The Soviet reform experience is a repository of ostensible lessons. But are we learning the right ones?. My new essay assesses one debate: the role of "entrenched interests" in the failure of Soviet economic reform and the USSR's ultimate demise.

It is uncanny—prophetic in a way—to read this from 1967. Galbraith would be agape at RSUs in tech today. "There are few corporations in which it would be suggested that executive salaries are at a maximum.". "Stock holdings by management are small and often non-existent. Stock

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Related, perhaps.

OECD data support the empirical claim that Chinese firms across industrial sectors pursue growth over profits: they invest more, are more productive, but earn less profit.

American firms pursue profits; Chinese firms pursue market share. Why?. James Burnham and John Kenneth Galbraith argued that the central conflict in industrial society was not between capital and labor, but between owners (bourgeoisie) and a rising managerial elite. Burnham

A Short Course on volumes 1 & 2

"The institutions of the traditional polity need only structure the participation of a small segment of society. The institutions of a modern polity must organize the participation of the mass of the population.". Political parties serve that purpose.

What is the essential, distinctive element of political modernization?. Constitutions, parliaments, elections, bureaucracies—all carry-overs from traditional political systems. The political party is "the distinctive institution of the modern polity."

source

Average quarterly inflow of undocumented immigrants (via new SF Fed estimates):. ~215,000 per quarter (2018–2020). ~575,000 per quarter (2021–2024). The latter period thus saw roughly 6 million more entries than would have occurred had the earlier average held.

Excellent compilation Chinese-Language analysis of Chinese politics and some econ. very good podcast recommendations in particular: 钱粮胡同 and 体制内.

RT @gdp1985: Apropos of nothing, in Q2, ~29% of China’s $87 billion yoy export growth to non-US markets was likely diverted from the US, wi….

chatgpt having a break down trying to name the head of the zhengfawei in 人民的名义

Resignation, in the retelling, is often cast as a cynical ploy. On many instances this is likely the key factor. But in the case of the Ming grand secretaries motivations were more complex.

Resignation is a recurring tactic in political biography. Stalin formally offered to quit at least 6 times in the 1920s (Kotkin). Robert Moses did so a few dozen (Caro). But Ming dynasty grand secretaries put them to shame. Some offered to resign 80, even 120 times.

The other side of the Lewis turning point.

During the trial, Zinoviev pointed to Bukharin as a coconspirator. In a distraught letter, Bukharin writes. “Life after political death is not life.”

“I reached the point,” Zinoviev wrote just prior to his execution, “where I spend long periods of time looking intently at your portrait [Stalin] and the portraits of the other members of the Politburo in the newspapers with one thought only: my dear ones, please look into my

The point of the great terror was to eradicate “the other side of the heart.”. “Let them see what it means to stray from the Party’s path and where it may lead,” Zinoviev wrote to his inquisitors the night before his show trial.

@leedrutman