-Stalinization policies, Mao had broken off relations with Moscow, denouncing the Soviets as “revisionists” and declaring, even more provocatively, that the Kremlin had embraced “state capitalism” (an allusion to Khrushchev’s tentative efforts to loosen central planning). The Russians had also roused Mao’s ire by criticizing his utopian plans for the wholesale introduction of communal agriculture at the end of the 1950s, the so-called Great Leap Forward. The disruptions caused by this hasty attempt to reengineer Chinese agriculture resulted in nationwide famines that ultimately killed some 45 million Chinese from 1958 to 1961. For Mao, Moscow’s attacks on his policies were further proof that the Soviets were backsliding, exemplified by an ossified, bureaucratic mind-set that amounted to a wholesale rejection of Stalin’s revolutionary achievements.

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In 1957 he unleashed a vicious purge (the so-called Anti-Rightist Campaign) of critical intellectuals that ultimately sent hundreds of thousands of people to jails, concentration camps, or internal exile. Deng proved his fealty by running the campaign. It was only in 1960 that Deng finally dared to distance himself from the chairman, delicately addressing “problems in Mao’s thinking.”10 (This was just after the calamity of the Great Leap Forward, when Mao was probably more vulnerable politically than at just about any other time in his career.) Now, allying himself with the newly ascendant Liu Shaoqi, Deng began to suggest that it was time for China to consolidate after the long years of upheaval and tend to the efficiency of production and the task of raising living standards.

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At the same time, his stint as the de facto commander in chief of Taihang Mountain had provided him with a real-world laboratory in which he learned the virtues of pragmatic adaptation to complex political realities. In the 1950s, then, Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” had shown Deng the threats posed by uncontrolled political liberalization, while the disaster of the Great Leap Forward had revealed for all to see the drawbacks of belief in Mao’s infallibility. For Deng, these two lessons were not contradictory; they were, in fact, equally crucial to his evolving administrative philosophy, which viewed the maintenance of political stability as a crucial precondition for much-needed economic reform and experimentation.

Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside by Xiaowei Wang

4chan, AI winter, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, basic income, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, business cycle, cloud computing, Community Supported Agriculture, computer vision, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, drop ship, emotional labour, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Garrett Hardin, gig economy, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Huaqiangbei: the electronics market of Shenzhen, China, hype cycle, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, Internet of things, job automation, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, land reform, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, multilevel marketing, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), Pearl River Delta, peer-to-peer lending, precision agriculture, QR code, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, SoftBank, software is eating the world, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech worker, technological solutionism, the long tail, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, vertical integration, Vision Fund, WeWork, Y Combinator, zoonotic diseases

The early project of building a socialist nation demanded a mass fervor for fighting Western imperialism and, most important, the rewriting of a national story to weave a new consciousness. Yet the West would still haunt China, serving as an image on which to project all the early nation’s ambitions and rivalries. The attempts at catching up were troubled. The famine of the Great Leap Forward was devastating, with millions of deaths in the countryside. After the Great Leap Forward, a food coupon system was used throughout the country, controlling how much food each family could purchase—rice, grains, eggs, and meat. The system was a mechanism by the government to control urban consumption, agricultural prices, and yields. The food coupons would be used all the way into the 1990s.

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The rural peasant has always been a foundational, central figure in China’s nation building. After World War II, during China’s civil war, Mao Zedong’s winning strategy against the Kuomintang was to catalyze China’s peasantry. Peasants would lead his revolution, “encircling cities from the countryside” (农村包围城市). During the Great Leap Forward, Mao attempted to collectivize farming, with disastrous results. The country embarked on an attempt at industrialization—through almost laughable means, including village steel furnaces where farmers smelted agricultural tools into useless pig iron. Mao and others in power had an anti-elite, anti-intellectual attitude, insisting that technology was a tool for peasants and the people, unveiling programs with names like Mass Scientific Research in Agricultural Villages.

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According to the study, financial incentives encourage the building of more rural prisons, and thousands of rural prisons are expanding their capacity—despite drastically declining crime rates and growing evidence that rural prison industries fuel national sociopolitical upheaval. The sociopolitical upheaval in China after the Great Leap Forward and the wild uncertainty of the current U.S. political climate both stand as lessons to China’s current lawmakers: agrarian transition is enormously tricky and the consequences are huge, especially in an era of global agricultural trade. Although China harbors dreams of becoming an AI superpower, the question of the countryside will have to be resolved in order for China to garner enough knowledge workers.

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage

agricultural Revolution, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Bartolomé de las Casas, British Empire, carbon footprint, Columbian Exchange, Corn Laws, cotton gin, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Eratosthenes, financial innovation, food miles, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Louis Pasteur, Mikhail Gorbachev, special economic zone, spice trade, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, women in the workforce

Meanwhile the Communist Party boasted of its great success in collectivizing agriculture. The harvest figures for 1949 were revised downward, to make subsequent years’ figures look bigger, but food production had in fact fallen to a level below that of the 1930s. But Mao wanted to outdo the Soviet Union, and he began planning a “Great Leap Forward” that would, he hoped, industrialize China almost overnight. When some of his colleagues argued for a more gradual approach, he purged them from the Party. Even Nikita Krushchev, the new Soviet leader, who had come to power after Stalin’s death in 1953, warned Mao not to go ahead with his program, which Krushchev understood was intended to “impress the world—especially the socialist world—with his genius and leadership.”

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This unpleasant truth was kept from Mao by those in his inner circle. He was shown a backyard furnace that was seemingly producing high-quality steel, but the steel had actually been made elsewhere. Mao’s understanding of agriculture was even more tenuous than his grasp of metallurgy. In order to boost agricultural yields, the other main component of his Great Leap Forward, Mao drew up his own list of instructions for farmers, based largely on the barmy theories of Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet pseudoscientist. Mao advocated dense planting of seeds (which meant the soil could not sustain them), deep plowing (which damaged the fertility of the soil), greater use of fertilizer (but without chemicals, so household rubbish and broken glass was used instead), concentrating production on a smaller area of land (which quickly exhausted the soil), pest control (killing rats and birds, which caused the population of insects to explode), and increased irrigation (though the small dams and reservoirs that were constructed, being made of earth, soon collapsed).

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On one occasion peasants were told to transplant rice plants to fields along the route that Mao was traveling, to give the impression of an abundant crop; on another occasion vegetables were piled up by the roadside so that he could be told that peasants had abandoned them, having grown so much food that they had more than they could eat. Mao was told that the grain harvest for 1958, the first after the launch of the Great Leap Forward, had doubled; in some cases yields in particular fields were said to have increased over 150-fold. Officials who could see what was really happening dared not question these claims. Where possible, farmers had ignored Mao’s crackpot list of instructions, and the harvest was not much worse than that of previous years.

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman

anti-communist, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, Corn Laws, corporate raider, cotton gin, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, factory automation, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, joint-stock company, knowledge worker, mass immigration, means of production, mittelstand, Naomi Klein, new economy, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

Then, in the preliminary planning for a Second Five-Year Plan, priority shifted from huge, capital-intensive projects to smaller-scale, more widely distributed plants, seen as more appropriate for China’s limited financial capacity. The Second Five-Year Plan never was completed because of a more radical departure, the Great Leap Forward, launched in 1958 in an effort to accelerate economic growth through mass mobilization and decentralized innovation. The Great Leap Forward had a deeply disruptive, antibureaucratic thrust. In industry, the new policy embraced “walking on two legs,” continuing capital-intensive, large-scale, modern factory development while also promoting small-scale, labor-intensive, technologically simple industry that used local resources.

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The efforts to create small-scale rural industry and give workers greater say over factory management reflected a Maoist belief in the centrality of popular mobilization to economic development and building socialism. But the Great Leap Forward, including its radical experiment with industrial scale, proved a disaster. Output of some goods soared, but they were of such low quality and often in unneeded varieties that they proved virtually useless. Meanwhile, pulling labor out of agriculture to local industry, along with the chaos that came with a weakening of central planning and wild misestimates of upcoming harvests, led to a severe famine. Even the strongest backers of the Great Leap Forward, including Mao, had to acknowledge that economic growth could not be achieved simply through mass mobilization.

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Most famous were the several hundred thousand very small “backyard” blast furnaces built across the country, which, along with small mines to feed them, at one point employed sixty million workers. Local initiatives took on a more prominent role in industrial development, while the importance of central directives diminished. In addition to experimenting with factory scale, supporters of the Great Leap Forward also tried to break down the division between management and labor within the factory and the unequal distribution of power and privilege between them. In May 1957, the Central Committee of the Communist Party directed that all managerial, administrative, and technical personnel in factories spend part of their time directly engaged in productive activities, exposing them to the conditions, concerns, and views of workers.

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu

affirmative action, British Empire, computer age, Deng Xiaoping, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Great Leap Forward, information retrieval, invention of movable type, machine readable, machine translation, Menlo Park, natural language processing, Norbert Wiener, QWERTY keyboard, scientific management, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, transcontinental railway

The year that pinyin was born—1958—also began Mao’s bid for radical industrialization in the Great Leap Forward, which would last until 1961. China set goals to make giant industrial advances, increasing steel and building production capacity. Mao confidently predicted that in fifteen years the PRC would catch up to England, the leader of the Industrial Revolution. What happened after the hundred flowers period, however, was a dark harbinger of what was to come. Those who spoke their minds were branded as rightists and mercilessly punished for not toeing the party line. As a multiyear agricultural, ecological, and economic experiment, the Great Leap Forward would see between 16.5 and 45 million people perish from man-made famine—and things would only become worse.

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* * * • • • Project 748 was lucky to have found the thirty-eight-year-old engineer Wang Xuan, who knew the state of China’s computing research from the inside out. Wang had always wanted to combine his interests in hardware and software research ever since he helped to build an early mainframe computer in 1958, partaking in the feverish race to make a technological jump during the Great Leap Forward. He was known for his maniacal work ethic. Twelve-hour shifts were common, as were skipped meals. By winter 1960, the Great Leap Forward had begun to show its grave toll. The initial euphoria of overnight progress was replaced by the devastating reality of droughts, floods, and famine. Wang’s meals were rationed; often his dinner was nothing but a small portion of porridge with some pickles.

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In his lifetime, he had done what he could to help China along—to win back its sovereignty by taking charge of its own telegraphic infrastructure. It was just as he had always said: China could only move forward by not dwelling on its past sufferings. Wang remained a Nationalist and a Chinese Republican to the end. It is perhaps a small solace that he did not live to see the start of the Great Leap Forward, just two years after his death. America was where he had made his debut as one of China’s top negotiators, and perhaps he returned there because of a personal conviction that was rooted in more than diplomacy and rhetoric. He truly believed in America as a model for China’s future, just as he had said to its people in 1912.

Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend by Barbara Oakley Phd

agricultural Revolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, Barry Marshall: ulcers, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, corporate governance, dark triade / dark tetrad, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, double helix, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, impulse control, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, mirror neurons, Mustafa Suleyman, Norbert Wiener, phenotype, Ponzi scheme, prisoner's dilemma, Richard Feynman, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Stanford prison experiment, Steven Pinker, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, twin studies, union organizing, Y2K

There is no evidence, for example, that British prime minister Winston Churchill “secretly admired the Nazis or despised Roosevelt.”64 Mao's decisions to continue with obviously flawed programs such as the Great Leap Forward might be due not only to his innate borderline characteristics but the worsening of those symptoms as a result of subtle, drug-related dysfunction in his prefrontal cortex. This might have reduced Mao's ability to experience “gut feelings” and thus eliminated his ability to make logical, commonsense decisions that were obvious to everyone else. As Li notes, “To this day, ruthless though he was, I believe Mao launched the Great Leap Forward to bring good to China…. The twentieth century was marching forward and Mao was stuck in the nineteenth, unable to lead his country.

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Nor, to my knowledge, did he ever inquire about the fate of the young performer.”27 Li relayed how In 1957, in a speech in Moscow, Mao said he was willing to lose 300 million people—half of China's population. Even if China lost half its population, Mao said, the country would suffer no great loss. We could produce more people. It was not until the Great Leap Forward, when millions of Chinese began dying during the famine, that I became fully aware of how much Mao resembled the ruthless emperors he so admired. Mao knew that people were dying by the millions. He did not care.28 According to Li, this lack of empathy also extended to those in Mao's inner circle.

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Even in his midseventies he was known to invite “three, four, even five of them simultaneously” to share his oversized bed.53 Cognitive-Perceptual Impairment One of the three key dimensional traits of borderline personality disorder is cognitive-perceptual impairment. Mao appears to have displayed dramatic symptoms of this trait. During the Great Leap Forward, from 1958 to 1960, Mao implemented a policy that diverted all human resources into industry rather than agriculture in a misguided and disastrous attempt to catch up with the industrialized West. During the Great Leap, tens of millions of workers were diverted to produce one commodity—steel—in inefficient backyard production facilities.

Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor by John Kay

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Asian financial crisis, Barry Marshall: ulcers, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bletchley Park, business cycle, California gold rush, Charles Babbage, complexity theory, computer age, constrained optimization, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, Dutch auction, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, electricity market, equity premium, equity risk premium, Ernest Rutherford, European colonialism, experimental economics, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Akerlof, George Gilder, Goodhart's law, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, haute couture, Helicobacter pylori, illegal immigration, income inequality, industrial cluster, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invention of the telephone, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, John Meriwether, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Larry Ellison, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, market bubble, market clearing, market fundamentalism, means of production, Menlo Park, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, Nash equilibrium, new economy, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, pets.com, Phillips curve, popular electronics, price discrimination, price mechanism, prisoner's dilemma, profit maximization, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, random walk, rent-seeking, Right to Buy, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, second-price auction, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, Stuart Kauffman, telemarketer, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, the new new thing, The Predators' Ball, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, transaction costs, tulip mania, urban decay, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, work culture , yield curve, yield management

Gachet should not have gone to Tokyo, nor the Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City. In the next two chapters, I consider other aspects of the choice between political direction and market forces as mechanisms for allocating scarce resources between competing ends. {9} ............................ . Central Planning Great Leaps Forward ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev was general secretary of the Communist Party and the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev had begun a liberalization following the death of Stalin. In a gesture of great significance, he paid a visit to the United States.

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The experiment was not a success. Production fell. The economic setback that followed was one of the reasons why Khrushchev was toppled from power five years later. 2 Russian agriculture did badly in this period, but experience in China, the other communist superpower, was far worse. In 1957, Mao Tse-tung announced the Great Leap Forward. The creation of large people's communes would transform agriculture. The first, which covered fifty-three thousand acres and embraced forty-four thousand people, was created in April1958. By the autumn over 100 million peasant families lived in communes. They ate in a commu- { 106} John Kay nal facility and no longer produced food for themselves.

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They ate in a commu- { 106} John Kay nal facility and no longer produced food for themselves. Every unit was encouraged to produce steel: backyard furnaces were the key to rapid industrialization. Mao declared war on the "four pests": flies, mosquitoes, rats, and sparrows. Much time and effort was devoted to collecting fuel for furnaces and to scaring sparrows from trees. 3 The Great Leap Forward moved inexorably from farce to tragedy. Agricultural yields collapsed, and in the early sixties famine spread across the country. Between 30 and 40 million people died of starvation. Khrushchev and Mao made bad decisions. But they were not absurd decisions. Khrushchev simply made a mistake.

The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, call centre, capital controls, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, failed state, financial innovation, Frank Gehry, full employment, gentrification, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Guggenheim Bilbao, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, interest rate swap, invention of the steam engine, Jane Jacobs, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Just-in-time delivery, land reform, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, market bubble, means of production, megacity, microcredit, military-industrial complex, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, place-making, Ponzi scheme, precariat, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special drawing rights, special economic zone, statistical arbitrage, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, technological determinism, the built environment, the market place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Timothy McVeigh, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, white flight, women in the workforce

Mao’s overwhelming dialectical sense of how contradictions worked, as well as his recognition, in principle at least, that a revolution had to be permanent or nothing at all, led him consciously to prioritise revolutionary transformation in different activity spheres in different historical phases. The ‘Great Leap Forward’ emphasised production and technological and organisational change. It failed in its immediate objectives and produced a massive famine, but almost certainly had a huge impact upon mental conceptions. The Cultural Revolution sought to radically reconfigure social relations and mental conceptions of the world directly.

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As with the transition from feudalism to capitalism, there are plenty of interstitial spaces to start alternative social movements that are anti-capitalist. But there are also plenty of possibilities for well-intended moves to be co-opted or go catastrophically wrong. Conversely, seemingly negative developments (such as Mao’s Great Leap Forward or the Second World War that set the stage for rapid economic growth after 1945) may turn out surprisingly well. Should that deter us? Since evolution in general and in human societies in particular (with or without the capitalist imperative) cannot be stopped, then we have no option but to be participants in the drama.

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It was, within the Marxist/communist revolutionary tradition, often deemed necessary to organise dispossessions in order to implement programmes of modernisation in those countries that had not gone through the initiation into capitalist development. This sometimes entailed appalling violence, as with Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union (the elimination of the kulaks). These policies were hardly great success stories, precipitating great tragedies such as the grand famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward in China (which temporarily halted the otherwise rapid increase in life expectancies) and sparking political resistance that was in some instances ruthlessly crushed. Insurgent movements against dispossession other than in the labour process have therefore in recent times generally taken an anti-communist path.

Finance and the Good Society by Robert J. Shiller

Alan Greenspan, Alvin Roth, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Bernie Madoff, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, computer age, corporate governance, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, diversification, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, experimental economics, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial thriller, fixed income, full employment, fundamental attribution error, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, John Bogle, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, loss aversion, Louis Bachelier, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, market design, means of production, microcredit, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, Occupy movement, passive investing, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, profit maximization, quantitative easing, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, self-driving car, shareholder value, Sharpe ratio, short selling, Simon Kuznets, Skype, social contagion, Steven Pinker, tail risk, telemarketer, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Market for Lemons, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Vanguard fund, young professional, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Steel production was to be carried out in backyard furnaces that would be considered laughable by knowledgeable steel industry analysts, but those who understood that had no in uence in China at the time. Of course there was no way to short the Great Leap Forward. As a result of this bubble, agricultural labor and resources were rapidly diverted to industry. The result was massive famine, with tens of millions of deaths.3 The Great Leap Forward also has aspects of a Ponzi scheme. There are reports that Mao Zedong, on visiting a modern steel plant in Manchuria in 1959, became doubtful that the backyard furnaces were a good idea. According to his personal physician and later biographer Li Zhisui, “he gave no order to halt the backyard steel furnaces.

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The horrible waste of manpower and materials, the useless output from the homemade furnaces, was not his main concern. Mao still did not want to do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the masses.”4 The Great Leap Forward, as well as the Cultural Revolution that followed it, was essentially a calculated scheme to create a social contagion of ideas. Accounting fraud played a major role in the disaster created by the Great Leap Forward, for the event created an incentive for collectives to overstate their harvest, and there were no regulators to ensure that the reports were honest. When the central government demanded its share of the reported produce, there was little left to feed the producers.

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There was no broad publication of balance sheets and pro t statements, and there were no independent analysts who could openly criticize the new enterprises. The bubble was ultimately proven to be a disaster. Eleven million people died in the famine of 1932–33, which was directly related to the disruption in agriculture that collectivization had produced. The Great Leap Forward in communist China from 1958 to 1961 was another such investment bubble that took place in the absence of nancial markets. The plan involved both agricultural collectivization and the aggressive promotion of industry, notably of the iron and steel industry. Once again there were no market prices, no published pro t and loss statements, no independent analysts.

The River at the Centre of the World by Simon Winchester

British Empire, Deng Xiaoping, Great Leap Forward, Khartoum Gordon, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, out of africa, placebo effect, South China Sea, Suez canal 1869, trade route

But whether Goddess or Pig, these two cetaceans are both in dire danger today – the industrial filth of the river being one reason, the invention of the cruel rolling hook trawls another. Up until the late 1950s fishermen regarded the animals as simply too godlike to catch. If one turned up in their nets, they let it free. That was the rule, obeyed by all. But in 1958 Mao Zedong inaugurated the Great Leap Forward and declared that there were no more Heavenly Emperors and Dragon Kings: nothing was too revered for inclusion in the great maw of China's great Communist engine-work. Overnight, whatever protection with which history and myth had invested the Yangtze dolphin was peremptorily stripped away.

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But shortly thereafter political relations with Moscow went into a tailspin and their engineers were hauled back home – insisting anyway that no bridge could be constructed over so wide and wayward a river for at least another three hundred miles upstream. They hadn't realized just who they were talking to. The China of the late 1950s was a country intoxicated with the madness of her Great Leap Forward, a people suffused with a barely rational pride and determination, and a nation whose technical institutes were filled with engineers who insisted they could manage the building of this bridge, however difficult, quite alone. It took them eight years, and it required the total reorganization of the Chinese steel industry to provide the necessary bars and girders.

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Nearly all of the pictures that were on display for the benefit of the tourists – most of whom were brought here in buses by their work units: there were groups of several hundred from a steel factory in Wuhan on this day – were taken during that unseemly week of brawling. It was a week when the rulers of China took decisions that can rightly be said to have provided, for millions, hell's foundations. 1959 was the second year of the Great Leap Forward. So it was a time when some kind of an evaluation could be made of Chairman Mao's bold plan to increase, drastically, China's agricultural and industrial production. His plan had been radical, and in many senses, bizarre: it had called for the establishment of giant agricultural communes, for the transfer of millions of city dwellers to work on grandiose irrigation projects, for the building of tens of thousands of ‘backyard furnaces' that would turn steelmaking into a nationwide cottage industry and swell production.

The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis, Paul Mason

active measures, Alan Greenspan, AOL-Time Warner, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, colonial rule, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Easter island, endogenous growth, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial innovation, first-past-the-post, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, Hyman Minsky, industrial robot, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, labour market flexibility, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, military-industrial complex, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, negative equity, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, paper trading, Paul Samuelson, planetary scale, post-oil, price stability, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, systematic trading, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, urban renewal, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War

While the hit was just as dramatic, ending global capitalism’s second post-war phase in no uncertain terms, the new era is stubbornly refusing to show its face. Until it does, we shall all remain in the state of aporia brought on by 2008. CHAPTER 2 Laboratories of the future Our two great leaps forward Humanity owes its first great leap forward to a crisis. Indeed, we have it on good authority that the farming revolution was brought on by severe food shortages, triggered when population size rose beyond a level that nature could sustain.1 While we tend to identify progress with gadgets and assorted machinery, none of our proud industrial achievements can compare with the audacity of those prehistoric hunter-gatherers to grow their own food in the face of nature’s declining capacity to satisfy their hunger.

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Indeed, surpluses gave rise to bureaucracies and organized religion (by affording a large minority the privilege of systematically shunning food production), to the written word (whose original purpose was to assist in the book-keeping necessary for keeping tabs on who produced what within clans and families), to sophisticated metal tools (for ploughing the land, harnessing the cows and, ultimately, arming the guardians of the surplus), to biological weapons of mass destruction (as new strands of lethal bacteria evolved in the presence of so much biomass), as well as to differential immunity levels that made farming societies invincible colonizers of non-farming valleys, islands and even continents (recall the hideous encounter of native Americans and Australian aborigines with the bacteria-infested European settlers). The second great leap forward of our species brought us industrialization. It, too, was a chaotic, unsavoury affair occasioned by another crisis – this time a crisis in which nature had no part. Its roots are deep and extend well into the fifteenth century, if not earlier. Back then, improvements in navigation and ship-building had made possible the establishment of the first truly global trading networks.

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At our moment of Crisis, it is perhaps soothing to recall how crises act upon history as the laboratories of the future. Condorcet’s secret in the Age of Capital If crisis is history’s laboratory, consent is its main driving force. Although violence was never far below the surface, it is remarkable how consensual the resolution of great tensions has been, at least following the second great leap forward that culminated in today’s market societies. Despite the organized killing sprees (known also as wars), the famous revolutions and the violent enslavement of whole peoples, explicit force has generally been used only occasionally (even if to devastating effect), and by rulers whose power was on the wane.

Stuffocation by James Wallman

3D printing, Abraham Maslow, Adam Curtis, Airbnb, Alvin Toffler, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, big-box store, Black Swan, BRICs, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, clean water, collaborative consumption, commoditize, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, Great Leap Forward, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, high net worth, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), James Hargreaves, Joseph Schumpeter, Kitchen Debate, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, McMansion, means of production, Nate Silver, Occupy movement, Paul Samuelson, planned obsolescence, post-industrial society, post-materialism, public intellectual, retail therapy, Richard Florida, Richard Thaler, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, spinning jenny, Streisand effect, The future is already here, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, World Values Survey, Zipcar

The description of Liu Dandan, Zhou Zhou, and Richard Lu is taken from the photoshoot for Bill Saporito, “A Great Leap Forward: Can China’s famously thrifty workers become the world’s big spenders?”, Time, 31 October 2011. Thanks here to Bill Saporito, Zohair Abdoolcarim, Adrian Sandiford, Austin Ramzy, and Chen Jiaojiao for their help tracking down Liu Dandan, Zhou Zhou, and Richard Lu. “More than a billion people in countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Brazil, will be joining them as middle-class, conspicuous consumers.” Various sources, including: Linda Yueh, “The rise of the global middle class”, BBC.co.uk, 19 June 2013. The Next Great Leap Forward “In the West, it took 150 odd years from the start of the Industrial Revolution to lead to overproduction.

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Because just as fast as we wealthy few try to curb our collective footprint and reduce our consumption, there will be a billion or so others queuing up to take our place and make their mark on the world by gobbling up its resources with their new cars, motorbikes, microwaves, washing machines, shirts, and blue suede shoes. Does that suggest, therefore, that Stuffocation is merely the middle-class, middle-age angst of a waning Western society worried about its place in the world – and that we may as well just get over it? The Next Great Leap Forward Stuffocation may well be the middle-age angst of a maturing society on the downturn today. But if we take into consideration our learnings from the past and knowledge of the present, I think we can make a realistic forecast about China and the other emerging nations. That forecast is this: that they will follow similar development curves to those we did in the West, only their curves will be steeper, and their revolutions will come quicker.

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If it continues to follow a similar accelerated path, it will reach overconsumption by 2037. As materialism builds up, as consuming turns to overconsumption, and as they run into all the other problems and opportunities that make up Stuffocation, today’s new materialists will make the next great leap forward, and become tomorrow’s experientialists. CONCLUSION Why You Need Experience More than Ever On 27 January 1940, it was a quiet night in London. The blackouts were in place. There was snow on the ground. In the north of the city, near where Tottenham Hotspur play football, a man in a suit and dickie-bow stepped out of a dance hall leading a woman by the hand.

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? by Alan Weisman

air freight, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, David Attenborough, degrowth, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Edward Jenner, El Camino Real, epigenetics, Filipino sailors, Garrett Hardin, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute couture, housing crisis, ice-free Arctic, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, illegal immigration, immigration reform, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), land reform, liberation theology, load shedding, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, megacity, Menlo Park, Michael Shellenberger, microdosing, Money creation, new economy, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, Pearl River Delta, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, race to the bottom, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Satyajit Das, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Stewart Brand, unemployed young men, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

“Economic development,” he answers. “In the 1950s, Chinese people didn’t know about environment. To the Chinese way of thinking, we are a huge country rich in resources, so we don’t need to worry about that. Until, of course, 1958. The Great Leap Forward, you know. We did many silly things. We cut trees in the mountains until they were bald. We tried to smelt iron in poor ovens.” During Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which jerked China from six thousand years of agrarian life into the industrial age, the air filled with oily smoke from hundreds of thousands of backyard brick furnaces that peasants were ordered to build to smelt scrap iron.

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They range through the tragedy of Sumerians who turned Garden of Eden soils between the Tigris and Euphrates into sterile salt flats; the stripped, treeless hills that were the undoing of classical Greece; Peru’s vanished Nasca people and Mexico’s Olmec; the acidification of once-lush British moors by Bronze Age tin smelters; the hapless Viking farmers who perished in Greenland when the climate shifted. They conclude in recent memory: China’s Great Leap Forward, which overshot its capacity to produce food, starving 40 million; the massacre of Tutsis by Hutus in bursting Rwanda; the calamitous shriveling of the Sahel; the horror of Haiti; Madagascar’s red soil bleeding away to sea. It is unsettling to read them in a crypt, alongside plaques commemorating those interred here.

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In 1980, they would have bulldozed their houses.” He poured himself tea. “Those bad things were done by local officials. The central government’s intentions were good. China had to control births.” Their own parents had suffered through history’s worst famine, from 1958 through 1962. It was during Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, when private farms were collectivized and millions of peasants conscripted as industrial laborers. Grain was requisitioned for growing cities, even as yields plummeted under inept directives from distant Beijing. Nobody dared disobey. Nobody dared to report true figures from disastrous harvests in terror of being purged, which often meant execution.

The Great Firewall of China by James Griffiths;

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bike sharing, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, borderless world, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Chelsea Manning, Citizen Lab, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, digital rights, disinformation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, gig economy, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, jimmy wales, John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, microaggression, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mitch Kapor, mobile money, Occupy movement, pets.com, profit motive, QR code, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Snapchat, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, technoutopianism, The future is already here, undersea cable, WikiLeaks, zero day

The Great Firewall, the colossal censorship apparatus that monitors all aspects of the Chinese internet, provides security and stability from the dangerous chaos of the unfiltered web, full as it is of terrorists, child molesters, hackers and scammers. Just as the Communist Party itself has proven adept at handling any crisis that it faces – from the self-inflicted disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, to the Arab Spring and the 2008 financial crash – so have the censors adapted, and outwitted those who opposed them. The system they built – the most sophisticated in the world for controlling, filtering and surveilling the internet – has gone from strength to strength.

…

Chapter 8 Filtered The Firewall catches up with Da Cankao In August 2001, The New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr sat opposite Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in a gaudily decorated meeting room inside the West Mountain Compound, a government building overlooking Beidaihe.1 A beach resort on the Bohai Sea east of Beijing, Beidaihe had served as a retreat for Party leadership for over four decades. It was where plans were laid for Mao’s Great Leap Forward in 1958, and where, thirty years later, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping dismissed reformist general secretary Zhao Ziyang and set the stage for the Tiananmen crackdown. A foreigner in the Beidaihe compound was a rare sight, a foreign journalist rarer still – even state media was permitted inside only for official photoshoots.

…

Ilham’s family was both a beneficiary and a victim of the new China.10 His father, Tohti, was sent to the Chinese interior for high school and later studied at two prestigious universities in Beijing. After graduation, Tohti returned to Xinjiang to work as a civilian official for the PLA, a prominent role for a Uyghur at the time. He held this role throughout most of the Mao era, weathering the ideological storms of the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Great Leap Forward. But then, in 1966, the Cultural Revolution came to Xinjiang. At the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution – the decade-long civil war that paralysed China and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people – provincial officials were initially successful in preventing the chaos spilling into Xinjiang.11 But the Red Guards could not be kept out forever, and along with a fervent loyalty to Mao and his desire to cleanse the country of ‘reactionary’ elements, they brought with them a vicious Han supremacist ideology.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins

agricultural Revolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, Boeing 747, classic study, complexity theory, delayed gratification, domesticated silver fox, double helix, Drosophila, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, invention of writing, lateral thinking, Louis Pasteur, mass immigration, nuclear winter, out of africa, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, Steven Pinker, Stuart Kauffman, the High Line, the long tail, urban sprawl

Now, as our time machine leaves the 10,000-year mark and heads for Rendezvous 0, we briefly pause, one more time, around 40,000 years ago. Here human society, entirely consisting of hunter-gatherers, underwent what may have been an even larger revolution than the agricultural one, the 'cultural Great Leap Forward'. The tale of the Great Leap Forward will be told by Cro-Magnon Man, named after the cave in the Dordogne where fossils of this race of Homo sapiens were first discovered. The Cro-Magnon's Tale Archaeology suggests that something very special began to happen to our species around 40,000 years ago. Anatomically, our ancestors who lived before this watershed date were the same as those who came later.

…

Of course there are also huge differences between the cultures of different peoples across the world today, and probably then too. But this wasn't true if we go back much more than 40,000 years. Something happened then -- many archaeologists regard it as sudden enough to be called an 'event'. I like Jared Diamond's name for it, the Great Leap Forward. Earlier than the Great Leap Forward, man-made artefacts had hardly changed for a million years. The ones that survive for us are almost entirely stone tools and weapons, quite crudely shaped. Doubtless wood (or, in Asia, bamboo) was a more frequently worked material, but wooden relics don't easily survive. As far as we can tell, there were no paintings, no carvings, no figurines, no grave goods, no ornamentation.

…

But first, while our time machine is still in bottom gear, travelling on the timescale of human history rather than evolutionary history, a pair of tales about two major cultural advances. The Farmer's Tale is the story of the Agricultural Revolution, arguably the human innovation that has had the greatest repercussions for the rest of the world's organisms. And the Cro-Magnon's Tale is about the 'Great Leap Forward', that flowering of the human mind which, in a special sense, provided a new medium for the evolutionary process itself. The Farmer's Tale The Agricultural Revolution began at the wane of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, in the so-called Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The Post-American World: Release 2.0 by Fareed Zakaria

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, airport security, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, conceptual framework, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, delayed gratification, Deng Xiaoping, double entry bookkeeping, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, interest rate derivative, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), knowledge economy, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, mutually assured destruction, National Debt Clock, new economy, no-fly zone, oil shock, open economy, out of africa, Parag Khanna, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South China Sea, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, The future is already here, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, Washington Consensus, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

It is a matter not of reconfiguring power but of relinquishing power—breaking down vested interests, dismantling patronage networks, and forsaking institutionalized privileges. None of this would mean giving up control of the government, at least not yet, but it would mean narrowing its scope and role and authority. And with all its new management training, is China’s Communist Party ready to take that great leap forward? Most autocratic regimes that have modernized their economies—Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, Portugal—have weathered the political changes that followed and emerged with greater stability and legitimacy. Beijing has faced challenges before and adapted. And even if the regime mismanages this transition, political upheaval and turmoil will not necessarily stop China from growing.

…

China is hungry for success and this might well be a key reason for its enduring rise. In the twentieth century, after hundreds of years of poverty, the country went through imperial collapse, civil war, and revolution only to find itself in Mao’s hellish version of communism. It lost 38 million people in the Great Leap Forward, a brutal experiment in collectivization. Then it burrowed itself deeper in isolation and destroyed its entire professional and academic class during the Cultural Revolution. Unlike India, which could be proud of its democracy despite slow economic growth, China by the 1970s was bereft of any reason to raise its head high.

…

“China’s youth must be made aware of the need to reassure the world that China’s rise will not turn out to be a disruptive force,” he said in a speech at Fudan University. Lee implied that what has kept Chinese leaders humble since Deng Xiao-ping is the bitter memory of Mao’s mistakes—fomenting revolutions abroad, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, which together resulted in the deaths of about forty million Chinese. “It is vital,” Lee went on, “that the younger generation of Chinese who have only lived through a period of peace and growth and have no experience of China’s tumultuous past are made aware of the mistakes China made as a result of hubris and excesses in ideology.”

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 by David Edgerton

agricultural Revolution, anti-communist, British Empire, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, creative destruction, deglobalization, dematerialisation, desegregation, deskilling, Dr. Strangelove, endogenous growth, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, general purpose technology, global village, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, interchangeable parts, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, means of production, megacity, microcredit, Neil Armstrong, new economy, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, Productivity paradox, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, the long tail, Upton Sinclair, urban planning

From the late 1950s ‘backyard iron and steel’ production, together with small-scale cement kilns, fertiliser plants, agricultural machinery workshops, food-processing works, power generation and mining boomed under the Great Leap Forward. Fertiliser production was a rare example of a novel technology, for local plants made a fertiliser used nowhere else in the world – ammonium bicarbonate. The Chinese people paid an enormous price for what was by any measure the profoundly unsuccessful Great Leap Forward. Millions of lives were lost to famine, and there was also a cruel waste of technological and natural resources in a desperately poor country. With the collapse of the Great Leap many local enterprises closed.

…

In the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a concerted attack on the division between managers and workers – a distinction central to Taylorism and Fordism, and an attack too on the division of labour itself.58 Small-scale rural industries were promoted, as during the earlier Great Leap Forward. Although the Chinese economy grew, it did so very unstably and relatively slowly. After 1976 the Chinese Communist party changed direction, and with the abolition of collective farming and the move to household farming in the 1980s, presided over a productivity surge in Chinese agriculture.

…

Brazilian aircraft carrier Minas Gerais (Tom Pietrasik) Index Figures in italics refer to captions; those in bold to Tables. 2,4-D herbicide 162–3 17 of October (ship) 94, 124 A A-bomb see atomic bomb abattoirs 173 abortificients 23 abortion 23 Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq 156 academic science, and invention 185–7 acid rain 121 acupuncture 49 Acyclovir 163 advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) 21 AEG 193 aeronautical research 186 aeroplanes ix, xiv, 1, 3, 6, 28, 159, 191 appearance as a new technology 31 civil aircraft 117 and civilianised warfare 139 downplaying of military origins 142 hypersonic 38 killing by 146 and nationalism 116 powered aeroplane innovated in the USA 111 primarily a weapon of war 116, 158 R&D 197 supersonic 38 see also aviation; flight Afghanistan 145, 153 Africa death rate per car 27 guerrilla rebellions 152–3 malaria 27 sub-Saharan income per head 207 African National Congress 122 AGA range 57 Agency for International Development (AID) 157 agent orange 163 Agfa 130, 193 Agfacolor 130 agricultural revolution 64–6 agriculture family farms in the USA and USSR 62–4 horsepower xiii, 33–4 output 53 productivity 65, 74 shift to industry 52 Agrigento, Sicily 78 AIDS 25, 27, 49, 164, 207 Air France 21–2 air transport, cheap 115 air-conditioning 170 aircraft see aeroplanes aircraft industry 116, 158 airships 38, 50, 199 Al-Khahira (Cairo) jet trainer 125 Alang Beach, Gujarat, India 208 Albania 118, 131–2 Aliano, Basilicata, Italy 122–3 alkali 190 Allen & Hanbury 196 Almirante Latorre (battleship) 92 alternating current (AC) electrical systems 8–9, 176 alternatives assumption that there are no alternatives 6–7, 8 comparable alternatives 7–8 using a thing marginally better than alternatives 8 American Civil War 146 American Monarch (ship) 167 Amgen 202 AMO factory, Moscow 126 amodiaquine 26 analytical labs 192 animals husbandry 66 hybrids 190 killing 161, 164, 172, 173–6 anti-aircraft guns 14, 15 anti-malarials 164, 199 anti-missile systems 155–6 anti-virals 163 antibiotics 163, 190 antifungal treatments 164 apartheid 122 Apocalypse Now (film) 152 Arab oil embargo (1973) 122 Arab–Israeli wars 146–7 architecture ‘post-modern’ viii vernacular 41 Argentina builds a jet fighter 124–5 meat exports to Britain 172 national industrial development 118 the picana eléctrica 157 Argentina (liner) 124 Armament and History (Fuller) 141 Armenians 178–9 Armour meat packers 171, 172 Armstrong, Neil viii artillery fire 143, 144, 190 asbestos 42, 43, 211 asbestos-cement 42, 43 Asia: rice production 64–5 astronauts viii AT&T 193, 195 Atebrin (mepacrine) 25 atomic bomb xiv, 15–19, 21, 114–15, 117, 123, 138, 139, 158, 159, 185, 198, 199 atomic power 3, 6 Auschwitz–Birkenau extermination camp, Poland 121, 165, 180–81, 182 Australia maintenance and repair 80 meat trade 172 national industrial development 118 autarky 115, 116, 117–19 Autochrome process 193 autogiro 103 automation 2, 3, 85 Aventis 196 aviation 1, 19, 143 choices in aircraft construction 10 civil 6, 116 and empires 132 engine types 10 maintenance 87–91, 89 power of 141 supersonic stratospheric 3 see also aeroplanes; flight Axis Powers 18 AZT 164 B B-29 bombers 13, 15, 16, 123 B-52 bombers viii, ix, 95, 152, 155 ballistic missiles 154 Bangkok, Thailand long-tailed boats 47 Science Museum 28 Bangladesh motorised country-boats 48, 61 rice production 65 shipbreaking 208 barbed wire 146 Barham, HMS 93–4 BASF 119, 120, 121, 193 battleships x, xiv, 92–4, 93, 97, 141, 142, 143, 148–9, 154 Bayer 193, 194 Bayh–Dole Act (1980) 187 Beechams 196 Beef Trust 171 Belgrano (ARA General Belgrano) 94 Bell Labs 195, 196 Bell telephone 132 Belzec extermination camp, Poland 179 Bergius, Friedrich 120 Berlin–Baghdad railway xi bicycles x, 4, 45, 50–51, 58, 61 bidonvilles 41 Billingham plant, Stockton-on-Tees 119, 121 biological warfare 149 biotechnology 1, 185, 188, 192, 196, 202–3 Biro, Ladislao José 103 biro pen 103 birth control 23 Bishop, Billy 114 Bloodhound anti-aircraft missile ix Blue Star Line 172 boats fishing 49 long-tailed 47–8 motor torpedo 68 motorised country-boats 48–9, 61 bomber aircraft viii, ix, x, xiv, 9, 13, 13–16, 18, 95, 97, 123, 143, 147, 148, 150, 152, 155 Bomber Command 14 bombing atomic 15–19 conventional 12–15 ‘dumb’ bombs 155 ‘smart’ bombs 155 targets 12–13, 14, 15, 16 Borges, Jorge Luis 94 boundaries 117, 131, 132 branding 71 Braun, Werner von 18 Brazil (film) 75 Brezhnev, Leonid 102 Bristol Jupiter engine 88 Britain agricultural yields 64 autarchy 118 aviation 104, 111 car production 69 coal consumption ix cotton industry 36–7, 105, 190 economic growth 206 executions 176 horsepower in First World War 35 maintenance and repair 80 meat imports 172 output per head 109 privatisation of railways 87 R&D 109 railway workshops 98 steam power ix, 105 television 131 truck production 69 two-way movements between Britain/France and Britain/India 111–12 British Airways 21–2 British Electrical Development Association 56 British Empire 135 Brunnental, Soviet Union 62–3 Bumper V-2 rocket 2 Burmese army 145 Burney, Commander Sir Charles Dennistoun 167 buses ix, 96, 98, 191 C cable TV x, 49 Calcutta: rickshaws and cycle-rickshaws 45–6 Cambodia 182 Camden Market, London 33 camels 35 caravans 28, 30 cameras, replica 50 Canada: maintenance statistics 79 cap, the 24 Cape Canaveral, Florida 2 capitalism 76, 128 carbon monoxide 121, 179–80 Carrier, Dr Willis H. 170 Carrier Corporation 170 carrier pigeons 43 Carson, Rachel: Silent Spring 163 carving 28 CASA company 125 cavalry units 35 CDs 7 cement ix, 45 ceremonial occasions: use of reserve technologies 11 Césaire, Aimé 133 CFC gases 211 Chamoiseau, Patrick: Texaco 42–3 Cheliabinsk, Soviet Union 126 Chelmno extermination camp, Poland 179 chemical warfare 164 chemicals 1, 105, 188, 191, 192 chemistry 2, 130, 185, 186 organic 185 synthetic 4, 185 Chicago meatpackers 129–30, 171–5 chickens 66, 163, 164, 174–5 China agriculture 73 and Albania 131–2 atomic weapons as ‘paper tigers’ 19 autarchy 118 bicycle production 45 collective farming abolished 73 control of the internet 137 cotton textiles 65 Cultural Revolution 45, 72 economic growth 109, 112, 207 economy 73 executions 177 export of containers 74 foreign enterprise 137 ‘four big belongings’ 58–9 Great Leap Forward 44–5, 73 a hydraulic society 76 imitation of foreign technologies 112 industrialisation 73 links with Soviet Union (1949–60) 131 low-tech exports 137 Maoists 152 nationalism 137 old small scale technologies 72–3 pig production 66 produces Soviet technology 44 promotion of small-scale rural industries 72–3 rural industries 73 second Sino–Japanese War 140, 179 steel production 73 ‘technological dualism’ 44 Chinese Communist party 73 Chinese First Automotive Works 126 chlorinated organic compounds 161–2 chloroquine 26, 164 cholera 25 Ciba 196 Ciba-Geigy 26 Cierva, Juan de la 103 cinema ix, 203 cities of the poor world 39–40 clinical trials 11–12, 201 clothes: trade in old clothes 81 coal consumption ix hydrogenation of 120, 121–2, 186, 199 Cold War 123 ‘cold-chains’ 170 collectivisation 63, 64, 127 colonialism 39, 134 Common Market 119, 175 communications technologies xiv, 2 Communist movement 60 Companhia Energética de Sao Paulo 99 computer-numerically-controlled machine tool 158–9 computerisation 2 computers ix–x, 1, 158 analogue 7, 9 cheap PCs 71 digital 3, 6, 7, 9 initial cost as a percentage of lifetime cost 78 Concorde 21–2, 38, 96–7 condoms 1, 22–3, 24, 25, 49, 190 Congo War, second 146 contraception vii, x, 1, 22–5, 49, 190 cooking ranges 57 copper 73 corn, hybrid 64 corporate research laboratories 192 corrugated iron 41–3, 50–51, 78 cost-benefit analysis 11–12, 21, 142 cotton industry ix, 36–7, 65, 105, 136 Cotton Industry Act (1959) 38 credit agreements xv creole technologies xii, 39, 43–5, 46–7 creolisation of technology 85 Cuba 36, 207 Cudahy meat packers 171 cultural lag viii, 141, 212 Cultural Revolution 45, 72 cultural significance, measurement of 1 cycle-rickshaws 46–7, 48–9, 191 D Daktarin 164 Dalén, Nils Gustav 57 Datong Locomotive Works, China 50 DC-3 airliner 88, 197 DC-4 aircraft 197, 198 DC-6 aircraft 88 DC-8 jet 88, 197 DDT 26–7, 38, 162–3, 162 De Niro, Robert 75 de-globalisation 212 dependence 39 depression 37 Derwent jet engine 123 design 71 Detroit automation 86 Deutsches Museum, Munich 104 development labs 192 Dewoitine, Emile 125 diaphragm 24 diesel engine 3 differential analysers 7 diffusion vii Digital Signal Processing chip 195 direct current (DC) electrical systems 8, 9, 176 division of labour 72 Dnieper complex, Soviet Union 127 dockyards 91 domestic equipment 81 domestic production 56 ‘domestic science’ 56 domestic servants 56 domestic technologies xiv, 4, 56 domestic work, scientific organisation of 56 donkey carts 28, 30, 49 Dornier, Claude 125 douches 23 Dreadnought (battleship) 92 dreadnoughts 92, 148 Dufay process 130 Du Pont 20, 158, 193, 194–5 Durex 25 E East Germany: hydrogenation 121 Eastman Kodak 130, 193 economic growth 5, 52, 108, 109, 110, 206–7 economic history 3 economies of scale 71 ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) 38 Edison, Thomas 176 Edwards Air Force Base, California viii Egypt Ancient 76 aviation 126 Einsatzgruppen 179 ELAS resistance movement 60 electricity x, 1, 3, 6, 76–7, 185, 188, 190, 192 increased usage 5 electrification 2, 6, 32 electrocution/electric chair 165, 176, 177, 178 electronic communication: change in price 6–7 electronics 3, 99, 105, 191 Elizalde 31 Elliot, Gil: The Twentieth Century Book of the Dead 145–6 EMI 130, 131 empires 132, 134 employment in agriculture 53 in industry 53 service industries 53, 70 enclaves for European colonisers 134 engineering 19 masculinity of 101 mass production 67 engineers xiii, 100–102, 192–3 state 101 engines jet 10 petrol 10 Erikson, Gustaf 95 Europe car accidents 27 car production 69, 70 uptake of new technologies 32 European Union (EU) 200, 206 Eva Péron (liner) 124 F Fairchild Semiconductor 195, 203 Fairfree (factory stern trawler) 167 Falklands war 94 Far East growth rates 207 Faust, Mrs Mary 54 fertilisers 44, 45, 50, 64, 65, 67, 119–20 fertility control 23 feudalism 76 Fiat 69, 127 fibre-optic cables 7, 49 firing squads 176 First World War 31, 34, 34–5, 130 battleships x, 148, 149 casualty rates 146 chemical warfare 164 a chemist’s war 138 deaths 143 developments in artillery practice 143 H.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Albert Einstein, complexity theory, David Sedaris, East Village, Easter island, Great Leap Forward, index card, means of production, rent control

Acknowledgment is made to the following, in which various forms of this book’s pieces first appeared: New Yorker: “Genetic Engineering” • Esquire: “You Can’t Kill the Rooster,” “The Youth in Asia,” “A Shiner Like a Diamond,” “Big Boy,” “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “Jesus Shaves,” “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” “Smart Guy” • “This American Life”: “Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities,” “Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist” • BBC Radio 4: “The Great Leap Forward,” “Today’s Special,” “City of Angels,” “The Tapeworm Is In.” ISBN: 978-0-316-07365-3 Contents Copyright Page One Go Carolina Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities Genetic Engineering Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist You Can’t Kill the Rooster The Youth in Asia The Learning Curve Big Boy The Great Leap Forward Today’s Special City of Angels A Shiner Like a Diamond Nutcracker.com Deux See You Again Yesterday Me Talk Pretty One Day Jesus Shaves The Tapeworm Is In Make That a Double Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa 21 Down The City of Light in the Dark I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag Picka Pocketoni I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed Smart Guy The Late Show I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing Also by David Sedaris Acclaim for David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day “Blisteringly funny

…

And I was left thinking that the person who’d abandoned the huge turd had no problem with it, so why did I? Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects. The Great Leap Forward WHEN I FIRST MOVED TO NEW YORK, I shared a reasonably priced two-bedroom apartment half a block from the Hudson River. I had no job at the time and was living off the cruel joke I referred to as my savings. In the evenings, lacking anything better to do, I used to head east and stare into the windows of the handsome, single-family town houses, wondering what went on in those well-appointed rooms.

…

The best of times were snappy autumn afternoons when we’d finished moving a two-bedroom customer from Manhattan to some faraway neighborhood in Brooklyn or Queens. The side doors would be open as we crowded in the front seat, Patrick listening to a taped translation of Chairman Mao boasting about “the great leap forward.” Traffic would be heavy on the bridge due to an accident, and because we were paid for travel time, we’d hope that the pileup involved at least one piece of heavy machinery. When the tape became too monotonous, I’d ask Richie about his days at the reformatory and pleasantly drowse as he spoke of twelve-year-old car thieves and boys who had killed their brothers over an ice-cream sandwich.

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos

conceptual framework, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, Deng Xiaoping, East Village, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, financial independence, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, land reform, Lao Tzu, low skilled workers, market fundamentalism, Mohammed Bouazizi, plutocrats, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, rolodex, scientific worldview, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, transcontinental railway, Washington Consensus, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, young professional

In 1958, Chairman Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, attempting to vault his country past Britain in just fifteen years. Some advisers told him it was impossible, but he ignored and humiliated them; the head of the national technology commission jumped out a window. The propagandists hailed one fantastical harvest after another, calling them “Sputnik harvests,” on par with the success of the Soviet satellite. But the numbers were fiction, and as starvation spread, many who complained were tortured or killed. The Party barred people from traveling to find food. Mao’s Great Leap Forward resulted in the world’s worst famine, which killed between thirty and forty-five million people, more than World War I.

…

There were badges that glowed in the dark and badges made from U.S. fighter planes downed in Vietnam. The inscriptions hailed the Chairman as the “Messiah of the Working People” and the “Great Savior” and the “Red Sun in Our Hearts.” The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s final play for power. After the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward, his rivals had pushed him aside, so Mao unleashed China’s youth to “bombard the headquarters.” It gave him a new aura: “Let Mao Zedong’s thought control everything,” the media declared, and people confessed their sins at the foot of his statues. His Little Red Book of quotations became known for mysterious powers: the state press reported that the book had enabled a team of surgeons to remove a ninety-nine-pound tumor; it had helped workers in Shanghai raise the sinking city by three-quarters of an inch.

…

During my time in China, I had learned to expect renderings of history that felt like the drop-outs in an audio recording, when the music goes silent and resumes as if nothing happened. Some of those edits were ordained from above: the Party barred people from discussing the crackdown at Tiananmen or the famine of the Great Leap Forward because it had never repudiated or accepted responsibility for them, nor had it dealt with the question of what changes might prevent their happening again. For a long time, ordinary Chinese were willing to aid in the forgetting, not only because they were poor and determined to get on with their lives, but also because many had been victims at some moments and perpetrators at others.

Why geography matters: three challenges facing America : climate change, the rise of China, and global terrorism by Harm J. De Blij

agricultural Revolution, airport security, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, British Empire, colonial exploitation, complexity theory, computer age, crony capitalism, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Eratosthenes, European colonialism, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global village, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Internet Archive, John Snow's cholera map, Khyber Pass, manufacturing employment, megacity, megaproject, Mercator projection, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Nelson Mandela, Oklahoma City bombing, out of africa, RAND corporation, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, social distancing, South China Sea, special economic zone, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, UNCLOS, UNCLOS

But in the process, China's communist planners also made terrible mistakes. The so-called Great Leap Forward, started in 1958 as the final transformation of China's social life, required the reorganization of the peasantry into communal brigades to combine local industrialization with more productive farming. Peasants were forced into collectivized villages, families were torn apart, and the historic rhythm of agriculture was severely disrupted. Between 20 and 30 million people had died of starvation by the time the Great Leap Forward was abandoned in 1962. Meanwhile Mao had moved to reassert Han Chinese influence in the country's distant frontiers.

…

And the Soviet advisers were simply sent home, not punished for their despised "revisionism." All the while, China was not a member of the United Nations, Chinese goods were not seen on international markets, and China slumbered on in self-imposed isolation. Convulsive nightmares such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, costing tens of millions of lives, periodically stirred China but had no effect on the outside world. Famines and natural disasters had little impact on population numbers: overwhelmingly rural China grew exponentially, contributing about one-quarter of the global yield of the twentieth-century population explosion.

…

Mao often referred to any control of population growth as a capitalist plot to weaken communist societies, and, like his cohorts in Moscow, he encouraged mothers to have numerous children (in the 1960s, Soviet women bearing ten children or more were designated "Heroines of the State"). As a result, following the end of the Great Leap Forward, population growth in China during the 1960s and 1970s was as high as 3 percent, and while the official figures are unreliable, China was adding as many as 20 million per year, rushing toward 1 billion. When Deng Xiaoping's pragmatists took over following Mao's death, one of their priorities was to get this spiral under control, and they instituted their infamous "One Child Only" policy to achieve this.

The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times by Giovanni Arrighi

anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business logic, business process, classic study, colonial rule, commoditize, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deindustrialization, double entry bookkeeping, European colonialism, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial independence, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, gentrification, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, informal economy, invisible hand, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kōnosuke Matsushita, late capitalism, London Interbank Offered Rate, means of production, Meghnad Desai, military-industrial complex, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Peace of Westphalia, post-Fordism, profit maximization, Project for a New American Century, RAND corporation, reserve currency, scientific management, spice trade, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez canal 1869, the market place, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, vertical integration, Yom Kippur War

As long as the mercantile expansion was in its phase of increasing returns, the main function of British provincial banking networks had been to transfer monetary resources — mostly in the form of revolving and open credits — from local, mostly agrarian, enterprises with a surplus of liquidity to other local enterprises with a chronic shortage on account of their high rate of growth or high ratio of fixed to working capital, or both (cf. Pollard 1964; Cameron 1967; Landes 1969: 75-7). But as soon as the midcentury great leap forward pushed the mercantile expansion into a phase of decreasing returns and intensifying competitive pressures, British provincial banking networks came to perform an entirely different function. Increasingly, it was no longer just agrarian enterprises that were accumulating large cash surpluses (partly from rents, partly from profits) far in excess of what could be reinvested safely and profitably in their established lines of business.

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In 1813, this industry still employed fewer than 3,000 powerlooms and more than 200,000 handloom weavers. But by around 1860, there were more than 400,000 powerlooms in operation and handloom weavers had become an extinct species (Wood 1910: 593-9; Crouzet 1982: 199). It is hard to imagine how this great leap forward in the mechanization of the British textile industry could have occurred at a time of stagnant domestic and foreign demand for its output except through the conquest of the Indian market and the consequent destruction of the Indian textile industry. Just as in the latter half of the fourteenth century the initial creation of an English woolen cloth industry had as its counterpart the forcible destruction of the Flemish cloth industry and the spontaneous deindustrialization of Florence, so in the early to mid-nineteenth century the final flourishing of mechanization in the British cotton industry had as its counterpart the parallel destruction of the Indian textile industry.

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The United States was not the first state to benefit tremendously from the troubles of the world-economy of which it was an integral and major component. Its experience had been prefigured by Venice in the fifteenth century, the United Provinces in the seventeenth century, and the United Kingdom in the eighteenth century. As in all previous instances of prodigious enrichment and empowerment in the midst of increasing systemic chaos, the great leap forward of US wealth and power between 1914 and 1945 was primarily the expression of the protection rent which it enjoyed thanks to a uniquely privileged position in the spatial configuration of the capitalist world-economy. The more turbulent and chaotic the world system became, the greater the benefits that accrued to the United States in virtue of its continental size, its island position, and its direct access to the two major oceans of the worldeconomy (see chapter 1).

The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China by David Eimer

back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, British Empire, car-free, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, mass immigration, megacity, offshore financial centre, open borders, South China Sea

Children and students were encouraged to attack their parents and teachers, the education and legal systems collapsed and millions were purged, imprisoned and tortured, or ‘sent down’ to the countryside to work in the fields. More than anything, the Cultural Revolution gave ordinary people a licence to settle scores, through the simple tactic of denouncing their neighbours as class enemies. In terms of loss of life, it didn’t come close to matching the disastrous effects of the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s. That resulted in between thirty and forty-five million people starving to death in another of Mao’s utterly futile and destructive schemes. But the Cultural Revolution was far worse in the way it turned the Chinese on each other, creating huge fault lines in society and morality that remain today.

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The house was heated in the traditional Korean way: a wood-fired oven under a raised platform, known as a gudeul, which covered much of the main room. We sat on it to eat a delicious lunch of soybean soup, cold fish, beef and rice, along with Granny’s homemade kimchi. She had moved to Yanbian after her marriage. It was the time when China was in the throes of the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s catastrophic attempt to transform a then overwhelmingly agricultural country into a modern industrialised economy in a few short years. As harvests shrank because people were taken off farms to work in backyard factories, two years of severe drought further reduced the amount of food being produced.

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Officials doctored the grim statistics, too scared to report the truth. Mao’s egotistical policy of continuing to export grain to Russia and Africa, in an effort to convince the world of the superiority of the Chinese communist system, only accentuated the food shortage. Instead of turning China into a manufacturing nation, the Great Leap Forward resulted in up to forty-five million people dying in one of the world’s worst famines. ‘It was 1959. I worked on the farm, growing corn and some vegetables. But we had no rice or meat to eat,’ recalled the grandmother. ‘Life was so hard then and in the early 1960s that there was no time to do anything but survive.

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, colonial rule, company town, cotton gin, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, gentleman farmer, Great Leap Forward, Honoré de Balzac, indoor plumbing, joint-stock company, life extension, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Mikhail Gorbachev, old-boy network, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, plutocrats, rent control, Steve Jobs, trade route

At one point they even discussed moving the entire population to the countryside for “reeducation.” When Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, it was a disaster, producing widespread famine. Many Chinese in the south survived only because relatives in Hong Kong smuggled them packages of food. Communist officials later admitted that 100 million people suffered from some form of persecution in the first three decades of Communist rule. The Cultural Revolution was even worse. Following the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, China’s other leaders sidelined Mao and began introducing economic reforms. Mao decided to strike back, unleashing the Cultural Revolution, which was designed to topple his opponents by mobilizing radicalized young people.

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But in Hong Kong, he was making it all back—and then some. In China, by contrast, after a decade of rapid growth following their seizure of power, the Communists were embarking on a series of politically driven economic experiments designed to push the Chinese economy past Great Britain and rival capitalist countries. The Great Leap Forward, initiated by Mao in the late 1950s, aimed to turn every backyard shed and outbuilding into a factory and dramatically increase grain production through central planning. It caused a countrywide famine that killed millions. The full extent of the disaster wouldn’t be revealed for decades, but refugees who escaped China for Hong Kong told horrifying stories of starvation and poverty to Chinese friends and relatives whose own economic lot was improving

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Victor Sassoon), 130, 248–49, 280, 296 Baum, Vicki, 120 BBC, 259 Bedouins, 6 Beer, Frederick, 102, 104 Beer, Rachel Sassoon, xii, 101–5, 294 conversion to Christianity, 102, 103, 105 death of, 104 declared insane, 104, 294 Dreyfus affair and, 103–4 as feminist and liberal, 103, 105 journalism career of, 102–4, 294 marriage of, 102 move to London, 102 Beijing, xxx, 24, 37, 77, 263 Shanghai and, 295 Tiananmen Square massacre in, xxi, 278, 286, 292 Benjamin, Kelly & Potts, 54 Berlin, xxii–xxiii, 118, 172 Blumenthal, Michael, xxvii, 269–70, 271, 282 Bombay, 7, 9–14, 21, 26–27, 32–34, 110 bubonic plague and cholera in, 99–100 David Sassoon in, 10–13, 16, 20–21 opium business and, 18 Victor Sassoon’s move to, 113 Bombay Gazette, 34 “boxwallahs,” 115 Braga, José Pedro, 126–27, 179 Brazil, 158–59 bribery, 11, 30 Britain: Asian trade opened up by, 10, 11, 24 Balfour Declaration issued by, 89, 90, 92, 95, 153 China as viewed in, 46 China’s clashes with, xxii, xxv, 16–17, 19, 36, 37, 40, 52, 66, 67 China’s trade imbalance with, 17–18 David Sassoon as supporter of, 10–12, 14, 19–21 Hong Kong as colony of, 19, 55, 58–59, 126, 178, 205, 227, 232, 238, 239, 243, 246, 252–53, 258, 265–66, 274 in Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” plan, 273–74 Hong Kong returned to China by, 265–67, 269, 272–75, 285, 292 intelligence agents of, 156 Japan and, 157–58 Jews in, 3, 11, 42–44, 56, 58, 60 Lawrence’s nuclear power plan and, 267–68 opium trade and, 17–20 in Opium Wars, xxii, xxv, 19, 36, 37, 52, 66, 67, 137, 258, 295 restrictions on Chinese imposed by, 80 restrictions on immigration from Hong Kong to, 274–75 Royal Air Force, 202, 223–24, 227 Sassoon family’s identity in, 45 Sassoon family’s influence in, 41–45, 49, 83, 122, 128 Shanghai and, 28–29, 66 social tolerance in, 11 Treaty of Nanjing and, 19, 24 in World War I, 69 British East India Company, 7, 9, 10, 18 Sepoy Mutiny and, 20–21 British Empire, 10, 11, 16, 226, 243, 246 British Museum, 37 bubonic plague, 52–53, 99–100 Buddhism, 89 Buffett, Warren, 54 Bund, xviii, xix, xxix, xxxi, 33, 78, 93, 95, 116–18, 121, 123, 135, 138, 142, 165, 169, 174, 175, 196, 213, 235, 270, 286, 287, 289 Bushire, 8–10, 21 Callaghan, James, 263–64, 265, 267 Canada, 159 Canton, 24, 27, 32, 267 Cathay Hotel, see Peace Hotel Cathay Mansions, 121, 131 Chancellor, Sylvia, 161 Chaozhou, 39 Chapei Internment Camp, 176, 187, 194–95, 202 Chaplin, Charlie, xxvii, 120, 154–55 Chartered Bank, 64 Chefoo, 62 Chen Duxiu, 94–95 cheongsams, xxxi, 87, 119 Chiang Kai-Shek, xv, xxvi, 89–90, 96–97, 105, 116, 122–23, 140, 141, 203, 205, 210, 216, 286 businessmen targeted by, 122–23 U.S. aid and, 204 Victor Sassoon and, 123, 139, 152 wedding of, 97 Chiang Kai-shek, Madame (Soong Mei-ling), 90–91, 97, 124, 125 Children’s Palace, xxii Child Welfare Fund, 217, 219 China, 16–21 anti-foreign sentiment in, 203 banks in, 140–41 Britain’s clashes with, xxii, xxv, 16–17, 19, 36, 37, 40, 52, 66, 67 Britain’s restrictions on population in, 80 Britain’s trade imbalance with, 17–18 colonial view of, 46 Communists in, see Chinese Communists deterioration of, 62, 77 entrepreneurs in, 31 factories in, 80 farmers in, 139 foreign invaders in, 66–67 foreign traders in, 19, 49 Japan and, 62, 66, 137, 141–43, 151, 155 modernizing reforms advocated in, 66–67 Nationalists in, see China, Nationalist government in opium trade and, 17–20 in Opium Wars, xxii, xxv, 19, 36, 37, 52, 66, 67, 137, 258, 295 railways in, 68 Republic of China established, 68 revolution of 1911 in, 66, 68 rubber bubble and, 67–68 silver in, 139–40 Taiping Rebellion in, 31, 66 Treaty of Nanjing and, 19, 24 United States and, 66 warlord period in, 77 China, Nationalist government in, 96, 116, 122–24, 135, 139, 147, 197, 205, 209, 217, 228, 230, 292 banks and, 140–41 Communist cease-fire with, 205 Communist conflicts with, 96, 140, 204–5 Communist victory over, 209–10, 213, 216, 217 extraterritoriality and, 140, 203 inflation and, 206 flight to Taiwan, 197 Luce and, 125 modernization and, 122, 123, 125 Shanghai and, 96, 203–6 Shanghai surrendered by, 213, 216, 217 U.S. aid to, 204 Victor Sassoon and, 124–25, 134, 139–41, 143, 152 China, People’s Republic of, xxv–xxvi Cultural Revolution in, xx, xxxi, 251–52, 260, 261, 264, 286 economy of, 261, 276, 288 famine in, 247, 251 founding of, 214 Great Leap Forward in, 247, 251 Hong Kong returned to, 265–67, 269, 272–75, 285, 292 in Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” plan, 273–74 Israel and, 271–72 Lawrence Kadoorie’s speech on, 275–76 Nixon’s visit to, xx, 260, 261 nuclear power in, 261–62, 267–68, 276–77 opening to the West, xix, 260–61, 265–66, 269–71, 287 peasants’ income in, 260 People’s Liberation Army (Red Army) in, 96, 136, 140, 213, 254 Red Guards in, 252–54, 260, 264 revolution of 1949, xix, xxiv, xxix, 46–47, 80–81, 135–36, 197, 200, 202, 214, 217 rural electrification program in, 245 Tiananmen Square massacre in, xxi, 278, 286, 292 U.S. relations with, xx, xxix, 260–61, 267 Vietnam and, 271 see also Chinese Communists China International Trust and Investment Corporation, 285 China Light and Power, 91, 92–93, 126, 160, 179–80, 223, 225, 233–34, 245, 246, 252, 262, 263, 268, 281, 282, 284–85 China Lobby, 123–24, 125 China Merchants Steam Navigation Co., 231 Chinese Communists, xix–xx, xxiii, xxv–xxvi, 94–95, 135, 139, 205–6, 225, 230, 291 Central Committee of, 207 Chinese businessmen targeted by, 234 execution of supporters of, 96, 97 foreign businesses and, 214, 216, 217 Hong Kong and, 226, 230, 233, 239, 243, 245, 252–54, 275 Kadoorie family and, 95, 205, 214, 216–19 major offensive launched by, 207–13 Nationalist cease-fire with, 205 Nationalist conflicts with, 96, 140, 204–5 Nationalist surrender to, 209–10, 213, 216, 217 revolution of 1949, xix, xxiv, xxix, 46–47, 80–81, 135–36, 197, 200, 202, 214, 217 Sassoon family and, 214–15 Shanghai advance of, 205, 207–13, 228, 230, 232 Shanghai conquered by, 200, 213, 216, 217, 223, 234, 235 Shanghai population as target of, 251 Shanghai ruled by, 213–19 Shanghai uprising of 1927, 95–96, 105 Sun Yat-sen and, 97 support for, in Shanghai, 133–34, 135 suppression of, 96, 97, 105, 116 suspicion of Shanghai among, 251, 288 Tsang family and, 240 Victor Sassoon and, 124, 211, 213–15, 218, 249 see also China, People’s Republic of Chinese immigrants in U.S., 41 cholera, 99–100 Christianity, 147, 151 Churchill, Winston, 44, 174 Gandhi as viewed by, 114 Ciro’s, 121 Civil War, American, 13, 32 Cixi, Empress Dowager, 98–99 Claridge’s, 117, 118 Cohen, Morris, 90 Cold War, xix, 243, 275 colonialism, 14, 246 communism, Communist Party, 95, 155 in China, see Chinese Communists in India, 115, 155 Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels), 94 Communist Party of China, see Chinese Communists compradors, 30 Confucianism, 89, 147 Conte Biancamano, 145, 149 corruption, 30 bribery, 11, 30 cotton, 13, 112, 233 Countess from Hong Kong, A, 120 Coward, Noël, xxvii, 120, 163 Cox, Evelyn, 249, 295–97 Cromwell, Oliver, 56 Cuba, 183 Cultural Revolution, xx, xxxi, 251–52, 260, 261, 264, 286 David Sassoon Benevolent Institution, 15 David Sassoon Mechanics Institute, 15–16 Daya Bay, 268, 273, 276–78, 281, 284 Deng Xiaoping, xiii, xv, xx, 256, 260–61, 264, 265, 268, 273, 277–78, 287 Four Modernizations of, 261 Lawrence Kadoorie and, 256, 273, 276–77, 278, 281 Rong Yiren and, 261 Thatcher and, 273, 286 Tiananmen Square massacre and, 278 Depression, Great, xxvi, xxviii, 125, 139 Dominican Republic, 159 Doron family, 148 Dreyfus, Alfred, 103–4 drug addiction, 17, 18 Edward VII, King (Prince of Wales; Bertie), 21, 42–43, 44, 69, 104 Edward VIII, King, 114, 120 Eisenberg, Shaul, 271–72 Elizabeth II, Queen, 269 Elphinstone, John Elphinstone, Lord, 21 Embankment House, 121, 160, 193, 214–15 European Jewish Artist Society, 163 Évian Conference, 159 Fairbanks, Douglas, 87 Faisal, King, 87, 186 FBI, 170 feng shui, 231 Ford, Henry, 64, 150–51 Fortune, 125–26, 134, 139 France, 66, 69 Nazi Germany and, 172 Frederick the Great, 20 French Concession, 78, 81, 95, 163, 209 Gandhi, Mahatma, 112, 114–16, 124, 291–92 Gang of Four, xx–xxi Garbo, Greta, 120 George III, King, 17, 18 George V, King, 87 Germany, 66, 69, 147 Nazi, see Nazi Germany Sassoon companies and, 83–84 Weimar, 118 in World War I, 83–84 Gestapo, 168–69, 171 Ghoya, Kano, 191 globalization, xxviii, 291 Goddard, Paulette, 120 Goering, Hermann, 172 gold standard, 139 Google, xxviii, 292 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 266 Grand Hotel (Baum), 120 Grand Tour, xxvii Grant, Robert, 11 Great Britain, see Britain Great Depression, xxvi, xxviii, 125, 139 Great Dictator, The, 155 Great Leap Forward, 247, 251 Green, Maurice, 248 Grosvenor House, 121 Guangdong Province, 265 Guangzhou, 267 Hahn, Emily, xii, 107, 130–34, 169, 181, 248, 288, 294 Hahn, Helen, 131, 133 Hamilton House, 121, 174–75, 214, 261 Han Suyin, 192–93 Hardoon, Silas, xiv, xv, 90, 94, 112–13, 116, 118, 251 death of, 121 Harley-Davidson, 91 Hartwich, Lucie, 167, 182–83, 282 Hayim, Ellis, 193–94 Hebrew University, 89 Hindus, 98 Hitler, Adolf, 146–48, 151, 154 Ho Feng-Shan, xiv, 147–48, 159, 197, 289 Hok Un Power Station, 179–80, 202 Holocaust, 4, 196–97 see also Jewish refugees Hongkew, 137, 138, 162, 163, 166, 169, 190–92, 195–98, 218, 270, 271, 286, 288–89 Hong Kong, xxii, xxviii, xxix, 27–28, 32, 37, 52, 66, 113, 153, 159, 160, 165, 174, 202, 208, 224–25, 257–60, 288 banks in, 225 as boom town, 236, 257, 258 Britain’s return to China, 265–67, 269, 272–75, 285, 292 as British colony, 19, 55, 58–59, 126, 178, 205, 227, 232, 238, 239, 243, 246, 252–53, 258, 265–66, 274 Chinese refugees in, 236–40, 244 Communist-inspired riots in, 262 Communist threat to, 226, 230, 233, 239, 243, 245, 252–54, 275 Cultural Revolution and, 252–53 economic policies in, 266 economic recovery and growth in, 244, 258, 260 electricity in, 179, 243–46, 258 Elly and Laura Kadoorie in, 53–55, 57–60 Hong Kong Hotel in, 53–54 Horace Kadoorie in, 211, 212, 236–42 Japanese destruction of, 244, 225, 232, 233, 237 Japanese invasion and taking of prisoners in, 177–82, 185–86, 188 Japanese occupation of, 224–25 Kadoorie family’s wealth in, 257–58 Kadoorie Hill in, 127 Kadoories’ shifting of investments from Shanghai to, 178–79 Kowloon, 37, 57, 66, 126–27, 177, 179, 225, 226, 228, 233, 245, 258, 279 landlords in, 228 Lawrence Kadoorie in, 223–30, 243–48, 250, 252–54 Lawrence Kadoorie’s reforms and projects in, 224, 227–30, 236, 243–47, 258, 262, 272 Lawrence Kadoorie’s St.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, Atahualpa, banking crisis, Bartolomé de las Casas, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, bread and circuses, BRICs, British Empire, central bank independence, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of the americas, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial independence, financial innovation, financial intermediation, flying shuttle, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, invention of movable type, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, land reform, low interest rates, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, Mohammed Bouazizi, Paul Samuelson, price stability, profit motive, Robert Solow, Rosa Parks, Scramble for Africa, seminal paper, Simon Kuznets, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, union organizing, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, working poor

The result was a calamitous famine in the Chinese countryside. Though scholars debate the role of Mao’s policy compared with the impact of droughts at the same time, nobody doubts the central role of the Great Leap Forward in contributing to the death of between twenty and forty million people. We don’t know precisely how many, because China under Mao did not collect the numbers that would have documented the atrocities. Per capita income fell by around one-quarter. One consequence of the Great Leap Forward was that a senior member of the Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping, a very successful general during the revolution, who led an “anti-rightist” campaign resulting in the execution of many “enemies of the revolution,” had a change of heart.

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China, despite many imperfections in its economic and political system, has been the most rapidly growing nation of the past three decades. Chinese poverty until Mao Zedong’s death had nothing to do with Chinese culture; it was due to the disastrous way Mao organized the economy and conducted politics. In the 1950s, he promoted the Great Leap Forward, a drastic industrialization policy that led to mass starvation and famine. In the 1960s, he propagated the Cultural Revolution, which led to the mass persecution of intellectuals and educated people—anyone whose party loyalty might be doubted. This again led to terror and a huge waste of the society’s talent and resources.

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As with all extractive institutions, Mao’s regime was attempting to extract resources from the vast country he was now controlling. As in the case of the government of Sierra Leone with its marketing board, the Chinese Communist Party had a monopoly over the sale of produce, such as rice and grain, which was used to heavily tax farmers. The attempts at industrialization turned into the infamous Great Leap Forward after 1958 with the roll-out of the second five-year plan. Mao announced that steel output would double in a year based on small-scale “backyard” blast furnaces. He claimed that in fifteen years, China would catch up with British steel production. The only problem was that there was no feasible way of meeting these targets.

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey

3D printing, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, computer age, computer vision, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, deskilling, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, Fairchild Semiconductor, falling living standards, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, future of work, game design, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial cluster, industrial robot, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invention of the wheel, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, Loebner Prize, low skilled workers, machine translation, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, natural language processing, new economy, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nowcasting, oil shock, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, pink-collar, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, Renaissance Technologies, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robot derives from the Czech word robota Czech, meaning slave, safety bicycle, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, sparse data, speech recognition, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Turing test, union organizing, universal basic income, warehouse automation, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, women in the workforce, working poor, zero-sum game

There is no iron law that postulates that technology must benefit the many at the expense of the few. And quite naturally, when large swaths of the populace are left behind by technological change, they are likely to resist it. * * * The price of progress has varied greatly throughout history. Simplifications of human advancement like figure 1, which are often used to illustrate the great leap forward, miss all the action. The point is not that the figure is incorrect. It rightly shows that per capita growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was stagnant for millennia and took off in an extraordinary fashion around 1800. Thus, tracking progress purely in terms of average incomes leads one to conclusions like this one: “Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago.

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Large numbers of women were employed in offices as a direct result of the introduction of the typewriter.42 But as we shall see in chapter 8, most of the growth of the clerical workforce happened after 1900, when the proliferation of office machines, the mechanization of in-home production, and the desire to boost family income allowed women to make a great leap forward. In the period 1950–70 in particular, about 11.4 million women newly took up clerical occupations, while only 1.5 million men did so. The term “pink collar,” which became increasingly common in the 1970s, referred to the growth in the female, machine-tending clerical workforce.43 Much of the rise in labor force participation over the twentieth century, in other words, was due to mechanization, not just despite it.

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Autor, 2011, “Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings,” in Handbook of Labor Economics, ed. David Card and Orley Ashenfelter, 4:1043–171 (Amsterdam: Elsevier). 1992–2017: author’s analysis using data from S. Ruggles et al., 2018, IPUMS USA, version 8.0 (dataset), https://usa.ipums.org/usa/. However, the experience of women has been rather different. As is well known, the great leap forward of the “pink-collar” workforce came to an end in the 2000s, when computers began to take over more clerical work (figure 13). Just a few decades ago, people who called Amtrak to make a train reservation would have heard a woman answering the phone on the other end. Today, they hear a recorded voice saying, “Hi, I’m Julie, Amtrak’s automated agent.”

The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World by Steven Radelet

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, business climate, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, colonial rule, creative destruction, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, export processing zone, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the steam engine, James Watt: steam engine, John Snow's cholera map, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, megacity, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, off grid, oil shock, out of africa, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Shenzhen special economic zone , Sheryl Sandberg, Simon Kuznets, South China Sea, special economic zone, standardized shipping container, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, women in the workforce, working poor

But China is the largest contributor. Poverty was widespread during Mao Tse-tung’s rule in China, as it had been for centuries under the emperors before him. While there were improvements in living standards and health in the 1950s, Mao’s drive for rapid industrialization and collectivization in the notoriously misnamed Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) led to widespread famine that killed upward of 40 million people. Poverty only deepened during the violent days of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In 1976 Mao single-handedly and dramatically changed the direction of global poverty with one simple act: he died. While Mao had overseen some economic growth alongside dramatic improvements in health, he left China a poor country.

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The progress toward better health and longer life has hardly been smooth or automatic. Sometimes individual countries or regions within countries have slipped backward because of conflict, political upheaval, the emergence of new diseases, or mismanagement. One of the most infamous examples of a big step backward was China’s Great Leap Forward. Mao Tse-tung’s misguided attempt to force rapid industrialization and extract food supplies from the countryside led to widespread famine and the deaths of more than 40 million people from starvation. The wars in Korea in the 1950s, across Central America in the 1980s, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the past two decades all undermined health, not to mention development more broadly.

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He believed the reason was clear: democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.”26 Such feedback links are weaker or nonexistent in dictatorships. China’s current authoritarian government may be achieving record growth rates, but its predecessor authoritarian government managed to create economic disasters in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Sen does not argue that democracies solve all the problems of hunger and weak social services automatically—they do not—but that they are much less prone to disasters.27 This debate has given rise to extensive academic research on the relationship between democracy and economic growth.

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality by Angus Deaton

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, call centre, carbon tax, clean water, colonial exploitation, Columbian Exchange, compensation consultant, creative destruction, declining real wages, Downton Abbey, Easter island, Edward Jenner, end world poverty, financial engineering, financial innovation, Ford Model T, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, invention of agriculture, invisible hand, John Snow's cholera map, knowledge economy, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, new economy, off-the-grid, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, purchasing power parity, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, very high income, War on Poverty, zoonotic diseases

If Mao had reversed course when the extent of the mass starvation first became clear to the leadership, the famine would have lasted one year, not three, and in any case there was more than enough grain in government stores to prevent everyone from starving.10 According to several accounts, life expectancy in China, which was nearly 50 in 1958, fell to below 30 in 1960; five years later, once Mao had stopped killing people, it had risen to nearly 55.11 Nearly a third of those born during the Great Leap Forward did not survive it. We sometimes have a hard time identifying the benefits of policies, or even convincing ourselves that policy makes a difference. Yet the catastrophic effects of bad policies can be all too obvious, as the Great Leap Forward shows. Even in the absence of war or epidemic disease, bad policy within a totalitarian political system caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. Of course, bad policies happen all the time without causing millions to die.

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And if we were to fill in the diagram with the (much less complete) information for 1930 or 1900, we would see that the expansion of freedom has been going on for a long time, starting around 250 years ago, gathering momentum, and involving more and more countries in the past half-century. In spite of overall progress, there have been catastrophes. One of the worst in human history was China’s “Great Leap Forward” in 1958–61, when deeply misguided industrialization and food-procurement policies led to the deaths of around thirty-five million people from starvation and prevented the births of perhaps forty million more. Weather conditions were not unusual in these years; the famine was entirely man-made.

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(In any case, in these early years of the revolution, the Party was widely trusted.) When Mao learned of the disasters (though probably not of their full scale), he doubled down on the policies, purging the messengers, labeling them “right-deviationists,” and blaming peasants for secretly hoarding food. To do otherwise and admit the error of the Great Leap Forward would have imperiled Mao’s own leadership position, and he was prepared to sacrifice tens of millions of his countrymen to prevent that happening. If Mao had reversed course when the extent of the mass starvation first became clear to the leadership, the famine would have lasted one year, not three, and in any case there was more than enough grain in government stores to prevent everyone from starving.10 According to several accounts, life expectancy in China, which was nearly 50 in 1958, fell to below 30 in 1960; five years later, once Mao had stopped killing people, it had risen to nearly 55.11 Nearly a third of those born during the Great Leap Forward did not survive it.

Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies by Jared M. Diamond

affirmative action, Atahualpa, British Empire, California gold rush, correlation does not imply causation, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, discovery of the americas, Easter island, European colonialism, founder crops, Francisco Pizarro, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, invention of movable type, invention of the wheel, invention of writing, James Watt: steam engine, Maui Hawaii, QWERTY keyboard, the scientific method, trade route

Obviously, some momentous change took place in our ancestors' capa- bilities between about 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. That Great Leap Forward poses two major unresolved questions, regarding its triggering cause and its geographic location. As for its cause, I argued in my book The Third Chimpanzee for the perfection of the voice box and hence for the anatomical basis of modern language, on which the exercise of human creativity is so dependent. Others have suggested instead that a change in brain organization around that time, without a change in brain size, made modern language possible. As for the site of the Great Leap Forward, did it take place primarily in one geographic area, in one group of humans, who were thereby enabled to expand and replace the former human populations of other parts of the world?

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It was a hitherto unprecedented golden age of successive human population explosions. Perhaps those cycles of colonization, adap- tation, and population explosion were what selected for the Great Leap Forward, which then diffused back westward to Eurasia and Africa. If this scenario is correct, then Australia / New Guinea gained a massive head start that might have continued to propel human development there long after the Great Leap Forward. Thus, an observer transported back in time to 11,000 B.C. could not have predicted on which continent human societies would develop most quickly, but could have made a strong case for any of the continents.

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They were not yet in the business of slaughtering buffalo, pigs, and other dangerous prey. They couldn't even catch fish: their sites immediately on the seacoast lack fish bones and fishhooks. They and their Neanderthal contemporaries still rank as less than fully human. Human history at last took off around 50,000 years ago, at the time of what I have termed our Great Leap Forward. The earliest definite signs of that leap come from East African sites with standardized stone tools and the first preserved jewelry (ostrich-shell beads). Similar developments soon appear in the Near East and in southeastern Europe, then (some 40,000 years ago) in southwestern Europe, where abundant artifacts are associ- ated with fully modern skeletons of people termed Cro-Magnons.

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

agricultural Revolution, Boeing 747, business cycle, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, commoditize, company town, deskilling, facts on the ground, germ theory of disease, Great Leap Forward, informal economy, invention of writing, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, megaproject, new economy, New Urbanism, post-Fordism, Potemkin village, price mechanism, profit maximization, Recombinant DNA, road to serfdom, scientific management, Silicon Valley, stochastic process, Suez canal 1869, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, Thorstein Veblen, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, working poor

It took a famine to show them who was master here. It has cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay, we've won the war" (quoted in ibid., p. 261). 34. The so-called Great Leap Forward in China was at least as deadly and may be analyzed in comparable terms. I have chosen to concentrate on Soviet Russia largely because events there occurred some thirty years before the Great Leap Forward and hence have received much more scholarly attention, especially during the past seven years, when the newly opened Russian archives have greatly expanded our knowledge. For a recent popular account of the Chinese experience, see Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China's Secret Famine (London: John Murray, 1996). 35.

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This view of early modern statecraft is not particularly original. Suitably modified, however, it can provide a distinctive optic through which a number of huge development fiascoes in poorer Third World nations and Eastern Europe can be usefully viewed. But "fiasco" is too lighthearted a word for the disasters I have in mind. The Great Leap Forward in China, collectivization in Russia, and compulsory villagization in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ethiopia are among the great human tragedies of the twentieth century, in terms of both lives lost and lives irretrievably disrupted. At a less dramatic but far more common level, the history of Third World development is littered with the debris of huge agricultural schemes and new cities (think of Brasilia or Chandigarh) that have failed their residents.

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On a more speculative note, I imagine that the greater the pretense of and insistence on an officially decreed micro-order, the greater the volume of nonconforming practices necessary to sustain that fiction. The most rigidly planned economies tend to be accompanied by large "underground, 'gray,' informal," economies that supply, in a thousand ways, what the formal economy fails to supply"' When this economy is ruthlessly suppressed, the cost has often been economic ruin and starvation (the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China; the autarkic, moneyless economy of Pol Pot's Cambodia). Efforts to force a country's inhabitants to maintain permanent, fixed residences tend to produce large, illegal, undocumented populations in urban areas where they have been forbidden to go. 121 The insistence on a rigid visual aesthetic at the core of the capital city tends to produce settlements and slums teeming with squatters who, as often as not, sweep the floors, cook the meals, and tend the children of the elites who work in the decorous, planned center. 129 8 Taming Nature: An Agriculture of Legibility and Simplicity Yes, enumerate the carriage partsStill not a carriage.

Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart

Charles Lindbergh, cotton gin, disruptive innovation, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, interchangeable parts, invention of the steam engine, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Louis Blériot, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, retrograde motion, Scramble for Africa, technological determinism, three-masted sailing ship

A narrow vent, drilled through the breech into the bore, allowed access to the main powder charge after it was loaded, so that it could be ignited from the outside of the barrel via a priming charge inserted into the vent. To modern eyes, this transition—from breech-loading, a common feature of nearly all modern firearms, to muzzle-loading, which seems quaint and old-fashioned—appears retrograde. But it was actually a great leap forward. A cast, muzzle-loading cannon does not leak gas at the breech. The inherent strength of its construction meant that it could tolerate heavier charges, heavier projectiles, and more powerful powders without bursting. That added strength came in handy, for gunpowder too was evolving. The constituent elements and their proportions would remain essentially the same for a long time, but the method of processing the ingredients was becoming more sophisticated.

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The French recognized this, too, and had actually begun to build their own iron-hulled, ironclad warship—Couronne, one of the improved Gloire class—but Warrior was finished first. Together, Gloire and Warrior set a new standard in naval construction. Curiously, though, they did not usher in a new age in the tactics of war at sea. Contemporaries marveled at the great leaps forward, the technology built into the hulls and armaments of the new iron ships, but there was no sense that combat at sea would be any different—bigger, louder, more expensive certainly, but essentially the same. What else were warships, with their guns mounted in broadside, supposed to do? Gloire and Warrior, and the scores of imitators and improvements that followed, were built to trade broadsides in line-ahead formation, in the ways that European men-of-war had fought for two centuries or more.

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In the fifty-year span between the Franco-Prussian War and the end of the First World War, weapons technology advanced further and faster than it ever had before. In some ways, that breakneck pace of advancement would never again be repeated. It was a period of profound, rapid, even violent change in the killing potential of weaponry, made possible by the confluence of brilliant engineering, great leaps forward in the academic disciplines of chemistry and physics, and—perhaps more important—an arms race propelled by governments aggressively seeking out every possible advantage they could steal on their enemies, neighbors, and rivals. The weapons of 1860 were much closer, in function and effectiveness, to their eighteenth-century predecessors than they were to the weapons of 1880.

The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad

Able Archer 83, Albert Einstein, American ideology, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bolshevik threat, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, collective bargaining, colonial rule, continuous integration, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, energy security, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, full employment, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, imperial preference, Internet Archive, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, out of africa, post-industrial society, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, South China Sea, special economic zone, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez crisis 1956, union organizing, urban planning, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

See also her 1956: Mao’s China and the Hungarian Crisis, Cornell East Asia Series, vol. 170 (Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2013). 5. Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia, “The Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune and the Sino-Soviet Split,” Journal of Contemporary China 20, no. 72 (2011): 865. 6. See the harrowing accounts in Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). 7. Quoted in Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia, Mao and the Sino–Soviet Partnership, 1945–1959: A New History (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 289. 8. Shen and Xia, “The Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune and the Sino-Soviet Split,” 868, 874. 9. Record of conversation, Mao Zedong–Pavel Iudin, 22 July 1958, in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 348. 10.

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And the third group claimed that the party was not nationalist enough; the CCP, they said, put Soviet interests over those of China. With the venturesome critics now on their way to labor camps or worse, Chairman Mao began preparing a push for advanced socialism, which he hoped would let the Communists regain the popular enthusiasm of the wartime era. The Great Leap Forward, as he called it, was to become the most lethal Communist campaign of all time, though it started as shock therapy to increase industrial production. Mao’s concern was that China was not catching up with advanced countries fast enough. The steady progress of the first Five Year Plan was good, but it was not sufficient, Mao thought.

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The Chinese… are behaving like hysterical people… they are not able to avoid responsibility for the criminal actions damaging the interests of the DPRK.”22 As political relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated, tension at their long border increased. Already in 1962 there had been clashes between border guards as Chinese Kazakhs attempted to flee across to Soviet Kazakhstan to avoid the effects of the Great Leap Forward. Two years later, Mao laid into the Soviets over the border issue. “More than one hundred years ago,” he told visiting Japanese Communists, “[the Russians] occupied the entire area east of Lake Baikal, including Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and the Kamchatka Peninsula. That account is difficult to square.

Why the West Rules--For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris

addicted to oil, Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Arthur Eddington, Atahualpa, Berlin Wall, British Empire, classic study, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, defense in depth, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Doomsday Clock, Eddington experiment, en.wikipedia.org, falling living standards, Flynn Effect, Ford Model T, Francisco Pizarro, global village, God and Mammon, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, market bubble, mass immigration, Medieval Warm Period, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, New Journalism, out of africa, Peter Thiel, phenotype, pink-collar, place-making, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, sexual politics, Silicon Valley, Sinatra Doctrine, South China Sea, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, strong AI, Suez canal 1869, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, trade route, upwardly mobile, wage slave, washing machines reduced drudgery

By 50,000 BCE modern humans were thinking and acting on a whole different plane from their ancestors. Something extraordinary seemed to have happened—something so profound, so magical, that in the 1990s it moved normally sober scientists to flights of rhetoric. Some spoke of a Great Leap Forward;* others of the Dawn of Human Culture or even the Big Bang of Human Consciousness. But for all their drama, these Great Leap Forward theories were always a little unsatisfactory. They required us to imagine not one but two transformations, the first (around 150,000 years ago) producing modern human bodies but not modern human behavior, and the second (around 50,000 years ago) producing modern human behavior but leaving our bodies unchanged.

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The big problem archaeologists had in those far-off days when I was an undergraduate was that they simply had not excavated very many sites dating between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. As new finds accumulated across the 1990s, though, it began to become clear that we did not need monoliths after all; in fact, the Great Leap Forward itself began to dissolve into a series of Baby Steps Forward, spread across tens of thousands of years. We now know of several pre-50,000-BCE sites with signs of surprisingly modern-looking behavior. Take, for instance, Pinnacle Point, a cave excavated in 2007 on the South African coast. Homo sapiens moved in here about 160,000 years ago.

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Eastern and southern Africa became warmer and wetter, which made hunting and gathering easier, and humans reproduced as rapidly as their food sources. Modern Homo sapiens had been evolving for a good hundred thousand years, with a lot of trial, error, and extinctions, but when the climate improved, those populations with the most advantageous mutations took off, outbreeding less brainy humans. There were no monoliths; no Great Leap Forward; just a lot of sex and babies. Within a few thousand years early humans reached a tipping point that was as much demographic as biological. Instead of dying out so often, bands of modern humans grew big enough and numerous enough to stay in regular contact, pooling their genes and know-how.

Language and Mind by Noam Chomsky

Alfred Russel Wallace, classic study, finite state, Great Leap Forward, John von Neumann, language acquisition, lateral thinking, machine translation, pattern recognition, phenotype, tacit knowledge, theory of mind

It is commonly assumed that whatever the human intellectual capacity is, the faculty of language is essential to it. Many scientists agree with paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall, who writes that he is “almost sure that it was the invention of language” that was the “sudden and emergent” event that was the “releasing stimulus” for the appearance of the human capacity in the evolutionary record – the “great leap forward” as Jared Diamond called it, the result of some genetic event that rewired the brain, allowing for the origin of human language with the rich syntax that provides a multitude of modes of expression of thought, a prerequisite for social development and the sharp changes of behavior that are revealed in the archaeological record, also generally assumed to be the trigger for the rapid trek from Africa, where otherwise modern humans had apparently been present for hundreds of thousands of years.

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Any such system is based on a primitive operation that takes objects already constructed, and constructs from them a new object: in the simplest case, the set containing them. Call that operation Merge. Either Merge or some equivalent is a minimal requirement. With Merge 184 Language and Mind available, we instantly have an unbounded system of hierarchically structured expressions. The simplest account of the “Great Leap Forward” in the evolution of humans would be that the brain was rewired, perhaps by some slight mutation, to provide the operation Merge, at once laying a core part of the basis for what is found at that dramatic moment of human evolution: at least in principle; to connect the dots is far from a trivial problem.

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At best a reasonable guess, as are all speculations about such matters, but about the simplest one imaginable, and not inconsistent with anything known or plausibly surmised. It is hard to see what account of human evolution would not assume at least this much, in one or another form. Similar questions arise about growth of language in the individual. It is commonly assumed that there is a two-word stage, a three-word stage, and so on, with an ultimate Great Leap Forward to unbounded generation. That is observed in performance, but it is also observed that at the early stage the child understands much more complex expressions, and that random modification of longer ones – even such simple changes as placement of function words in a manner inconsistent with UG or the adult language – leads to confusion and misinterpretation.

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker

airport security, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, BRICs, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, computer age, corporate governance, Costa Concordia, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, global village, Global Witness, Great Leap Forward, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, Masdar, Murano, Venice glass, open borders, out of africa, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, statistical model, sustainable-tourism, the market place, union organizing, urban renewal, wage slave, young professional, éminence grise

When the Vietnam War drew massive protests on campuses and city streets, some of the students wore Mao caps to underline their anger at the war. Scholars and journalists, meanwhile, were trying to assess Mao’s rule without direct access to the country, tallying up the benefits of health reforms and the damage done by Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in the number of lives lost from starvation and political deaths. In the popular mind, China had become the land of Red Guards marching by the thousands in Tiananmen Square waving Mao’s Little Red Book. All those decades of revolution competed with the traditional image of China, with its Confucian scholars, blue and white porcelain, scroll paintings, shimmering silk robes and the snaking Great Wall.

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Yet political powers overrode that survey and only 78 of those structures were allowed to remain standing. Some were removed to make way for small-scale factories and industries; others for dormitories, apartments or barracks. Centuries-old temples were razed as unnecessary as the country geared up for the Great Leap Forward and, in their place, were built 1,400 factories in the center of Beijing. The Abundant Tranquility Temple and the Sleeping Buddha Temple were destroyed to build new roads. Palaces were turned over to work units and the military. The authorities tore down thousands of Beijing’s courtyard houses, which had defined northern Chinese architecture since the twelfth century.

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This modernization purposefully eliminated centuries of culture in order to remake Beijing into a symbol of socialist China. Acting more like officials in Dubai than in Paris, the Chinese tore apart the city, turning it into a chaotic shell, without the exquisite references and planning of old Beijing. Then in 1958, Mao organized the Chinese in a campaign to make a Great Leap Forward to become a modern, self-sufficient economy. All private landholdings ended and farms were melded into large public communes. Local, even backyard, factories went up all over the country. The experiment collapsed in three years. The economy was in shambles; agriculture was devastated with such poor harvests that China suffered a famine that left tens of millions dead.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

23andMe, Aaron Swartz, agricultural Revolution, algorithmic trading, Anne Wojcicki, Anthropocene, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, call centre, Chekhov's gun, Chris Urmson, cognitive dissonance, Columbian Exchange, computer age, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, don't be evil, driverless car, drone strike, European colonialism, experimental subject, falling living standards, Flash crash, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, glass ceiling, global village, Great Leap Forward, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, job automation, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, lifelogging, low interest rates, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Minecraft, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Nick Bostrom, pattern recognition, peak-end rule, Peter Thiel, placebo effect, Ray Kurzweil, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, stem cell, Steven Pinker, telemarketer, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, too big to fail, trade route, Turing machine, Turing test, ultimatum game, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, zero-sum game

The same transformation has occurred in numerous other countries, most notably China. For millennia, famine stalked every Chinese regime from the Yellow Emperor to the Red communists. A few decades ago China was a byword for food shortages. Tens of millions of Chinese starved to death during the disastrous Great Leap Forward, and experts routinely predicted that the problem would only get worse. In 1974 the first World Food Conference was convened in Rome, and delegates were treated to apocalyptic scenarios. They were told that there was no way for China to feed its billion people, and that the world’s most populous country was heading towards catastrophe.

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Sousa Mendes, armed with little more than a rubber stamp, was responsible for the largest rescue operation by a single individual during the Holocaust.2 Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the angel with the rubber stamp. Courtesy of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. The sanctity of written records often had far less positive effects. From 1958 to 1961 communist China undertook the Great Leap Forward, when Mao Zedong wished to rapidly turn China into a superpower. Mao ordered the doubling and tripling of agricultural production, using the surplus produce to finance ambitious industrial and military projects. Mao’s impossible demands made their way down the bureaucratic ladder, from the government offices in Beijing, through provincial administrators, all the way to the village headmen.

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In 1979, 90 per cent of Tanzanian farmers lived in collective farms, but they generated only 5 per cent of the country’s agricultural output.4 Though the history of writing is full of similar mishaps, in most cases writing did enable officials to organise the state much more efficiently than before. Indeed, even the disaster of the Great Leap Forward didn’t topple the Chinese Communist Party from power. The catastrophe was caused by the ability to impose written fantasies on reality, but exactly the same ability allowed the party to paint a rosy picture of its successes and hold on to power tenaciously. Written language may have been conceived as a modest way of describing reality, but it gradually became a powerful way to reshape reality.

The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations by David Pilling

Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Branko Milanovic, call centre, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, dark matter, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Erik Brynjolfsson, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial intermediation, financial repression, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, Hans Rosling, happiness index / gross national happiness, Higgs boson, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, mortgage debt, off grid, old-boy network, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peak oil, performance metric, pez dispenser, profit motive, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, science of happiness, shareholder value, sharing economy, Simon Kuznets, sovereign wealth fund, TED Talk, The Great Moderation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, World Values Survey

When China began to study the United Nations System of National Accounts in 1986, it reconstructed its national income accounts right back to 1952, just three years after the communists took over in 1949. For nearly a quarter of a century Mao Zedong, founding father of the People’s Republic, had led a ruinous experiment in collectivization and would-be economic liftoff. Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958–62) was an emblematic, if still mostly hushed-up, catastrophe. In order to catch up with industrial nations, Mao had ordered the collectivization of farming into supposedly more efficient units and the establishment of what turned out to be useless backyard furnaces producing steel from pots and pans.

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The result of industrialization-at-any-cost was wholesale famine in which as many as 46 million people perished.4 Historical data, calculated by the new growth metric, showed that China’s performance during the communist years had been extremely erratic, with growth above 10 percent in some years, followed by periods of catastrophic recession. In 1961, at the height of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the economy shrank by an astonishing 27 percent. But from the early 1990s, by which time the new accounting practices had been fully adopted, the picture changed. With a consistency that has often been called into question, China registered growth of around 10 percent in virtually every year from 1992 to 2010.5 In the process, it catapulted itself from poor peasant economy to modern powerhouse.

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In 2005 it overhauled France, in 2006 Britain, in 2007 Germany, and in 2010—the sweetest moment of all—it supplanted bitter rival Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. Only the US stood in the way. Spending on the military tracked this newfound wealth. All this growth, though, came at a cost, says Niu, turning more serious. As in the days of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, it was a cost—in disrupted lives, poisoned air and rivers, and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources—that the Chinese Communist Party either could not or would not recognize. People knew there had to be a better measurement, he says, one that would track both the good and the bad aspects of such explosive growth.

Tech Titans of China: How China's Tech Sector Is Challenging the World by Innovating Faster, Working Harder, and Going Global by Rebecca Fannin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Benchmark Capital, Big Tech, bike sharing, blockchain, call centre, cashless society, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean tech, cloud computing, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, data is the new oil, data science, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, digital map, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, El Camino Real, electricity market, Elon Musk, fake news, family office, fear of failure, fulfillment center, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, industrial robot, information security, Internet of things, invention of movable type, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Mary Meeker, megacity, Menlo Park, money market fund, Network effects, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, QR code, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, smart transportation, Snapchat, social graph, SoftBank, software as a service, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, supply-chain management, tech billionaire, TechCrunch disrupt, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, Vision Fund, warehouse automation, WeWork, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, young professional

Chapter 10 The Age of Drones and Robots China has turned big-time to drones and robots for handling lots of tasks humans can’t or don’t want to do. Chinese drone startup DJI is the world leader, EHang has a passenger-carrying drone, and robotic vacuum cleaners and window washer startups are getting accelerated at HAX in Shenzhen. Afterword What China’s great leap forward in the global tech economy means for the United States and its future leadership. Predicting China’s Tech Future Superpowers United States and China are competing for global dominance of world-changing technologies. It’s a pivotal moment. No country stays in power forever. Acknowledgments Notes Index INTRODUCTION China’s Silicon Valley has evolved over the past two decades to be a potentially dominant worldwide tech leader in the near future.

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“China has the potential to make world-class vehicles with their smart and cashed-up tech companies,” said consultant Dunne, speaking at an Asia Society meeting in Northern California. “By relying on tech companies instead of the entrenched automakers, they have found their point of leverage. They can make a great leap forward with scale, regulations, technology, and a capital river of billions. I think the US is in trouble.”1 So far, no Chinese electric vehicle brand has made a splash in Western markets and established trust with customers as the Japanese and Korean makers have. Rising protectionism and growing distrust of Chinese technology in the United States don’t make it any easier for Chinese makers to break in.

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Impossible Aerospace is aiming to upend the status quo with an electric model that can fly for two hours and has been sold to police departments, firefighters, and search and rescue teams. Can China innovation beat America’s champion Tesla in flight? So far, the West has proven to be no match for Chinese drone maker DJI and its high altitude. AFTERWORD What China’s great leap forward in the global tech economy means for the United States and its future leadership. PREDICTING CHINA’S TECH FUTURE Superpowers United States and China are competing for global dominance of world-changing technologies. It’s a pivotal moment. No country stays in power forever. In the ebb and flow of history, economic powers shift from one country to the next.

China: A History by John Keay

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, Deng Xiaoping, Great Leap Forward, imperial preference, invention of movable type, land tenure, mass immigration, means of production, Pax Mongolica, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, trade route, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, éminence grise

For some dynasties it is customary to call individual emperors by their temple names; for others it is their posthumous names which are used: and in the case of the Ming and Qing dynasties, names adopted for their various reign periods have been extended to the emperors themselves. Hence the seeming anomaly of a Qing emperor, such as the long-reigning one (1735–95) whose temple name was Gaozong, being known to history as ‘the Qianlong emperor’, that is ‘the Qianlong period emperor’. Just calling him ‘Emperor Qianlong’ would be like calling Mao Zedong ‘Chairman Great-Leap-Forward’. For the purposes of this book, emperors will be called by whatever name has gained the widest currency. In addition, purely by way of a reminder, each will be prefaced in italics by the name of the dynasty to which he belonged. Hence ‘Song Renzong’ and ‘the Qing Qianlong emperor’. THE TRIUMPH OF PINYIN Sadly – indeed catastrophically for the wider understanding of China – few of these names will be familiar to readers primed on existing works in English.

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But in that year his nemesis was decreed; all prospects of successful reform were dashed by one of the greatest cataclysms to which China has ever been subject. First there was a plague of locusts along the Yellow River. It was nothing unusual. A bounty was offered to locust hunters, so many cash (the basic copper coin) per pound being paid out for squashed insects just as, in the no less lowering times of Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’, a few fen per dead sparrow would be offered to conserve grain stocks and stave off famine. Seemingly there is nothing quite like impending catastrophe to bring out the esteem in which autocrats hold the death-defying capabilities of the masses. Then came the flood. The Hanshu, in its determination to implicate Wang Mang, is somewhat sparing of the details: . . . the Yellow River broke its banks in Wei commandery, overflowing several commanderies from Jinghe eastwards.

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In danwei and communes, the night sky flared as thousands of backyard blast-furnaces spewed forth sub-standard metals. Fantastic production targets were set, and if the quality was ignored and the returns believed, were nearly met. Thanks to a traditional technology – the blast-furnace had probably been pioneered in Henan in the third century BC – China would become a world-class economy in one ‘great leap forward’. This mass-action formula was emulated up and down the country as millions marched forth to undertake Herculean construction projects with no more in the way of equipment than the barrows and baskets used by the builders of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal. Caution was thrown to the wind; anything seemed possible in a climate of hysterical mass endeavour.

Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity From Politicians by Joe Quirk, Patri Friedman

3D printing, access to a mobile phone, addicted to oil, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, business climate, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, Celtic Tiger, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, Colonization of Mars, Dean Kamen, Deng Xiaoping, drone strike, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, export processing zone, failed state, financial intermediation, Garrett Hardin, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, happiness index / gross national happiness, income inequality, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Kickstarter, low skilled workers, Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, minimum wage unemployment, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open borders, Patri Friedman, paypal mafia, peak oil, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, price stability, profit motive, radical decentralization, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, standardized shipping container, stem cell, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, undersea cable, young professional

The open-ocean mariculture equation is incontrovertible, and it contains incentives that will only grow with time as we get the technology to support it. And it will scale, and scale, and scale.” He describes Kampachi Farms as “an incremental advancement, but if we’re wanting to really make some great leaps forward here, then we need people with the vision of the Seasteading Institute.” When asked what his fondest wish is, Neil doesn’t even pause to consider. “I want people to come to the realization that responsible cultured seafood is far and away an environmentally preferable way to go, and it’s probably the best source of animal protein on the planet.”

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When Zhai read Patri’s explication of the principles of competitive governance, he immediately thought of Xiaogang Village, which he calls “the Chinese version of seasteading.” The Eighteen Farmers Who Moved a Billion During Mao Tse-tung’s enforced agricultural collectivization during the Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1961, more than half of the Xiaogang Village population of 120 starved to death in two years, along with tens of millions of other Chinese. When food shortages threatened again, the villagers decided the inefficient Communist system had to go. Though private property was forbidden by law, eighteen heads of families met in December 1978 and agreed to divide their “People’s Commune” into eighteen private plots, signing a document pledging that if any were caught and executed, the others would provide for their families.

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See also Peter Wallace Preston and Jürgen Haacke, Contemporary China: The Dynamics of Change at the Start of the New Millennium (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2003), 80–107. “In short, from 1960 to 1996, Hong Kong’s per capita income”: Milton Friedman, “The Real Lesson of Hong Kong,” National Review, December 31, 1997, www.hoover.org/research/hong-kong-experiment. China’s conversion . . . had humanitarian effects: “Towards the End of Poverty; the World’s Next Great Leap Forward,” Economist, June 1, 2013, www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim. “China now exports in a single day more than it exported during the entire year of 1978”: Robyn Meredith, The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us (New York: W.

The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World by David Eagleman, Anthony Brandt

active measures, Ada Lovelace, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Andrew Wiles, Apollo 13, Burning Man, cloud computing, computer age, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, Dava Sobel, deep learning, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, en.wikipedia.org, Frank Gehry, Gene Kranz, Google Glasses, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, informal economy, interchangeable parts, Isaac Newton, James Dyson, John Harrison: Longitude, John Markoff, Large Hadron Collider, lone genius, longitudinal study, Menlo Park, microbiome, Netflix Prize, new economy, New Journalism, pets.com, pneumatic tube, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Kurzweil, reversible computing, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Scaled Composites, self-driving car, Simon Singh, skeuomorphism, Solyndra, SpaceShipOne, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, synthetic biology, TED Talk, the scientific method, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, wikimedia commons, X Prize

A slam in volleyball is replaced by a move called the shark attack, in which a player launches his leg high enough into the air to kick the ball sharply over the net. At the far end of the spectrum of mixing, it becomes difficult to separate the sources out. For example, it isn’t easy to tell that Jasper Johns’ 0 Through 9 consists of those digits superimposed on one another. This type of thorough blend led to a great leap forward in human civilization. A little less than 10,000 years ago, Mesopotamian settlers began mining copper Several thousand years later, their descendants also began mining tin. Neither metal is known for its hardness. However, when mixed together, the two metals create the alloy bronze which is harder than wrought iron.

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In their seminal 2002 book, The Way We Think, Turner and Fauconnier describe human creativity as being rooted in our capacity for what they call conceptual integration or dual scope blending, from which we derive our term blending. In a similar vein, Douglas Hofstadter has argued that our capacity for metaphor is the cornerstone of human thinking. 14 Scientists are working hard to visualise the basis of imaginative thinking. Thanks to advances in neuroimaging, our understanding of brain function has made great leaps forward. By monitoring the flow of oxygenated blood, we can tell which regions are involved in different tasks and which regions are conversing in the cacophonous chat room of neurons. But there are limitations: neuroimaging is still a young technology and low resolution, and when it comes to what the neurons are actually saying to each other, it’s still anyone’s guess.

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In their seminal 2002 book, The Way We Think, Turner and Fauconnier describe human creativity as being rooted in our capacity for what they call conceptual integration or dual scope blending, from which we derive our term blending. In a similar vein, Douglas Hofstadter has argued that our capacity for metaphor is the cornerstone of human thinking. 14 Scientists are working hard to visualise the basis of imaginative thinking. Thanks to advances in neuroimaging, our understanding of brain function has made great leaps forward. By monitoring the flow of oxygenated blood, we can tell which regions are involved in different tasks and which regions are conversing in the cacophonous chat room of neurons. But there are limitations: neuroimaging is still a young technology and low resolution, and when it comes to what the neurons are actually saying to each other, it’s still anyone’s guess.

The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Bhaskar Sunkara

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Bernie Sanders, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, Donald Trump, equal pay for equal work, fake news, false flag, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, inventory management, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, land reform, land value tax, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Occupy movement, postindustrial economy, precariat, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SimCity, single-payer health, Steve Bannon, telemarketer, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban renewal, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%

Ambitious plans were designed not only to increase agricultural output but also to build industry in rural areas and erode distinctions between town and country, worker and peasant. Production targets were set unrealistically high: as Zhou Enlai put it in a 1959 report, a growth of 20 percent in industrial output would be a “leap forward,” an increase above 25 percent a “Great Leap Forward,” and an increase of 30 percent or more, an “exceptionally Great Leap Forward.”29 What followed was tragedy on a massive scale. Communist cadres had no experience managing enterprises as large as the new communes, and could only rely on coercion and ideological exhortation to encourage peasants to work as hard as they had when managing their own plots.

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See also women’s rights General German Workers’ Association (ADAV), 53 General Labour Union, 135 general strike, 65–68, 134, 135, 181 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, The (Keynes), 109 George, Henry, 164 German Ideology, The (Marx), 47, 54 German Revolution, 79 Germany, history of socialism in, 51–79 Bernstein’s reformism, 61–65 Erfurt Program, 57–61, 82–83 factionalization, 65–69 Marxist origins, 51–56 SPD bureaucratization, 69–71 war debates, 71–77 Weimar Republic, 79 World War I, 77–78 Global South, 26, 241. See also Third World Godesberg Program, 117 Gompers, Samuel, 163 Google, 204–205 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 103 Gorz, Andre, 208, 239 Gotha Program, 54–55 Gramsci, Antonio, 132 Great Depression, 107, 108–109 Great Famine (China), 146, 147–148 Great Famine (Ireland), 38 Great Leap Forward, 144–146 Great Railroad Strike, 162 Great Recession (2008), 191–195 greening, 241 Grenada, 154 Haase, Hugo, 77 Haeckel, Ernst, 59 Hall, Stuart, 208 Harrington, Michael, 182, 184–185 Hatzfeldt, Sophie von, 53 Haymarket Square, 163 Haywood, Bill, 169 health care in Britain, 206, 212 in China, 152 in Cuba, 155 in Germany, 55 in Sweden, 115 in US, 14–15, 168, 195, 200, 218–219, 221 hegemony, 132–133 Hermansson, C.

Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required by Kristy Shen, Bryce Leung

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Apollo 13, asset allocation, barriers to entry, buy low sell high, call centre, car-free, Columbine, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, digital nomad, do what you love, Elon Musk, fear of failure, financial independence, fixed income, follow your passion, Great Leap Forward, hedonic treadmill, income inequality, index fund, John Bogle, junk bonds, longitudinal study, low cost airline, Mark Zuckerberg, mortgage debt, Mr. Money Mustache, obamacare, offshore financial centre, passive income, Ponzi scheme, risk tolerance, risk/return, side hustle, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, supply-chain management, the rule of 72, working poor, Y2K, Zipcar

The experiment changed the subjects not only physically, but mentally as well. This is the Scarcity Mind-set. When someone’s starving, their brain ignores almost everything—except that one thing it doesn’t have. MY SCARCITY MIND-SET In 1958, Communist Party leader Chairman Mao began a campaign known as the Great Leap Forward. It was an attempt to rapidly modernize China’s economy from agrarian to industrialized in order to compete with the West. Only, it was crafted by someone with the economics knowledge of a toddler. Farming villages were given a quota of steel to produce, despite the fact that the average villager had zero knowledge of how to, you know, produce steel.

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When my dad was seventeen, he was forcibly removed from high school and sent to the countryside as part of his “reeducation.” This happened during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of class warfare exploited by Chairman Mao to take back control over the Communist Party. After his Great Leap Forward—which aimed to convert China from an agrarian society to an industrial one—face-planted, causing three years of famine and killing millions, he realized he had to do something drastic to consolidate power and prevent a coup. Anyone who was considered “bourgeois” (teachers, doctors, landowners, people who worked for the opposition party) was branded an “anti-revolutionary.”

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See also traveling Germany, 199, 200 getting paid to travel, 188–202 GoCurryCracker.com (blog), 233, 239, 246 going your own way, 268–76 Google, 159, 230 Goosebumps series (Stein), 14 government bonds, 182, 185 Graham, Benjamin, 272 Great Chinese Famine, 6–7, 46 Great Depression, 115, 177 Great Financial Crisis (2008), 112–19, 114, 114–15, 116, 118–19, 174, 176, 249, 273 Great Leap Forward, 6, 22 greed, investing emotion in, 115–16 gross-up amount (Canadian), 152 growing vs. adding to your wealth, 91–92 The Guardian, 18 Guillebeau, Chris, 262 happiness, 18, 30, 63. See also dope on dopamine Harris, Ed, 48 Harvey, Paul, 49 health insurance, 219, 225–31, 231, 249 Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), 228–29, 231 Hedonic Treadmill, 62–63, 64, 65 Helmsley, Leona, 121, 123 Hemingway, Ernest, 12 high-deductable health plans (HDHPs), 228–29, 231 high-maintenance items, reducing, 73–75, 74, 77 high-yield vs. corporate bonds, 182–83 Hoarding Mind-set, 158–61, 169 Home Country Bias, 106–7 homeowner’s insurance, 81, 82, 82, 83–84, 84, 86, 222, 231 a house is not an investment, 44, 74–75, 78–88, 139, 169, 174, 181, 186, 222 the Hustlers (millionaires), 270, 270–71, 274, 275 identity, loss of, the fear it generates, 248, 251–55, 252 IMGlobal, 230–31 “Immigrant Money Rebound Effect,” 55 income, personal finance, 268–69, 269, 270–72 Income-Based Repayment (IBR), 40, 41, 45 Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), 41, 41 income inequality in US, 122 income (regular) and taxes, 137, 138–39, 140, 142, 154 income types and taxes, 137, 137–38 indexes, choosing which to track (Step 2 of Modern Portfolio Theory), 106–8, 107–8, 120 index investing, 93–99, 95–96, 100, 117–19, 166, 176, 179–81, 205, 207, 271, 274 individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 125, 126, 127, 128–30, 130, 135.

Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity by Stephen D. King

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, corporate governance, credit crunch, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, G4S, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, junk bonds, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Meghnad Desai, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Naomi Klein, new economy, old age dependency ratio, Paul Samuelson, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, price stability, purchasing power parity, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, sovereign wealth fund, spice trade, statistical model, technology bubble, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transaction costs, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

Since the 1980s, for example, Chinese incomes have risen at a faster rate than those in Europe for the first time in six centuries, thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s willingness to encourage China to engage with the rest of the world. China’s share of global output has consequently soared (from a low of 5 per cent in 1950 to 15 per cent by the beginning of the twenty-first century).19 So has its share of world trade. Chairman Mao famously boasted in the 1950s about China’s Great Leap Forward. As it turned out, he was forty or fifty years too early. Similar stories can be found all over what is now called the emerging world. India’s growth rate has accelerated in recent decades, helped along by the so-called green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, during which crop yields rose dramatically.

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In 1000, Chinese per-capita incomes were slightly higher than those in Europe. By 1820 they were only half European levels (although the huge size of China’s population meant that its economy was still roughly the same size as all the Western economies added together). According to Maddison’s data, the gap grew progressively wider until the 1950s. The Great Leap Forward of that decade and the Cultural Revolution that followed in the late 1960s did little to help the situation: Chinese per-capita incomes stabilized at around 8 per cent of European levels. The best that can be said about Mao Zedong’s reign is that China’s relative economic decline came to a halt: but, with Chinese per-capita incomes now averaging just 8 per cent of those in Western Europe, Chairman Mao managed only to confirm China’s huge loss of global economic status.

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(i) Gama, Vasco da (i) gas (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Gazprom (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (i) General Motors (i) General Strike (i) General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes) (i) genetically modified crops (i) Georgia (i), (ii) German marks (i), (ii), (iii) Germany anarchy in capital markets (i), (ii) monetary union (i) political economy and inequalities (i), (ii), (iii) population demographics (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) price stability and economic instability (i), (ii), (iii) reserve currency (i) reunification (i), (ii), (iii) secrets of Western success (i), (ii), (iii) state capitalism (i), (ii), (iii) trade (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Gini coefficients (i), (ii) globalization anarchy in capital markets (i) economic integration, political proliferation (i), (ii) globalization opens up the world (i), (ii) great power games (i), (ii) indulging the US no more (i), (ii) political economy and inequalities (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) price stability and economic instability (i) scarcity (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) state capitalism (i) trade (i), (ii), (iii) the West’s diminished status (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) global savings glut (i), (ii), (iii) Gohkale, Jagedeesh (i) gold rush (i), (ii), (iii) Gold Standard (i) golf courses (i) Goodson, Margaret (i), (ii) Google (i) government debt (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Government Investment Corporation (i) governments (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) government spending (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) graduates (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Graham, Lindsay (i) Great Depression (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) Great Leap Forward (i), (ii) ‘Great Moderation’ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Greece (i) greenhouse gases (i) green revolution (i), (ii) Greenspan, Alan (i), (ii) Grenada (i) Haiti (i) Halliburton (i), (ii), (iii) Haltmaier, Jane (i) hard knowledge (i) Hart, Philip (i) headline inflation (i) Headrick, D.

The Ages of Globalization by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Admiral Zheng, AlphaGo, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, British Empire, Cape to Cairo, circular economy, classic study, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, Commentariolus, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, DeepMind, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, domestication of the camel, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, European colonialism, general purpose technology, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, income per capita, invention of agriculture, invention of gunpowder, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, mass immigration, Nikolai Kondratiev, ocean acidification, out of africa, packet switching, Pax Mongolica, precision agriculture, profit maximization, profit motive, purchasing power parity, rewilding, South China Sea, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, systems thinking, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Turing machine, Turing test, urban planning, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, wikimedia commons, zoonotic diseases

The Communist forces under Mao Zedong defeated the Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 and proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. Even then, China’s turmoil did not end. The new state embarked on a Soviet-style centrally planned economy in the 1950s, but Mao became impatient with the results by the end of the 1950s and launched the Great Leap Forward to accelerate industrialization. The result was chaos and starvation, as farmers were required to leave the fields and devote their meager resources and physical labor to Mao’s illusion of building a nation with backyard steel mills. As many as 45 million people may have starved. Yet Mao was not finished with upheaval, as he then launched the Cultural Revolution, which created another decade of chaos from 1966 to his death in 1976.

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See Belt and Road Initiative Britain: China’s Opium War with, 146–47; coal access of, 137, 143; Egypt controlled by, 154; energy consumption of, 133–34; France’s war with, 123; global empire of, 109; India rule by, 148–49; Industrial Age entered by, 133; industrialization of, 135–38, 142–43, 155; military confrontation used by, 109; naval power of, 112; per capita GDP in, 141; textile industry of, 121; U.S. economic dominance with, 154 British East India Company, 108, 110, 120, 148 British Empire, 112, 154–55 Bronze age, 3, 61 Brundtland, Gro Harlem, 197 bubonic plague, 49 Buddha, 69–71 Bulgar group, 65, 86 Bush, Vannevar, 160 bytes, 169 Byzantine Empire, 85–88, 86 camelids, 55, 60–61 camels, 55, 60–61 cannon artillery, 29 Cape Verde islands, 108 capitalism, 107–8, 115–16, 120–21, 151 carbon dioxide (CO2), 102–3, 184 carbon storage, 199 Caribbean, 117–18 de las Casas, Bartolome, 117 Catholic Church, 106 cattle, 58 cavalry, 67 Chiang Kai-shek, 147 child mortality rates, 129 China: anti-trade policy of, 97; Britain’s Opium War with, 146–47; economic development in, 180; GDP of, 154; global output of, 181; Great Leap Forward of, 147–48; Guangzhou, 190, 190; gunpowder developed in, 104; Han Dynasty and boundaries of, 80; Japan invading, 147; language in, 72; as Middle Kingdom, 96; navigational capacity of, 95–96; open world trade embraced by, 98; per capita GDP of, 180; Qin in, 80; R&D spending of, 182, 182; Shandong, 191; Smith describing, 98; Song Dynasty of, 88–91; transnational cooperation of, 205; U.S. and rising power of, 193 Christianity, 67, 70 Churchill, Winston, 159 cinchona tree, 152 CIS.

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., 159–62, 168 globalization: ages of, 6; Anglo-American dominance in, 130; consensus lacking in, 211; distinct ages of, 1–5; empires competing in, 28; employment shares by sectors in, 16; in Industrial Age, 129; of politics, 69; shared reality in, 214 global output, 179, 181, 209, 209–10 global patterns, 145–46 global trade, 4, 84, 98, 107–8, 137 global warming, 197 Glorious Revolution (1688), 122, 136 Goering, Hermann, 212–13 Golden Hind (vessel), 116 Golden Rule, 212 Goodrich, L. Carrington, 80 goods, production of, 14 Goth group, 65, 86 GPT. See general-purpose technology grains, 45 grasslands, 53 Great Depression, 157, 159, 167 Great Dispersal from Africa, 34–35, 35 Great Leap Forward, 147–48 Greco-Roman world, 70 Greece, 77–78 greed, in building empires, 114–15 Greek alphabet, 48, 71 Greek society, 76–79 greenhouse gases, 184, 187, 189 gross domestic product (GDP), 139, 154, 188. See also per capita GDP Guangzhou, China, 190, 190 gunpowder, 29, 103–4 Guns, Germs, and Steel (Diamond), 46 Guttenberg, Johannes, 105, 131 Habsburg Empire, 157–58 Han Dynasty, 80, 81, 93 Han Empire, 80–83 health care, 199–200 Hellenistic empire, 76 Henry (king of Portugal), 98 Henry the Navigator, 108 Herodotus, 28, 75 hierarchical structure, of societies, 39 hieroglyphics, 47–48, 50, 66 highland regions, 22 Hinduism, 70 Histories (Herodotus), 75 Hitler, Adolph, 158–59 Holland, 109, 137, 141 Holocene period, 58 hominin brains, 33, 35 Homo sapiens, 3, 33–34, 36–37, 195 horse-drawn chariot, 29, 67 Horse in Human History, The (Kelekna), 62 horses: agriculture using, 65–66; domestication of, 18–19, 46, 57–59; Eurasia and societies using, 62–63, 65; Eurasian role of, 53; hunted for meat, 58; long-distance trade from, 67; in North America, 101; North American extinction of, 56; societies based on, 59; steppes with domestication of, 59; technologies distributed by, 64; as transportation vehicle, 54; warhorse and, 60; wild, 36, 55, 57, 62 House of Wisdom (Bayt-al-Hikmah), 78 Huawei, 181 human activities, 11–12, 197 human destiny, 214 human dignity, 212 human history, 1–2, 5 human needs, 225n4 human settlements, 10–11 human society, 38–40 human thought, 105 Hun group, 65 hunter-gatherers, 40, 195; farm villages forcing out, 43–45; in Paleolithic Age, 15–16; wild horses killed off by, 55; Yamnaya people as, 63 hybridization of ideas, 138 Hyde 3.1 Project, 7, 83 hydraulic civilizations, 47 hydroelectric power, 143 Hyksos group, 65 IBM computers, 175 Ibn Rushd, 78 Ibn Sina, 78 ice age, 42 ICTs.

Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China by Desmond Shum

Asian financial crisis, call centre, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, family office, glass ceiling, Gordon Gekko, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, high-speed rail, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, military-industrial complex, old-boy network, pirate software, plutocrats, race to the bottom, rolodex, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, South China Sea, special economic zone, walking around money, WikiLeaks

One is the hard-hearted, zero-sum, winner-take-all approach pursued by Whitney, Ding Yi, and even Ding Yi’s second wife, Yvonne, the former bar girl who, after her husband declared bankruptcy, succeeded him to become the chairwoman of the company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Yvonne’s bizarre story was yet another example of the type of “great leap forward” not unusual in China of the day. That give-no-quarter feature is a function of the Communist system. From an early age, we Chinese are pitted against one another in a rat race and told that only the strong survive. We’re not taught to cooperate, or to be team players. Rather, we learn how to divide the world into enemies and allies—and that alliances are temporary and allies expendable.

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Outside, the People’s Liberation Army attacked the protesters and cleared Tiananmen Square. Another redblood was a friend I’ll call Wolfgang. His grandfather was one of the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. After the revolution, the grandfather served in key posts but fell afoul of Mao in the late 1950s when he criticized the ruinous Great Leap Forward that cost the lives of millions to starvation. The grandfather spent decades in the political doghouse until he was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Given his experience, the grandfather insisted that his son—Wolfgang’s father—avoid politics, so he studied science and took a job at a research institute.

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., 42, 93 Carlyle Group, 93 Carnegie, Dale, 63 Chen Liangyu, 202 Chen Shui-bian, 170 Chen Tonghai, 197 Chen Weida, 197 Chen Xi, 183–87, 252, 253, 259 Chen Xitong, 56–57 Chen Yun, 239–40 Chen Zuo’er, 247 Chiang Kai-shek, 6, 46, 240 China airport construction boom, 137 average height for men in, 27 capitalism and entrepreneurship in, 50, 169–70, 171, 180, 182, 189, 192, 194, 196, 197, 201, 282, 283 CCP control of all non-Communist elements in society, 205, 208 censorship in, 237 charities in, 182 Christianity in, 71, 182 “common good” fantasy of, 282–83 concept of “face,” 28, 109–10, 212 constitution of, 2 consumption boom, 2000s, 161 consumer goods in, 57 crackdown on Western ideas, 195–97 “Crazy rich Asians” in, 161 democracy and, 86–87, 94, 169–70, 189, 194, 283 Deng and reforms, 18, 45, 55, 170, 216, 251, 283 doing business in, 46, 47, 112–13, 194 (see also Shum, Desmond) economic growth, 45, 51, 55–57, 113, 124, 171–72 economic system of state control, 132, 141 emigration from, mid-1990s, 59–60 exporting its system overseas, 282 extralegal kidnappings in, 2, 254–55, 280, 281 financial crisis of 2008 and, 195 first generation of wealthy, 218 first private research institute, 182 five “black categories,” 5, 11, 170 foreign relations and, 189, 194, 254 Gang of Four, 18, 52 Great Leap Forward, 273 guanxi (connections), importance of, 46, 74, 120, 121, 139, 149–50, 155, 164–65, 181, 204, 217, 247, 271 Gu Mu and economic reforms, 272 Heineken beer and Marlboro cigarettes, sales of, 46 hotels, popularity of, 228 indefinite detention (shuanggui), 281 influence peddling and, 164 intellectual property theft in, 62 Internet and broadband in, 49, 51 islands in South China Sea and, 197 jewelry start-ups in, 89 Jiang’s policy on capitalists, 170 laws as ambiguous, 150, 258 Leninist system of total societal control, 281–82 Li Peng and economic slowdown, 45 medical system, 153–56 military-industrial complex, 185 mobile phones in, 60 modernization of, 77, 169–70, 188 moral vacuum in, 158 motorcycle production, 48 the “New China,” 3, 6, 49, 180 nouveau riche in, 158, 161 one-child policy, 154 Overseas Chinese Affairs, 19–20 parenting philosophy in, 15 as patriarchal society, 3, 64, 103, 173, 246 “patriotic overseas Chinese” as source for foreign currency, 9 politics as the key to riches, 215 pollution in, 188 privatization in, 174 pro-democracy protests in 1989, 272 real estate business, 56, 123–24, 216 relatives overseas, as stigma, 5 secrecy and fear in, 120 shock-and-awe hospitality of, 48 southern clans, diaspora of, 8 Special Economic Zones, 201 sports bureaucracy, 16 state-owned banks, 224 state-owned businesses, 126–27, 142, 171–72, 174, 192, 195, 199, 223 state-run work unit system, 56 state-subsidies of exports, 134 status symbols, 60, 114–15 stock markets of, 240 the “system” and, 95, 274, 282 tariff revenues, 46, 133 tax system, 197 theory of zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong, 77 tuhuangdi or dirt emperor, 128, 193 universities run by the CCP, 183 US-China relations, 32, 182 Western businesses in, pretense of ignorance and, 47 Western private equity investment in, 45, 51, 56, 57, 91, 101 woman’s average age to marry, 69 women and power in, 173 women’s repression in, 71 WTO and, 57, 134 Xi Jinping’s repressive rule, 251–55 See also Chinese Communist Party China Central Television, 124 China Democratic League, 52 China Duty Free Group, 126–27 China Mineral and Gem Corp., 89 China National Petroleum Corp., 8 China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), 75, 110, 165 China Telecom, 172 ChinaVest, 44–54, 60, 134 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 189 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 2, 7, 53, 57 ability to drink and, 128 anti-American stance, 197, 237–38 battle against Western ideas, 195–96, 253 Beijing vs.

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

anti-communist, Deng Xiaoping, estate planning, fake news, financial independence, Great Leap Forward, index card, invention of writing, job-hopping, land reform, Mason jar, mass immigration, new economy, PalmPilot, Pearl River Delta, risk tolerance, Shenzhen special economic zone , special economic zone, vertical integration

Most of the people sent abroad for Xinhua were said to be government spies, but I decided now was not the best time to explore that particular issue. I asked Zhang Hong how work on his book was going. “I’ve written sixty thousand words, but I’ve only gotten to the Great Leap Forward,” he said. “The whole book should be six hundred thousand words.” “The Great Leap Forward,” I repeated, suddenly feeling very tired. The man from Xinhua said with surprise, “You know about the Great Leap Forward?” I asked Zhang Hong, “Why haven’t you finished writing it?” “My health is bad,” he said, “so I work on it when I can.” He paused. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know from what angle to approach this story.

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A light board showed photos of the Communist Party meeting at which Deng Xiaoping set forth his program for economic reform and opening to the West. That was in 1978. From one room to the next, the exhibit had jumped thirty years, skipping over the founding of Communist China, the land reform and the execution of counterrevolutionaries, the attacks against “class enemies” and the establishment of the communes, the Great Leap Forward and the famine that killed at least twenty million people, and the decade of the Cultural Revolution. I had exited History and entered Economy, and now the exhibit came to life. A vast diorama showed the Taiping Handbag Factory with four women bent over a table sewing shoes. A mock-up of the government office where businesses applied for licenses featured the familiar figure of Dongguan Man: a businessman with a potbelly and a pleather briefcase.

Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace by Matthew C. Klein

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, full employment, George Akerlof, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, intangible asset, invention of the telegraph, joint-stock company, land reform, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, passive income, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, sovereign wealth fund, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, Wolfgang Streeck

In practice, this means that workers and retirees are taxed directly and indirectly to subsidize investment directed by central authorities—a development strategy naturally suited to authoritarian regimes that do not need to be held accountable to their voters.7 Nearly every investment-driven growth miracle of the past century has followed this prescription. The Soviet Union under Stalin industrialized using the Gerschenkron model in the 1930s. Maoist China attempted—but failed—to achieve something similar during the Great Leap Forward of 1958–62. (Brazil’s military dictatorship had mixed results with the model during the 1960s and 1970s.) Japan is the only major democracy to have implemented this model in the decades after World War II. Its iteration, which was later adopted by South Korea during its military dictatorship, has been the most successful.

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., 55 Chen, Wei, 126 Chen, Xilu, 126 Chile: and global credit boom (1820s), 49 and global financial crisis (1873), 58 China, 101–30 anticorruption campaign in, 123 banking industry in, 102, 115–16, 127, 128 Belt and Road Initiative, 124–25 bilateral trade imbalances in, 97–98 class warfare in, 127 colonial interests in, 6, 17, 18, 19 corporate tax avoidance in, 33 current account balance in, 97–98, 109, 119–26, 120f, 229 debt levels in, 127–28 Deng’s “reform and opening up stage,” 104–7 development model, 107–14, 108f, 111f employment rate in, 102, 115, 124, 126–27 entrepreneurship in, 101, 116 exchange rate regime in, 108–10, 199–200 famine (1958–62), 67 foreign exchange reserves in, 217 global impact of trade surpluses, 119–26, 120–21f, 123f and global value chains, 27, 28–29 Great Leap Forward (1958–62), 108 hukou system in, 84, 112–13, 129, 229 inequality in, 3–4 infrastructure investment in, 103, 107, 112–13, 115, 118, 124–25 interest rates in, 112, 128 and List’s “National System” of economic development, 16 living standards in, 101, 105, 106–7, 111, 129, 211 manufacturing in, 110, 112, 115, 122–23, 125 overinvestment in, 114–19, 118f policy choices for, 126–30, 229 prodemocracy movement in, 106 productivity in, 105, 106, 109, 114–15, 117–18, 127 savings and investment in, 82, 83, 84, 102–3, 103f, 225 subsidies in, 3, 107–8, 109, 112–14, 116, 118 taxes in, 113, 129 trade dispute with United States, 2–3, 222–23 U.S. corporation income in, 37 Christian Democratic Union (Germany), 143, 152, 166 Christian Social Union (Germany), 143, 152, 166 Churchill, Winston, 189 Citigroup, 63 Civil War (U.S.), 56 class warfare: as cause of trade wars, 3, 221, 223, 225, 231 in China, 127 in Germany, 132, 148, 155, 166 and global financial crisis (1873), 55 in United States, 212–13.

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See also global trade global finance, 40–65 Baring crisis, 58–61 and commodities, 43, 45, 50, 51–57 cyclical history of, 41–46, 44–45t and employment rate, 48 European banking glut, 62–65, 64f global credit boom (1820s), 46–51 global credit boom (1830s), 52–55 global financial crisis (1873), 55–58 global financial crisis (2008), 62–65, 64f growth in, 41–43, 42f and infrastructure, 59 and interest rates, 50, 62 less-developed-country lending boom, 61–62 global financial crisis (1873), 55–58 global financial crisis (2008): in China, 102–3, 124–25 and European banking glut, 62–65, 64f in Germany, 159–60, 165f in United States, 201–13 global trade, 8–39 bilateral trade imbalances, 27–39, 96, 97–100 and Bretton Woods, 21–23 and commodities, 9, 10, 17, 21, 28 container shipping’s impact on, 23–27 and corporate tax avoidance, 30–34 and employment rate, 30 and entrepreneurship, 25 and global value chains, 27–30 and imperialism, 6, 17–19, 18f and interest rates, 35 and List’s “National System” of economic development, 11–17 and productivity, 11, 12–13, 31 Smith on, 9–11 and tax havens, 34–39, 36f, 39f and world wars, 19–23. See also current account balance global value chains, 27–30 Goldman Sachs, 63 gold prices, 192–94 gold standard, 185–89, 219, 220 Google, 34, 35 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 135 Gould, Jay, 57 government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), 203 Great Depression, 20 Great Leap Forward (China, 1958–62), 67, 107–8 Greece: banking industry in, 231 budget surpluses in, 170 and EU banking glut, 63 external debt in, 163 German surpluses absorbed by, 4–5, 229–30 and global credit boom (1820s), 49 savings and investment in, 83, 84, 172 Greenspan, Alan, 178, 208 GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises), 203 Hamilton, Alexander, 11–17, 72 Hartz, Peter, 148–54 Herzog, Roman, 143, 149, 150 Hobson, John A., 6–7 Honecker, Erich, 134 Hong Kong: colonial interests in, 17 U.S. corporation income in, 37 U.S. exports to, 29–30 housing market, 207–8, 223 HSBC Global Research, 116 hukou system (China), 84, 112–13, 129, 229 Hungary: end of communism in, 133–34 and global value chains, 28 manufacturing in, 142 Soviet invasion (1956), 134 Hünnekes, Franziska, 87 IG Metall (labor union), 148–49 IMF.

The Cold War: Stories From the Big Freeze by Bridget Kendall

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, British Empire, collective bargaining, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Great Leap Forward, Howard Zinn, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, open borders, Prenzlauer Berg, Ronald Reagan, Suez canal 1869, white flight

He was also concerned by the uprisings the new policy appeared to have provoked in Poland and Hungary in 1956, and viewed the efforts to deliver prosperity and consumer goods to Soviet society as un-revolutionary. And he thought Khrushchev’s attempts to ease tensions with the United States through visits and summits was misguided. In contrast to Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’, Mao took a sharp turn to the left and in 1958 announced the Great Leap Forward – a mass mobilisation of China’s workers and peasants, herded into huge ‘people’s communes’, with the goal of ramping up heavy industry and agriculture to reach giddy new heights of grain and steel production. It was a monumental disaster, causing chaotic upheaval and a largely man-made famine, which led to tens of millions of deaths.

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In part, Mao hoped to show that, unlike the Soviet Union, China had lost none of its revolutionary purity, and in contrast to those complacent revisionist backsliders in the Kremlin, Mao could claim he was the true keeper of the flame, the guardian of Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy. One Chinese poster from the early days of the Cultural Revolution declared ‘Topple the Soviet revisionists. Smash the dog heads Brezhnev and Kosygin.’ In part, this was also Mao’s political comeback. The calamitous failures of the Great Leap Forward had damaged his authority. This was a bid to restore his leadership within the party and across the country – helped by a cult of personality that reached near religious proportions – and eliminate or side-line through a mass purge those critics in the party hierarchy whom he saw as dangerous rivals.

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Some more radical Red Guard units were suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army and themselves accused of ‘counter-revolutionary’ tendencies. Parts of the country were engulfed in what amounted to civil war. The Cultural Revolution was above all an urban phenomenon, a purge targeting intellectuals, teachers and party officials. The death toll was nothing like the scale of the Great Leap Forward, but it had a devastating effect on the entire country, as economic activity ground to a halt in favour of revolutionary fervour. In the countryside, primary education for the rural poor expanded, but in towns and cities, schools and universities remained closed for years, not only because students left but also because so many academics and teachers were persecuted and sent to an early death in rural labour camps.

What Kind of Creatures Are We? (Columbia Themes in Philosophy) by Noam Chomsky

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Arthur Eddington, Brownian motion, classic study, conceptual framework, en.wikipedia.org, failed state, Great Leap Forward, Henri Poincaré, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, language acquisition, liberation theology, mass incarceration, means of production, phenotype, Ronald Reagan, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Turing test, wage slave

This confluence of simplicity of assumptions in accounting for the Basic Property and the accompanying claim of the optimal design of language may help to give substance to what is the most plausible hypothesis on the limited evidence we possess about the origins of language: that language emerged not gradually, but suddenly (and relatively recently). Such a sudden “great leap forward,” it may now be speculated, was perhaps caused by a “slight rewiring of the brain [that] yielded Merge, naturally in its simplest form, providing the basis for unbounded and creative thought,” hitherto unpossessed. Chapter 2, “What Can We Understand?,” consolidates some of these conclusions by first elaborating on another central theme in Chomsky’s work: the limits of human cognition.

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The SMT hypothesis fits well with the very limited evidence we have about the emergence of language, apparently quite recently and suddenly in the evolutionary time scale, as Tattersall discussed. A fair guess today—and one that opens rich avenues of research and inquiry—is that some slight rewiring of the brain yielded Merge, naturally in its simplest form, providing the basis for unbounded and creative thought, the “great leap forward” revealed in the archaeological record, and the remarkable differences separating modern humans from their predecessors and the rest of the animal kingdom. Insofar as the surmise is sustainable, we would have an answer to questions about apparent optimal design of language: that is what would be expected under the postulated circumstances, with no selectional or other pressures operating, so the emerging system should just follow laws of nature, in this case the principles of Minimal Computation—rather the way a snowflake forms.

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, Atahualpa, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, British Empire, centre right, classic study, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, crony capitalism, Day of the Dead, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, Home mortgage interest deduction, household responsibility system, income inequality, information asymmetry, invention of the printing press, iterative process, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, labour management system, land reform, land tenure, life extension, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, means of production, Menlo Park, Mohammed Bouazizi, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, new economy, open economy, out of africa, Peace of Westphalia, Port of Oakland, post-industrial society, post-materialism, price discrimination, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, stem cell, subprime mortgage crisis, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Vilfredo Pareto, women in the workforce, work culture , World Values Survey, zero-sum game

Many party leaders, like Deng Xiaoping and Mao himself, were also famous and successful generals during the Chinese civil war, and thus the PLA always enjoyed a somewhat greater degree of autonomy than its Soviet counterpart.3 This familiar party-state structure was then completely upended during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Great Leap Forward made use of the party apparatus to organize a military-style mass campaign of workers and peasants to meet Mao’s totally unrealistic production goals for industrialization. This disrupted the routine operations of the economic ministries and replaced them with a chaotic, bottom-up process of mass mobilization.

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We have advocated uninterrupted revolutions and the law should be in the service of the continuing revolution … It does not matter if we make a law today and change it tomorrow.”19 Mao himself asserted that “[we must] depend on rule of man, not rule of law.” No society, of course, can live entirely without rules, and as the Communist Party sought to stabilize and expand the economy in the 1950s, it began rebuilding law by importing statutes from the Soviet Union. But this process was cut short by the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 and the Great Leap Forward of 1958. The latter was an ideologically driven campaign whose goal was to mobilize mass support for industrialization but instead brought about a famine estimated to have killed thirty-six million people.20 After this disaster, there was another brief effort to rebuild a legal system during the early 1960s, which was in turn brought to an end by Mao’s Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976.

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Mandatory retirement rules have also been set more broadly for lower levels of the party. While the actual politics of leadership succession at the highest levels remain completely obscure, there is at least an institutionalized process for leadership turnover.35 These rules are the direct result of the experience of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. As in the Soviet Union under Stalin, it was the senior ranks of the party itself that suffered directly from the unchecked personal dictatorship of a charismatic leader. Many of the rules they subsequently put in place were therefore designed to prevent another such leader from emerging.

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, AltaVista, Andrei Shleifer, bank run, Berlin Wall, British Empire, California gold rush, central bank independence, centre right, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, Dava Sobel, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, export processing zone, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Kula ring, labor-force participation, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, Maui Hawaii, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Nelson Mandela, obamacare, openstreetmap, out of africa, PageRank, pattern recognition, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, Skype, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, the market place, transcontinental railway, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks

In the autumn of 1959, the grain harvest brought in 5.955 million kilos, which was not unusually low. But the Communist Party had decided to procure 6 million kilos from the farmers. So all the grain from Huaidian went to the cities and the party. The farmers ate bark and mollusks, and starved. These experiences were part of the “Great Leap Forward,” the “modernization” program launched by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1958 with the aim of using the Chinese state’s capacity to dramatically transform the country from a rural, agrarian society into a modern urban and industrial one. This program required heavy taxes on peasants in order to subsidize industry and invest in machinery.

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All kinds of torture—“taking a plane,” “riding a motorcycle” . . . “standing on tiptoe at midnight” (these were all names for types of punishment)—were common. They would make us eat shit and drink urine and call it eating fried dough sticks and drinking wine. They were really inhuman. Luo was not arrested during the Great Leap Forward, but in March 2001, when China was already a respected member of the international community and an economic powerhouse. Indeed, the Reeducation Through Labor system was expanded after 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, the engineer of China’s legendary economic growth over the last four decades, who saw it as a useful complement to his “economic reform” program.

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In fact, it got worse under the rule of the Communist Party because of Mao’s insistence on securing a greater presence for the party and the state throughout the country. Despite its despotic posturing, the Qing state was absent in much of the country, and particularly in the countryside. Coming to power at the head of a peasant revolution, Mao intended to change that right away. As we saw in Chapter 1, by the time of the Great Leap Forward, party organizations and members were everywhere. What created continuity with the imperial period was the essence of despotism—the inability of society to organize and influence policy making outside the hierarchy of the state. Mao wanted the only medium for political participation to be the Communist Party, which effectively meant control of the state and the political elite over citizens, with no reciprocal influence.

The Despot's Accomplice: How the West Is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy by Brian Klaas

Asian financial crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, citizen journalism, clean water, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, failed state, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, moral hazard, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, Seymour Hersh, Skype, Steve Jobs, trade route, Transnistria, Twitter Arab Spring, unemployed young men, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

In turn, the government must ensure at least a minimal baseline of wellbeing for the people, or face being replaced in elections. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has demonstrated the virtues of this asset, arguing that this connection between the government and the governed is why no modern democratic state—including his birthplace, democratic India—has had a famine.7 Mao’s Great Leap Forward in China alone provides 15 million counterexamples on the authoritarian side of the ledger. â•… Moreover, the broader democratic “marketplace of ideas” that accompanies citizen participation allows the best ideas to swim while the worst ideas sink. When Libya’s longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi had a bad or bizarre idea (like ordering his military to shoot down a civilian airliner or employing an impractical horde of Amazonstyle virgin fighters as his presidential guard), those ideas became reality without question—sometimes almost instantly.

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€ € € 256 INDEX Air Force One, 58 Ajax, 22, 38, 230 Alert, Nunavut, 231 Alfonso IX, King of Léon, 30–1 Algeria, 155 Aliyev, Ilham, 82–5 Allende, Salvador, 45–7 amplification effect, 57 Anaconda Copper, 48 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 38 Angola, 112–13 Antananarivo, Madagascar, 7, 85, 86 Apple, 20, 83, 135–6, 145, 151 Arab Spring (2011), 2, 10, 12–16, 18, 65, 94, 124–6, 130, 132–3, 163, 168, 218 Argentina, 34–5, 149, 156 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 114–15, 117 Aristogeiton, 28 Aristophanes, 29 Aristotle, 29 Armenia, 59–60, 209 Armitage, Richard, 53 Asghabat, Turkmenistan, 25 Ashkelon, Israel, 102 Asian financial crisis (1997), 196 Abbas, Mahmoud, 100 Abbottabad, Pakistan, 53 Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, King of Saudi Arabia, 172 Abdullah II, King of Jordan, 18, 214 Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 19, 105, 106–7 Abraham, 124 Achilles, 22, 230 Afghanistan, 2, 5, 20, 49, 54, 67, 69, 70, 78, 98, 136–8, 213 1982 arrival of Bin Laden, 78 2001 US-led invasion, 70, 71, 84, 98 2009 presidential election, 70–1 2014 presidential election, 71; power-sharing agreement, 75–6; USAID announces women’s empowerment project, 136–8, 145 Afifi, Omar, 163–4, 247 African-Americans, 176, 207, 250 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 168 Ahmed, Mohammed, 123–4, 126, 130, 224 AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), 116, 207 257 INDEX al-Assad, Bashar, 120 AT&T, 135 Athena, 22 Athens, 20, 27–30, 31, 156 Australia, 29–30, 112, 153, 156 Azerbaijan, 20, 82–5, 90, 209, 211, 238 Ba’ath party, 63, 72, 77, 124, 128 Badawi, Raif, 16 Baghdad, Iraq, 72 Bahrain, 59, 155, 209, 225 Bangkok, Thailand, 198, 200, 202, 203, 223 Bangladesh, 106 Bardo Museum attack (2015), 131 Barraket Essahel affair (1991), 123, 126, 224 Basra, Iraq, 72, 73 beheadings, 11, 12, 16, 19 Beijing Consensus, 206–7 Belarus, 3, 19, 60–7, 154, 192–5, 205–6, 212, 218, 222 1991 dissolution of Soviet Union; independence, 192–3 1994 presidential election; Lukashenko comes to power, 193–4 1996 Commonwealth with Russia established, 194 2002 proposal for re-integration with Russia, 194 2004 US passes Belarus Democracy Act, 63, 194; referendum on Lukashenko’s third term; Western sanctions, 63 2006 presidential election, 61; EU asset ban on Lukashenko, 63 2010 presidential election, 61–2, 65; Statkevich impris- 258 oned for organizing protest, 61–2, 222 2015 economic crisis, 64; release of political prisoners, 65, 222; presidential election, 64–5; pressured by Russia to host military base, 65, 195 2016 EU suspends sanctions, 65, 67, 195 Belarus Democracy Act (2004), 63, 194 Belgian Congo (1908–60), 42 Belgium, 43–4, 90, 220 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 13, 123–33, 155 benign dictatorship, 215, 220 Benin, 23, 27, 156 Berlin Wall, 35, 201 Bermudo II “the Gouty”, King of Léon, 30, 231 Bever, James, 101 Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand, 165 Biamby, Philippe, 117 Bible, 179 Big Brother, 180 Bin Laden, Osama, 18, 50, 52–3, 78 Binti Salan Mustapa, Sumiati, 12 Biya, Paul, 121 Black Hawk Down incident (1993), 116 Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), 211 blackballing, 29 Blagoy, Ivan, 208 Blair, Anthony “Tony”, 6, 92 Blueberry Hill (Fats Domino), 207 Boehner, John, 181 Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen), 121 Boko Haram, 177 Bolivia, 143, 154 INDEX Bolšteins, Ludvigs, 147 Bono (Paul Hewson), 92 Boston University, 111 Botswana, 149 Bourguiba, Habib, 126 BP (British Petroleum), 38 Bradley effect, 176, 250 Brazil, 56, 149, 152, 156 Bremer, Lewis Paul, 72 Brexit, 1 bribery, 170–1 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 94 Brunei, 155, 229 bubonic plague, 6 BudgIT, 171 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 34 Bulgaria, 149 Burkina Faso, 177–8 Burundi, 95 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 115, 121, 190 Bush, George Walker, 54–7, 63, 69, 99, 100, 101, 190, 194, 201 Bush, Sarah, 59 Cairo, Egypt, 9–10, 13, 163–4, 218 California, United States, 26, 188, 209 Cambodia, 59 Cameroon, 121 Canada, 94, 112, 143, 153, 155, 156, 230–1 Caravana de la Muerte, 47 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 52, 73 Carothers, Thomas, 52, 73, 141, 144, 189 Carter Center, 89, 238 Carter, James Earl “Jimmy”, 116, 120, 238 Caspian Sea, 84 Castro, Fidel, 49 Castro, Raul, 49 caudillos, 33 Cédras, Raoul, 115–20 censorship, 161–3, 165 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 20, 39–49, 59, 98, 201, 207, 208 Chan-ocha, Prayuth, 164, 203 Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 31 Chemonics, 58, 138 Chicago, Illinois, 182 Chile, 27, 36, 38, 45–8, 153, 220, 225 Chiluba, Frederick, 190 China, 4, 23–7, 105–6, 109, 168– 70, 176, 190, 191–2, 196–212, 215–16, 218, 221, 223, 229 1958 launch of Great Leap Forward, 24 1990 Deng Xiaoping’s “24-Character Strategy”, 206 1992 propaganda-industry tax introduced, 209 2003 SARS outbreak, 25–6 2013 endorsement of Azerbaijani election, 211; monitoring of Malagasy election, 211 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong, 168–9, 176, 221; rail deal with Thailand, 203 2016 Lunar New Year celebrations, 208; Mong Kok riots, 169 China Central Television (CCTV), 207–9 Chow, Holden, 169 Christianity, 105, 179 Churchill, Winston, 22, 190, 215 259 INDEX Ciftci, Bilgin, 20, 161–3, 165, 176 citizen journalism, 135 citizen participation, 27 Citizens United v.

…

., 138 Development Assistance Committee (DAC), 58 Devlin, Larry, 43 Diamond, Larry, 171 Dictator’s Learning Curve, The (Dobson), 210 digital communications, 49, 125, 161–75, 207, 208, 221, 223 Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), 48 direct democracy, 28–9 disabled rights, 141, 144 disinformation, 207–8 Dobson, Will, 210 “Don’t Forget Me” (GooGoosha), 140 Dubai, 82 Duékoué, Côte d’Ivoire, 105 Dulles, Alan, 41 Durack, Western Australia, 29–30 Duvalier, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc”, 114 Ebola, 184 echo chamber effect, 165 Egypt, 6, 9–10, 13–16, 27, 88, 155, 163–4, 225 1987 US aid payments begin, 14 2001 EU Association Agreement, 155 2008 Afifi exiled to US, 163 2009 Clinton describes Mubaraks as ‘friends of my family’, 6; Obama’s Cairo speech, 9–10, 218 2011 Tahrir Square protests begin, 10, 13, 163–4; Mubarak ousted, 13, 164 2012 Morsi elected president, 14; anti-Morsi demonstrations begin, 164, 247 2013 coup d’état; el-Sisi comes to power, 14–16, 88, 164; Saudi Arabia announces aid package, 15 Eid al-Kabir, 124 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 38, 43 elections campaign finance, 185–8, 238 foreign aid/intervention, 97–110, 143 “free and fair”, 8, 14, 88–90, 102, 159, 193 gerrymandering, 180–5, 188, 251 grade inflation, 88–9, 158, 159 inclusivity, 24, 129–31, 221 observation/monitoring, 8, 65, 81, 83–4, 88–90, 102, 158–9, 173–4, 178, 211, 223 polling, 174–6 respect for, 5, 37–48 rigging of, 22–3, 34, 61, 63–4, 70–1, 83–5, 87, 112, 158–9, 166, 210–11 short-term thinking, 26, 54, 56 turnout, 180, 184 Electoral Integrity Project, 189, 238 Elizabethville, Congo, 43 “emerging democracy”, 88 Emory University, 136 261 INDEX “End of History”, 163, 214 English Civil War (1642–51), 31 Ennahda party, 126–8 Equatorial Guinea, 6, 11, 121, 173, 220 Erdoggan, Recep Tayyip, 20, 161–3, 176 Eritrea, 11, 24 Estonia, 17, 149, 151 Ethiopia, 27 Eton College, Berkshire, 202 European Commission, 150 European Parliament, 84, 180 European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), 58 European Union (EU), 2, 3, 56, 61–3, 65–7, 84, 90, 100, 143, 145, 148–56, 160, 180, 195, 214, 223, 225, 247 1999 European Parliament elections, 180 2004 Eastern Bloc countries accede to Union, 148–9 2005 intervention in Palestinian election campaign, 100 2006 asset ban on Lukashenko government, 63 2008 aid given for Ghanaian election, 143 2009 Eurozone crisis begins, 180, 190 2013 endorsement of Azerbaijani election, 84; endorsement of Malagasy election, 90 2014 Riga designated European Capital of Culture, 148, 225 2015 Riga summit; Juncker slaps Orbán, 150 2016 Belarus sanctions suspended, 65, 67, 195; Zimbabwe sanctions suspended, 247; UK € 262 holds membership referendum, 1 Eurozone crisis, 180, 190 Facebook, 125, 161–3, 165, 168, 172, 223 Falls Church, Virginia, 163 famine, 24 Fatah, 99–102 Fats Domino, 207 Ferjani, Said, 125–33, 142, 156, 221, 224 Fidesz Party, 150–2 financial crisis (2008–9), 185, 206 FixMyStreet, 171 Florida, United States, 117 Forces Nouvelles, 106 Ford, Gerald, 45 Foreign Affairs, 53 foreign aid, 14–15, 47, 49, 52, 57, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 100–1 Fourteen Points (1918), 35 France, 2, 33, 44, 55–6, 58, 72, 89, 106, 108–10, 115, 129, 214, 225 “free and fair”, 8, 14, 88–90, 102, 159, 193 free speech, 94, 103, 161–3, 165, 188 free trade zones, 152–60 Freedom House, 139, 140, 189 Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 189 Front Populaire Ivorien, 105 FSB (Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti), 61 Fukuyama, Francis, 74, 163, 214 fungibilty, 95 Gaddafi, Muammar, 24, 76–9, 102, 113, 129 Gambia, The, 121 Gandhi, Jennifer, 136 INDEX Gaza, Palestine, 100–1, 240–1 Gbabgbo, Laurent, 105–10, 111, 119 General Motors, 48 Geneva Convention, 177 Geneva, Switzerland, 140 George III, King of the United Kingdom, 31 Georgia, 143 Geraldton, Western Australia, 30 Germany, 17, 23, 35, 44, 56, 58, 74–5, 103–4, 147–8, 165, 189, 201, 204, 208, 213, 223 Gerry, Elbridge, 181–2 gerrymandering, 180–5, 188, 251 Ghana, 17, 143, 144, 171 Ghani, Rula, 137 globalization, 153 Globe & Mail, 94 golden handcuffs, 111, 119–21, 154 golden parachutes, 19, 116–21 Gollum, 20, 161–3, 165, 176 Google, 164 GooGoosha (Gulnara Karimova), 140, 145 Government Organized NonGovernmental Organizations (GONGOs), 209–10, 212 grade inflation, 88, 99, 158, 159 Great Leap Forward (1958–61), 24 Greece, 20, 21, 22, 27–30, 31, 156, 230 Green Revolution (2009), 135–6, 166–8 gridlock, 184–5, 187 Guardian, 166 gun regulation, 186–7 gunboat diplomacy, 116, 118, 120 Gutiérrez, Luis, 182 Guyana, 171, 220 Guys and Dolls, 40 Hague, William, 77 Haiti, 114–21 Hamas, 99–104, 241 Harmodius, 28 Harvard University, 45 health care, 184–5 Henry IV “the Impotent”, King of Castile and Léon, 30, 231 Herodotus, 29 Higiro, Robert, 94 Hipparchus, 28 Hitler, Adolf, 23, 103–4, 165 HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), 116, 207 Hobart, Tasmania, 153 homosexuality, 12, 20 Hong Kong, 168–70, 176, 221 House of Representatives, 33, 181 human rights, 10, 11, 52, 54, 57, 64, 113, 118, 139, 209, 213 Humphrey, Hubert, 21 Hungary, 150–2, 160, 171 Hussein, Saddam, 63, 72, 73, 79, 124, 156–7 I Paid a Bribe, 170–1 Ibragimbekov, Rustam, 82 Iceland, 88 Iglesias, Julio, 140 “illiberal democracy”, 227 Illinois, United States, 182–3 Iloniaina, Alain, 222–3 imihigo program, 93 Immunization of the Revolution, 127 inclusion, 24, 129–31 India, 56, 98, 152, 156, 170–1, 172, 220 Indonesia, 27, 156, 218 Indyk, Martin, 102 insidious model effect, 46, 48 Inter-Commission Working Group 263 INDEX on International Cooperation, 211 Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), 52, 53 International Criminal Court (ICC), 106, 109, 118, 119 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 105 International Republican Institute (IRI), 58, 142 Internet, 49, 125, 161–75, 207, 208, 221, 223 iPad, 151 iPhones, 20, 83, 135–6, 145 Iran, 26, 30, 36, 38, 47, 48, 69, 98, 117, 135–6, 145, 208, 232 1951 nationalization of AngloIranian Oil Company, 38 1953 Operation Ajax; Mossadegh ousted, 38–42, 98, 208 1979 Islamic Revolution, 42, 117, 216 2009 intervention in Lebanese election, 98; presidential election; Green Revolution protests, 135–6, 166–8 2010 VOA announces “citizen journalism” iPhone app, 135–6, 145 2015 nuclear deal, 26 Iraq, 2, 5, 20, 49, 63, 67, 72–5, 77, 78, 79, 98, 124, 128, 129, 133, 156–7, 198, 213 1979 Saddam comes to power, 72, 129 1990 invasion of Kuwait, 156 2003 US-led invasion, 63, 72–3, 77, 84, 98, 156, 201, 234; de-Ba’athification campaign, 72, 77, 124, 128 2006 formation of al-Maliki government, 73 264 2015 IS execute election officials, 74 Ireland, 90, 217 Islam, 11, 12, 16, 99, 105, 123–6, 129, 131, 177, 218 Islamic State (IS), 74, 78, 131 Islamism, 99, 123–6, 129, 131, 177 Israel, 14, 99–104 Italy, 98, 192 Jackson, Peter, 162 Jammeh,Yahya, 121 Japan, 17, 24, 35, 56, 58, 74–5, 89, 112, 154, 156, 164, 204, 206, 217, 218, 220 al-Jazeera, 76 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 172 Joan of Portugal, Queen consort of Castile, 231 Jobs, Steve, 151 Johnson, Boris, 202 Jordan, 18, 60, 155 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 150 Kabila, Joseph, 121 Kabul, Afghanistan, 70 Kagame, Paul, 6, 91–6 Kagan, Robert, 217–18 Kakul Military Academy, 53 Kallel, Abdallah, 124 Kant, Immanuel, 118 Karbala, Iraq, 201 Karegeya, Patrick, 94 Karimov, Islam, 139–40, 142, 154 Karimova, Gulnara, 139–40, 145 Karnataka, India, 170 Karoui, Nébil, 131 Karzai, Hamid, 70 Katanga, Congo, 43–4 Keane, John, 30 INDEX Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 11, 35–6, 55, 190, 192 Kenya, 220 KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), 3, 61–2, 147–8, 194, 225 Khan, Rana Sanaullah, 52 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 167 Kim Jong-un, 136, 181 Kingdom of Ebla, 28 Kipling, Rudyard, 69 Kissinger, Henry, 44–7, 214 knee-jerk reactions, 26, 55 Koch Brothers, 185–6 Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 58, 189 Kounalakis, Eleni, 151 kratos, 27 Kununurra, Western Australia, 30 Kuwait, 156, 229 Kyrgyzstan, 185 2011 NATO-led intervention, 76–7; death of Gaddafi, 76–7, 113 2013 Political Isolation Law, 77, 128 LINE, 164–5 Literary Digest, 174 lobbying, 186–7 local-level democracy, 3, 18, 169–73 locusts, 6–7 London, England, 132–3 long-term thinking, 4, 46, 48, 51–67, 138, 141, 234 Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), 20, 161–3, 165, 176 “Luck Be a Lady Tonight”, 40 Lukashenko, Alexander, 61–7, 154, 193–5, 206, 222 Lumumba, Patrice, 42–4 Lumumbashi, Congo, 43 Lake, Anthony, 117 Landon, Alf, 174 Langouste (Ramakavélo), 87 Laos, 200 Latin Earmuffs, 182 Latvia, 147–50, 151–2, 154, 160, 225 League of Democracies, 152–60, 212 Lebanon, 98 Léon, 30–1, 231 Léopoldville, Congo, 43 Levy, Phil, 157 Libya, 2, 5, 20, 24, 49, 67, 69, 76–9, 102, 113, 128, 129, 133, 156, 213 1969 coup d’état; Gaddafi comes to power, 78, 113, 129 2008 Rice makes visit, 76 MacCann, William, 34 Madagascar, 3, 6–9, 17, 20, 59, 85–91, 96, 200, 220, 222–3, 234–5 1991 Panorama Convention, 87 1992 presidential election, 87 1993 population census, 89 2006 presidential election, 85–6 2009 coup d’état; Rajoelina comes to power, 6, 90 2012 Rajoelina announces capture of bandits’ sorcerer, 7 2013 general election, 8, 89–90, 211, 222–3 Madagascar Effect, 6–8, 17, 81, 96, 159, 204, 234–5 Madison, James, 31–2 Malaysia, 153, 218 al-Maliki, Nouri, 73–4 Mao Zedong, 23, 24 265 INDEX marketplace of ideas, 24, 219 Mauritius, 220 May, Theresa, 26 McCain, John, 77 McMahon, Michael, 83 McSpedon, Joe, 49 Megara, 156 Mejora Tu Escuela, 171 El Mercurio, 47 Merkel, Angela, 208 Mesopotamia, 28 Mexico, 27, 149, 155, 156, 171, 172, 178 MI6, 43 Miami, Florida, 117 Miloševicc, Slobodan, 98, 120 Minnesota, United States, 21, 186–7 Minsk, Belarus, 19, 61–2, 66, 192, 193 Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 119 Mobutu, Joseph-Desiré, 43–4 Mogadishu, Somalia, 116 Moghaddam, Ismail Ahmadi, 167 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 39–42, 117 Moldova, 195–6 Mondale, Walter, 21 Mong Kok riots (2016), 169 Mongolia, 17, 30, 189 Morjane, Kamel, 130 Morocco, 155, 171 Morsi, Mohammed, 14, 15, 164, 247 Moscow, Russia, 210 Mossadegh, Mohammed, 38–42, 43, 232 Mosul, Iraq, 72, 73 al-Moubadara, 130 Mubarak, Hosni, 6, 13, 164 Mugabe, Robert, 112–13, 157–8 Mugenzi, Rene Claudel, 94–5, 189 € 266 Muhirwa, Alice, 93 Muñiz de Urquiza, María, 90 Munyuza, Dan, 94 Musharraf, Pervez, 51–7 Myanmar, 218, 225 Nasiri, Nematollah, 40 Nation, The, 198 National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), 197 National Democratic Institute (NDI), 58, 92, 142 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 58, 60, 144, 247 National Rifle Association (NRA), 186–7 Native Americans, 32, 33 Nawabshah, Pakistan, 51 Nazi Germany (1933–45), 23, 44, 74–5, 103–4, 147–8, 165 Nepal, 98 Netherlands, 58, 89, 143 Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, 58 New Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, 26 NewYork Times, 71, 93, 185–6 New Zealand, 112, 156, 209 Nicaragua, 24, 98 Nidaa Tounes, 131 Niger, 185 Nigeria, 171, 172 Nixon, Richard, 44–7 Niyazov, Saparmurat, 25 Nobel Prize, 18, 24, 131, 156, 163 non-alignment, 43 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 58–60, 141–2, 144, 158, 209–10, 212, 238 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 45, 55, 77 INDEX North Carolina, United States, 183 North Korea, 4, 11, 136, 138, 144, 173, 176, 181 Norway, 24, 77, 205, 219 nuclear power/weapons, 26, 192 Nunavut, Canada, 153, 230–1 Nunn, Sam, 116 Nuristan, Afghanistan, 70 Nyaklyayew, Uladzimir, 61–2, 65 Nyamwasa, Faustin Kayumba, 94 Obama, Barack, 6, 9–10, 14, 49, 54, 55, 57–8, 76, 96, 111, 183, 204, 205, 218 Obiang, Teodoro, 6, 121 Odysseus, 22, 153 oil, 4, 11, 16, 24, 84, 192, 229 olive oil, 125 Operation Ajax (1953), 38–42, 98, 208 Operation Desert Storm (1991), 156 Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–14), 70 Operation Uphold Democracy (1994–5), 116 Orbán, Viktor, 150–2 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 64 Ortega, Daniel, 98 Orwell, George, 15, 101, 199 Oswald, Lee Harvey, 192 Ouattara, Alassane, 105–10, 119 Oxford University, 198, 202 OxfordGirl, 166 Pakistan, 18, 50–7, 70, 220, 233 Palestine, 99–104, 108, 240–1 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 99 Panama, 117 Panorama Convention (1991), 87 Papua New Guinea, 188 parliaments, 31 partisan engagement, 99–104 Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), 156 People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), 197, 202 Pericles, 29 Persia, 28 Peru, 153 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 33 Philippines, 218 Pinochet, Augusto, 47–8, 225 Piromya, Kasit, 204–5 Plateau Dokui, Abidjan, 107 Plato, 29 Poland, 201 Political Isolation Law (2013), 77, 128 polling, 174–6 Pomerantsev, Peter, 210 Pongsudhirak, Thitinan, 165 Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 117 Portugal, 218, 231 Pouraghayi, Saeedah, 167 Powell, Colin, 116, 120 Préval, René, 117 Price, Melissa, 30 Princeton University, 186 prisoner’s dilemma, 200 process engagement, 99–100 propaganda-industry tax, 209 protectionism, 177 proto-democracy, 28 Public Diplomacy of the Public Chamber of Russia Elections, 211 Pul-i-Charki, Kabul, 71 Putin, Vladimir, 63, 64–5, 194–5, 204, 207, 214 267 INDEX al-Qaeda, 18, 50, 52–3, 55, 78, 177, 234 Qatar, 155, 229 Qatif, Saudi Arabia, 11, 16 Queen, 121 racism, 176, 218, 250 Rajoelina, Andry, 6 Ramadan, 126 Ramakavélo, Desiré-Philippe, 86–7 Rao, Bhaskar, 170 Rassemblement des Républicains, 105 Ratchaburi, Thailand, 199 Ravalomanana, Marc, 6 Reagan, Ronald, 35–6, 55 realpolitik, 4, 45, 48, 98, 104 refugees, 208 representative democracy, 30–3 Republican Party, 39, 58, 79, 124, 142, 181, 182–8 Rever, Judi, 94 Riahi, Taghi, 39–40 Rice, Condoleeza, 76, 102 Riga, Latvia, 147–8, 150, 160, 225 rock lobster, 87 Rojanaphruk, Pravit, 198–9, 221, 223–4 Romania, 149, 209 Rome, Ancient (753 BC–476 AD), 21, 30 Romney, Mitt, 112 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 39, 174 Roosevelt, Kermit, 38–40, 208 Roosevelt, Theodore “Teddy”, 39 de Rosas, Juan Manuel, 34–5 Roskam, Peter 183 rule of law, 10, 27, 73, 77, 136, 159, 209, 218 Rumsfeld, Donald, 145 Russia Today (RT), 207–9 268 Russian Federation, 24, 27, 60–1, 63–5, 82, 106, 140, 149, 190, 191–6, 204, 205–12, 214, 221, 229 1996 Commonwealth with Belarus established, 194 2002 proposal for re-integration of Belarus, 194 2005 support for Moldovan opposition on Transnistria, 195–6; Russia Today established, 207 2010 Putin sings Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill, 207 2013 endorsement of Azerbaijani election, 211 2014 annexation of Crimea; intervention in Ukraine, 64, 65; RT reports “genocide” in Ukraine, 207; RT reports CIA behind Ebola outbreak, 207 2015 NED banned, 60; pressure on Belarus to host military base, 65, 195 2016 RT report on rape of “Lisa” in Germany, 208; Putin praised by Trump, 214 Rwanda, 6, 20, 91–6, 120, 185, 189, 215, 216 Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), 91 San Diego State University, 209 sanctions, 52, 62–5, 67, 103, 106, 135–6, 145, 156–8, 160, 195, 247, 253 Sandinista National Liberation Front, 98 Sandy Hook massacre (2012), 186 dos Santos, José Eduardo, 112–13 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 108 INDEX SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), 25–6 Saudi Arabia, 5–6, 9–12, 15–16, 19–20, 85, 98, 138, 144, 200, 216, 229 1962 slavery abolished, 11 2009 intervention in Lebanese election, 98; children sentenced to prison and lashes for stealing exam papers, 11, 16; Jeddah floods, 172 2010 Indonesian maid mutilated by employer, 11, 12; arms deal with US, 10–12 2011 Qatif protests, 16 2013 aid package to Egypt announced, 15; purchase of US naval craft announced, 16; Badawi sentenced to prison and lashes, 16 Saudi Arabia Effect, 5, 9, 16, 85, 138, 200 Schneider, René, 45 School of the Americas, 115 Seattle, Washington, 77 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), 43 Sen, Amartya, 24 Senate, US, 32–3, 187 Senegal, 42, 121 September 11 attacks (2001), 18, 52–3, 55, 70 Serbia, 98, 120 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 211 Sharif, Nawaz, 51–2, 233 Shinawatra, Thaksin, 196, 199, 201, 202, 205 Shinawatra,Yingluck, 198 short-term thinking, 3–4, 26, 46, 48, 51–67, 120, 138, 141, 234 Shushkevich, Stanislav, 192–3 Siberia, 147, 148 Sidick, Koné Abou Bakary, 107–9 Sierra Leone, 88, 171, 209 Singapore, 23, 24, 27, 93, 155, 215, 216, 217, 229 Siripaiboon, Thanakorn, 165 el-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 15 Skujenieks, Knuts, 148 Skype, 62 slavery, 11, 29, 32 social media, 49–50, 125, 161–70, 173, 176, 199, 207, 208, 223 Socrates, 29 Solon, 28 Somalia, 42, 116 Sophocles, 29 Sopko, John, 137 Sousse attacks (2015), 131 South Africa, 27, 94, 157, 189 South Korea, 17, 27, 112, 152, 156, 218 Soviet Union (1922–91), 1, 22–3, 35–6, 37–50, 61, 64, 82, 121, 147–8, 150, 160, 192–4, 201, 204, 206–7 Spain, 218 Sparta, 28, 29 St John’s College, Oxford, 202 Stalin, Joseph, 23 Stanford University, 171 State Department, 11, 15, 54, 202 state power, 27 Statkevich, Mikalai, 61–2, 65, 222 Stewart, Jon, 53 Sting (Gordon Sumner), 140 Stockholm Syndrome, 199 Sudan, 206 Sukondhapatipak, Werachon 198 Sundaravej, Samak, 197 Super PACs, 185 Supreme Court, US, 185, 188 Sweden, 92, 220 269 INDEX Switzerland, 118, 140, 205 Syria, 78, 120, 131, 198, 208, 217, 224, 225 Szájer, József, 151 Tahrir Square, Cairo, 10, 13, 163–4 Taiwan, 27, 218 Taliban, 18, 52, 56, 71, 138 tame democracy promotion, 59 Taming of Democracy Assistance, The (Bush), 59 Tarakhel Mohammadi, 70–1 Tasmania, Australia, 153 Tasting and Grumbling, 197 Tea Party, 185 terrorism, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 26, 52–3, 55, 63, 70, 78, 97, 100, 101, 131, 156, 201, 234 Tetra Tech, 138 Thailand, 3, 19, 27, 154, 164–5, 196–206, 212, 221, 223–4, 253 1973 pro-democracy uprising, 199 1976 student protests, 199 1982 launch of Cobra Gold exercises with US, 201 2003 troops dispatched to Iraq, 201 2006 coup d’état, 196, 197 2008 judicial coup, 196, 197, 202, 253 2010 protests and crackdown, 202 2014 NCPO coup d’état, 164, 196–206, 221; junta gives out free haircuts, 154; rail deal with China, 203; junta releases LINE “values stickers”, 164–5 2015 man arrested for insulting Tongdaeng, 165 270 2016 constitutional referendum, 197, 223 Thirty Tyrants, 29 Thucydides, 28, 29 time horizon, 55 Tobruk, Libya, 77 Togo, 170, 177–8 Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel, 20, 161–3, 165, 176 Tongdaeng, 165 torture, 11, 28, 43, 48, 52, 124–7, 132, 139, 141, 222, 224 Trans-Pacific Partnership, 153 Transnistria, 196 transparency, 26, 82, 170, 174, 212, 218 Tripoli, Libya, 77 Trojan War, 22 Trump, Donald, 1, 20, 25, 79, 178, 180, 187, 188, 204, 205 Tudeh Party, 41, 232 Tunisia, 12–13, 17, 18, 19, 27, 65, 77, 123–33, 142, 143, 144, 155, 156, 209, 218, 221, 224–5 1987 coup d’état; Ben Ali comes to power, 124, 126, 129 1991 Barraket Essahel affair, 123, 126, 224 1995 EU Association Agreement, 155 2010 self-immolation of Bouazizi; protests begin, 12, 126, 224 2011 ousting of Ben Ali, 13, 124–6, 130 2014 assembly rejects bill on political exclusion, 128; law on rehabilitation and recognition of torture victims, 224; presidential election, 130 2015 Bardo Museum and Sousse attacks, 131, 156; National INDEX Dialogue Quartet awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 18, 131 Tunisia’s Call, 131 Turkey, 20, 27, 39, 149, 161–3, 165, 176 Turkmenistan, 11, 25, 26, 138, 144, 154 Twitter, 49, 162, 163, 166, 168, 176, 199, 208 U2, 92 Udon Thani, Thailand, 201 Uganda, 166, 176 Ukraine, 2, 27, 64, 65, 171, 198, 207, 213 Umbrella Movement (2014), 168, 176, 221 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 229 United Kingdom (UK), 1–3, 31, 33, 38, 43–4, 56, 58, 71–2, 92, 94–5, 126, 129, 132–3, 156, 166, 171–2, 180, 189, 202, 214 1707 Acts of Union, 31 1947 Churchill’s statement on democracy, 22, 190, 215 1951 Mossadegh nationalizes Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 38 1987 Ferjani arrives in exile, 126 1999 European Parliament election, 180 2003 invasion of Iraq, 72–3 2009 OxfordGirl tweets on Iranian Green Revolution, 166; Blair meets with Kagame, 6, 92 2011 intervention in Libya, 77; Kagame appears on BBC radio; threat against Mugenzi, 94–5, 189 2012 launch of FixMyStreet, 171 2016 EU membership referendum, 1 United Nations (UN), 104, 105, 106, 108–10, 118, 130, 132, 140, 152 United States (US) 1787 Constitutional Convention, 31 1812 redrawing of Massachusetts senate election districts, 181–2 1869 Wyoming grants women vote, 33 1870 non-white men receive vote, 33 1913 Seventeenth Amendment enacted, 32 1917 Wilson’s “safe for democracy” speech, 35 1918 Wilson’s Fourteen Points, 35 1920 women receive vote, 33 1924 protections to ensure Native American voting rights, 33 1936 presidential election, 174 1948 CIA intervention in Italian election, 98 1953 Operation Ajax; Mossadegh ousted in Iran, 38–42, 98, 208 1960 plot to assassinate Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste, 43 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, 14–15 1962 Saudi Arabia pressured into abolishing slavery, 11; Cuban Missile Crisis, 50 1963 Kennedy’s Berlin speech, 35; assassination of Kennedy, 192 271 INDEX 1965 protections to ensure minority voting rights, 33 1973 ousting of Allende in Chile, 47 1982 launch of Cobra Gold exercises with Thailand, 201 1987 Reagan’s Berlin speech, 35; aid payments to Egypt begin, 14 1988 Reagan’s “city on a hill” speech, 10, 35, 179, 188, 189 1990 intervention in Nicaraguan election, 98 1991 launch of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, 156 1992 presidential and House of Representatives elections, 183–4 1993 Clinton assumes office, 115; Battle of Mogadishu, 116 1994 launch of Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, 116; Cessna crash at White House, 116; Cédras given “golden parachute”, 116–17 1997 USAID Cambodia claims to have “exceeded expectations”, 59 1999 Pakistan urged to return to democracy, 52, 53 2001 September 11 attacks, 18, 52–3, 55, 70; cooperation with Pakistan begins, 52–3, 55; invasion of Afghanistan, 70, 71, 84, 98 2002 Bush announces new approach for Israel/Palestine conflict, 99 2003 invasion of Iraq, 63, 72–3, 77, 84, 98, 156, 201, 234 272 2004 Belarus Democracy Act, 63, 194 2005 Senate vote on armorpiercing bullet ban, 187; intervention in Palestinian election campaign, 99–104 2006 Musharraf appears on The Daily Show, 53 2008 Afifi arrives in exile, 163, 247; Rice’s visit to Libya, 76 2009 Obama assumes office, 55, 57; Clinton describes Mubaraks as “friends of my family”, 6; Obama’s Cairo speech, 9–10, 218; military helicopter drops ballot boxes in Afghanistan, 70; Kagame receives Clinton Global Citizen award, 92 2010 VOA announces “citizen journalism” app for Iran, 135, 145; Citizens United v.

Beyond: Our Future in Space by Chris Impey

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, AltaVista, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Berlin Wall, Biosphere 2, Buckminster Fuller, built by the lowest bidder, butterfly effect, California gold rush, carbon-based life, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, cosmic abundance, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Dennis Tito, discovery of DNA, Doomsday Clock, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Eratosthenes, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, Hans Moravec, Hyperloop, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Late Heavy Bombardment, life extension, low earth orbit, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mars Rover, Mars Society, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, ocean acidification, Oculus Rift, operation paperclip, out of africa, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, phenotype, private spaceflight, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, radical life extension, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, risk tolerance, Rubik’s Cube, Scaled Composites, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Searching for Interstellar Communications, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Skype, Snow Crash, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, technological singularity, telepresence, telerobotics, the medium is the message, the scientific method, theory of mind, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Virgin Galactic, VTOL, wikimedia commons, world market for maybe five computers, X Prize, Yogi Berra

Until a few decades ago, the conventional wisdom dated creative, abstract thought to about 40,000 years ago, after humans left Africa and radiated across Europe and Asia and around the same time developed the 7R mutation. Scientists date the earliest examples of cave paintings, as well as bones and stones carved into artwork and tools, to about this period. The relatively sudden emergence of language and modern human behavior has been called the “Great Leap Forward.” Attributes that make us modern are summarized by the American neurophysiologist William Calvin as the behavioral b’s: blades, beads, burials, bone tools, and beauty.12 The last item implies aesthetic judgment and forms of representation that include playing games, telling stories, and creating art and music.

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Elsewhere in Africa are several sites where complicated animal snares and traps were discovered. All three types of artifact date from about 80,000 years ago, and there are even earlier hints of abstract thinking. This evidence points to a gradual accumulation of knowledge, skills, and culture over several hundred thousand years, rather than a “Great Leap Forward.” Regardless of when we evolved these uniquely human capabilities, renowned psychologist Steven Pinker put his finger on a problem, the problem of why. He wonders, “Why do humans have the ability to pursue abstract intellectual feats such as science, mathematics, philosophy, and law, given that the opportunities to exercise these talents did not exist in the foraging lifestyle in which humans evolved, and would not have parlayed themselves into advantages in survival and reproduction even if they did?”

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., 36–39, 73, 79 electric cars, 96 electric solar sails, 186 electromagnetic waves, 186 e-mail, 78 embryo transport, 251 Enceladus, 177, 182, 227 potential habitability of, 125, 278 Encyclopædia Britannica, 95, 283 Endangered Species Act (1973), 201 energy: aliens’ use of, 190 civilizations characterized by use of, 252–57, 254, 258 dark, 256 declining growth in world consumption of, 257 Einstein’s equation for, 220 production and efficiency of, 219–24, 220 as requirement for life, 123–24 in rocket equation, 110 Engines of Creation (Drexler), 226 environmental disasters, 245 environmental protection: as applied to space, 147 movement for, 45, 235, 263, 270 Epicureans, 18 Epsilon Eridani, 187 Eratosthenes, 19 ethane, 52, 125 Ethernet, 213 eukaryotes, 172 Euripides, 18 Europa, 52, 97–98 potential habitability of, 125, 125, 161, 278 Europa Clipper mission, 98 Europe: economic depression in, 28 population dispersion into, 7–8, 11, 15 roots of technological development in, 23–24 European Southern Observatory, 133 European Space Agency, 159, 178–79 European Union, bureaucracy of, 106 Eustace, Alan, 120, 272 Evenki people, 119–20 Everest, Mount, 120 evolution: genetic variation in, 6, 203, 265 geological, 172 of human beings, 16–17 off-Earth, 203–4 evolutionary divergence, 201–4 exoplanets: Earth-like, 129–33, 215–18 extreme, 131–32 formation of, 215, 216 incidence and detection of, 126–33, 128, 233 exploration: as basic urge of human nature, 7–12, 109, 218, 261–63 imagination and, 262–63 explorer gene, 86 Explorer I, 38 explosives, early Chinese, 21–23 extinction, 201–2 extraterrestrials, see aliens, extraterrestrial extra-vehicular activities, 179 extremophiles, 122–23 eyeborg, 205–6 Falcon Heavy rocket, 114 Falcon rockets, 96, 97, 101, 184 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 82, 93, 105–7, 154 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, 272 Felix and Félicette (cats), 48–49 Fermi, Enrico, 239–41 Fermilab, 254 “Fermi question,” 240–41, 243 Feynman, Richard, 179–80, 230, 270, 280 F4 Phantom jet fighter, 82 51 Peg (star), 126, 133 55 Cancri (star), 131 F-117 Nighthawk, 69 fine-tuning, 256, 294 fire arrows, 23, 68 fireworks, 21–24, 31 flagella, 180 flight: first human, 68 first powered, 69 principles of, 67–73 stability in, 82–83 “Fly Me to the Moon,” 45 food: energy produced by, 219, 220 in sealed ecosystem, 194–95 for space travel, 115–16, 159, 170 Forward, Robert, 223 Foundation series (Asimov), 94 founder effect, 202–3 Fountains of Paradise, The (Clarke), 149 France, 48, 68, 90 Frankenstein monster, 206, 259 Fresnel lens, 223 From Earth to the Moon (Verne), 183 fuel-to-payload ratio, see rocket equation Fukuyama, Francis, 207 Fuller, Buckminster, 151, 192 fullerenes, 151 Futron corporation, 155 Future of Humanity Institute, 245 “futurology,” 248–52, 249 Fyodorov, Nikolai, 26, 27 Gagarin, Yuri, 40–41, 41, 66, 269 Gaia hypothesis, 286 galaxies: incidence and detection of, 235 number of, 255 see also Milky Way galaxy Galileo, 49–50, 183, 270 Gandhi, Mahatma, 147 Garn, Jake, 114 Garn scale, 114 Garriott, Richard, 92 gas-giant planets, 125, 126–29 Gauss, Karl Friedrich, 238 Gazenko, Oleg, 47 Gemini program, 42 Genesis, Book of, 148–49 genetic anthropology, 6 genetic code, 5–7, 123 genetic diversity, 201–3 genetic drift, 203 genetic engineering, 245, 249 genetic markers, 6–7 genetics, human, 6–7, 9–12, 120, 201–4 Genographic Project, 7, 265 genome sequencing, 93, 202, 292 genotype, 6 “adventure,” 11–12, 98 geocentrism, 17, 19–20, 49 geodesic domes, 192 geological evolution, 172 George III, king of England, 147 German Aerospace Center, 178 Germany, Germans, 202, 238 rocket development by, 28, 30–34, 141 in World War II, 30–35 g-forces, 46–49, 48, 89, 111, 114 GJ 504b (exoplanet), 131 GJ 1214b (exoplanet), 132 glaciation, 172 Glenn Research Center, 219 global communications industry, 153–54 Global Positioning System (GPS), 144, 153–54 God, human beings in special relationship with, 20 Goddard, Robert, 28–32, 29, 36, 76, 78, 81–82, 94, 268 Goddard Space Flight Center, 178 gods, 20 divine intervention of, 18 Golden Fleece awards, 238 Goldilocks zone, 122, 126, 131 Gonzalez, Antonin, 215 Goodall, Jane, 14 Google, 80, 92, 185, 272, 275 Lunar X Prize, 161 Gopnik, Alison, 10, 13 Grasshopper, 101 gravity: centrifugal force in, 26, 114, 150 in flight, 68 of Mars, 181, 203 Newton’s theory of, 25, 267 and orbits, 25, 114–15, 127, 128, 149–50, 267 in rocket equation, 110 of Sun, 183 waves, 255 see also g-forces; zero gravity Gravity, 176 gravity, Earth’s: first object to leave, 40, 51 human beings who left, 45 as obstacle for space travel, 21, 105, 148 as perfect for human beings, 118 simulation of, 168–69 Great Art of Artillery, The (Siemienowicz), 267 Great Britain, 86, 106, 206, 227 “Great Filter,” 244–47 Great Leap Forward, 15–16 “Great Silence, The,” of SETI, 236–39, 240–41, 243–44 Greece, ancient, 17–19, 163 greenhouse effect, 171, 173 greenhouse gasses, 132, 278 Griffin, Michael, 57, 147, 285–86 grinders (biohackers), 207 Grissom, Gus, 43 guanine, 6 Guggenheim, Daniel, 81, 268 Guggenheim, Harry, 81 Guggenheim Foundation, 30, 81–82, 268 gunpowder, 21–24, 267 Guth, Alan, 257 habitable zone, 122, 124–26, 130–31, 132, 188, 241, 246, 277–78, 286, 291 defined, 124 Hadfield, Chris, 142 hair, Aboriginal, 8 “Halfway to Pluto” (Pettit), 273 Hanson, Robin, 247 haptic technology, 178 Harbisson, Neil, 205, 288 Harvard Medical School, 90 Hawking, Stephen, 88, 93, 198, 259 HD 10180 (star), 127 Heinlein, Robert, 177 Heisenberg compensator, 229 Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 229–30 heliocentrism, 19 helium, 68 helium 3, 161–62 Herschel, William, 163 Higgs particle, 256 High Frontier, 146–47 Hilton, Paris, 88, 101–2 Hilton hotels, 145 Hinduism, 20 Hiroshima, 222 Hitler, Adolf, 32, 34 Hope, Dennis M., 145, 147 Horowitz, Paul, 237–38 hot Jupiters, 127–28, 130 Hubble Space Telescope, 56–57, 65, 218, 225 Huffington, Arianna, 92 human beings: as adaptable to challenging environments, 118–22 as alien simulations, 260–61, 260 creative spirit of, 73, 248 early global migration of, 5–12, 9, 11, 15, 19, 118, 120, 186, 202, 218, 262, 265 Earth as perfectly suited for, 118–22, 121 exploration intrinsic to nature of, 7–12, 109, 218, 261–63 first appearance of, 5, 15, 172, 234 impact of evolutionary divergence on, 201–4 as isolated species, 241–42 as lone intelligent life, 241, 243 merger of machines and, see cyborgs minimal viable population in, 201–2, 251 off-Earth, 203–4, 215, 250–52 requirements of habitability for, 122, 124–26, 129, 130–31 sense of self of, 232, 261 space as inhospitable to, 53–54, 114–17, 121, 123 space exploration by robots vs., 53–57, 66, 98, 133, 161, 177–79, 179, 208, 224–28 space travel as profound and sublime experience for, 45, 53, 117, 122 speculation on future of, 93, 94, 204, 207–8, 215, 244–47, 248–63, 249 surpassed by technology, 258–59 threats to survival of, 94, 207–8, 244–47, 250, 259–62, 286, 293 timeline for past and future of, 248–50, 249 transforming moment for, 258–59 Huntsville, Ala., US Space and Rocket Center in, 48 Huygens, Christiaan, 163 Huygens probe, 53 hybrid cars, 96 hydrogen, 110, 156, 159, 161, 187, 219, 222 hydrogen bomb, 36 hydrosphere, 173 hyperloop aviation concept, 95 hypothermia, 251 hypothetical scenarios, 15–16 IBM, 213 Icarus Interstellar, 224 ice: on Europa, 125 on Mars, 163–65, 227 on Moon, 159–60 ice ages, 7–8 ice-penetrating robot, 98 IKAROS spacecraft, 184 imagination, 10, 14, 20 exploration and, 261–63 immortality, 259 implants, 206–7 inbreeding, 201–3 India, 159, 161 inflatable modules, 101–2 inflation theory, 255–57, 255 information, processing and storage of, 257–60 infrared telescopes, 190 Inspiration Mars, 170–71 Institute for Advanced Concepts, 280 insurance, for space travel, 106–7 International Academy of Astronautics, 152 International Geophysical Year (1957–1958), 37 International Institute of Air and Space Law, 199 International MicroSpace, 90 International Scientific Lunar Observatory, 157 International Space Station, 55, 64–65, 64, 71, 75, 91, 96, 100, 102, 142, 143, 144, 151, 153, 154, 159, 178–79, 179, 185, 272, 275 living conditions on, 116–17 as staging point, 148 supply runs to, 100–101, 104 International Space University, 90 International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 105–6, 144 Internet: Congressional legislation on, 78, 144 development of, 76–77, 77, 94, 95, 271 erroneous predictions about, 213–14 limitations of, 66–67 robotics and, 206 space travel compared to, 76–80, 77, 80 Internet Service Providers (ISPs), 78 interstellar travel, 215–18 energy technology for, 219–24 four approaches to, 251–52 scale model for, 219 Intrepid rovers, 165 Inuit people, 120 Io, 53, 177 property rights on, 145 “iron curtain,” 35 Iron Man, 95 isolation, psychological impact of, 169–70 Jacob’s Ladder, 149 Jade Rabbit (“Yutu”), 139, 143, 161 Japan, 161, 273 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), 184 Jefferson, Thomas, 224 Jemison, Mae, 224 jet engines, 69–70 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 141 Johnson, Lyndon, 38, 42, 45, 158, 269 Johnson Space Center, 76, 104, 179, 206, 229, 269 see also Mission Control Jones, Stephanie Tubbs, 74 Joules per kilogram (MJ/kg), 219–20, 222 Journalist in Space program, 74 “junk” DNA, 10, 266 Juno probe, 228 Jupiter, 126, 127, 177, 217, 270 distance from Earth to, 50 moons of, 97, 125, 125 probes to, 51–52, 228 as uninhabitable, 125 Justin (robot), 178 Kaku, Michio, 253 Karash, Yuri, 65 Kardashev, Nikolai, 253 Kardashev scale, 253, 254, 258 Kármán line, 70, 70, 101 Kennedy, John F., 41–43, 45 Kepler, Johannes, 183 Kepler’s law, 127 Kepler spacecraft and telescope, 128, 128, 129–31, 218, 278 Khrushchev, Nikita, 42, 47 Kickstarter, 184 Killian, James, 38 Kline, Nathan, 205 Knight, Pete, 71 Komarov, Vladimir, 43, 108 Korean War, 141 Korolev, Sergei, 35, 37 Kraft, Norbert, 200 Krikalev, Sergei, 115 Kunza language, 119 Kurzweil, Ray, 94, 207, 259 Laika (dog), 47, 65, 269 Laliberté, Guy, 75 landings, challenges of, 51, 84–85, 170 Lang, Fritz, 28, 268 language: of cryptography, 291 emergence of, 15, 16 of Orcas, 190 in reasoning, 13 Lansdorp, Bas, 170–71, 198–99, 282 lasers, 223, 224, 225–26, 239 pulsed, 190, 243 last common ancestor, 6, 123, 265 Late Heavy Bombardment, 172 latency, 178 lava tubes, 160 legislation, on space, 39, 78, 90, 144, 145–47, 198–200 Le Guin, Ursula K., 236–37 Leonov, Alexey, 55 L’Garde Inc., 284 Licancabur volcano, 119 Licklider, Joseph Carl Robnett “Lick,” 76–78 life: appearance and evolution on Earth of, 172 artificial, 258 detection of, 216–18 extension of, 26, 207–8, 250–51, 259 extraterrestrial, see aliens, extraterrestrial intelligent, 190, 235, 241, 243, 258 requirements of habitability for, 122–26, 125, 129, 131–33, 241, 256–57 lifetime factor (L), 234–335 lift, in flight, 68–70, 83 lift-to-drag ratio, 83 light: from binary stars, 126 as biomarker, 217 Doppler shift of, 127 momentum and energy from, 183 speed of, 178, 228–29, 250, 251 waves, 66 Lindbergh, Charles, 30, 81–82, 90–91, 268 “living off the land,” 166, 200 logic, 14, 18 Long March, 141 Long March rockets, 113, 142, 143 Long Now Foundation, 293 Los Alamos, N.

Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age by Steven Johnson

Airbus A320, airport security, algorithmic trading, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Cass Sunstein, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, cognitive dissonance, credit crunch, crowdsourcing, dark matter, Dava Sobel, David Brooks, Donald Davies, Evgeny Morozov, Fairchild Semiconductor, future of journalism, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, HyperCard, Jane Jacobs, John Gruber, John Harrison: Longitude, Joi Ito, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, lone genius, Mark Zuckerberg, mega-rich, meta-analysis, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, Occupy movement, packet switching, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, pre–internet, private spaceflight, radical decentralization, RAND corporation, risk tolerance, seminal paper, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social graph, SpaceShipOne, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, techno-determinism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, Tim Cook: Apple, urban planning, US Airways Flight 1549, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche, working poor, X Prize, Yochai Benkler, your tax dollars at work

(Or gone backward, if you count the Concorde.) But just about every other crucial metric (other than the joys of going through airport security) points in the other direction. That extraordinary record of progress did not come from a breakthrough device or a visionary inventor; it did not take the form of a great leap forward. Instead, the changes came from decades of small decisions, made by thousands of individuals and organizations, some of them public-sector and some of them private, each tinkering with the system in tactical ways: exploring new routes, experimenting with new pricing structures, throwing chicken carcasses into spinning jet engines.

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Moving bits around is far easier than doing the—sometimes literal—heavy lifting of civic life: building reservoirs or highways or jet engines that don’t explode when birds fly into them. A skeptic might plausibly say, Sure, if you want to conduct an online poll, or crowdsource a city slogan, the Internet is a great leap forward. But if you want to do the real work, you need the older tools. But every material advance in human history—from the Great Wall to the Hoover Dam to the polio vaccine to the iPad—was ultimately the by-product of information transfer and decision making. This is how progress happens: some problem or unmet need is identified, imaginative new solutions are proposed, and eventually society decides to implement one (or more) of those solutions.

The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning by Jeremy Lent

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, Atahualpa, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, complexity theory, conceptual framework, dematerialisation, demographic transition, different worldview, Doomsday Book, Easter island, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, failed state, Firefox, Ford Model T, Francisco Pizarro, Garrett Hardin, Georg Cantor, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of gunpowder, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Jevons paradox, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, language acquisition, Lao Tzu, Law of Accelerating Returns, mandelbrot fractal, mass immigration, megacity, Metcalfe's law, Mikhail Gorbachev, move 37, Neil Armstrong, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, peak oil, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Plato's cave, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Solow, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, scientific management, Scientific racism, scientific worldview, seminal paper, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, South China Sea, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Stuart Kauffman, synthetic biology, systems thinking, technological singularity, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, theory of mind, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing test, ultimatum game, urban sprawl, Vernor Vinge, wikimedia commons

Renfrew and fellow archaeologist Paul Mellars feel certain that this deliberate patterning represents “the earliest unambiguous forms of abstract ‘art’ so far recorded” and suggest that “the human revolution developed first in Africa…between 150,000 and 70,000 years ago.”5 Figure 3.3: Ochre with cross-hatching from Blombos Cave What does that say, then, about the Great Leap Forward? Doesn't it begin to seem like a series of steps rather than a great leap? Two archaeologists who think so, Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks, have caused a stir arguing exactly this point, calling it “the revolution that wasn't.” Granted, some cross-hatching and engraved eggshells are not as impressive as the later explosion of symbolic thinking in Europe, but they are valuable clues to the origins of modern humans.6 In place of the Great Leap Forward, another epic story has moved into the foreground. The story, called by some “Out of Africa,” has emerged through advances in DNA analysis, which have enabled scientists to provide accurate time estimates regarding the migrations of different groups.

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This, in turn, led to the emergence of a new mythic consciousness in human thought, imposing meaning on the natural world based on a metaphoric transformation of the tangible qualities of everyday life, using them as scaffolding for more abstract conceptions. The patterning instinct that evolved through community would now be applied to the vast universe about which early humans were becoming aware. The new world of mythic consciousness that emerged will be the subject of the next chapter. The Great Leap Forward In September 1940 in southern France, four boys entered a cave their dog had discovered some days earlier, and they stumbled upon a breathtaking spectacle. There, on the cave walls, were mysterious ancient paintings featuring all kinds of strange animals in motion. These boys were the first modern humans to cast their eyes on what turned out to be the most dramatic spectacle of Paleolithic cave art in the world.

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For the first time, humans were sewing garments with fine needles; using kilns to bake ceramic figures; engaging in long-distance trade; utilizing storage facilities; and organizing their homes just like we do today, with different spaces for kitchens, sleeping areas, and eating. This period in history has been aptly summed up by Jared Diamond as humanity's “Great Leap Forward.”3 It's an impressive moment in history. However, some archaeologists have recently looked past these spectacular accomplishments to ask why it didn't happen sooner. It's generally agreed that humans were anatomically modern 150,000 years ago or earlier. Why did it take so long for symbolic thinking to get going?

China's Future by David Shambaugh

Berlin Wall, capital controls, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, facts on the ground, financial intermediation, financial repression, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, high net worth, high-speed rail, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, low skilled workers, market bubble, megacity, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pearl River Delta, rent-seeking, secular stagnation, short selling, South China Sea, special drawing rights, too big to fail, urban planning, Washington Consensus, working-age population, young professional

The Conservatives want to make the Party strong too, but in their view strength only lies in asserting control rather than loosening it. This tension in viewpoints has been at the core of China’s political oscillations since the late 1950s, when the liberal Hundred Flowers movement triggered the repressive Anti-Rightist campaign and mass mobilization of the Great Leap Forward. That draconian period, in which upwards of 40 million died and hundreds of thousands were labeled as “rightists,” gave way to a three-year thaw between 1962 and 1965 when Deng Xiaoping and other reformers took control while Mao Zedong withdrew from active rule. They instituted a wide range of economic reforms (which were the precursors to the post-1978 reforms) and loosened controls on the intelligentsia.

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Political Reformers consumption and spending corporate debt corruption academic anti-corruption campaign CCP and “political-legal system” SOEs counter-balancing, law of Counter-Terrorism law credit mechanism critical thinking Cultural Revolution cyber law D Dalai Lama debt total “democratic peace” theory demographic transition Global Trends 2030 report (NIC) Deng Xiaoping developing countries Development Research Center China 2030 report “developmental autocracy” dissertations/theses Dollar, David Duckett, Jane and Wang, Guohui E East China Sea Eastern Europe see Soviet Union / Eastern Europe, collapse of “ecocities” economic elites / super-rich economic variables economy and aging population global innovation as key to success and military budget / projected spending pathways to the future Hard Authoritarianism Neo-Totalitarianism Semi-Democracy Soft Authoritarianism and politics, relationship between present situation financial system growth rates personal consumption and spending rebalancing sectoral signs state-owned enterprise reform prospects and repression and security in US–China relations and urbanization see also Third Plenum reforms; trade education see higher education / university system energy and environment and trade entrepreneurship environment and energy environmental protection laws Europe European Chamber of Commerce F fang-shou cycle Feng, Wang financial system foreign higher education foreign investment foreign NGOs foreign relations see international relations Fourth Plenums G GDP see gross domestic product Gilley, Bruce Gini Coefficient glacial melt global economy global financial crisis global influences and trends global markets global real estate market global relations see international relations Global South Global Trends 2030 report (NIC) globalization Gorbachev, Mikhail government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution gross domestic product (GDP) debt defense spending growth personal consumption private enterprises property market public services R&D investment rebalancing shadow banking Guangming Daily H Hard Authoritarianism economy polity society vs. Soft Authoritarianism, global impact healthcare heavy industry, energy demand of higher education / university system Himalayan glacial melt Hong Kong Hu Jintao Hu Yaobang “Hua Guofeng Interregnum” hukou system Huntington, Samuel Hurun China Rich List I “illusion of Chinese power” India Indian Ocean / Indo-Pacific region individualism Indonesia inequality innovation as key to success private sector vs. state sector insurance bank deposit health intellectual property intellectuals International Monetary Fund (IMF) international relations Europe future impact of China Global South military capabilities peripheral countries Russia see also United States (US) internet / social media investment and aid program EU foreign overinvestment problem R&D and trade, Asia J “J-Curve” concept Japan as newly industrializing economy (NIE) relations with jasmine revolution Jiang Zemin K Kissinger, Henry knowledge economy Krugman, Paul L labor market / workforce aging Lewis Turning Point migration social mobility land degradation Laos Lardy, Nicholas Latin America Lee Kuan Yew Leninist systems Lewis, W.

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester

Berlin Wall, British Empire, David Attenborough, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, double helix, Etonian, Fellow of the Royal Society, Great Leap Forward, index card, invention of gunpowder, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, New Urbanism, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, stakhanovite, Stephen Hawking, Ted Kaczynski, trade route

Needham remained its president for thirty-five years, and was able to get visas to China with ease—so long, his later critics pointed out, as he remained staunchly uncritical of the regime’s excesses. He flew back to China first in 1964, and found to his delight that he was to be greeted officially by the government, and by no less than Zhou Enlai, who treated him like an old friend. The economic privations of the time were very obvious to Needham—the aftereffects of the Great Leap Forward were painfully evident, though he assumed they were little more than the teething troubles of the new regime, and he returned to Cambridge with his faith unshaken. But in 1972 he went back again—and this time to a raw and very deeply altered China, just emerging from the incredible suffering of the Cultural Revolution.

…

., 212 French Indochina, 79, 156 fuels used on Joseph Needham’s Chinese expeditions, 103n.20 Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China, Joseph Needham’s expedition to, 143–55 danger of approaching Japanese troops, 143–46, 149, 151–55 incident at Xiang River bridge, Hengyang, 152–54 map, 144 Gang of Four, 235 Gao, Kimmie, 81 Gaselee, Stephen, 58 Gate of Sorrows, 128 Gauss, Clarence, 99 Ge Hong, 1 George IV, British king, 197 gimbals, Chinese, 186–87 Glukhov, KGB agent, 212, 213 Gobi Desert, 122, 126, 128, 263 Gollancz, Victor, 32, 49 Goes, Bento de, 264 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, 18, 169, 228, 242 Good Earth, The (Buck), 38 Grand Canal, 184 Great Britain Battle of the Tennis Court against Japanese, 155n.31 embassy in World War II-era Chongqing, 71–77 response of, to founding of People’s Republic of China, 226n.49 Great Astronomical Clocks of Mediaeval China, The, 192n.40 Great Canon of the Yongle Emperor’s Era, The (Yongle dadien), 176n.36 Great Leap Forward economic plan, People’s Republic of China, 234 Great Wall, 126–27, 128 Guangdong Province, China, 143, 158 Guang Wei (Joseph Needham’s driver), 102 Guangzhou, China, 51 Guanyin (Buddhist goddess), 156 Guan Zi, 44 guerilla industries, Chinese, 112–14 Guild of Saint Luke, 19 Gujin tushu jicheng, 176 gung ho, origin of phrase, 113 Gung Ho cooperatives, 114–15, 211 gunpowder, Chinese, 92 Guo Moruo (scientist), role in accusing United States of biological warfare, 203–5 Gutenberg, Johannes, 218 Gwynne-Vaughan, Helen, 148 gymnosophy, Joseph Needham’s interest in, 22–23 Haldane, J.

…

diplomatic mission tasks of, 54, 77–80, 85–96, 98–99 expedition to China’s northwest, 100–43 expedition to China’s southeast, 143–55 expedition to China’s southwest, 155–57 preparations for first trip to China, 54–60 purposes of expeditions, 97–132 Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office created for, 54, 74, 79 [see also Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office (SBSCO)] visit to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 81–92 visit to Kunming, Yunnan Province, 61–71 Needham Question regarding Chinese science and technology, 37–38, 57, 157, 190, 222, 259–62 Needham Research Institute, opening of (1987), 244 Neijiang, China, 106 New Left Review Club, 227 New Life Movement, 128 New Scientist, 224 New York Times, 210, 224 Nixon, Richard, decision to ban use of biological weapons, 203n.43 Noel, Conrad Le Despenser Roden, 29–30, 233 Northern Zhou dynasty, 136 North Korea, accusations of U.S. use of biological warfare made by, 199–212 Northwestern University, Illinois, Joseph Needham lectures at (1978), 238 nudism, Joseph Needham’s interest in, 22–23 Observer, The, 224 Ode to the Chemical Laboratories of Cambridge (Joseph Needham), 19, 20 Ogden, Alwyn, 64, 154 Olympic Games (1936), 31, 33 oracle bones, Shang dynasty, 91–92 Oratory of the Good Shepherd, 23 Order of the Brilliant Star with Cravat awarded to Joseph Needham, 197–98, 239, 247 O’Toole, Peter, 250n.54 Oundle boarding school, 16, 20 Oxford English Dictionary, 230 Pascal, Blaise, 70 Patey, Antoinette, 20 Patriotic Hygiene Campaign, China, 201–2 Pauling, Linus, Joseph Needham’s support for, 227 Payne, Robert, 76–77, 103 Peking (Beijing), 128, 225 Peiping Academy, 98 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 264 People’s Republic of China, 96, 198. See also China accusations of U.S. biological warfare in Korean War by officials of, 200–208 Cultural Revolution in, 231, 234, 235 Great Leap Forward economic campaign, 234 Joseph Needham begins to question Mao’s policies in, 234–37 Joseph Needham’s observations of changes in China after formation of, 206–7, 234 Taiwan as part of, 225n.48 U.S. response to founding of, 225–26 Philby, Kim, 32 Philosophical Dictionary, The (Voltaire), 253 Picken, Laurence complaint letter about Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen written by, 159–62 positive review of Science and Civilisation in China by, 234 Pirie, Bill, 210 plants, Chinese pharmaceutical, 155–56 plow and moldboard, Chinese, 184 poetry, Chinese, 89–90 Polo, Marco, 132, 186 pollution in China, 255, 256–57 Popper, Karl, 238 population in China, 255 Postan, Michael, 250 Potteries Trade Research Association, 74–75 Powell, John, 215, 216 Powell, Sylvia, 215 Power, Eileen, 250 “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia, 231 Pratt, King’s Messenger, 3, 61, 71 Pre-Natal History of the Steam Engine, The, 192n.40 Priestley, J.

The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa by Irene Yuan Sun

"World Economic Forum" Davos, asset light, barriers to entry, Bretton Woods, business logic, capital controls, clean water, Computer Numeric Control, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, European colonialism, floating exchange rates, full employment, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, invisible hand, job automation, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, manufacturing employment, means of production, mobile money, Multi Fibre Arrangement, post-industrial society, profit motive, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, tacit knowledge, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, Washington Consensus, working-age population

In the China of the 1980s, no one had a refrigerator, very few had a television, and soft drinks like Coke and Sprite were expensive treats my parents meted out when I really behaved myself. Meat was still rationed through state-issued coupons, and less than a generation from the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward, it was unacceptable to let food go to waste. But flies in the summer and the dryness of coal-fired central heating in the winter quickly made any leftovers unappetizing. I, like everyone else in my family, had to eat them nonetheless. This was a real burden on my three-year-old self. Enter my father with the plastic wrap.

…

See also labor-intensive production cardboard box factory, 89–91 cash flow, 118 celadon, 21 Central Bank of Kenya, 144, 145 Central Bank of Lesotho, 68 Chang, Leslie, 100 Chaplin, Charlie, 100–101 Chen, Jennifer, 62–63, 115–116, 126 China African exports to, 109–110 African factories of, 5–8 economic development in, 18–19, 21, 161–163 economic slowing in and African industrialization, 171–172 Four Great Families in Nigeria from, 34–35 GDP in, 2–3, 29–30 governance and governance development in, 129–134, 147 government aid to Africa, 179n7 Great Leap Forward, 28 immigration to Africa from, 32, 167–169, 181n1 industrialization of, 1–3 investment in Africa, 42–44 labor costs in, 92 match between Africa and, 167–168 migrants from, 123–127 negative effects of factories in, 8 outward turning by, 173–177 pharmaceutical industry, 161–163 plastic wrap in, 28–29 poverty in, 180n10 size of economy in, 179n2 textiles smuggled from, 40–41 China Road and Bridge Corporation, 175–177 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 129 clothing manufacturing automation in, 172 competition among, 71–72 failure rates in, 114–115 global supply chain and, 55–57 infrastructure and, 62–63 labor requirements of, 54–57 in Lesotho, 7, 49–50, 53–54, 67–69, 71–72 local ownership of factories in, 113–119, 188n5 partnerships in, 114–117 textiles vs., 52 unions in, 102–105 See also textile manufacturing Coca-Cola, 138 colonialism, 129 commitment, personal, 32–33, 45–47, 70–71, 85, 167–169 commodity prices, 65 competitor sets, 52–53 corruption, 7–8, 74, 130 in manufacturing, 74–81 in Nigeria, 39, 40–41, 63, 75–78, 136–140 Corruption Perceptions Index, 77 Côte d’Ivoire, 120 cultural differences, 97–98 customers, 52–54, 65 Dangote, Aliko, 10 demand, changes in, 65 demographics, 92–94, 181n11, 190n14 Deng Xiaoping, 29–30, 175 Department for International Development, UK, 82, 154 diversity, 51–54 Doctors Without Borders, 158–159 donor fatigue, 158–159 Dutch disease, 36 East Asian miracle, 29 Ebola virus, 158 economic development, 106–107 bootstrapping, 132–136, 147–148, 165–166 China, 18–19, 28, 29–30 East Asia, 29 education and, 4–5 endowment theory of, 9–10, 135–136 flying geese theory and, 27–29 future of, 174–177 industrialization and, 12–13, 20 leapfrogging, 22 overconfidence for, 165–166 Washington Consensus on, 20–22 education, 4–5, 30, 95–96 worker skills training, 129–134, 148–150 Edwards, Lawrence, 57 efficiency, 46–47, 71–72, 118 employment, 43–44, 89–107 benefits of manufacturing, 94–96 cultural differences and, 96–98 difficulty of factory, 91, 100–101 fluctuations in, 57, 64 full, 91, 93 informal sector, 94 labor- vs. capital-intensive production and, 51, 52 learning manufacturing through, 17–19, 23–26, 89–91 of locals vs. expatriates, 57, 92–93, 184n5 stability in, 60–61, 64 of youth, 130 enabling context, 135 endowment theory of development, 9–10, 135–136 environmental issues, 7–8, 70, 74, 75, 81, 175–177 ethics issues, 159–160 Ethiopia, 11, 73 factory ownership in, 113 local ownership in, 120–123 pharmaceutical industry, 121–123, 156–157, 163–169 Eubank, Nicholas, 140–141 European Union, 53–54 exchange rates, 36–37, 54, 56, 65 FAW, 2, 5–6, 12 flexibility, 146–148 flip-flops, 46–47, 63 flying geese theory, 9, 23–30, 93, 112–113 Fokuo, Isaac, 129–132 Ford Foundation, 82 foreign investment, 33–34, 42–44, 73–74 Formosa denim mill, 57–61, 64, 184n6 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, 137 Four Asian Tigers, 29 Frederick, Kenneth, 79–81 French, Howard, 97 Gap, Inc., 117 Gates Foundation, 154 GDP from African manufacturing, 41 China, 2–3, 29–30 Ghana, 41 Lesotho, 62, 184n13 manufacturing and increased, 26–27 Nigeria, 36, 62 gel capsules, 121–123 Germany, pharmaceutical industry in, 156, 192n12 Gerschenkron, Alexander, 99 Ghana, 41 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), 166, 167, 194n37 global competition, 37–39, 40–41, 70, 71–74 Global Corruption Barometer, 137 Global Fund, 154, 159 Goodall, Jane, 129 governance, 22, 82 bootstrapping development and, 132–136 good enough, 129–150 improving through using, 136–142 innovation and, 142–148 Nigerian customs agency and, 136–140 prevailing views on, 134–136 government development of with industrialization, 82–84 enforcement capacity and, 79–81 export-oriented manufacturing and, 63–64 loans, 65 Nigerian textile manufacturing and, 35, 37–39, 53 pharmaceutical industry and, 164–165 regulatory systems, 70, 74–75 in shaping manufacturing sectors, 65–66 Washington Consensus on, 20 Gu, Barry, 67–69, 84–85 Han, Jason, 138–140 hardships, willingness to endure, 167–168.

The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations Are Laying the Foundation for Socialism by Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski

Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, call centre, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, carbon tax, central bank independence, Colonization of Mars, combinatorial explosion, company town, complexity theory, computer age, corporate raider, crewed spaceflight, data science, decarbonisation, digital rights, discovery of penicillin, Elon Musk, financial engineering, fulfillment center, G4S, Garrett Hardin, Georg Cantor, germ theory of disease, Gordon Gekko, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, hiring and firing, independent contractor, index fund, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, inventory management, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kanban, Kiva Systems, linear programming, liquidity trap, mass immigration, Mont Pelerin Society, Neal Stephenson, new economy, Norbert Wiener, oil shock, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, post scarcity, profit maximization, profit motive, purchasing power parity, recommendation engine, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, sovereign wealth fund, strikebreaker, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Turing machine, union organizing, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, We are all Keynesians now

Later in the decade, as the Great Purge was in full swing, even the organizers of the 1937 census were sent to camps for the crime of wrecking, as the resulting data showed Russia to have 8 million fewer citizens than expected—an empirical contradiction of Stalin’s public claim that the Soviet model’s incredible success was resulting in the addition of 3 million citizens per year. The Paradox of the Peasantry Somehow, despite the tragedies and the trials, the USSR would become a superpower of the first order—the first nation to put a human in space—whose sole economic rival was the United States. How was this great leap forward achieved? The answer can be found in the decisions of those who viewed civil liberties as an unaffordable bourgeois bagatelle, at best, and a red herring deployed by the class opponents of the construction of socialism, at worst, to resolve “the paradox of the peasantry” through force. It had long been widely agreed that agricultural production could only substantially advance through the concentration of land and the elimination of subsistence agriculture, as had occurred in the most advanced capitalist states.

…

As we saw in the early Soviet Union and Mao’s China, while much of heavy industry was relatively straightforward to decommodify (at least as easy as was its decommodification by any capitalist state, such as for steel and coal production in postwar Western Europe), attempts at decommodification of agriculture underlay the barbarisms for which these two regimes are most known: the Holodomor and the Great Leap Forward. One of the key lessons from the history of “really-existing socialism,” that is, the Stalinist, Maoist or Titoist variety, is that we need to keep an open mind as to what works, experimenting with different economic forms and being comfortable with changing course, abandoning hypotheses in the face of new evidence.

The end of history and the last man by Francis Fukuyama

affirmative action, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bonfire of the Vanities, business cycle, centre right, classic study, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Exxon Valdez, F. W. de Klerk, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, Isaac Newton, Joan Didion, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, kremlinology, land reform, liberal world order, liberation theology, life extension, linear programming, long peace, means of production, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, nuclear winter, old-boy network, open economy, post-industrial society, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Socratic dialogue, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, zero-sum game

Attempts by communist regimes to abolish the division of labor and to end the slavery of specialization have only led to a tyranny more monstrous than that of the Manchester workshops condemned by Marx.19 Mao endeavored to abolish the distinctions between town and country and between mental and physical labor at several points, notably during the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and during the Cultural Revolution a decade later. Both of these efforts led to unimaginable human suffering, dwarfed only by the Khmer Rouge’s attempt to merge town and country in Cambodia after 1975. Neither the organization of labor20 nor bureaucracies21 were new at the time of the Industrial Revolution; what was new was their thoroughgoing rationalization according to the principles of economic efficiency.

…

Stalin’s successors managed to co-opt managers and technocrats by offering them status and rewards in return for loyalty to the system.9 Mao in China took a different course: seeking to avoid creation of a privileged technical intelligentsia as in the Soviet Union, he declared an all-out war against them, first during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, and then again during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. Engineers and scientists were forced to harvest crops and engage in other forms of back-breaking labor, while positions requiring technical competence went to politically correct ideologues. This experience should teach us not to underestimate the ability of totalitarian or authoritarian states to resist the imperatives of economic rationality for a considerable length of time—in the cases of the Soviet Union and China, for a generation or more.

…

., 5 Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier de, 57, 62, 64, 72 Foreign policy, 8, 245-252, 318 France, 275 centralizing tradition in, 218-219 democratic transition in, 212 événements of 1968, 330 nationalism in, 271, 272 Franco, Francisco, 13, 18-19 Francoism, 19 Franco-Prussian War, 129 Franklin, Benjamin, 326 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 331 Freedom, 51, 58, 60, 64, 65, 132 Christianity and, 196-198 Hegel on, 148-152 work as kind of, 194, 195 French Canadians, 121, 273 French Revolution, 4, 19, 25, 42, 64, 66, 67, 134, 137, 175, 199, 216 Freud, Sigmund, 299 Fundamentalist Islam, 46, 83, 217, 235-237, 243 Fussell, Paul, 5 Galileo, 56 Gambia, 35 Gandhi, Mahatma, 228 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), 283 Gellner, Ernest, 268, 269 Genocide, 4, 6, 128 Germany, 6, 123, 129, 280, 336 appeal of fascism in, 16-17 nationalism in, 215, 267, 271, 272 National Socialism in, 6, 7, 16, 48, 128, 129, 220, 333 unification of, 258, 337 World War I and, 5, 331-332, 335 Glasnost’, 30, 31 Global cataclysm, 83, 86-87, 127 Global communications, 7 Global culture, 126 Global division of labor, 91, 92 Global warming, 87 Glory, as form of recognition, 162, 183, 184 Gneisenau, August, 75 God’s Presence in History (Fackenheim), 3 Goebbels, Joseph, 7 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 26, 29, 40, 47 coup against (1991), 28 glasnost’ and perestroika and, 31, 75 “new thinking” and, 263 Great Britain, 44, 256-258 Great Illusion, The (Angell), 5 Great Leap Forward, 79, 95 Great Terror, 30 Greece, 13, 19-20, 55, 110, 256 Green movement, 86, 307 Group of Seven, 283 Group recognition, in Asia, 231-232, 238-242, 325 Guomindang party, 14 Guyana, 14 Hamilton, Alexander, 153, 162, 186, 187, 203 Handicapped, 294-295 Hapsburg Empire, 267, 269 Havel, Václav, 33, 166-169, 171, 176, 177, 181, 182, 196, 258 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 39, 59-69, 75, 83, 91, 135, 143-156, 159-161, 165, 176, 182, 185, 191, 194-200, 203, 204, 208, 216, 223, 224, 288, 296, 300-302, 311, 322, 329-330, 337 Heidegger, Martin, 333 Heller, Mikhail, 24 Hinduism, 217 economic development and, 228-229 Hippie movement, 83 Hiroshima, 6, 87 Historicism, 62-64, 83, 137 History directionality of, 71-81, 89, 126, 127 theories of, 4, 55-57, 68-70 History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides), 245 Hitler, Adolf, 6, 15-17, 23, 127, 190, 249 Hobbes, Thomas, 145-150, 153-162, 164, 185, 186, 188, 189, 193, 197-200, 214, 255, 288 Holocaust, 6, 7, 128-130 Homophobia, 296 Honecker, Erich, 94, 133, 178-179 Hong Kong, 107, 278 economic development of, 101, 102 Human nature, 51, 63-64, 138, 145-152 Human needs, 83, 132-133 Hume, David, 185 Humiliation, 168 Hungary, 26, 93, 273 democratic transition in, 26, 36, 112 Huntington, Samuel, 11, 216 Hussein, Saddam, 16, 190 Hu Yaobang, 34, 179 Hyksos dynasty, 260 Ibañez, Carlos, 106 Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View, An (Kant), 57-59, 281 Ideology, 45-46, 62, 195-198, 205 Immigration, 277-278 Imperialism, 182, 183, 245, 255, 256, 259, 260, 262, 265-267, 279 Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Lenin), 99 Import substitution, 100, 101, 104, 220 Impressment, 261 India, 44, 123, 221, 228-229 Indignation, 165, 172, 176 Individual freedom, 42 Individualism, 240, 295 Industrialization, 76, 84, 89-91, 96, 268-270; see also Economic development Industrial policies, 124-125 Industrial Revolution, 6, 134 Inequality, 289-295 Infant mortality rate, 115 Interest groups, 117, 172 International relations, 245-264, 279-283 International trade, 92, 99-100 Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Kojève), 192, 287 Iran, 7, 44, 76, 112, 123, 127, 137 Iranian revolution (1978-79), 236 Iraq, 16, 46, 76, 112, 127, 236, 249, 262, 264, 277, 282 Ishihara, Shintaro, 243 Islam, 45-46, 260 Islamic fundamentalism, 46, 83, 217, 235-237, 243 Isothymia, 182, 187, 190, 292, 294, 295, 314, 332, 334, 337 Israel, 236, 264 Italy, 215 Japan, 41, 101, 107, 186, 319-320, 336 American occupation of, 120 democratization of, 110 group identity in, 231-232, 238-241 invasion of Manchuria, 249 Meiji, 74-75, 113, 123, 236 nationalism in, 231 trade disputes with, 233 work ethic in, 227-228, 230 Jay, John, 186 Jefferson, Thomas, 153, 159, 326 Jews, 6 Jodo Shinshu, 227, 229 Jones, R.

Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes--But Some Do by Matthew Syed

Abraham Wald, Airbus A320, Alfred Russel Wallace, Arthur Eddington, Atul Gawande, Black Swan, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Checklist Manifesto, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, crew resource management, deliberate practice, double helix, epigenetics, fail fast, fear of failure, flying shuttle, fundamental attribution error, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, Henri Poincaré, hindsight bias, Isaac Newton, iterative process, James Dyson, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Lean Startup, luminiferous ether, mandatory minimum, meta-analysis, minimum viable product, publication bias, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, selection bias, seminal paper, Shai Danziger, Silicon Valley, six sigma, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, Toyota Production System, US Airways Flight 1549, Wall-E, Yom Kippur War

At each stage, the new ideas were challenged, rigorously tested, and examined at their limits. The most effective proposals were then rapidly integrated into airlines around the world. After a terrible set of accidents in the 1970s, the rate of crashes began to decline. “United Airlines 173 was a traumatic incident, but it was also a great leap forward,” the aviation safety expert Shawn Pruchnicki says. “It is still regarded as a watershed, the moment when we grasped the fact that ‘human errors’ often emerge from poorly designed systems. It changed the way the industry thinks.” Ten people died on United Airlines 173, but the learning opportunity saved many thousands more

…

This fitted in with Marxist and Maoist ideas about organisms from the same class living in harmony rather than in competition. “With company, they grow easy,” Mao told colleagues. “When they grow together, they will be comfortable.” The Chinese leader drew up an eight-point Lysenko-inspired blueprint for the Great Leap Forward, and persecuted Western-trained scientists and geneticists with the same kind of ferocity as in the Soviet Union.3 The theory of close-planting should have been put to the test. It should have been subject to possible failure. Instead it was adopted on ideological grounds. “In Southern China, a density of 1.5 million seedlings per 2.5 acres was usually the norm,” Jasper Becker writes in Hungry Ghosts, Mao’s Secret Famine.

…

See medicine Duckworth, Angela Lee, 262–63 Duflo, Esther, 173, 177, 178, 183 Dunbar, Kevin, 200 Dweck, Carol, 258–59, 264 Dyson, James, 192–95, 196, 197, 198, 199, 202–4, 205, 206, 211–13 on creative process, 192–95, 196, 198, 202 on discipline, 205, 206 on education, 211–12 education and, 267 on failure, 255 resilience and, 265 Dyson Foundation, 267 Eagleman, David, 200 Easterly, William, 174 Eastern Airlines 401, 27–28 Economic Laws of Scientific Research, The (Kealey), 132 economics, 94–97, 98, 129–31 Eddington, Arthur, 42 Edmondson, Amy, 26n, 37, 226–27, 231, 290–91 education, 211–12, 267–69 Egypt, 217–18, 222–24 Einstein, Albert, 42, 192, 201, 202 Eisel, Bernhard, 171 Eisner, Michael, 210 Eli Lilly, 268 employment policy, 187 Encyclopedia of Wars (Philips and Axelrod), 278 End of Poverty, The (Sachs), 174 Engelbrecht, Dawn, 63–64 entrepreneurship, 269–72, 286–87 ergonomics, 39 Error Positivity (Pe), 256–58 Error Related Negativity (ERN), 256–58 errors, 266, 287 ancient Greek view of, 278 attitude and, 58–59 aviation and, 25–27, 31 blame and, 226–31 health care and, 9–11, 16, 17–19, 49–52, 87–90 justice system and, 65–66 science and, 41–42 system for learning from, 51 training/professional improvement and, 47–48 Euclid, 133, 278 euphemisms, 16, 17 evasion, 17, 25 evolution, 128–29 excuses, 273 experience, 45–46 expertise, 45–46 external deception, 87, 88 eyewitnesses, 114–15 Fagan, Charles, 120 failure, 8, 11–13, 14–15 ambiguity of, and cognitive dissonance, 87 attitude and, 16, 58–59 avoidance and, 101 denial and, 18, 71, 88–89 education and, 267–69 entrepreneurship and, 269–72 fear and, 140, 270–71 in free market systems, 130–31, 284 grit and perseverance through, 262–65 harnessing of, in everyday life and business, 287–92 innovation/creativity and, 192–213 in Japanese culture, 270–71 justification and, 87 learning and, 19–20, 25–27, 31–33, 210–13, 256–61, 264–65, 266, 276 mindset and, 257–61, 264–65, 270–72, 273, 276, 287–88 pilot schemes and, 290–91 pre-mortems and, 291 redefinition of, 266–76 science and, 41–42, 44–45, 48, 266 self-handicapping and, 272–74 sports and, 255, 266 testing and, 128, 131 failure week, 267, 269 Fairbank, Rich, 185–86 Falk, Peter, 153 false confessions, 116 falsification, 44, 45 Farrington, Benjamin, 278–79 fear of failure, 140 Federal Reserve, 94–95, 96 feedback, 14, 46–47, 289–90 Ferguson, Niall, 95 Fernandez, Nicholas, 91 Festinger, Leon, 71–73, 74, 77, 82 finality doctrines, 84 Finckenauer, James, 160–64 Finding Nemo (film), 207, 209–10 Finkelstein, Sydney, 100 Fixed Mindset, 257–61, 270, 273, 276 focus, 28 Ford, Henry, 270 forensic science, 116 Formula One, 179–84 forward-looking accountability, 230, 235, 238 Foxworth, Delwin, 119–20 France, 10–11 free association, 198 free markets, 129–31, 284 Froome, Chris, 172 fundamental attribution error, 232 Furman, Cathie, 49 Furness General Hospital, 55 Galen of Pergamon, 13, 14, 41, 54, 154 Galileo, 41, 280, 281–82 Garret, Brandon, 82 Gawande, Atul, 56–77 Genentech, 204–5 genetics, 108–10 Germanwings plane crash, 9 Gillam, Michael, 56 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 270, 271 Glover, Danny, 159, 166 god complex, 282 Goldacre, Ben, 157 Golder, Peter N., 205 Google, 184–85, 199 Gosse, Philip Henry, 42–43 Graedon, Joe, 10 Grant, Jim, 96 Grayling, Chris, 284 Great by Choice (Collins and Hansen), 144, 204 Great Leap Forward, 110 Greenstone, Gerry, 13–14 grit, 262–65 Gross, Samuel R., 70 Grossi, Dennis, 27 Growth Mindset, 257–61, 264–65, 272 guided missile approach of success, 146 Guildford Four, 117 Gutenberg, Johannes, 199 hair analysis, 116 Halpern, David, 158–59, 291 Hamilton, Lewis, 181, 183, 184 Hanbury, Heather, 267–68, 269 Hansen, Morten, 204 Harford, Tim, 129, 175, 176 Harmer, Michael, 59 Harrah’s Casino Group, 186 health care, 4–7, 9–11, 14, 282, 290.

After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made by Ben Rhodes

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, British Empire, centre right, COVID-19, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, drone strike, Edward Snowden, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, gentrification, geopolitical risk, George Floyd, Glass-Steagall Act, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, independent contractor, invisible hand, late capitalism, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, new economy, obamacare, open economy, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, QAnon, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, South China Sea, the long tail, too big to fail, trade route, Washington Consensus, young professional, zero-sum game

There were debates back and forth that reflected the eighties, the competition of two ideas focusing basically on one issue. The issue was whether the Communist Party could actually use capitalist means to develop its economy, because Mao’s economic model had failed.” There was little need for debate about the failure of Mao’s economic model. A 1950s effort to modernize China’s economy—the so-called Great Leap Forward intended to grow China’s economy to the size of Great Britain’s—had instead initiated the Great Famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese by the early 1960s. That horror had been followed by the Cultural Revolution. After Mao’s death in 1976, China’s new leader—Deng Xiaoping—opened up China’s economy to capitalism, shaping the world in which Bao Pu would come of age.

…

It’s all trying to feed a sense of pride, and nothing but that. Having wealth and power has always been the goal of China in the modern era.” The rise in Chinese living standards dwarfed the wealth created in Russia by the spike in oil revenues in the 2000s. Hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty, one of the great leaps forward for humanity in recent history. This was made possible by the melding of American capitalism with Chinese governance: the global economy we’d built, the trade arrangements that we welcomed China into, the top-down system that enabled massive changes and compulsory work to satiate the consumer demand in the West.

…

“We must make persistent efforts,” Xi said in a speech in March 2013, “press ahead with indomitable will, continue to push forward the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive to achieve the Chinese Dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Whereas past Chinese leaders like Deng Xiaoping had talked about the need to “hide your capabilities, bide your time,” Xi was casting off that sense of restraint. In an echo of the goals of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the Chinese Dream involved China’s achieving “the two 100s”—a “moderately well-off society” by 2020 (the hundredth anniversary of the Party), and a “fully developed nation” by 2049 (the hundredth anniversary of the People’s Republic). The Chinese Dream was the subject of a relentless nationalist propaganda campaign that also harked back to the days of Mao—complete with songs and dances.

Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations by Raymond Fisman, Edward Miguel

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, blood diamond, clean water, colonial rule, congestion charging, crossover SUV, Donald Davies, European colonialism, failed state, feminist movement, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, mass immigration, megacity, oil rush, prediction markets, random walk, Scramble for Africa, selection bias, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, unemployed young men

At this point, you can make a pretty decent guess as to what came next: Niger’s government is today back at war with the Tuareg militia, the Niger Movement for Justice, which has recently scored some major military strikes, including the capture and killing of government troops and even the destruction of a regional airport in 2007.17 The unfortunate citizens of Niger, as ever caught in the crossfire, can only pray for rain. The Threat of Global Warming Unlike Niger, China’s economy is booming. In 1978, 70 percent of China’s billion people were farmers, working the land in cooperatives created during the Communist government’s Great Leap Forward (which in retrospect was anything but). Market-oriented reforms have since produced an astounding industrial transformation. The countryside has started to empty as China’s rural masses seek their fortunes in coastal cities. More than twice as many Chinese lived in 127 CH A PTER F I VE urban areas in 2005 than they did twenty-five years earlier, when the reforms began.

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Otherwise, we’ll have learned little, and Sauri and the other Millennium Villages will likely join the long list of well-intentioned but ultimately inconclusive (and quickly forgotten) attempts to make poverty history. 206 Epilogue ½ Doing Better this Time “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” —Ecclesiastes 9:18 W What Will the Future Hold? e come full circle to where we started this book. Forty years ago, people throughout the developing world contemplated their futures with a sense of hope and anticipation. Since then there have been countries that have made the great leap forward to prosperity—South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and now China. India may be next. But we’ve found that in all too many parts of the world, people in the village— and increasingly cities—are scarcely better off than their grandparents were half a century ago. Poverty in Africa and parts of Asia seems more deeply rooted than ever.

Think Like an Engineer: Use Systematic Thinking to Solve Everyday Challenges & Unlock the Inherent Values in Them by Mushtak Al-Atabi

3D printing, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Barry Marshall: ulcers, Black Swan, Blue Ocean Strategy, business climate, call centre, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive bias, corporate social responsibility, dematerialisation, disruptive innovation, Elon Musk, follow your passion, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, happiness index / gross national happiness, invention of the wheel, iterative process, James Dyson, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Lao Tzu, Lean Startup, mirror neurons, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, remote working, shareholder value, six sigma, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, systems thinking

Other examples of complex systems include the rainforest, the Internet, and the global financial system. Businesses and companies can also be represented through system networks with suppliers, customers, regulators and other direct and indirect stakeholders. The Great Leap Forward! In order to rapidly transform the Chinese society from an agrarian to a modern one, the Chinese government made a series of planning decision between 1958 and 1961, these came to be known as the Great Leap Forward. One of the planning decisions was the hygiene campaign against the “Four Pests” initiated in 1958. Chairman Mao conceived the idea of getting rid of mosquitos, flies, rats and sparrows.

The Right Side of History by Ben Shapiro

Abraham Maslow, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, classic study, Donald Trump, Filter Bubble, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income inequality, Internet Archive, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, labor-force participation, longitudinal study, means of production, microaggression, Peace of Westphalia, Plato's cave, Ronald Reagan, Steven Pinker, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, W. E. B. Du Bois, white picket fence, women in the workforce

As Pipes points out, this constituted a “sentence of death on 10 million human beings.”51 Stalin would carry Lenin’s bloody legacy further, of course—by the end of his life, Stalin was responsible for the murder of tens of millions of people under his rule, including five million people during the forcible starvation of Ukraine for agricultural collectivization from 1931 to 1934 alone.52 And in China, Mao Tse-tung would bring Stalinism to a new audience, in the process murdering some sixty-five million human beings, the vast majority during Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”—an attempt to reshape human beings by collectivizing their property and returning them to the soil. He did, but only as corpses—somewhere between thirty and forty million people died of starvation. Mao openly bragged about “bur[ying] alive 46,000 scholars.” During the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s forces committed atrocities upon intellectuals—and mirroring the USSR’s gulags, Mao built a system of laogai that housed tens of millions of dissidents over the decades.53 Today, the North Korean gulag state mirrors the glorious heritage of its communist predecessors.

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See also Unmoved Mover Abraham and Isaac and, 212 antimaterialistic, 25–26 Aquinas and, 67–68 Christianity and, 58–59 covenant with, 33 Darwin and, 114–15 Descartes and, 79 death of, 117–18, 185 Dostoyevsky and, 115–16 Galileo and, 76 humans in image of, 10, 32–34 Judaism and unified, 20–28 Kierkegaard and, 161 Moses vs. Aristotle and, 55–56 progress and, 28–31 proofs of existence of, 67–68, 104–5 gods, 22, 25–26, 29, 31–32 Goldberg, Jonah, xviii, 151 Golden Rule, 110 Gospels, 57, 59 grace, 21, 58–59 Gramsci, Antonio, 189 Grand Designer, 46 “Grand Inquisitor” (Dostoyevsky), 115–16 Great Leap Forward, 151 Greece (Athens), xxiv–xxvii, 5, 17–18, 22, 28–29, 39–58, 64, 65–69, 89, 91, 180, 181, 209–10 Gregory VII, Pope, 63 Grotius, Hugo, 82–83 Groundhog Day (film), 209 gulags, 150 Hagar, 212 Haidt, Jonathan, 13, 45, 203, 207 Haley, Nikki, 200 Hamilton, Charles, 198 Hammurabi, 9, 31, 40 Hanukkah, 57 happiness, 1–9 Aristotle and, 53 Catholic Church and, 70 capacity and, 6, 9 communal capacity and, 15–17 communal purpose and, 13–17 Diderot on, 124 Divine meaning underlying, 17 Founding Fathers and, 89–95 four elements of, 17–18 Greeks and, 5–7, 49, 53–54 Hebrew Bible and, 5–7 individual capacity and, 11–13 individual purpose and, 9–13, 17 Judaism and four elements of, 33–37 maximizing, 106 moral purpose and, 5–9 need to regain individual and communal, 211–12 Nietzsche and, 119 politics and, 3–4 pursuit of, 2, 4–5, 17–18 Stone Age and, 209 Washington on, 7–8 Harari, Yuval Noah, 209–10 Harden, Kathryn Paige, 204 Harrington, 88 Harris, Sam, 177–79, 181–82, 203–4 Hasmonean dynasty, 57 Hazony, Yoram, 131, 175 Hebrew language, 25, 47 hedonism, xxv, 10, 107, 169 Hegel, Georg, 133, 137, 139, 141, 143, 159, 161, 172, 188 Heidegger, Martin, 148, 162, 184 heliocentric solar system, 69 Hemings, Sally, 94 Henry II, king of England, 63 Henry IV, Holy Roman emperor, 63 Heraclitus, 46 Herder, 175 Heying, Heather, 206 Hinduism, 28 Hispanics, xiv history, 99 end of progress and, 209–10 Enlightenment and, 185 God of Abraham and, 55 Marx and, 136 pagans and circular movement of, 28–29 progress of, 20, 28–31, 35–36, 55, 132 state and, 130–31 Hitler, Adolf, 147, 149, 155, 159, 179 Hobbes, Thomas, 83–85, 88, 102–5, 110, 112, 125, 177 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 155 Holocaust, 8, 11–12, 156–57, 179, 213 Holy Roman Empire, 63 homosexuality, 167 Horkheimer, Max, 189–90 Horwitz, Robert, 141 Hughes, Donna, 201–2 Hugh of Saint-Victor, 66 humanism, xviii, 101, 154 human nature, xviii, 108, 113, 127, 136, 166, 168–69 human rights, xxiv, 41, 82–85, 140 Hume, David, 104–5, 112–13, 169, 172, 180 Huntington, Samuel, 171 id, 166 identity politics, 200, 204 idols, 23, 26, 27 Iliad, The (Homer), 29 immigrants, xxvi, 3 imperialism, 131, 133 individual capacity, 9, 11–13, 17, 33 America and, 97, 190–91 Athens and, 42, 52 Catholic Church and, 70 Christianity and, 65 cultural Left and, 208 evolutionary biology and, 169 Founding Fathers and, 91–92 Judaism and, 34, 42 nationalism and, 133, 144 need to regain, 211 teaching children about, 215–16 individualism, 16, 190–91, 200, 206 bureaucracy and, 138–39 collectivism and, 138, 144 existentialism and, 163–64 Hegel and, 132 Luther and, 81–82 polis and, 56–57 rise of, 83–87 individual moral purpose, 9–11, 15, 18 America and, 98, 190–91 Athens and, 52 Catholic Church and, 70 Christianity and, 65 communal capacity and, 18 Founding Fathers and, 91, 144 Judaism and, 20, 33–34 teaching children about, 215 individual rights, 84, 87, 98–99, 122, 124–25, 133, 139–40, 143 individual will, xxiv, 125 intersectionality, 196–209 IQ differences, 201, 203, 208 Isaac, 29, 212 Ishmael, 212 Islamic civilization, 65 “is-ought” distinction, 105, 169–70, 172 Israel, 29, 35, 101 Italy, fascist, 189 Jackson, Jesse, 39 Jacob, 29 Jaffa, Harry, 90 Japanese Americans, internment of, 157 Jaspers, Karl, 162, 184 “Jeannot et Colin” (Voltaire), 185 Jefferson, Thomas, 2–3, 87–89, 91–94, 143 Jenner, Caitlyn, 183–84 Jeremiah, Rabbi, 25 Jesus Christ, 58–60, 67, 70, 212 “Jewishness in Music” (Wagner), 146 Jewish Temple, 57 destruction of, 62 Jim Crow, xiv, xvii, 180, 187 John, king of England, 160 Johnson, Paul, 30–31 Jonas, Raymond, 126 Joshua, Rabbi, 25 Judaism (Jerusalem), xxiv–xxvi, 17–18, 20–37, 41, 43, 51–52, 55–58, 62, 66–70, 146, 213 Judea, 57 Julian, emperor of Rome, 61–62 Julian calendar, 69 Jung, Georg, 145 justice, 49, 86, 91, 124 Kaganovich, Lazar, 16 Kant, Immanuel, xxiv, 108–10, 118, 159, 161, 170, 174, 177 Kennedy, John F., 164 Kepler, Johannes, 76–77 Kerr, Walter, 42 Kershaw, Ian, 148 KGB, 152 Khullar, Dr.

China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business by Edward Tse

3D printing, Airbnb, Airbus A320, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, bilateral investment treaty, business process, capital controls, commoditize, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Graeber, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, experimental economics, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, industrial robot, Joseph Schumpeter, Lyft, Masayoshi Son, middle-income trap, money market fund, offshore financial centre, Pearl River Delta, reshoring, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, thinkpad, trade route, wealth creators, working-age population

Zhang’s achievement in taking an ailing collectively owned factory and building it into a world-beating firm is one of the stunning business success stories of China’s reform era. Zhang was born in early 1949, just months before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, to parents who worked in a garment factory in north China’s Shandong Province. After the disastrous Great Leap Forward economic campaign of 1958 to 1961 and the subsequent famine of the early 1960s, Mao Zedong sought to reclaim his power and prestige by instigating the Cultural Revolution, a nationwide political campaign aimed at purging the Communist Party of his rivals and reestablishing the revolutionary spirit that had brought him to power.

…

., 123 Forbes, 10 Ford Motor Company, 123, 131, 133 Forever 21, 195 Fosun, 123, 138, 148, 155, 156, 194 Foursquare, 129 Foxconn, 112 Gang of ’92, 45–46, 54, 148, 168–69 Gao Feng Advisory Company, 25 Gavekal Dragonomics, 73 Geely Auto, 12, 44, 76, 123, 131–34, 138, 175, 185, 212 General Mills, 196 General Motors, 133, 137, 179 Gerke, Roland, 196 Germany, 121, 216 doctorates in, 108 global financial crisis, 73, 78 Global Solar Energy, 123 Golden Monkey, 194 Goldman Sachs, 37, 136 Gome Electrical Appliances, 13 Google, 83, 87, 112, 127, 128, 197 Great Firewall of China, 82 Great Leap Forward, 3–4 Great Wall Technology, 76, 126 Guo Guangchang, 148 Guo Wei, 148 Haier, 3, 5–8, 10, 47, 49, 58–60, 76, 84, 94, 98, 100, 101, 175, 185, 187, 200, 208, 224 Hainan, 46 Hangzhou Wahaha Group, 52, 76 Harvard Business Review, 93–94 health-care system, 12, 153–57, 162, 163, 212 Hengan International, 12, 53, 175–78, 199, 200 Hershey, 194 Hertz Global Rental, 194–95 Hewlett-Packard, 125, 128 Hoffman-La Roche, 155 Home Depot, 180 Honda, 133 Honeywell, 190, 192, 196 Hong Kong, 68, 214, 223–24 Hong Kong Stock Exchange, 68, 86, 177 hospitals, 154–56, 212 Household Responsibility System, 43 Huang Guangyu, 13 Huang Nubo, 45, 63, 168 Huawei Technologies, 11, 20, 43–44, 47, 54, 60, 67, 75, 84, 89, 122, 128, 136, 138, 139, 140, 175, 200, 222 innovation by, 94, 101–5 Hui Ka Yan, 48 Hu Jintao, 147 Hutchison Telecom, 103 Hyundai, 133 IBM, 125, 127–28, 129, 178 ICBC, 149 ICQ, 85 IDG, 85–86 India, 68 infrastructure, 71, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 99, 105, 111, 114, 137–38, 153, 163, 164, 166, 188, 191, 192, 210, 223, 224 Innovation Works, 111–12 Intel Capital, 113 interest-rate liberalization, 40, 152–53 Internet, 27, 81–90, 82, 135–36, 161, 186, 197, 209–10, 218–19, 221–22 iPhone, 68, 69, 94 iQiyi.com, 162 Japan, 94, 121, 141, 216 R&D spending in, 107 JD.com, 84, 87 revenue of, 89 Jialing, 76 Jiang Jianqing, 149 Johnson & Johnson, 175 Joyo.com, 12, 57, 68 Jumei.com, 206 “just-in-time” production system, 94 Kan, Michael, 69 Kandi Technologies Group, 133 Kao, 175 KFC, 180 Kimberly-Clark, 12, 175 Kingsoft, 68 Kirby, William C., 93–94 Konka, 76 Koo, Victor, 158–59, 160, 218 Krugman, Paul, 9 Kutcher, Ashton, 129 Lardy, Nicholas, 17 Lau, Martin, 136 Lau, Ricky, 225 Lee, Hudson, 196 Lee, Kai-fu, 111–12 legal infrastructure, 114 Legend, 44 Legend Holdings, 112, 126 Lei Jun, 11, 12, 57, 67, 81, 112, 162, 197, 226 Lenovo, 11, 20, 44, 54, 67, 75, 89, 112, 139, 140, 148, 171 expansion by, 124–29, 130 revenue of, 125–26, 127, 128 Leung, Antony, 224 Levi’s, 195 Li, Richard, 85–86 Li, Robin, 11, 49, 50, 64, 81, 88, 139 liberalization, 44, 55, 71, 72, 75, 78–79, 152, 154, 166–67, 178, 181, 210, 211, 223 of interest rates, 40, 152–53 Li Dongsheng, 148 Liebherr, 5–6 Lifan, 76 Li Ka-shing, 85 Li Keqiang, 210, 215 Lin Bin, 68 Li Shufu, 12, 44, 47, 131–34, 138, 175, 185 Little Emperors, 51–53 Liu Chuanzhi, 54, 171 Liu Junling, 96 Liu Mingkang, 149 Loncin, 76 L’Oréal, 205 Lu Guanqiu, 130 Lyft, 135 Ma, Jack, 10, 33–40, 41, 47, 50, 54–55, 60–61, 62–63, 64, 86, 136, 148, 197, 201, 221 background of, 36–37 environmental work of, 60, 168, 169–70 and U.S.

The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind by Jan Lucassen

3D printing, 8-hour work day, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-work, antiwork, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, commoditize, computer age, coronavirus, COVID-19, demographic transition, deskilling, discovery of the americas, domestication of the camel, Easter island, European colonialism, factory automation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fixed income, Ford Model T, founder crops, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, knowledge economy, labour mobility, land tenure, long peace, mass immigration, means of production, megastructure, minimum wage unemployment, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, pension reform, phenotype, post-work, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, reshoring, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, stakhanovite, tacit knowledge, Thales of Miletus, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, two and twenty, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, women in the workforce, working poor

Significantly, this occurred ‘in the same time range as the greatest increase in relative brain size documented in the hominin fossil record’.51 Even the Neanderthals, who cared for their sick and elderly, had a level of ‘cognitive sophistication’ and an appreciation of symbolism, attested by the stone circles built 180,000 years ago and jewellery made from eagle talons dated 130,000 years ago.52 Two developments in East Africa matter in particular. First, the development of speech, maybe 70,000 years ago, and, subsequently, between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago, what has been characterized in East Africa, the Near East and a little later in southern Europe as the ‘Great Leap Forward’.53 Standardized stone tools were developed, but also what we might dub art- and showpieces, such as ‘jewels’ made from the shell of ostrich eggs. The first needles, awls, engraving tools, harpoons and rope also date from this period. The cave paintings and the statues and musical instruments in France, Spain, Indonesia and South Africa belong to this nexus as well.54 This is also the period that the entire ancient world in the tropical and temperate zones became inhabited, initially by Homo sapiens, who would soon be the last remaining subspecies of hominins.

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The cave paintings and the statues and musical instruments in France, Spain, Indonesia and South Africa belong to this nexus as well.54 This is also the period that the entire ancient world in the tropical and temperate zones became inhabited, initially by Homo sapiens, who would soon be the last remaining subspecies of hominins. Meanwhile, archaeology has not sat still for the past few decades, and instead of one Great Leap Forward, archaeologists now prefer to talk in terms of several leaps.55 The invention of ballistic weapons, in particular the step from the long-established thrusting and hand-thrown spear to the atlatl or spear-thrower and the bow and arrow, was useful for the successful hunting of large game. The invention of the bow and arrow (or atlatl and arrow), sharpened with microliths, may also have played a role in the dispersal of Homo sapiens beyond Europe.

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State grain rations were kept for the non-agrarian urban workers and for state employees. Rural people called these rations ‘guaranteed harvest regardless of drought or flood’. In sum: ‘By state reckoning, farmers produced grain for self-consumption and hence had little need for access to state grain supplies’.57 The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution may have stultified the immobilization policies of the 1950s, but the principle that migration to achieve individual betterment – by looking for another employer or employment – was selfish and therefore condemned remained firmly intact. This was juxtaposed with what was called the freedom of the masses, masterfully explained by the Minister of the Public Security Department in 1958: Naturally . . . there are some restrictions affecting the minority of people who think only of themselves and who blindly migrate without the slightest consideration for what is beneficial to both state and collective interests.

Transatlantic Liners by J. Layton

Great Leap Forward, mass immigration

The interior first-class spaces of the Imperator and Vaterland were extraordinary. Their primary lounges, termed ‘social halls,’ sported ceilings 20 feet high, and boasted over 4,200 square feet of floor space each; down below, their Pompeian swimming baths sported classical Roman themes and were two full decks in height – a great leap forward over the swimming baths installed on previous liners such as the Adriatic, Olympic and Titanic. Meanwhile, Cunard had been following up on their sister speedsters with the construction of a third vessel, which was in the event named Aquitania. The Aquitania was 901 feet 6 inches in length, and bore a gross tonnage of 45,647.

What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, centre right, critical race theory, DeepMind, disinformation, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, kremlinology, liberal world order, light touch regulation, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, sensible shoes, the scientific method, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Yom Kippur War

When he ordered the Great Purge of 1936, Stalin said: ‘Who’s going to remember this riffraff in ten or twenty years time? No one. Who remembers the boyars Ivan the Terrible got rid of?’ When he ordered the massacre of the Polish intelligentsia, Hitler said: ‘After all, who today speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?’ When tens of millions starved in the Great Leap Forward, the single greatest political crime of the twentieth century, Mao Tse-tung told the few brave officials who condemned themselves to death by speaking out: ‘A few children die in the kindergarten, a few old men die in the Happiness Court. If there’s no death people can’t exist. From Confucius to now it would be disastrous if people didn’t die.’

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Galloway saluted the fascistic perpetrator of racial extermination campaigns, but he was just as keen on communism. When he praised Saddam for building up the Iraqi economy, he compared him favourably to Stalin and, implicitly, Mao – ‘just as Stalin industrialised the Soviet Union, so on a different scale Saddam plotted Iraq’s own Great Leap Forward’ – rather than Hitler – for the autobahns – or Mussolini – for making the trains run on time. Meanwhile he lamented ‘the disappearance of the Soviet Union’, and said it was ‘the biggest catastrophe of my life’, and when asked about his admiration for Fidel Castro the dictator of Cuba, he said, ‘I don’t believe that Fidel Castro is a dictator.’

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Scott 98–9 Armstrong, Sir William 56 Ash, Lucy 121 al-Askari, Abdel-Qadir 51 Astor, Lord and Lady 217 asylum seekers 7 Atta, Mohamed 83, 255–7, 260, 269, 273 Auden, W.H. 122, 219, 220, 223, 224–5, 238, 335, 358–9 Australia 258 Axelrod, Pavel 103 al-Ayyeri, Yussuf 270 Aziz, Hind 34 Aziz, Tariq 292 Baath Party (Iraq) 24, 25, 33–4, 352, 365 alliance with Islamists after war to form ‘insurgency’ 8, 32, 286–7 and conspiracy theory 35–6 ideology 33, 35 and indoctrination 33–5, 41 and Iraqi communists 37–8 killings by 4–5, 31–2, 37 program against Iraqi Jews 36–7 purges of by Saddam 35, 42–4 seizure of power 22 and Soviet Union 37–8, 40 tyrannizing of Iraqis and forces of oppression 7, 33, 37, 41–2 Baath Party (Syria) 31 backlash politics 196–7 Bad Writing Contest 99–100 Bagehot, Walter English Constitution 189–90 al-Bakr, Ahmad Hasan 36 Baldwin, Stanley 220 Bali bar bombings (2002) 258 al-Banna, Hassan 265–6 al-Barak, Fadhil 35, 36 Barruel, L’Abbé Augustin 340, 341, 343, 345, 346 Memoirs to Serve for a History of Jacobinism 340 Battle of Britain 225 Baudrillard, Jean 110 Bazoft, Farzad 5, 53 BBC 159, 244, 304, 367, 368, 369, 379 Beard, Mary 274–5 Bell, Clive 228, 235 Bellow, Saul Ravelstein 80 Benaissa, Mohamed 352 Benenson, Peter 322 Benn, Hilary 367 Benson, Ophelia 101 Berman, Paul 249, 250, 312 Beslan school hostage crisis (2004) 259–60 Betjeman, John 221 Bevin, Ernie 231, 232, 233, 246 bin Laden, Osama 257, 258, 261, 267–8, 276, 365, 367 Birthler, Marianne 331 Blair, Cherie 205 Blair, Tony 54, 114, 185, 201, 277, 290, 297, 359, 364, 379 and Amnesty 322–3 and Iraq war 8, 202, 203, 280, 284, 285, 297, 300 and Kosovo war 151 and 9/11 257 Blakeney, Kate 63, 66 Bleasdale, Alan 184 blogosphere 270–1 Bloomsbury Group 192, 227, 228, 229, 235 Blum, Leon 249, 251 Blythe, Ronald The Age of Illusion 230 Boggan, Steve 40–1 Bosnian war 10, 127–51, 153–4, 168, 172, 370 atrocities committed 128, 129, 130, 131–2, 134 denial of crimes committed 171–8 ending of 151 lack of international help 135 Omarska prison camp 129, 130–1, 174 photograph of ‘emaciated men behind barbed wire’ 134, 174–5 pressure on Major government from Americans to intervene 145–9 prevention of action in by Major government 139–43, 144–5, 153–5, 168 siege of Sarajevo 153–4 Srebrenica massacre (1995) 130–1, 149–50, 171, 177–8 Trnopolje camp 131–4, 171, 174, 175–6 Bridget Jones’s Diary 313 Britain 138–9 and Euroscepticism 139 possibility of Bolshevik revolution in 1970s 55–7 prevention of action in Bosnian War by Major government 139–41, 144–5, 153–5, 168 radicalism in 58 trade unions 298–9 British Empire 162 British Muslims 369–72, 378 British National Party (BNP) 294, 310–11 British People’s Party 235–6 Brittain, Vera 248–9 Brown, Gordon 201, 297 Buchan, James High Latitudes 95 Burchill, Julie 207 Buruma, Ian and Margalit, Avishai Occidentalism 268 Bush, George (senior) 169 Bush, George W. 8, 9, 83, 85, 201, 209, 274, 284, 320, 321, 358, 359, 365, 373 Butler inquiry 285 Butler, Judith 100, 111 Butt, Hassan 371–2 Caldwell, Christopher 336–7 Cambodia 93, 166–7 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 230–1 Campbell, Professor David 176 Campbell, Sir Menzies 74 Camus, Albert 29 capitalism 22, 119–20, 195 Carey, Professor John 189 Castro, Fidel 93, 293 ‘Cato’ 225 Celebrity Big Brother 288–90 centralized regulation 194–5 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 227, 266–7 Chamberlain, Neville 144, 217–18, 220, 227, 233 Chamcha, Saladin 184 Chechnya 259–60 Chemical Ali see al-Majid, Ali Hassan China 93, 94, 117 Chirac, Jacques 150 Chomsky, Noam 14, 155–62, 164–8, 170, 179–80, 258, 376 American Power and the New Mandarins 156–7 anti-Americanism 156–7 background 155–6 and Bosnian War atrocities denial 178–9 condemning of Kosovo War 170–1 and Hiroshima 156, 157 and Holocaust denial theory 164–6 and Khmer rouge killings in Cambodia 167–8 and media propaganda 157–8, 160–1 support of Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade 178, 179 Christian Democrats 14 Churchill, Caryl 184 Churchill, Winston 2, 33, 218, 219, 245, 246 Clearances (Scottish Highlands) 118 Cliff, Tony 54 Clinton, Bill 83, 87, 145, 150, 201, 211, 273 Clwyd, Ann Saddam’s Iraq 40 Cockburn, Alexander 73 Coe, Jonathan 184 Cohn, Norman 345 Cohn, Professor Werner 174 Cold War 4, 88, 97, 143 Collard, Dudley 242 Collins, Michael 205–6 Columbia Journalism Review 159–60 communalism 309 communism 3–4, 89, 373–4 collapse of 87–8 and fascism 89, 237 killing of by communists 248 Communist Party (Britain) 238 attempt to rally support for Hitler after Soviet-Germany pact 239–46 People’s Convention 239, 242–6, 247 support of war effort after invasion of Soviet Union by Germany 246 Communist Party (Iraq) 37–8 Conquest, Robert 29, 103 Conservatives 2–3, 10, 53, 113 conspiracy theory 339–40 and Freemasons 35, 340–2, 345–6 and Jews 35–6, 65, 77, 343–6, 350–1 consumer leftism 373–6 consumerism 12, 221 Cook, Robin 285, 313 Cooper, Robert 136 council house waiting lists 200, 201 Critical Terms for Literary Study 100 Croatia 127 Crusaders 340 cults, political 60–3 Daily Mail 197 Daily Worker 240–1 Dalrymple, Theodore 229 Darfur 50, 117, 381 Dawkins, Richard 318 Dawson, Geoffrey 217 de Beauvoir, Simone 103 de Pauw, Cornelius 262–3 Declaration of Independence 317, 343 Deichmann, Thomas 174–5, 176, 177 democracy 193–4, 268, 342, 362, 365, 379, 380 fascism’s case against 268–70 Democrats 14, 211 Dench, Geoff 199 denial 162–3 and Bosnian war 171–8 and fascists 163–4 Holocaust 163–5, 179 Denmark 212 al-Din, Salah 33 Disneyland 110 Dole, Bob 145, 147, 150 Domvile, Admiral Sir Barry 235, 236 Dorfman, Ariel 283 Dostoevsky 67 dowry-murders 101, 102, 121–3 Drabble, Margaret 263 Dutton, Denis 99–100 Dzandarova, Zalina 259 East End/East Enders 198–201 East Timor 161, 170, 258, 275, 283 economists 114 education 204–5 Egypt 349, 350 Eliot, George 333 Eliot, T.S. 219 Empire (Hardt and Negri) 109–10 Engels, Friedrich 158 ‘Englishness’ 206 Enlightenment 35, 106, 109, 343, 355, 357 environment movement 356–7 epistemic relativism 105–6 Equity 57–8 Estikhbarat 40 ethnic cleansing 128, 365 ethnic minorities 11 eugenics 198 European Court of Human Rights 136, 212 European Exchange Rate Mechanism 3, 139 European Social Forum (2003) 115, 119–20, 301 European Union 10, 127, 135–8, 212, 214, 365, 379 Euroscepticism 139 Euston Manifesto 361–3 Fabians 190, 192, 193, 198 Fahrenheit 9/11 321–2 Fallacy of the Superior Virtue of the Oppressed 78–9 false consciousness, theory of 158–9, 374–5 Falwell, Jerry 261 family attempt to weaken influence of by political cults 61 fascism/fascists 3–4, 10, 268 case against democracy 268–70 and communism 89, 237 and denial 163–4 Faurisson, Robert 163–5 feminism/feminists 12, 90–1, 111, 112 in India 120 Ferguson, Euan 282–3 First World War 220 Fischer, Joschka 332 Fisk, Robert 271–2 ‘fisking’ 271 Foot, Michael 225, 232–3 Forster, E.M. 244 Foucault, Michel 107–8, 109, 377, 379 Fox, Dr Myron L. 97–8 Fox, John 146–7 France 47, 206, 212, 218, 281 Franco, General Francisco 1, 35, 50, 346 Frank, Thomas 209, 210–11, 212 Franks, General Tommy 72 Frayn, Michael 182–3 Freemasons 35, 38, 269, 340–2, 345–6, 350, 351 French left 249, 327 French Revolution 42, 355 French socialists and Hitler 249–52 Gaddafi, Colonel 68 Galbraith, Peter 50, 52 Galloway, George 74, 290–3, 300–1, 302, 310 game theory 97 Gaullists 14 Gavron, Kate 199 genocide against Iraqi Kurds 5, 7, 24, 48–9, 50–2, 127 defined by United Nations 129 Geras, Norman 325 Germany anti-war demonstrations 281 and Iraq war 329 see also Nazi Germany Globalise Resistance 296 globalization 141, 374, 376 see also anti-globalization movement Gold Standard 219 Gollancz, Victor 240–1 Goodlad, Alistair 153 Gorazde (Bosnia) 154 Gore, Al 273 Gorst, Irene 59–60 Gourlay, Walter 215 grammar schools 205 Grant, Ted 54 Great Depression 195, 218, 220–1, 356 Great Leap Forward 49 Greece anti-war demonstrations 281 Green movement 119, 356 Griffiths, James 234 Griffiths, Richard 236 Griffiths, Trevor 55 The Party 55–6, 57 Guantanamo Bay 324 Guardian 117, 179–80, 294, 304, 337–8 Guevara, Che 93 Guilty Men 225–7, 240 Gulf War (1991) 71, 89 Halabja 50–2, 292 Hamas 259 constitution 348–9 Hamza, Abu 351 Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio Empire 109–10 Hare, Sir David 184, 206 Harrington, Michael 82 Hawley, Caroline 46 Hayek, Friedrich 294 The Road to Serfdom 194–5 Healy, Gerry 53–5, 57–9, 61, 63–4, 66–8, 301 hegemonic 110–12 Heidegger, Martin 263–4 heroes/heroines 19–20 Herman, Edward S. 166, 168, 170, 176 Hezbollah 293–4, 366 Hiroshima 156, 157 Hitchens, Christopher 247, 253 Hitler, Adolf 4, 35, 49, 50, 246, 248, 250 appeasement of by Chamberlain 217–18, 220, 227, 233, 233–4, 276 and France 251 and Jews 30, 346 meeting with Lansbury 234 Mein Kampf 345, 346 pact with Stalin 358 rise of 231 seen as a bulwark against communism 217 Hizb-ut-Tahir 370 Ho Chi Minh 93 Hoare, Marko Attila 169–70, 171 Hobsbawm, Eric 103, 185, 241–2 Hoggart, Simon 299–300 Hollinghurst, Alan The Line of Beauty 184 Holocaust 336 denial of 163–5, 179 homosexuality 11, 105, 111 ‘honour killings’ 378 Horta, Hose Ramos 283–4 Houellebecq, Michel 213 Howard, Peter 225 human rights 39–40, 88, 106, 143, 312, 313, 316, 324–5, 362 Human Rights Watch 52, 312, 325–6 Hume, Mick 176 Hurd, Douglas 140–1, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 169, 370 Husain, Ed The Islamist 369–70 Hussain, Azfar 101–2, 104 Hussein, Saddam see Saddam Hussein el-Husseini, Haj Amin 347–8 Huxley, Aldous 235 identity politics 376–7 Independence Party 294 Independent 304, 320, 335, 366 Index on Censorship 335 India 75, 120–1, 162 dowry-murders and persecution of women 101, 102, 121–3 feminist movement 120 partition of 143 Indict 292 individualism 356 Indochina 166 Indonesia 81 Information Research Bureau 246 Institute for Public Policy Research 207 international criminal states 313 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 130 International Monetary Fund 117 Internet 270–1 Iran 22, 25–6, 81, 82, 374, 377, 379 revolution (1979) 26–7, 107–8, 380 war against Iraq 28, 32, 44, 47–8 women in 357–8 Iraq 4–6, 7, 20–6, 40, 72–3 alliance between Baathists and Islamists after war to form ‘insurgency’ 8, 32, 286–7 American assistance in war with Iran 46–8 Baath Party regime see Baath Party genocide of Kurds 5, 7, 24, 48–9, 50–2, 127 invasion of Kuwait 6, 70, 72–3 ‘oil-for-food’ programme 72 pull back by America in (1991) 71, 72, 80, 81, 87 sanctions issue 74–5 seen as only country to take on Israel 76–7 shift in attitude towards by left 30, 74–5, 89–91 and Soviet Union 37–8 terrorizing of Shia majority by Sunni Islamists 287 trade union movement 297–8, 301, 302–3 war against Iran 28, 32, 44, 47–8 weapons sales to 47 and Workers’ Revolutionary Party 65–6, 67, 68 see also Saddam Hussein Iraq Memory Foundation 330 Iraq war (2003) 4, 7–9, 84, 299–300, 357, 364–5, 381 aftermath 285–6, 381 anti-war movement/ demonstrations 169–70, 280–311, 313–14, 357 and Blair 8, 202, 203, 280, 284, 285, 297, 300 liberal opposition to 46, 202, 312–32 Iraqi Communist Party 334 Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions 298, 302 Ireland 212 anti-war demonstrations 281 Irvin, Jeremy 129, 133 Isherwood, Christopher 219, 224, 233 Islam 9, 107, 367 Islamic Combatant Group 258–9 Islamism/Islamists 260, 261–2, 264–6, 267, 269–70, 273, 343–4, 347, 352, 360, 365–6, 368, 371–2, 374, 381 Israel 21, 76, 77, 170, 335, 336, 338–9, 346, 347, 351–2, 353 Italy anti-war demonstration 280 Izetbegovic, Alija 154 jahilyya 265, 267 Jamaat-i-Islaami party 266, 351, 369, 371, 377 Jarman, Derek 184 Jarrow hunger marches 218 Jehovah Witnesses 296 Jelacic, Nerma 172–3 Jewish Chronicle 65 Jews 10, 35, 36, 269 attack on by Iraq’s Baath Party 36–7 conspiracy theory involving 35–6, 65, 77, 343–6, 350–1 and Hitler 30, 346 and Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion 36, 344, 345, 346, 349 and tsarist Russia 344–5 see also antisemitism Johnson, Hewlett 243 Johnstone, Diana Fools’ Crusade 176–7, 178 Jong-Il, Kim 39 journalists 159–60 July bombings (London) 10, 257–8 Kagan, Robert 136, 315–16, 317 Kanaan, Jean-Sélim 326 Kansas 209, 209–10 Karadzic, Radovan 128, 129, 131, 169 Kelikian, Dr Hampar 148 Kenneth, John 50 Keynes, John Maynard 114, 228, 377 Economic Consequences of the Peace 228 Khan, Irene 324 Khan, Mohammad Sidique 258 Khmer Rouge 167, 167–8 Khomeini, Ayatollah 27, 28, 70, 107, 108, 184 Kianouri, Noureddin 27 Kirwan, Celia 246 Kissinger, Henry 47 Klein, Naomi No Logo109 Knights Templars 340–1, 342 Kosovo war 10, 151, 168, 170–1 Kouchner, Bernard 326 Kumari, Ranjana 121 Kurds 36 attempts to rally international support for 50 genocide against by Saddam Hussein 5, 7, 24, 48–9, 50–2, 127 use of poison gas against at Halabja 50–2, 292 Kuwait invasion of by Iraq (1990) 6, 70 Labour Party 93, 182, 220, 231–3 see also Blair, Tony; New Labour Labour Party conference (2004) 297, 299–300 Lader, Philip 367 Lansbury, George 199, 229–32, 233–4 Laski, Harold 21, 240 Lawrence, D.H. 219 League of Nations 231 Left Book Club 219, 240, 243 Leigh, Mike 184 Lenin, Vladimir 50, 54 Leslie, Ann 333 Lewis, C.

The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World by Paul Morland

active measures, agricultural Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, British Empire, clean water, Corn Laws, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Donald Trump, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, mass immigration, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Nelson Mandela, open immigration, Ponzi scheme, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, sceptred isle, stakhanovite, Thomas Malthus, transatlantic slave trade, women in the workforce, working-age population

The pro-natalist rhetoric was toned down, contraceptives became more available and a more ‘liberal’ view gave way to increasing birth control propaganda from 1957. In that year abortion was legalised. Policy changed again in 1958 when Mao insisted that ‘it is still good to have more people’ and population control came to be regarded as ‘rightist’.64 This was part of the lead up to the Great Leap Forward, which demographically as well as economically was precisely the opposite of what its name implied–it was a series of madcap schemes for rapid modernisation which set the country back. Whilst the population had indeed been leaping forward until that point, at least in terms of numbers, it probably went into reverse as grain production dropped by around 30% and famine ensued.65 Mao’s ruthlessness and lack of concern for human life was clear in his preparedness to fight a nuclear war if it would mean the triumph of the Communist camp.

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After a few years, there would be 2.7 billion people again.66 Within China agricultural policies were applied in the 1950s which in many ways resembled those that Stalin had imposed, specifically collectivisation and forced delivery of grain ‘surpluses’. Unsurprisingly, the results were the same. There was a clash between the vast forces of demographic momentum which had been driving up the size of the population and the mass starvation brought on by the Great Leap Forward. The fertility rate appears to have fallen from nearly six in 1958 to not much more than three just three years later, a symptom of and a response to the brutal conditions of the time rather than to a government population policy that was turning back to pro-natalism.67 Once this period of economic mayhem was over, the fertility rate shot up again to five or six, and once again the authorities worried about population growth, which in the late 1960s was again approaching the 3% per annum mark.

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Even the wildlife was affected; there were no birds left in the trees, which had been stripped of their leaves and bark, their bare and bony spines standing stark against an empty sky. People were famished beyond speech. In this world plundered of every layer that might offer sustenance, down to bark and mud, corpses often ended up in shallow graves or simply by the roadside. A few people ate human flesh.68 Horrendous though the Great Leap Forward and the later Cultural Revolution were, the loss of life they entailed could not and did not hold back the human tide. Just as with Stalin’s Russia two or three decades earlier, underlying demographic momentum was so great that the population kept growing. A little over half a billion in 1950, it rose to three-quarters of a billion by 1967.

Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production by Vaclav Smil

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, invention of gunpowder, Louis Pasteur, military-industrial complex, Pearl River Delta, precision agriculture, recommendation engine, The Design of Experiments

When the Communist regime established a new republic in 1949 the country had just two small fertilizer plants producing about 27,000 t of ammonium sulfate annually.44 Construction of small, coal-based ammonia plants producing ammonium bicarbonate began in 1958, the year Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward. Ignorant of economic and technical complexities but obsessed with the idea of making China a great power, Mao followed a primitive Stalinist model of development that equated economic modernization with the large output of steel and other commodities produced in small plants by mass mobilization of the country’s huge population.45 At the same time, peasants were forced to abandon all means of private food production, and less land was planted to grain, the source of more than 80% of China’s food energy, as fraudulent Lysenkoist precepts guided another disastrous ‘‘Great Leap’’ in China’s farming and as fabricated reports announced record grain harvests.46 The real harvest in 1959 was just 165 Mt, but a grossly inflated claim of 270 Mt was used as the basis to expropriate higher shares of produced grain for cities.

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The situation worsened in 1960 and 1961, but three decades later, in 1991 and 1994, the worst drought and floods in China’s modern history had only a marginal effect on the food supply (the 1994 grain harvest was less than 3% below the 1993 record). 49. Ashton, B., et al. 1984. Famine in China, 1958–61. Population and Development Review 10:613–645; Peng X. 1987. Demographic consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s provinces. Population and Development Review 13:639–670; Banister, J. 1987. China’s Changing Population. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 50. This record gain will not be surpassed even by India’s increases during the first half of the twenty-first century; see United Nations. 1998.

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See Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik Beans (Phaseolus), 29–32 Beef, 165, 206, 215 Beggiatoa, 193 Berlin, 15, 66, 104, 225–228 Biofixation, 19, 31, 33, 145, 151, 210, 217, 219 Bolivia, 46 Bosch, Carl, 64, 75 and ammonia converters, 87–93 and ammonia synthesis, 80, 83–107, 202 death, 225 and Haber, 80, 96 and nitric acid, 104–105 Nobel prize, 85, 224 studies, 85–86 after World War I, 223–225 Breslau (Wroclaw), 65, 67–68 Broilers, 165 Brunner, Mond & Company, 111 Calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN), 135 carbide (CaC 2 ), 52 carbonate (CaCO 3 ), 135 cyanamide (CaCN 2 ), 39, 51, 104, 112 hydroxide (Ca(OH) 2 ), 49 leaching, 194 nitrate (Ca(NO 3 )2 ) 14, 54, 134–135 Caliche, 44–46, 57 Calothrix, 19 Cancer, 191 Carbamate, 136 Carbon cycle, 178–179, 196 dioxide (CO 2 ), 1, 3, 128, 136, 220 global warming, 178, 180 removal, 98, 117, 119–120, 122, 124 in shift conversion, 97–98, 120 monoxide (CO), 74, 92–93, 97–98, 113 removal, 117–120 Carp, 34, 165 Catalysts in ammonia synthesis, 69, 73–74, 78–80, 83, 87, 93–96, 98–99, 113, 120, 122, 128 in natural gas reforming, 120 testing of, 94–96 Chile nitrates, 43–48, 51, 57–58, 104, 138– 139, 191 China ammonia production, 117, 124, 167, 170 arable land, 168, 172 crops, 30, 167 diets, 163, 170, 175 famine, 167 fertilizer use, 137, 146–148, 167–172, 207 Subject Index food supply, 163, 167, 169, 173, 175, 216 Great Leap Forward, 167 organic recycling, 22, 27–28, 32–36, 144–147, 218 population growth, 168–170, 172–173, 213 soils, 183, 187 Chincha Islands (Peru), 40–42 Chiyoda, 125, 127 Chlorella, 217 Chlorine, 75, 96 gas attacks, 226–228 Chuca, 45 Clostridium, 19 Clover (Trifolium), 12–13, 30, 144 Coal, 50, 97, 117, 131 gasification, 118 hydrogenation, 224–225 Coba, 45 Coke, 49–50, 97, 129 oven-gas, 97, 122 ovens, 49–50 Combustion biomass, 22–24 fossil fuels, 179 Compressors centrifugal, 123–124, 129, 202 reciprocating, 73, 91, 122–123, 129–130 Corn, 56, 164, 215 nitrogen applications, 141, 152, 185 nitrogen losses, 183–185, 189 Corn Belt, 137, 152 Costra, 45–46 Crop residues, 23–24, 144 burning of, 22–24 nitrogen content 52 recycling, 22, 32, 35–36, 57, 144–145, 208 Crops, 34, 164 global harvest, 143–144, 218 nitrogen content of, 144, 156–157 residues, 23–24, 32 rotations, 29, 33, 208 yields, 33–34, 36, 38, 153, 175, 204–205 Cyanobacteria, 15, 19, 34 333 Cyanosis, 190 Cycles carbon, 178–179 nitrogen, 8, 16–20, 177–180, 204, 220 sulfur, 178–180 Dahlem (Berlin), 226, 231 Decomposition, 2, 20 Denitrification, 16, 19–20, 177, 181–182, 186–187 Deposition acid, 193–194, 220 atmospheric, 9–10, 12, 58, 152, 194, 196, 218 Diammonium phosphate ((NH 4 )2 HPO4 ), 49 Diazotrophs, 19, 178.

Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World by Michael Schuman

Admiral Zheng, British Empire, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, Great Leap Forward, land bank, moveable type in China, Pearl River Delta, place-making, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , South China Sea, special economic zone, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

In 1950, the Red Army invaded Tibet, and a year later, Beijing arm-twisted Tibetan negotiators to submit to annexation—or, as the Communists put it in the agreement, “return to the big family of the Motherland.”37 Then Mao fought the world-beating Americans to a standstill on the Korean peninsula, where a half century earlier the Chinese were embarrassed by Japan. China was standing up indeed. Anything seemed possible. In 1958, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward. Its purported goal was nothing short of magically transforming China from a poor, mainly agrarian society to a communist industrial wonderland in a mere handful of years. Farmers, press-ganged into communes, had to not only reach new heights of grain output but also produce their own tools.

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In 1966, Mao followed up that fiasco with another, the Cultural Revolution. Its goal was to speed the creation of a new society by reviving revolutionary spirit among the public and rooting out the final vestiges of the old Chinese world. More cynically, it was a maneuver by Mao to reassert his stature within the party, diminished by the Great Leap Forward. The Cultural Revolution was the ugly crescendo of China’s attack on its own civilization. Troops of radicalized students known as the Red Guards hunted for the “four olds”—old ideas, old customs, old culture, and old habits—a task that entailed beating up their professors and destroying temples.

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Unlike the ideologue Mao, content in constant revolutionary upheaval, Deng had proven himself an adept administrator and practical policymaker. “It does not matter if it is a yellow cat or a black cat,” he once famously said, “as long as it catches mice.”6 It was Deng who helped pick up the impoverished pieces left by the Great Leap Forward. That level-headedness won him plaudits from many, but not from Mao, who devised the Cultural Revolution to purge the independent-minded within the party. Deng was stripped of his titles and banished to labor at a tractor factory. But by the early 1970s, the Communists needed Deng’s steady hand more than ever.

An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford Delong

affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, ASML, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, ending welfare as we know it, endogenous growth, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial repression, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, general purpose technology, George Gilder, German hyperinflation, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, industrial research laboratory, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, It's morning again in America, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, land reform, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, megacity, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, occupational segregation, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Paul Samuelson, Pearl River Delta, Phillips curve, plutocrats, price stability, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, public intellectual, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, restrictive zoning, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, Stanislav Petrov, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, Suez canal 1869, surveillance capitalism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, too big to fail, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, TSMC, union organizing, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayback Machine, Yom Kippur War

When Stalin brutally suppressed dissent and discussion within and without the party, Mao quickly followed suit. However, when Stalin made heavy industrialization a priority by hiring technical advisers from outside and copying plans from US and German factories, Mao took a slightly different route. Being more suspicious of foreigners and less patient, he decreed that there would be a “Great Leap Forward.” To address China’s underdeveloped industrial and human resources, the party would replace the “material” factor with a “spiritual” one. What technocratic “experts” said could not be done, citing material limitations, the “Red” revolutionaries would do by force of conviction. China would industrialize village by village, without imports of foreign capital goods or the advice of foreign engineers.16 Of course it was a disaster.

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To command—from the center—that peasant farmers go out and build backyard blast furnaces to produce steel guarantees that you will get little steel and less grain. Worse, when the command comes directly from the dictator, you are guaranteed not to learn the truth. Because it was Mao himself who set out this policy, everyone reported back to him that the Great Leap Forward was proceeding magnificently. In reality, perhaps forty million people died in the ensuing famine. This was, note, an even worse disaster than the standard disaster that really-existing socialism turned out to be. If you walked along the edge of the Iron Curtain and then the Bamboo Curtain from Leningrad to Odessa, along the Caucasus, and then from Yunnan up to the Sea of Japan—or if you looked from really-existing socialist Cuba across the Caribbean to Costa Rica or Mexico—you would see that those countries where the armies of Stalin or Mao or Kim Il-Sung or Ho Chi Minh or (shudder) Pol Pot had marched were, on average, only one-fifth as well-off when 1990 came and the curtains were raised as those that had been just beyond those armies’ reach.

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If you walked along the edge of the Iron Curtain and then the Bamboo Curtain from Leningrad to Odessa, along the Caucasus, and then from Yunnan up to the Sea of Japan—or if you looked from really-existing socialist Cuba across the Caribbean to Costa Rica or Mexico—you would see that those countries where the armies of Stalin or Mao or Kim Il-Sung or Ho Chi Minh or (shudder) Pol Pot had marched were, on average, only one-fifth as well-off when 1990 came and the curtains were raised as those that had been just beyond those armies’ reach. But Maoist China in the throes of the Great Leap Forward was worse than average. As the extent of the disaster became known, Mao’s principal lieutenants moved slowly and cautiously against him. In December 1958, Mao was replaced by Liu Shaoqi as head of state, with Deng Xiaoping at Liu’s right hand. At a conference in July 1959, Peng Dehuai, minister of defense, criticized Mao’s policies, and Mao threatened to split the party.

Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit From Global Chaos by Sarah Lacy

Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Benchmark Capital, BRICs, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fear of failure, Firefox, Great Leap Forward, Huaqiangbei: the electronics market of Shenzhen, China, income per capita, intangible asset, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, McMansion, megacity, Network effects, off-the-grid, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), paypal mafia, QWERTY keyboard, risk tolerance, Salesforce, Skype, social web, Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh, urban planning, web application, women in the workforce, working-age population, zero-sum game

China is three decades into the largest migration in human history—from the farmlands to the cities, mostly seeking factory jobs. It began with Deng’s agricultural reforms, which al owed farmers to sel some crops on the open markets and were meant to restore some of the productivity kil ed during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, when farmers were forced to pool their land and crops. By the mid-1980s, farmers were al owed to legal y relocate. By the 1990s, some 60 mil ion migrants teemed through the growing cities of China.2 China has hundreds of mil ions of migrant workers today, mostly in factories and coastal cities.

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world comparisons General Motors Geni Genocide, Rwandan Ghate, Ravi Giant Interactive Giuffrida, Fred Globalization Goldman Sachs Gomes, Marco Gondal, Vishal Google: ad build-out in China as competitor as copycat founder of funding for immigrant success story as innovator in Israel powerhouse vis-à-vis Tencent Web share YouTube acquisition Gourevitch, Philip Grant Thornton LLP Great Leap Forward (Mao) Greenfield opportunities: in Brazil in China defined in India in Israel venture capital and in Western world Groupon Grove, Andy Growth Enterprise Board G7 nations Gupta, Abhishek Gupta, Naren Habyarimana, Juvenal Hambrecht & Quist Hanna, Jack Harvard Business School He, Eric Hertz, Matt Hewlett-Packard Highland Capital Partners Hinduism, culture of Hiware Bazar (India) Ho, Roy Hole-in-the-Wal program Horsley Bridge Partners Hsieh, Tony Huawei Hulu ICQ IL&FS Image Café Immigrants: Brazilian as economic asset as entrepreneurs Indian to Indonesia role in Israel In U.S.

The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes by Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder, David Ashton

active measures, affirmative action, An Inconvenient Truth, barriers to entry, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, classic study, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Dutch auction, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, immigration reform, income inequality, industrial cluster, industrial robot, intangible asset, job automation, Jon Ronson, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, market design, meritocracy, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Paul Samuelson, pensions crisis, post-industrial society, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, stem cell, tacit knowledge, tech worker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, vertical integration, winner-take-all economy, working poor, zero-sum game

The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia together have as many suitable generalists as does India, which has 5 times their total population, and nearly as many suitable engineers. As a result, many countries besides China and India will play a role in the emerging global market for high skilled workers.”17 Leveraging Learning The rapid increase in college-educated workers in emerging economies is intended to make a great leap forward, but it requires more that a veritable army of well-qualified workers. It also requires engineering a link between education, learning, and economic development. In neoliberal economies, we’ve seen an almost exclusive emphasis on generating a supply of highly qualified employees, given an assumption that this will motivate employers to use these skills in new and innovate ways.

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It also gives Chinese companies a strategic opportunity to take “stakes in advanced overseas companies so that Chinese companies can learn how to move from the low end of the production chain to the high end.”32 Germany is a particular focus for China, and here their interest appears to be in the Mittlestand engineering companies. So concerned was the German government that it considered legislation to protect strategic German companies from mergers and acquisitions. Research and Development Capacity But these strategies for the next great leap forward in China’s economic development have their limits. Continuing to rely on the transfer of expertise and technologies from foreign companies would keep China in the status of an economic follower rather than leader. Achieving global standards is important, but the real profits stem from defining global standards, such as Microsoft’s dominance in computer software or Intel’s processing chips that allow PC users to work with several applications at a time.

Imperial Legacies by Jeremy Black;

affirmative action, British Empire, centre right, colonial rule, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Great Leap Forward, imperial preference, Jeremy Corbyn, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Monroe Doctrine, out of africa, Scramble for Africa, Suez crisis 1956, transatlantic slave trade

The resulting contrast in effectiveness served to make the Communist Party appear more successful and necessary.10 The focus on the Opium Wars, rather than the Taiping Rebellion, overlaps with, but is not identical to, that on the war with Japan from 1931 to 1945, rather than civil war within China in the 1920s and 1930s, let alone the appalling human cost of such Communist movements as the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution.” These were multimillion fatality events, but somehow fail to arouse the revulsion directed at killings due to British and American action. British imperialism therefore has fulfilled a range of official goals in China. It can operate as a surrogate for the United States, and also provided ammunition for a critical focus on particular aspects of British policy.

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See also Nazi Germany Ghosh, Amitav Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World Gibson, Edmund Gibson, Marlene Gilley, Bruce Gladstone, William globalization Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763–1789, The Glorious Revolution Good Friday Agreement Gott, Richard Government of India Act Great Famine Great Game Great Hunger. Ireland 1845–1850, The (statue) Great Leap Forward great projects great-power confrontation Greece Greek Cypriots grievance industry Guardian Gukurahundi Gulag Gurdwaras Hargrove, Frank Hari Mandir Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings Hastings, Warren Hawkins, John Heath, Edward Hegelian-Marxist Henry III Henry VIII Henty, G.

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More With Less by Richard Koch

Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, always be closing, Apple Newton, barriers to entry, business cycle, business process, delayed gratification, fear of failure, Ford Model T, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, inventory management, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, knowledge worker, profit maximization, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, The future is already here, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave

At the same time, the waste—the majority of things that will always prove to be of low value to man and beast—should be abandoned or severely cut back. As I have been writing this book and observed thousands of examples of the 80/20 Principle, I have had my faith reinforced: faith in progress, in great leaps forward, and in mankind’s ability, individually and collectively, to improve the hand that nature has dealt. Joseph Ford comments: “God plays dice with the universe. But they’re loaded dice. And the main objective is to find out by what rules they were loaded and how we can use them for our own ends.”16 The 80/20 Principle can help us achieve precisely that. 2 HOW TO THINK 80/20 Chapter 1 explained the concept behind the 80/20 Principle; this chapter will discuss how the 80/20 Principle works in practice and what it can do for you.

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Too often, however, these techniques become the latest, evanescent management fad or self-contained programs. They stand a much greater chance of success if placed within the context of the very simple 80/20 Principle that should drive all radical action: • a minority of business activity is useful • value delivered to customers is rarely measured and always unequal • great leaps forward require measurement and comparison of the value delivered to customers and what they will pay for it. CONCLUSION: SIMPLICITY POWER Because business is wasteful, and because complexity and waste feed on each other, a simple business will always be better than a complex business. Because scale is normally valuable, for any given level of complexity, it is better to have a larger business.

China's Superbank by Henry Sanderson, Michael Forsythe

"World Economic Forum" Davos, addicted to oil, Asian financial crisis, Bretton Woods, BRICs, Carmen Reinhart, Credit Default Swap, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Dutch auction, failed state, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, income inequality, invisible hand, joint-stock company, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, land bank, London Interbank Offered Rate, low interest rates, megacity, new economy, New Urbanism, price mechanism, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, too big to fail, urban renewal, urban sprawl, work culture

Two years later, Mao launched the “socialist high tide,” an attempt to boost economic development and create a leap in agricultural output and steel.24 Not for the last time in his life, his father tried to curb Mao’s excessive plans, but the elder Chen’s calls for an end to this quick advance failed, leading to the disastrous Great Leap Forward, in which Mao hoped to catch up with Britain in 15 years. Chen Yun had said that catching up with developed countries would take 50 years25 and warned that a too-quick move to the planned economy would lead to shortages of things that the market provided.26 Instead, as agricultural production was moved into communes and backyard furnaces used for steel, there was a devastating famine that caused the deaths of tens of millions of people.27 Chen Yuan remembers that, during this period, his father stopped walking in parks.

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Fitch Loan Ratings Fitch Ratings “Five Principles of Co-Existence” FMO (Netherlands) FoF (fund of funds) foreign direct investment (FDI) foreign private equity firms Fox, Richard Frenkel, Jacob (former governor of Bank of Israel) Fujian Provincial Expressway Fuzhou (city in Jiangxi Province) G G-7 countries Gallagher, Kevin (Boston University) Gamora, Gedion (academic in Addis Ababa) Gang of Four Gao Jian (CDB vice governor) about background of father of China’s modern day bond market tender method of selling (1 billion yuan) of bonds urbanization was driving force behind economic growth and used local financing vehicles Ghana B+ (Fitch) loan rates CDB loan ($3 billion) to finance roads, railroads, and an oil terminal and pipeline network CDB oil-for-loan requires 60 percent of the work goes to Chinese contractors China Exim Bank loan ($6 billion) debt relief by World Bank and IMF ($3.7 billion) debt-to-GDP ratio 120.5 percent (2001) external debt (1970–2009) IMF increased debt ceiling to $3.4 billion Mahama, John Dramani (Ghanaian President) oil discovery of 600 million barrels of light oil off the coast Oxfam’s 2009 report on per-capita GDP raised by $500 to $1,300 ten-year bond yield Ghana National Gas Company Ghana National Petroleum Corporation Ghana Power Station Phase I Global Com Limited (Nigeria) Global Development Banks global financial crisis (2008) Goldman Sachs Gong, Fannie (investment manager) Great Hall of the People (Beijing) Great Leap Forward Green, Stephen (Standard Chartered) Greenberg, Hank (AIG head) Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. Guangdong International Trade and Investment Company Guangdong’s chamber of commerce Guangxi Communications Guan Jiangzhong (Dagong’s chairman) Guochuang Fund Guo Shuqing (former head of China Construction Bank) H Harrison, Brian (Solyndra CEO) Harvard Heavily Indebted Poor Country initiative Hebei Bohai Investment Co.

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap by Graham Allison

9 dash line, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, escalation ladder, facts on the ground, false flag, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, game design, George Santayana, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, Haber-Bosch Process, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, industrial robot, Internet of things, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal world order, long peace, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, one-China policy, Paul Samuelson, Peace of Westphalia, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, selection bias, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, synthetic biology, TED Talk, the rule of 72, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade route, UNCLOS, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

David was by this point leaning forward across the table as I opened a report from someone whose incisive, far-sighted understanding could inform Washington’s response to the greatest geopolitical challenge of our lifetime. As I said to the new director, this individual had succeeded beyond all expectations. He had seen up close China’s convulsions from the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in the 1960s to Deng Xiaoping’s capitalist pivot in the 1980s. Indeed, he had established serious working relationships with many of the people who governed China, including China’s future president, Xi Jinping. I began reading the first set of questions from fifty pages of Q&A with this asset: Are China’s current leaders serious about displacing the United States as the number-one power in Asia in the foreseeable future?

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The lesson is unmistakable: Never forget—and never again! Not until Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communists won the civil war in 1949 did China’s victimhood ultimately end. Although the once-grand empire was in ruins, it was at last back in Chinese hands. Thus Mao could declare with pride, “The Chinese people have stood up!” Throughout the famine of the Great Leap Forward, the mayhem of his Cultural Revolution, and his relentless purges, Mao’s achievement has remained the core of the Communist leadership’s claim to legitimacy: his Party saved China from domination by foreign imperialists. And today, after three decades of frantic economic expansion, China believes that it is finally returning to its proper place in the world.

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., 157 Feldstein, Martin, 125 Ferdinand I (Hapsburg archduke of Austria), 251 Ferdinand II (Holy Roman emperor), 252–53 Ferdinand of Aragon, 188–89, 245–46, 331 n7, 339 n2 Ferguson, Niall, 60, 217, 239 Festival of the British Empire, 60 financial crisis, 9, 118, 183, 193, 216, 285, 321 n33 See also Great Recession of 2008 Financial Times, 10 Finland, 264 First Industrial Revolution, 64 First Lord of the Admiralty, 55, 272 First Naval Law, 71 Fischer, Stanley, 11, 291 n21 Fisher, John “Jacky,” 74–75, 196, 307 n90, 308 n107, 309 n111, 310 n111, 332 n31 Flanders, 249 Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 24 fog of war, 162, 164–65, 170 Forrestal, James, 201, 282 France Britain and, 62, 222 imperialism and, 93, 190 predominance of, 49–54, 247–49, 257–60, 263–68, 276–78, 283–86 rise of, 62, 260–63, 343 n62 war and, xi, 58, 83, 233, 266–67 See also alliance Franche-Comté, 248 Francis I (king), 52–54, 247–49, 251, 340 n15 Franco-German War, 267 Franco-Hapsburg War, 53, 80 Franco-Prussian War, 266 Franz Ferdinand (archduke), xiv, 82–83, 275 Franz Joseph (emperor), 82 Fravel, Taylor, 153 Frederick William II (king), 261 freedom of navigation, 51, 132, 151, 167, 226–27, 342 n44 French Directory, 262 French Empire, 50 French Revolutionary Wars, 260 French Wars of Religion, 249 Friedman, Thomas, 13–14 Fukuyama, Francis, 137 G G7 (Group of Seven), 23 G8 (Group of Eight), 23 G-20 (Group of Twenty), 124 Gaddis, John, 282 games of chicken, 166–67, 172, 209, 228 Gardiner, Samuel, 253 Gates, Bill, 232 Gates, Robert, 161, 202 GDP (gross domestic product), 6, 6, 9, 10–11, 11, 19, 65, 102, 118, 123–24, 155, 193, 216, 271, 281, 289 n5, 290 n24, 291 n25, 303 n33 See also economy Gelber, Harry, 140 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 205 geoeconomics, 20 See also balance of power geopolitics, 125–26 George, David Lloyd, 77–78, 307 n102, 309 n110 George III (king), 7, 133–35, 262 George V (king), xii, 304 n56 Georgia, 264 German Naval Law, 80 Germany EU and, 192–94, 210 naval expansion of, 56–57, 59–60, 63, 70–72, 75–76, 81 rise of, vii, xviii, 46, 56, 58, 62, 64–67, 69, 78, 85, 92, 187, 191, 211, 266–68, 273–78, 283–86, 305 n73, 306 n82, 310 n119 Sweden and, 254 unification of, 43, 49, 62–63, 267, 274 Venezuela and, 96–97 war and, xi, 84, 104, 214 See also Prussia; reunification GI Bill, 232 Gilbert, Martin, 79 Glacier Bay, 103 globalization, 136, 206, 211, 230 global police power, 105–6, 204 Glorious Revolution, 255, 257–59, 342 n51 GNP, 47, 200, 259, 269, 282 See also economy; GDP (gross domestic product) go, 149, 150 See also weiqi Goldwater-Nichols Act, 130 Good Neighbor policy, 106 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 119–20, 193, 227–28, 283 Granada, 188, 246–47 Great Britain. See Britain Great Depression, 155, 213 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 46 Great Leap Forward, 4, 113 Great Rapprochement, 198, 273 Great Recession of 2008, 12, 22, 118, 290 n24 Great Turkish War, 250, 252 Great War. See World War I Greece, vii, xv, 30–31, 200, 204, 233 See also Athens; Peloponnesian War; Sparta Green, Stephen, 285 Grew, Joseph, 46, 280 Grey, Edward, xii, 83, 197, 312 n131 Grotius, Hugo, 190 Guam, 45, 96, 170–71, 179–80 Guiana, 195 Guifen, Feng, 322 n44 Gulf of Tonkin, 162 Guomindang, 19 Gustavus Adolphus (king), 253–54, 341 n37 H Haftendorn, Helga, 193, 285 The Hague, 22, 98, 151, 257 Hainan Island, 160, 167, 227 Haiti, 97 Haldane, Richard, 79 Hapsburgs.

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Lawrence Otto

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, anthropic principle, Apollo 11, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Brownian motion, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cepheid variable, clean water, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, commoditize, cosmological constant, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Dean Kamen, desegregation, different worldview, disinformation, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, Exxon Valdez, fudge factor, Garrett Hardin, ghettoisation, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, Harvard Computers: women astronomers, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Large Hadron Collider, Louis Pasteur, luminiferous ether, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, ocean acidification, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, shareholder value, sharing economy, smart grid, stem cell, synthetic biology, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, University of East Anglia, War on Poverty, white flight, Winter of Discontent, working poor, yellow journalism, zero-sum game

Similar to modern Republican characterizations of climate science as “ junk science” by an “environmental priesthood,” Soviet geneticists, physicists, and chemists were characterized as “caste priests of ivory-tower bourgeois pseudoscience.”98 Soviet agriculture, biology, and genetics were held back for forty years, weakening the Soviet Union and helping lead to its eventual downfall. Suppression of knowledge similarly weakened China during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. Mao prided himself on his peasant roots and considered intellectuals arrogant, dangerous antirevolutionaries, similar to the modern characterization of them by Rush Limbaugh. Similar to Eisenhower, Mao was concerned that scientists could take over as a “technical elite,” so he demanded that ideology take precedence over science, effectively silencing scientists.99 In 1957 he set forth a plan to transform China into a modern industrialized society.

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Nature Reviews Genetics 2005;6:79–85. www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n1/box/nrg1506_BX3.html. 98. Joravsky, D. The Lysenko Affair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. p. 242. 99. Schneider, L. Biology and Revolution in Twentieth-Century China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. p. 179. 100. Harms, W. China’s Great Leap Forward. University of Chicago Chronicle 1996;15(13). http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/960314/china.shtml. 101. Pappas, M. The Election Mandate: The Contract from America. FreedomWorks.org, November 3, 2010. www.freedomworks.org/blog/max/the-mandate-the-contract-from-america. [blog] 102. Americans for Prosperity.

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The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 1968;162(3859):1243–1248. www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full. Harman, O. Cyril Dean Darlington: The Man Who “Invented” the Chromosome. Nature Reviews Genetics 2005;6:79–85. www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n1/box/nrg1506_BX3.html. Harms, W. China’s Great Leap Forward. University of Chicago Chronicle 1996;15(13). http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/960314/china.shtml. Harris, G. F.D.A. Failing in Drug Safety, Official Asserts. New York Times, November 19, 2004. www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/business/19fda.html. Harris, S., et al. The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief.

Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis by Anatole Kaletsky

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Black Swan, bond market vigilante , bonus culture, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, buy and hold, Carmen Reinhart, classic study, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency risk, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, Deng Xiaoping, eat what you kill, Edward Glaeser, electricity market, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, experimental economics, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, full employment, geopolitical risk, George Akerlof, global rebalancing, Goodhart's law, Great Leap Forward, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, long and variable lags, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, mandelbrot fractal, market design, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, oil shock, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, peak oil, pets.com, Ponzi scheme, post-industrial society, price stability, profit maximization, profit motive, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, seminal paper, shareholder value, short selling, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, statistical model, systems thinking, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

Mark-to-market accounting requires banks to accept as the true values of their loans and mortgages the prices set by the financial markets for these assets. This system deliberately eliminates the role of managerial or regulatory judgment in assessing the likelihood of repayment or default. To people who believe the credo that the market is always right, this new system of accounting is a Great Leap Forward. In terms of its effect on the U.S. banking system and later the global economy it was as disastrous as Mao’s Great Leap. Mark-to-market accounting, abetted by the closely related regulatory reform of risk-based capital regulation, vastly exaggerated both booms and busts in finance, as seasoned bankers and old-fashioned, pragmatic regulators had predicted all along.

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Longer and deeper reflection on the crisis pointed to another even more disturbing conclusion for advocates of unrestricted private enterprise. The rigorously free-market model of capitalism introduced in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan not only had proved unmanageable and unstable, it also had failed to produce the great leap forward in living standards and productivity claimed by the proponents of deregulation and minimal government. The excuse offered by many conservatives after the crisis was that a truly free-market approach had never been properly tried and that all financial problems and international imbalances resulted from too much government interference and regulation, not too little.

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With the election of a new U.S. administration dedicated to effective government, America moved closer to the center of world opinion on many issues where it had previously been in a minority of one. As a result, the crisis paradoxically made the United States more attractive as a political model and leader for other democracies. The hopes of a great leap forward in global governance were further encouraged during the crisis by the sudden emergence of the G20 (Group of Twenty) as an effective forum for taking urgent economic decisions—a forum that was both more representative and more powerful than the increasingly irrelevant G7 and G8 advanced economies (with Russia sometimes included and sometimes kept out).

Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration―and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives by Danny Dorling, Kirsten McClure

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, clean water, creative destruction, credit crunch, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Extinction Rebellion, fake news, Flynn Effect, Ford Model T, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Great Leap Forward, Greta Thunberg, Henri Poincaré, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, jimmy wales, John Harrison: Longitude, Kickstarter, low earth orbit, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, mortgage debt, negative emissions, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, Overton Window, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, random walk, rent control, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, School Strike for Climate, Scramble for Africa, sexual politics, Skype, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, the built environment, Tim Cook: Apple, time dilation, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, very high income, wealth creators, wikimedia commons, working poor

Will data be transmitted between washing machines using 5G technology—or will it always go from one washing machine to some central control hub? If our washing machines are connected to one another in the brave new Internet of Things—then can we expect them to revolt?!19 The washing machine itself was a great leap forward. Getting washing machines to talk to one another is not. But of course there are still leaps to be made. The total quantity of data being amassed by space telescopes may still be accelerating, but is ever-greater resolution quite the same as producing the first lens that allowed detail on the moon to be viewed, or hearing the first buzz from the first radio telescope?

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They give examples: canals, railways, motorways, airports, spaceports, each with its heyday, and each superseded by the next thing. But in reality, each of these was a less fundamental change than the preceding one. Although we may be planning to build spaceports—the U.K. government committed £2 million in 2018 toward their development—we know in our heart of hearts that these are not going to be the next great leap forward.1 The U.S. space shuttle program was supposed to be an even greater leap forward, but it actually produced a craft that never left low Earth orbit. If we thought there were possibilities for exploration, we would be spending much more public money in preparation. We subconsciously know we are slowing down.

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“List of Book-Burning Incidents (Catholic and Martin Luther): The World,” Wikipedia, accessed 24 April 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents#Catholic_theological_works_(by_Martin_Luther). 10. Science Museum, “Thalidomide,” Exploring the History of Medicine, accessed 2 September 2019, http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/controversies/thalidomide. 11. Alexander J. Field, A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). See also Alexander J. Field, “The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century,” American Economic Review 93, no. 4 (2003): 1399–1413, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/000282803769206377. 12.

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Garton Ash

"World Economic Forum" Davos, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Aaron Swartz, activist lawyer, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Andrew Keen, Apple II, Ayatollah Khomeini, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, British Empire, Cass Sunstein, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Citizen Lab, Clapham omnibus, colonial rule, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, digital divide, digital rights, don't be evil, Donald Davies, Douglas Engelbart, dual-use technology, Edward Snowden, Etonian, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, Filter Bubble, financial independence, Firefox, Galaxy Zoo, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, index card, Internet Archive, invention of movable type, invention of writing, Jaron Lanier, jimmy wales, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Julian Assange, Laura Poitras, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, megacity, mutually assured destruction, national security letter, Nelson Mandela, Netflix Prize, Nicholas Carr, obamacare, Open Library, Parler "social media", Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, power law, pre–internet, profit motive, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, semantic web, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Simon Singh, Snapchat, social graph, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Streisand effect, technological determinism, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tipper Gore, trolley problem, Turing test, We are Anonymous. We are Legion, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, Yochai Benkler, Yom Kippur War, yottabyte

One-to-many has a long prehistory in the invention of writing, inscribed on tablets of stone or clay (as were, for example, the edicts of the third-century-B.C.E. Indian emperor Ashoka), on paper (in China, around the second century C.E.), the handwritten scroll and, by the third century C.E., the codex—a handwritten book with pages you turn. A great leap forward along this line was the development of printing with movable type, which was originally invented in China in the eleventh century, using ceramic type, with metal type being developed in Korea some two centuries later. However, what changed the world was the (re)discovery by the German inventor and entrepreneur Johann Gutenberg of printing with movable metal type in the 1440s, and its diffusion across Europe in the second half of the fifteenth century.16 The spread of radio and television marked another significant leap in communication from one person to many, which is the basic meaning of ‘broadcast’.

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Tellingly, when the Wikimedia foundation briefly opened an office in India it soon closed it again, after coming under pressure from the Indian authorities over maps depicting Kashmir—accurately—as divided between India and Pakistan. Thus, while the Grateful Dead lyricist of cyberspace crooned that governments ‘have no sovereignty where we gather’, it is precisely the old-fashioned territorial sovereignty of the United States that underpinned this great leap forward in global freedom of expression. To capture the dualistic nature of this American-rooted global realm I call it ‘Cyberspace, CA 94305’. 94305 is the zip code of Stanford University. Google’s original web address was google.stanford.edu. When President Barack Obama casually told a tech journal interviewer that ‘we have owned the internet’ he was perhaps being a little impolitic, but not inaccurate—so long as one notes the past tense.60 Future historians may count these global networks of electronic communication, and their deliberate openness, among the most important legacies of the ‘liberal leviathan’.61 In the twenty-first century, however, previously open, free-wheeling technologies of communication are being reined in and constrained by both public and private powers—as happened to all their predecessors, from printing to radio.62 And the United States is no longer the digital hegemon it was in the 1990s, at what was perhaps the apogee of American power.63 Today, cyberspace has multiple zip codes and every aspect of global communication is contested.

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P2 creates some of the greatest opportunities for free speech and some of the largest threats to it. In the last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first, the combination of the First Amendment legal tradition in the world’s most powerful state and the pro–free speech cultures of private American platforms such as Wikipedia, Twitter and Google produced a great leap forward in transnational freedom of expression. Even when material was taken down to comply with US law on copyright or defamation, the fact of that deletion was usually noted on a website called chillingeffects.org (subsequently lumendatabase.org).153 Yet there are as many, if not more, examples of negative P2—and not only in authoritarian countries.

After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 by John Darwin

agricultural Revolution, Atahualpa, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Cape to Cairo, classic study, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, cuban missile crisis, deglobalization, deindustrialization, European colonialism, failed state, Francisco Pizarro, Great Leap Forward, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Khartoum Gordon, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Malacca Straits, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shock, open economy, price mechanism, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade

In China, especially, the scale of commercial exchange, the sophistication of credit, the use of technology, and the volume of production (in textiles particularly) revealed a pre-industrial economy at least as dynamic as contemporary Europe’s. Indeed, before 1800 what really stood out was not the sharp economic contrast between Europe and Asia, but, on the contrary, a Eurasian world of ‘surprising resemblances’ in which a number of regions, European and Asian, were at least theoretically capable of the great leap forward into the industrial age.13 Meanwhile, Europe’s assumed centrality in accounts of world history had come under attack from a quite different quarter. From the late 1970s, an intellectual movement inspired by the Palestinian-American Edward Said denounced the classics of European writing on the history, ethnography and culture of Asia (and by extension elsewhere) as ‘orientalist’ fantasy.

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But the African case does allow us to see with greater clarity than elsewhere some of the geopolitical conditions that favoured European primacy after 1870. It may also prompt us to ask why African societies were so much more vulnerable to external disruption (once Europeans had the will and the means to inflict it) than most of their counterparts in Asia. What impelled the Europeans’ great leap forward in Africa? Its origins lie in the gradual application to this least accessible continent of the means of entry already used elsewhere. The steamship and railway were the battering rams with which European traders could break the monopolies that African coastal elites and their inland allies had tried to maintain over their commercial hinterlands.

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Faced with the hardening of American support for the Taiwan regime, Mao raised the military stakes by bombarding Quemoy, a close-in offshore island under Kuomintang rule. He countered the loss of momentum in China’s transformation at home with an aggressive new strategy of rural collectivization, the so-called ‘Great Leap Forward’. The redistribution of land from landlords to peasants turned out (as in Russia) to be only the prelude to the state’s taking control. And in 1960 he approved Hanoi’s insistent demand to resume the armed struggle (suspended since 1954) for a Communist victory in South Vietnam.23 Mao’s newcourse was to make China the sponsor of revolutionary violence against surviving colonial states, or those successor regimes that colluded with capitalism.

The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway

Anthropocene, anti-communist, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Great Leap Forward, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Kim Stanley Robinson, laissez-faire capitalism, Lewis Mumford, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, military-industrial complex, oil shale / tar sands, Pierre-Simon Laplace, precautionary principle, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, stochastic process, the built environment, the market place

Communist economies proved grossly inef-ficient at delivering goods and services; politically, early ideas of mass empowerment gave way to tyrannical and brutal dictatorship. In the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, tens of millions died in purges, forced collectiviza-tion of agriculture, and other forms of internal violence. Tens of millions died in China as well during the “Great Leap Forward” —the attempt by 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong) to force rapid industrialization—and many more in the so-called Cultural Revolution of the First People’s Republic of China (PRC).7 Following World War II, the specter of Russian com- munism’s spread into Eastern (and possibly even Western) Europe—thus affecting U.S. access to markets and stoking fears that the West could sink back into economic depression—led the United States to take a strong position against Soviet expansion.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, air traffic controllers' union, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, California energy crisis, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crony capitalism, debt deflation, declining real wages, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, financial repression, full employment, gentrification, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, labour market flexibility, land tenure, late capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, megaproject, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, mortgage tax deduction, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Pearl River Delta, phenotype, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, the built environment, The Chicago School, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, union organizing, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, Winter of Discontent

Bond, ‘US and Global Economic Volatility: Theoretical, Empirical and Political Considerations’, paper presented to the Empire Seminar, York University, Nov. 2004. 44. Wang, China’s New Order; T. Fishman, China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2005). 45. K. Bradsher, ‘Now, a Great Leap Forward in Luxury’, New York Times, 10 June 2004, C1 and C6. 46. X. Wu and J. Perloff, China’s Income Distribution Over Time: Reasons for Rising Inequality, CUDARE Working Papers 977 (Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley, 2004). 47. Wang, China’s New Order. 48. L. Wei, Regional Development in China (New York: Routledge/Curzon, 2000). 49.

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——‘GM To Speed Up Expansion in China: An Annual Goal of 1.3 Million Cars’, New York Times, 8 June 2004, W1 and W7. ——‘A Heated Chinese Economy Piles up Debt’, New York Times, 4 Sept. 2003, A1 and C4. Bradsher, K., ‘Is China the Next Bubble?’ New York Times, 18 Jan. 2004, sect. 3, 1 and 4. ——‘Now, a Great Leap Forward in Luxury’, New York Times, 10 June 2004, C1 and C6. ——‘Taiwan Watches its Economy Slip to China’, New York Times, 13 Dec. 2004, C7. Brooke, K., ‘Korea Feeling Pressure as China Grows’, New York Times, 8 Jan 2003, W1 and W7. Brooks, R., ‘Maggie’s Man: We Were Wrong’, Observer, 21 June 1992, 15.

The Locavore's Dilemma by Pierre Desrochers, Hiroko Shimizu

air freight, back-to-the-land, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, British Empire, Columbian Exchange, Community Supported Agriculture, creative destruction, edge city, Edward Glaeser, food desert, food miles, Food sovereignty, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, intermodal, invention of agriculture, inventory management, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, land tenure, megacity, moral hazard, mortgage debt, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, planetary scale, precautionary principle, profit motive, refrigerator car, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, Tyler Cowen, Upton Sinclair, urban sprawl

These famines lasted on average about ten months, and they led up to a quarter of the affected population to eat grasses and strip bark from trees” while forcing “one in every seven people to leave their hungry villages in search of food.”11 In the recent past, at least forty-three million people are now thought to have died during the famine of 1959–1962 as a direct result of the “Great Leap Forward” policies of Mao Zedong, making it the single largest famine of all time.12 Political and individual strategies for coping with famines have always been similar the world over. In the absence of charitable giving and emigration opportunities, authorities could call upon heavenly assistance, impose price controls and seize private reserves, lower import tariffs, expel strangers, identify and make an example out of scapegoats and “profiteers,” and dispatch envoys to find additional supplies.

…

Globally-imported ingenious agricultural heritage systems Glaeser, Edward Global food supply chain history of human body transformations and initiatives for local Globalization critics of of food supply chain Globally-imported ingenious agricultural heritage systems (GIAHS) Gould, David Government food purchasing intervention leaders managed food and food security run reserves Gráda, Cormac Ó Grades (food) Graff, Gordon Grain(table) Battle for Grain ( ) government-purchased producing states reserves Grapes Great grandmother Great Leap Forward Greater Toronto Green cities Green peas, ripening periods Greenbelt Greenhouse gas emissions air freight consumer behavior and production transportation seasonality and storage transportation mode load Gros Michel bananas Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Haiti Han China Hardy, Thomas Harrison, Harry Harte, William Hawaii Hayes, Peter Health Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Height nutrition and Herbal remedies Herbert, Claude-Jacques High-yield agriculture History, of food agriculture global supply chain of government intervention local food initiatives meatpacking Hitier, Henri Hobby gardening Hobson, John Atkinson Hoefner, Ferd Holden, Patrick Homogecene Hongerwinter 1944–1945 Hoover, Herbert Horse Association of America Howe, Frederic Clemson Huber, Peter W.

The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed by Carl Honore

Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, Apollo 13, Atul Gawande, Broken windows theory, call centre, carbon credits, Checklist Manifesto, clean water, clockwatching, cloud computing, crowdsourcing, Dava Sobel, delayed gratification, drone strike, Enrique Peñalosa, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, Exxon Valdez, fail fast, fundamental attribution error, game design, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, index card, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Harrison: Longitude, lateral thinking, lone genius, medical malpractice, microcredit, Netflix Prize, no-fly zone, planetary scale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, reality distortion field, retail therapy, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Skype, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, ultimatum game, urban renewal, War on Poverty

That means participants are competing and collaborating at the same time, which sounds like a recipe for anarchy, yet turns out to be the exact opposite. Some contestants are smarter than others, but working together makes everyone greater than the sum of their parts. More than a decade of MATLAB contests suggests that collaborative problem-solving usually follows the same path: long periods of minor tweaking punctuated by the occasional great leap forward. “People will sniff out the slack in an algorithm, like hyenas worrying over a carcass. Then they get exhausted until someone comes along and whips the carcass into a new position, then it all starts over again,” says Ned Gulley, the Design Lead for eProducts and Services at Math Works. “We’re taught a version of history in which great men, Napoleon for instance, are the sole actors.

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In a complex world, the only certainty is uncertainty. That is why the best fixers seldom bet the farm on a single epic win. The way to navigate through a scenario of ever-changing parameters and possibilities, according to complexity theorists at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, is to blend lots of baby steps with the occasional great leap forward. In other words, most problem-solving involves grinding out a lot of small victories over the long haul. As Henry T. Ford said: “There are no big problems; there are just a lot of little problems.” After spending years investigating how some companies make the jump to lasting success, Jim Collins reached the same conclusion.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

1960s counterculture, affirmative action, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Albert Einstein, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, bread and circuses, British Empire, Broken windows theory, business cycle, California gold rush, Cass Sunstein, citation needed, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, Columbine, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, confounding variable, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, crack epidemic, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Brooks, delayed gratification, demographic transition, desegregation, Doomsday Clock, Douglas Hofstadter, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, experimental subject, facts on the ground, failed state, first-past-the-post, Flynn Effect, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fudge factor, full employment, Garrett Hardin, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, global village, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, Hobbesian trap, humanitarian revolution, impulse control, income inequality, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, lake wobegon effect, libertarian paternalism, long peace, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Marshall McLuhan, mass incarceration, McMansion, means of production, mental accounting, meta-analysis, Mikhail Gorbachev, mirror neurons, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, nuclear taboo, Oklahoma City bombing, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Singer: altruism, power law, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, Republic of Letters, Richard Thaler, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, security theater, Skinner box, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Stanford prison experiment, statistical model, stem cell, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, sunk-cost fallacy, technological determinism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Timothy McVeigh, Tragedy of the Commons, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, Turing machine, twin studies, ultimatum game, uranium enrichment, Vilfredo Pareto, Walter Mischel, WarGames: Global Thermonuclear War, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

It was also revealed to him that China could grow large quantities of grain on small plots of land, freeing the rest for grasslands and gardens, if farmers planted the seedlings deep and close together so that class solidarity would make them grow strong and thick.124 Peasants were herded into communes of 50,000 to implement this vision, and anyone who dragged his feet or pointed out the obvious was executed as a class enemy. Impervious to signals from reality informing him that his Great Leap Forward was a great leap backward, Mao masterminded a famine that killed between 20 million and 30 million people. The motives of leaders are critical in understanding genocide, because the psychological ingredients—the mindset of essentialism; the Hobbesian dynamic of greed, fear, and vengeance; the moralization of emotions like disgust; and the appeal of utopian ideologies—do not overcome an entire population at once and incite them to mass killing.

…

Democides thus include ethnocides, politicides, purges, terrors, killings of civilians by death squads (including ones committed by private militias to which the government turns a blind eye), deliberate famines from blockades and confiscation of food, deaths in internment camps, and the targeted bombing of civilians such as those in Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.149 Rummel excluded the Great Leap Forward from his 1994 analyses, on the understanding that it was caused by stupidity and callousness rather than malice.150 Partly because the phrase “death by government” figured in Rummel’s definition of democide and in the title of his book, his conclusion that almost 170 million people were killed by their governments during the 20th century has become a popular meme among anarchists and radical libertarians.

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Most were politicides, or politicides combined with ethnocides, in which members of an ethnic group were thought to be aligned with a targeted political faction. In figure 6–7 I plotted Harff’s PITF data on the same axes with Rummel’s. Her figures generally come in well below his, especially in the late 1950s, for which she included far fewer victims of the executions during the Great Leap Forward. But thereafter the curves show similar trends, which are downward from their peak in 1971. Because the genocides from the second half of the 20th century were so much less destructive than those of the Hemoclysm, I’ve zoomed in on her curve in figure 6–8. The graph also shows the death rates in a third collection, the UCDP One-Sided Violence Dataset, which includes any instance of a government or other armed authority killing at least twenty-five civilians in a year; the perpetrators need not intend to destroy the group per se.164 The graph shows that the two decades since the Cold War have not seen a recrudescence of genocide.

How Asia Works by Joe Studwell

affirmative action, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, collective bargaining, crony capitalism, cross-subsidies, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, failed state, financial deregulation, financial repression, foreign exchange controls, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, land tenure, large denomination, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market fragmentation, megaproject, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, passive investing, purchasing power parity, rent control, rent-seeking, Right to Buy, Ronald Coase, South China Sea, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TSMC, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, working-age population

No reason, that is, except Marxist dogma, and the obsession with large scale, which soon destroyed much of the progress that China had made through household farming. In 1956, following the Russian and North Korean examples, Mao Zedong led a drive to create agricultural collectives in which hundreds of families pooled their land, tools and labour in units of production. These changes, together with an industrialisation drive, were presented as China’s Great Leap Forward. In reality, the disruption to agricultural output in the late 1950s was such that a famine occurred in 1959–61 in which an estimated 30–40 million people (slightly less than 10 per cent of the population) died. After the famine, a modified collective agriculture system was introduced whereby labour was rewarded with ‘work points’ handed out by bureaucrats.

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Beginning in the late 1970s, China escaped from its near-genocidal flirtation with collective agriculture, allowing households to farm small plots. After starving to death 30 million mostly rural dwellers as a result of collectivisation and the autarkic development policy of 1958–60 known as the Great Leap Forward, the country managed in the early 1980s to increase its agricultural output by more than one-third simply by letting poor people garden. (This was, of course, a reprise of the 1950s when, some scholars believe, grain output rose as much as 70 per cent under the first, truncated, communist-run era of household farming.)6 Grain production was 305 million tonnes in 1978 under collective production, and 407 million tonnes in 1984, by which time almost all land had been converted to household agriculture, with average plots of just over one-third of a hectare.7 The restoration of household production was not the Communist Party’s plan when Deng rose to power in 1978.

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Little 103–4 ASEAN (Association of South-east Asian Nations) 150, 270 Asia Motors 126 Asmat Kamaludin 129–30, 133 Astra 153, 314n227 Australia 81, 113 Austria 171 autarky 74, 224, 225 authoritarianism xxv automotive industry see car industry Bacolod 34 Baildon, John 291n25 Bairoch, Paul 71, 79 Baker, Chris 58 Bali 50 Bangkok 56 Bank Central Asia (BCA) 205–6, 217, 325n85, 86 Bank of China 256 banks xviii–xix, 169, 170, 173, 217, 218–9 China 241, 255–7, 258–61, 280–81n55 India 320n34 Indonesia 204, 205–6, 207, 209–10, 212, 217, 328n113 Japan 175–6, 179, 315n240 Korea 104, 112, 157, 181, 184, 185, 192, 193 Malaysia 189, 195, 196, 197 Philippines 191, 192, 312n45 Taiwan 157, 185, 186, 187–8 Thailand 200, 201–3 Baogang 119 Baosteel 234 Bauer, P.T. 54, 285n97 Belgium 164 Benedicto, Roberto 42, 192 Benedicto family 42–3, 44, 47 Bengkel Night Park Entertainment Centre 213 Benson, Ezra Taft 67 Benteng 207 Bentong 140 Berkeley Mafia 103, 209, 210, 211, 213, 297n86 Berkshire Hathaway 119, 252 BHP 117, 142 Billig, Michael 48 Bismarck, Otto von 85 black jails 269, 338n3 Bogosari 205 Borderless World, The (Ohmae) 131, 134 Brazil xv, 10, 116, 154 Bretton Woods system 172 Bricklin, Malcolm 312n204 Britain see United Kingdom Broad Air Conditioning 232 Brunei xx, 288–9n3 Buffet, Warren 119, 252 bumiputera 132, 141, 195, 305n150 bureaucracy 78, 86, 289n9 China 96, 234–5, 240–1 Japan 91, 101, 293n41, 296n76 Korea 95, 113 Malaysia 132–3, 150–1, 302–3n131 Taiwan 98–9, 101 Thailand 154 Burma 97 BYD 251–2 cab fares 108, 298n90 Cambodia xx capital controls 173–4 China 224, 257 Indonesia 212 Japan 177 Korea 182–3, 185 Malaysia 323n68 Philippines 193 Taiwan 185, 186, 188 car industry 107 China 245–6, 250–2, 254 Indonesia 153, 210 Japan 160 Korea 76–7, 113–4, 119–26, 151 Malaysia 145–50 cash crops 6, 67–8 casinos 137 cement 113, 307n161 chaebol 77, 94–5 car industry 125 finance 162, 170, 181–4 Chandler, Alfred 250, 316n248 Chang Do Yung 298n96 Chang, Ha-Joon 81, 162–3 Chang Ki-Yong 94, 101 Charoean Pokphand (CP Group) 58, 286n111 Chen Shui-bian 66 Chen Yuan 241 Chen Yun 241, 333n33 Cheng, William 309n187 Chia, Eric 143–4, 145, 309n189 Chiang Kai-shek xxv, 18, 23, 30, 31, 36, 96–7 Chichibu 15 China xiii, xv, xviii, xix–xx, xxiv, 74, 166, 223–5, 263–6, 269 agriculture 3, 4–5, 6, 17–19, 20–1, 47, 48, 62, 225–31 authoritarianism xxvi civil war 18–19, 20 education xxiii, xxiv finance xxiii–xiv, 256–62 land reform xvii, xxvi, 3, 4, 5–6, 9, 15–17, 18, 61 manufacturing xvii–xviii, 33, 78, 82–3, 96–7, 120, 153, 158, 232–54 population xxii, 264–5 rule of law xxvi social mobility 61 trade surplus 158 and US 297n83 war with Japan 12, 18 China Construction Bank 256 China Development Bank (CDB) 241, 242, 244, 250, 256–7 China Export-Import Bank 242 China Mobile 234, 237 China Telecom 234 Chinalco 234 Cho Pong-am 69, 288n131 Chun Doo Hwan 136, 184 Chung In Yung 109, 298n93, 299n101 Chung Ju Yung 66, 109–10, 113–4, 121, 137, 298n92, 300n115 joint ventures 123, 301n119 and Mitsubishi 124, 146 politics 126, 302n126 Chung Se Yung 121, 123, 300n112 Churchill, Winston 53 climate xxvii CNOOC 234, 235 Coase, Ronald 267 Cockerill, John 291n25 Cojuangco, Eduardo ‘Danding’ 40–1, 192, 283n74 Cojuangco, Jose, Jr 37 Cojuangco family 37, 38, 45 collectivisation 4 China 21, 24, 223, 226 Russia 24 Communist Party of China (CPC) 233, 236, 248, 256 agriculture xxi, 223, 226 democracy 265 land reform xix, 15–16, 17 manufacturing 96, 223–4, 232, 236 rule of law xxvi Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) 38, 39, 40–2, 47 Congo 246 construction industry 243–4, 255 crony capitalism 108, 111, 132, 155, 293n40 Cuba xxiii, xxiv Cuenca family 47 currency China 262–3 Japan 178–9 Malaysia 198 Taiwan 187 Thailand 202 Daewoo 94, 126, 183, 301n119, 302n125–6 Daihatsu 146, 313n216 Daim Zainuddin 197 debt 173–4 China 261 Korea 181, 183, 218n28 Malaysia 198 Philippines 193, 321n43 Dee, Dewey 322–3n55 Deininger, Klaus 10, 276–7n12 democracy xxv–xxvi demographics see population Deng Wenming 17 Deng Xiaoping xxii, 17, 21, 221, 224, 226, 228, 241, 331n21 Denmark 61, 81 deregulation 162, 165–6, 173–4, 184, 196–8 Indonesia 212, 216, 217 Japan 178, 317n9 Korea 182, 183 Malaysia 196, 198 Taiwan 187 Dodge, Joseph 101–2, 297n80 Doiron, Roger 5 Dore, Ronald 25, 156 Du Shuanghua 237 Economic Planning Board (EPB) 78, 95, 114, 300n114 education xxii–xxiii Egypt 93 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 67 electricity generating 242 electronics 98 Emmott, Bill 160 Estrada, Joseph ‘Erap’ 42, 283n74 Eurobonds 178 exchange rates see currency export discipline xiv, xvii–xviii, 76, 90, 98, 151, 162, 267 China 235, 239, 241, 242, 249 Japan 90, 91 Korea 94–5, 104, 121, 122, 182 Malaysia 130, 131, 151 Philippines 191 Taiwan 97, 98–9, 153, 185 Thailand 154 Fanshen 18 farming see agriculture finance xiv, xvi, xviii–xix, 169–75, 217–18, 267, 269 China 223, 224, 241, 253–4, 255–61 Indonesia 189, 203–17 Japan 175–9 Korea 102, 103, 112, 179–84 Malaysia 188–9, 195–8 Philippines 190–5 Taiwan 185–8 Thailand 190, 195, 199–203 financial crisis xvi, 174, 217 Indonesia 154, 203, 206, 216–7 Korea 126, 162, 185, 318n23 Malaysia 149, 198 Philippines 193 Thailand 200, 202–3 Ford 114, 123, 160, 301n120 foreign debt see debt foreign trade see trade France agriculture 290n18 and Korea 123 manufacturing 92 protectionism 79 free market economics xv, 4, 6, 74, 83, 102, 165–6, 172, 257–8 free trade 74, 84 Friedman, Thomas 134 gardening see household farming Geely 246 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 173 General Motors (GM) 126, 302n125–6, 129 geography xxvi–xxvii Germany and China 96 education xxii–xxiii finance 172, 316n3 and Japan 85 manufacturing 82–5, 87–8, 89–90, 92, 98, 106, 153, 292n30 protectionism 79, 80, 315n234 trade surplus 158 Gerschenkron, Alexander 171 Great Leap Forward 225 Great Wall Motor 232, 246 green energy 240–1, 253–4 Guam 113 Gurney, Sir Henry 140, 308n180 Gwangyang 118 Habibie, B.J. 153, 210, 314n228, 326n94 Halim Saad 308n178 Hamilton, Alexander 79, 80, 84, 290–1n19 Harrison, Francis Burton 190 Hartono, Budi 217 Hassan Din 204 heavy and chemical industries (HCI) Korea 95, 100, 121 Malaysia 130 Taiwan 99 see also car industry; shipbuilding; steel Herring, Ronald 56 Hinton, William 18, 19–20 Hirata Tosuke 85 Hirschman, Albert 315n232 Historical School 83–4 Holland 290n10 Hon Hai 296n71 Honda, Soichiro 288n125 Honda 8, 78 Hong Kong xiv, xx, 79, 289n3 household farming xiii, 4–6, 61, 65–7, 68, 73, 169, 267, 270, 284n92 China 20–1, 24, 224, 225–6 Korea 28, 114 Malaysia 53 Russia 23 Taiwan 31–2, 33 HTC 78 Hu Jintao 228 Huawei 244–5, 206–7, 276n8 Huk rebellion 35 Hume, David 298n89 Hussain, Rashid 140 Hussein Onn 128, 129–30 Hutchcroft, Paul 192, 322n50 Hyundai 94, 100, 105–6, 112–3, 162, 183 Hyundai Construction 110, 112, 113, 137, 298n93, 299n100, 300–1n115 Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) 120, 301n118, 301n121 Hyundai Merchant Marine 301n118 Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) 77, 100, 107, 114, 115, 119–26, 301–2n121–4, 302n129, 306n159 Elantra 135, 149 and Kia 185 and Malaysia 150, 313n222 and Mitsubishi 124, 146, 153 uniform 300n110 IBM 78 IMF xiv, 104, 158, 172, 173, 198, 218, 271 China 224 Indonesia 163, 203, 214, 215–6 Korea 96, 162, 163, 181, 183, 219 macro-economic stability 156 Philippines 163, 191, 193, 322n52 Thailand 163, 198, 199, 200–3 import substitution industrialisation (ISI) 147–8, 153 Philippines 155 Thailand 155 income inequality 62 Taiwan 31–2 India xix banks 320n34 and China 242 economic development 74 IT sector 164, 288–9n3 land reform 69 manufacturing 119, 158, 164, 224 public sector 97 Indocement 205 IndoMobil 205 Indonesia xv, xvi, 270 agriculture xvii, 6, 49–51, 56, 67, 68 democracy xix finance 104, 169, 188, 203–17, 317n7 manufacturing 153–4, 157, 163, 313n225 rule of law xxv and US 68 Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 256 Industrial Bank of Japan 176 Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) 78 industrial policy see manufacturing inflation Korea 180 Philippines 193 Infosys 163 interest rates Japan 179 Korea 93, 102, 170, 180, 181, 182 Malaysia 195 Philippines 188 Taiwan 157 US 189, 193 International Monetary Fund see IMF IPTN (Indonesian Aviation Industry) 153–4, 314n228 Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali 195 IT 163, 289n3 ItalDesign 124 Italy xxii–xxiii, xxv, 92, 268, 338n2 Ito Hirobumi 85 Ito family 16 Iwasaki Yataro 87 Jagger, Mick 212 Jakarta xix, 204, 205, 210–1 Japan xiv, 104, 268 agriculture 3–4, 7–8, 11–16, 29, 48, 63–5, 100, 159–60 aircraft industry 153–4, 314n229 bureaucracy 77, 78, 101 capital controls 173 car industry 124, 127 democracy xxiv demographic challenges xxi education xxii, xxiii export discipline 76, 90 finance xviii–xix, 170, 174, 175–8, 218, 317n7, 317n9 and Korea 27, 92, 110, 294n52 land reform xvii, xxiv, 3, 7–8, 11–14, 23, 24–6, 28, 31, 61, 68, 69, 279n38 and Malaysia 106, 130, 131, 137, 140–1, 142, 146, 305n154 manufacturing xvii–xviii, 11, 33, 81, 82–90, 100, 152–4, 156, 158, 159–61, 165 and POSCO 115–6 protectionism 79, 80, 315n234 social mobility 288n125 steel 106, 118, 119 and Taiwan 30 trade surplus 158 and US 101–2 war with China 12, 18–19 Jardine Matheson 314n227 Java 49, 51, 283n83 Jefferson, Thomas 291n19 J.G.

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, Atahualpa, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Copley Medal, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Dean Kamen, delayed gratification, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Easter island, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, guns versus butter model, Hans Lippershey, haute couture, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, invention of movable type, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, market bubble, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, Pearl River Delta, Pierre-Simon Laplace, power law, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, reserve currency, retail therapy, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Great Moderation, the market place, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, trade route, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, undersea cable, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment, wage slave, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, work culture , World Values Survey

Wu drew up a ‘Christian Manifesto’ designed to undercut the position of missionaries on the grounds of both ideology and patriotism.64 Between 1950 and 1952 the CIM opted to evacuate its personnel from the People’s Republic.65 With the missionaries gone, most churches were closed down or turned into factories. They remained closed for the next thirty years. Christians like Wang Mingdao, Allen Yuan and Moses Xie, who refused to join the Party-controlled Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, were jailed (in each case for twenty or more years).66 The calamitous years of the misnamed Great Leap Forward (1958–62) – in reality a man-made famine that claimed around 45 million lives67 – saw a fresh wave of church closures. There was full-blown iconoclasm during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), which also led to the destruction of many ancient Buddhist temples. Mao himself, ‘the Messiah of the Working People’, became the object of a personality cult even more demented than those of Hitler and Stalin.68 His leftist wife Jiang Qing declared that Christianity in China had been consigned to the museum.69 To Max Weber and many later twentieth-century Western experts, then, it is not surprising that the probability of a Protestantization of China and, therefore, of its industrialization seemed negligibly low – almost as low as a de-Christianization of Europe.

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The challenge this represents is personified not by the jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, who belongs to an earlier generation of activists, but by the burly, bearded artist Ai Weiwei, who has used his public prominence to agitate on behalf of the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The counter-argument here comes from a young Beijing-based television producer I got to know while researching this book. ‘My generation feels like it’s the lucky one,’ she told me one night. ‘Our grandparents had the Great Leap Forward, our parents had the Cultural Revolution. But we get to study, to travel, to make money. So I guess we really don’t think that much about the Square thing.’ At first I didn’t know what she meant by that. And then I realized: she meant the Tiananmen Square ‘thing’ – the pro-democracy protest crushed by military force in 1989.

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on religion 288, 289 Short History of England 268 Chiang Kai-shek 283 ‘Chimerica’ xvii, 315–16 China xv, xviii, 4, 5, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19–22, 23 Africa and 32, 154–5 Beijing 4, 5, 20, 22, 44 Boxer Rebellion 282–3 capitalism in 17, 252–3, 277, 304, 306–8 Christianity in see Protestantism below Confucian philosophy 21, 27, 32, 43, 164, 286 Cultural Revolution (1964–76) 283, 294 decline of 44–9, 57 education in 43 England and 47–9 exploration, voyages of 28–33, 48 geography 36–7 Great Leap Forward (1958–62) 283 Great Wall 42 India and 29, 32 industrialization 225, 284, 285 Japan and 226, 233, 234 Leibniz on 46 linguistic issues 43 living standards 21–2, 26–8, 44, 210–11, 304 Montesquieu on 20–21, 77 Nanjing 21, 22, 23, 43 political system 42–3, 283, 284 population figures 10, 20–21, 44 Portugal and 35 Protestantism in 277–80, 282–8; radical sects 285–6 François Quesnay on 46, 77–8 Adam Smith on 19, 20, 46, 78 Taiping Rebellion 211, 279–80, 285 trade: internal 22, 23; external 29, 31, 35, 47, 48 Voltaire on 46 Max Weber on 27, 264 Wenzhou 284–5 Westerners in: Earl Macartney 21, 47; Marco Polo 21–2, 27; Matteo Ricci 41 as a world power 257, 295–325; problems faced by 319–22 Yangzi river 21, 48; Grand Canal 21–2, 48 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 287 Chinese empire 29, 31 Chinese Revolution (1949) 283 Chinese science/technology 11, 27–8 cholera 148, 169 Christianity 258–9 the Bible 62, 263, 278–9, 293–4 Calvinism 260 Catholicism 17, 61, 259, 260, 263, 266, 269, 278; in Spanish American colonies 113–14, 120, 120n, 131 church/state relationship 60, 289–90 civilization and 268, 288 decline of, in the West 267–73, 274, 288–9 missionaries 39, 142, 263–4 Orthodox 15 Protestantism see Protestantism Reformation 9, 38, 60–62, 67, 259 in US 267, 270, 273–7 Max Weber on 259, 260–64 see also religious issues; religious wars Churchill, Winston 238–9, 240, 303 on civilization 98, 139, 325 cities, development/growth of 2–3, 5, 205, 215, 304–5 Citroën 190 Civil Rights movement (USA) 245 civil society concept 78 civilization(s) 1–18 Fernand Braudel on xxv–xxvi, 3 Christianity and 268, 288 Winston Churchill on 98, 139, 325 Kenneth Clark on 1–2 as complex systems 299–301 definition 1–3, 142; first use of term 2 East Asian 3–5, 7, 11, 20 Freud on 272–3 Gandhi on 141, 144, 195 Great Divergence theory of 304–5 growth/numbers of 3–5, 8, 142 Samuel Huntington on 15, 16, 312–13 life-cycle theory of 297–9 success/decline of 3, 4, 7, 17–18, 44–9, 291–4, 295–325 Western see Western ascendancy see also imperialism Clark, Gregory: Farewell to Alms 200n Clark, Kenneth 199n on civilization 1–2 Clausewitz, Carl von: On War 157–8 Clemenceau, Georges 183, 187 climate change see environmental issues clocks/clockwork 27, 41–2, 47, 90 marine chronometers 70 clothing see fashion/clothing coal supplies 203–4 Cobbett, William 203 Coca-Cola 145n, 242–3 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel 245 Cold War 236–9, 250 Cole, Thomas: The Course of Empire (paintings) 295–6, 298, 299 Collingwood, R.

Lonely Planet China (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Shawn Low

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bike sharing, birth tourism , carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, country house hotel, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, G4S, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, income inequality, indoor plumbing, Japanese asset price bubble, Kickstarter, land reform, mass immigration, off-the-grid, Pearl River Delta, place-making, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, sustainable-tourism, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, young professional

As relations with the Soviets broke down in the mid-1950s, the CCP leaders’ thoughts turned to economic self-sufficiency. Mao, supported by Politburo colleagues, proposed the policy known as the Great Leap Forward (Dayuejin), a highly ambitious plan to harness the power of socialist economics to boost production of steel, coal and electricity. Agriculture was to reach an ever-higher level of collectivisation. Family structures were broken up as communal dining halls were established: people were urged to eat their fill, as the new agricultural methods would ensure plenty for all, year after year. However, the Great Leap Forward was a horrific failure. Its lack of economic realism caused a massive famine and at least 20 million deaths; historian Frank Dikotter posits a much larger minimum figure of 45 million deaths in his Mao’s Great Famine (2010).

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Mao’s troops eventually won, and the PRC was established 1 October 1949. As chairman of the PRC, Mao embarked on radical campaigns to repair his war-ravaged country. In the mid-1950s he began to implement peasant-based and decentralised socialist developments. The outcome was the ill-fated Great Leap Forward and later the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. China saw significant gains in education, women’s rights, and average life expectancy under Mao’s rule; however, by most estimates between 40 and 70 million people died during that era of change. Five years after Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping famously announced Mao had been 70% right and 30% wrong in an effort, some say, to tear down Mao’s cult of personality.

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The original institution opened in 1889 to provide lodging and other services to opera troupes. It’s now a meeting place for retired artists. Bahe is not open to the public, but you can see the original 3m-tall wooden door from 1889, the only item that survived a bombing by the Japanese in 1937. It was used during the Great Leap Forward as a parking plank for 4-tonne vehicles, and clearly survived that as well. Luanyu Tang BUILDING ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; h10am-3pm) Luanyu Tang is a 200-year-old union for actors playing martial and acrobatic roles in Cantonese opera. The union still gives theatrical martial arts training to children, and members come for opera ‘jamming’ sessions.

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Avis Lang

active measures, Admiral Zheng, airport security, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Arthur Eddington, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Carrington event, Charles Lindbergh, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, corporate governance, cosmic microwave background, credit crunch, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Dava Sobel, disinformation, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dr. Strangelove, dual-use technology, Eddington experiment, Edward Snowden, energy security, Eratosthenes, European colonialism, fake news, Fellow of the Royal Society, Ford Model T, global value chain, Google Earth, GPS: selective availability, Great Leap Forward, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, John Harrison: Longitude, Karl Jansky, Kuiper Belt, Large Hadron Collider, Late Heavy Bombardment, Laura Poitras, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, low earth orbit, mandelbrot fractal, Maui Hawaii, Mercator projection, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, operation paperclip, pattern recognition, Pierre-Simon Laplace, precision agriculture, prediction markets, profit motive, Project Plowshare, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, skunkworks, South China Sea, space junk, Stephen Hawking, Strategic Defense Initiative, subprime mortgage crisis, the long tail, time dilation, trade route, War on Poverty, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

Responding to the perceived hostile conditions in language not very different from that of its adversaries, China vows to “keep abreast of the dynamics of outer space, deal with security threats and challenges in that domain, and secure its space assets to serve its national economic and social development, and maintain outer space security.”6 The rhetoric resonates with America’s own ambitions in space, although the long-lived US theme of “space superiority” is absent.7 As for space security, in the summer of 2016 China took a great leap forward in that direction when it launched the world’s first quantum satellite, which offers the promise of eventual hack-proof communications for everything from your pet food purchase to the military’s surveillance operations. Say a country has stashed a few ballistic missiles, missile interceptors, and high-energy lasers around the globe to discourage attacks on its own satellites.

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The abstract elaborates on the agenda thus: “a series of scientific satellite programs and missions in frontier scientific fields, such as the formation and evolution of the universe, the exploration of exoplanets and extraterrestrial life, the formation and evolution of the solar system, solar activities and their impact on the earth’s space environment, the development and evolution of the earth’s system, new physics beyond the current basic physics theories, the law of matter motion and the law of life activity in space environment, etc; and to drive the great-leap-forward of aerospace and related high technologies.” See also, e.g., Edward Wong, “China Launches Quantum Satellite in Bid to Pioneer Secure Communications,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 2016; Mike Wall, “China Launches Pioneering ‘Hack-Proof’ Quantum-Communications Satellite,” Space.com, Aug. 16, 2016, www.space.com/33760-china-launches-quantum-communications-satellite.html (accessed May 1, 2017) . 54.

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ver=2017-06-06-141328-770 (accessed Aug. 13, 2017); John Costello, “China Finally Centralizes Its Space, Cyber, Information Forces,” The Diplomat, Jan. 20, 2016, thediplomat.com/2016/01/china-finally-its-centralizes-space-cyber-information-forces/ (accessed May 2, 2017). 89.For the political intricacies of US moves against China in space technology, see especially chap. 6, “The Politicization of the U.S. Aerospace Industry,” in Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 141–68. See also Brian Harvey, China in Space: The Great Leap Forward (New York: Springer-Praxis, 2013), 12. 90.Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, US House of Representatives, “Appendix A: Scope of the Investigation” and “Overview,” Report of the Select Committee, Jan. 3, 1999, partly declassified, www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/app.html and www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/over.html (accessed Mar. 26, 2017); Lowen Liu, “Just the Wrong Amount of American,” Slate, Sept. 11, 2016, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_next_20/2016/09/the_case_of_scientist_wen_ho_lee_and_chinese_americans_under_suspicion_for.html (accessed May 2, 2017); “Statement by Judge in Los Alamos Case, with Apology for Abuse of Power,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 2000. 91.Moltz, Asia’s Space Race, 93; Harvey, China in Space, 345–46. 92.Sec. 539 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, and Sec. 532 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, both state that NASA may use no funds provided by these acts “to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement, or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically authorized by a law” unless the activities “pose no risk of resulting in the transfer of technology, data, or other information with national security or economic security implications to China or a Chinese-owned company.”

Physics in Mind: A Quantum View of the Brain by Werner Loewenstein

Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Albert Einstein, Bletchley Park, complexity theory, dematerialisation, discovery of DNA, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Henri Poincaré, informal economy, information trail, Isaac Newton, Murray Gell-Mann, Necker cube, Norbert Wiener, Richard Feynman, stem cell, trade route, Turing machine

Ingenious instruments made of antler and bone—needles, awls, fish hooks—then made their debut. And so did weapons designed to kill from a distance—harpoons, spears, bows, and arrows. It was the time of fired-clay sculptures, bas reliefs, polychrome paintings, including abstract ones—a juncture in hominid development Jared Diamond called the Great Leap Forward. The fossil record of earlier hominids shows no comparable inventiveness and premeditation. Their brain wasn’t much larger five to seven million years ago than that of today’s primates. Even three million years ago the hominid brain (e.g., Australopithecus africanus) was only about a third the size of ours.

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., 282 GMP (guanosine monophosphate), cyclic, 82 Gödel, Kurt, 163n G-proteins, 84, 85 Grand Climacteric, 18 (fig.), 121, 128, 131–132, 133, 224 “Grandmother cells,” 196–197, 198–199 (box), 201, 202, 203 (fig.), 204, 205 Gravitational field, 5n, 17, 155 Gravitational force, 6, 8, 58 Gravitons, 22, 58, 242 Gravity, 17, 18 (fig.), 22, 50, 242, 273 Great Leap Forward, 150n Greene, B., 282 Gross, Charles, 197 GTP (guanine triphosphate), 84 (fig.), 85 Gut feelings, 226–227 Hadamard gate (H gate), 258, 259 (fig.), 260 Hadamard, Jacques, 220, 258 Hartle, Jim, 245 Hearing. See Auditory entries Heisenberg, Werner, 60, 241 Heitler, Walter, 239 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 68n Hodgkin, Alan, 237 Hofstadter, D., 282 Holistic mind, 179, 221–223 Homeostasis, 224, 225 Hominid brains, 150n Hopfield, John, 126 Hubble, Edwin, 155 Hubel, David, 192, 193, 194, 195, 199 (box) Huxley, Andrew, 237 Hydrogen nucleus, 17, 18 (fig.), 19, 101n, 153n Hypothalamus, 223 Hypothesis of neuronal quantum processing and computing, 270–273 Iconic memory, 218 Ikats, 122–124 Imprinting of cortical cells, 202–204 Incompleteness theorem, 163n Inferior temporal cortex, 171 (fig.), 179n, 196, 201, 203 Information begetting order, 25 density of, in ordinary language versus mathematics, 157–158 and entropy, 19–20, 277 evolutionary selection of, 114 wresting, from entropy, 28–32 See also specific types of information Information arrows and the arrow of time, 19, 21 described, 19–21, 96, 266, 267 of life, 22–25, 32–33, 62 molecular demons and, 26–28 products of, overview of, 21–22 See also Second Information Arrows Information censorship, 46–48, 189–190, 191, 246 Information loops, 25–26, 111, 114, 133, 142, 227 Information economy, 46, 78, 103, 128, 185, 201, 206–207, 227, 249, 269, 270, 273 Information loss quantum, irretrievable, 243–245 selective, meaning from, 204, 205 Information processing in brain, 237, 247 and autonomy of the hemispheres, 181, 182, 183 bottom-up, 178–179, 194, 222 and cell organization in the brain, 166–168 and change in worldview from partial cross-over of sensory information lines, 173–175 consciousness as a culmination of, and computing, 216–217, 222 and cortical information-processing units, 168–170 and cortical-cell topography and worldview, 170–173 evolutionary role of, 217 parallel processing and computation, 184–187 speed of, 185–186 and retrieving the third dimension (depth), 175–178 top-down, 179 See also Quantum information processing Information theory, 96, 108n, 205, 206n, 230, 262 Information transforms, 114, 141, 143, 145, 165, 189–214, 212, 278 Information transmission, 237 from DNA to protein, 111–112, 113n, 114, 122, 124 electronic, 99–105, 125–126, 127 fast, demons for, 36–41 mechanical, in Pacinian corpuscle, 279 by molecular demons, 26, 27 quantum, coherent, 64–66, 83, 239, 268, 274 quantum into molecular, 81–86 sensory, generalized scheme, 42–44 speed of, measuring, 186 Informational continuity, 22, 33 Infrared rays, 22, 50, 59 (fig.), 74, 77, 144 Infrared spectroscopy, 274 Inhibitory and excitatory inputs, 145–146, 168n, 190 Insula, 225, 226 International Nuclear Test-ban Treaty, 138 Interoception, 225–226 Interoceptors, 225 Introns, 119 (fig.), 120 Ion channels, 41, 54–55, 82, 127, 128, 210, 238, 273 See also Calcium channels; Chloride channels; Potassium channels; Sodium channels Ion traps, 253, 254 Iron, 19 Jackendorff, R., 281 Johns Hopkins University’s Wilmer Institute, 191 Joos, Erich, 245 Julesž, Béla, 177n Kandel, Eric R., 281 Kant, Immanuel, 149–154, 194 Kaufmann, Walter, 151 Kimble, Jeff, 253, 254 Klangfarbe, 71 Knowledge limits of, 162–163 Koch, Christof, 146, 197, 222, 281 Kolmogorov, Andrei, 206n Konorski, Jerzi, 199 (box) Kreiman, Gabriel, 197 Kuffler, Stephen, 191–192 Langevin, Paul, 65 (box) Language center, 181 (fig.)

The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, central bank independence, centre right, coherent worldview, corporate governance, credit crunch, Crossrail, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, gender pay gap, gig economy, glass ceiling, global supply chain, global village, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, low skilled workers, market friction, mass immigration, meritocracy, mittelstand, Neil Kinnock, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, obamacare, old-boy network, open borders, open immigration, Peter Singer: altruism, post-industrial society, post-materialism, postnationalism / post nation state, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Skype, Sloane Ranger, stem cell, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, World Values Survey

But first we need some historical background. If there was still some doubt when Britain belatedly joined the EEC in 1973 as to whether it was joining a free trade association or signing up to ever closer political and economic union, that doubt had largely gone by the end of the 1980s—even prior to the great leap forward of the single currency. (Hugo Young called the claim that Britain was merely joining a customs union ‘the mendacious reassurance’).18 The question by then was what sort of balance would be struck between the national and the supranational. Some countries, above all Britain itself, continued to see the EU as a form of intense economic cooperation between nation states, with the sharing and sometimes pooling of sovereignty, where it made sense to do so, but functioning under a broadly ‘inter-governmental’ assumption.

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The EU’s Monnet–Delors-inspired post-national hubris has led directly to the Euro crisis, and, similarly, the inability to reform freedom of movement has led directly to Brexit. The EU sees itself as a bulwark against nationalism but by making itself the enemy of moderate nationalism it has ended up fostering more extreme versions in the EU-wide populist uprisings. And the timing has been bad: just as the EU was making its integrationist great leap forward in the 1990s many of the Somewhere people around Europe, and maybe especially in Britain, were becoming more and not less attached to national social contracts as more open, knowledge-based economies increased economic uncertainty for the less well educated. Similarly, just as income growth in Britain was slowing in the mid-2000s, and then stopped altogether after 2008, EU immigration was rising sharply and the two things were probably correlated in many people’s minds.

Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets by John McMillan

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Albert Einstein, Alvin Roth, Andrei Shleifer, Anton Chekhov, Asian financial crisis, classic study, congestion charging, corporate governance, corporate raider, crony capitalism, Dava Sobel, decentralized internet, Deng Xiaoping, Dutch auction, electricity market, experimental economics, experimental subject, fear of failure, first-price auction, frictionless, frictionless market, George Akerlof, George Gilder, global village, Great Leap Forward, Hacker News, Hernando de Soto, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, job-hopping, John Harrison: Longitude, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, lone genius, manufacturing employment, market clearing, market design, market friction, market microstructure, means of production, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, ought to be enough for anybody, pez dispenser, pre–internet, price mechanism, profit maximization, profit motive, proxy bid, purchasing power parity, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, sealed-bid auction, search costs, second-price auction, Silicon Valley, spectrum auction, Stewart Brand, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, transaction costs, War on Poverty, world market for maybe five computers, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, yield management