Quoting: China’s “low-trust” society: Chinese people do not trust each other.
Despite 1) Shanghai restaurants getting groceries delivered to the sidewalks outside their doors in the morning and no one touching them until the staff arrive. Students leaving their gadgets on coffee tables without supervision. 2) European residents in China reporting they are frequently invited to homes of Chinese people, even as total strangers
Yet, the Chinese do not trust each other. How can that be?
... The answer may lie in differences in perception. In criteria of judging trust. Such as those discussed in Erin Meyer's Culture Map, where there's a whole chapter about trust (task based vs. relationship-based).
Could you also write about the concept of "China as the aggressor"? Your nemesis Noah Smith just wrote another essay on the threat of China to the rest of Asia and the West. I will take it as the "projection" dynamic you mention imagining China doing what we secretly want to do. I really don't have any sense of a military threat from China. Am I simply being naive?
Noah is not Robert's nemesis. Yes, Robert wrote some "clueless" posts about Noah, but they are well-deserved (in my humble opinion). If only Noah read those posts and heeded the advice — read a lot more books, talk to more people, get out of his bubble — he would be a better pundit and person. In that sense, Noah is his own nemesis, and Robert, his physician.
So many rich themes in there Robert, all of them fresh and timeous. It is so good, I will keep this post for the links allowing me to re-read your posts. One point you might explain is your use of 'involution'. I seem to recall from my early readings that anthropologist Clifford Geertz described “involution” as when population growth is coupled with a decrease in per capita wealth in agrarian societies. Another common sociological meaning to describe a shift from one pole to the other of a continuum—from religious to secular ways of thinking, for example. Would the latter be closer to your thinking?
There are some additional things I'd love for you to touch on. Both in terms of educating myself either by correcting my misconceptions or by filling in more detail as all I have is just the gist. In terms of governance and expectations of government, my observations of Chinese society in history are:
-- The emperor did not make arbitrary decisions based on whim. I am reading a book on taxation in the Ming and Qing dynasty, and the description of debates among the officials both with each other and also with the emperors via official internal court memos in both dynasties is very revealing. There was actual debate. It was not the emperor simply issuing edicts willy-nilly. When the current PRC government says that there is actual debate and discussion before a decision is made, this seems to be both based on fact and based on a historically learnt norm.
-- Emperors generally acted within a framework of seeking to act for the good of the people. Tax rates in imperial China were lower, and could be much much lower, than in countries in Europe in the early modern to modern era. The prevailing Confucian ethos was that taxation was stealing profit from the poor, so taxes were generally kept low. An interesting thing about the debates on taxes in the Ming and Qing dynasty was the emperors actually rejecting calls for raising taxes because this was not just and would burden the common people.
-- The Chinese people expect the central government to act in their interests. They actually believe that the purpose of government is to produce prosperous and peaceful lives for people. This seems to be something that has been forgotten in Western political system where lip service to rights is all that is needed. The prevailing conception that authoritarianism equals government deliberately grinding down the people into misery and poverty is actually contrary to good governance in China in both theory and actual practice. Misery and poverty were more likely to result when central government was weak and the people would be preyed upon then by those in the middle of the power structure.
-- Taxes collected in imperial times were largely used for infrastructure, disaster relief and defence, as well as general administration. Infrastructure was a big component as the problem of flooding of the Yellow River was a constant problem that required a vast and complex network of levees, dams and spillways to be maintained. This is a far cry from the Western tradition where kings raised taxes to wage wars to seize territory that they considered theirs (due to the very complex dynastic politics where all the European monarchs were related to each other in some way and there were often competing claims to territories based on hereditary disputes). That China remains committed to infrastructure seems quite self evident in current times.
-- Villages were largely independent, and local powers were the ones that largely decided things within the villages. Government officials were a second power structure that had to work alongside the local village elite powers to get anything done. It was not, and remains the case that it is not, the case that the emperor made edicts that were servilely followed all the way from the top down. An interesting point that underlines this is that regions that fell into arrears in paying their taxes were left unmolested. In times of bad harvest, especially, failure to pay would not only be overlooked but the obligation to pay would be remitted. In British colonial India, on the other hand, villages would be severely punished or razed to the ground by the British army for failing to pay the full amount. Another interesting point on imperial mortgage laws is that limits on redemption of mortgage property issued by the central government were routinely ignored at the village level as these limits were contrary to local customary law. This is very far from the idea that people abjectly and servilely followed imperial edicts. From what I understand, this bifurcation of power between local power and central power continues to this very day.
-- The constant problem of underfunding central government structures seems to be a constant feature that results in provincial government bodies having to engage in corruption even just to fund themselves and their services to the people (this did not exclude, of course, self-enrichment but there would be a limit beyond which they would risk complaints to the imperial court and consequent punishment). Again, this is something that is both expected by the people and when practised within limits, actually tolerated. I think this too is prevalent now in China.
I'd love more information on all of the above points. I think most people, especially a Western audience, have a very very different conception of how things work in China both in the past and now. And many of the above will be new to them.
Memories from many years ago... Being in a circle of British friends, who chatted that the term schizophrenia is used inappropriately. What people mean by that term, they observed, is far more accurately called 'cognitive dissonance.'
Quoting: China’s “low-trust” society: Chinese people do not trust each other.
Despite 1) Shanghai restaurants getting groceries delivered to the sidewalks outside their doors in the morning and no one touching them until the staff arrive. Students leaving their gadgets on coffee tables without supervision. 2) European residents in China reporting they are frequently invited to homes of Chinese people, even as total strangers
Yet, the Chinese do not trust each other. How can that be?
... The answer may lie in differences in perception. In criteria of judging trust. Such as those discussed in Erin Meyer's Culture Map, where there's a whole chapter about trust (task based vs. relationship-based).
I am a little surprised to learn Chinese don’t trust each other? Perhaps it depends on how trust is measured. Anyway, just saying.
I like what you do, and more so what you intend to do.
Very interesting themes, I like, but the china contra "the west" and "the west" as a monolith narratives kinda cringe
there is only so little space for words so let's just sacrifice some cringe for convenience
Could you also write about the concept of "China as the aggressor"? Your nemesis Noah Smith just wrote another essay on the threat of China to the rest of Asia and the West. I will take it as the "projection" dynamic you mention imagining China doing what we secretly want to do. I really don't have any sense of a military threat from China. Am I simply being naive?
Noah is not Robert's nemesis. Yes, Robert wrote some "clueless" posts about Noah, but they are well-deserved (in my humble opinion). If only Noah read those posts and heeded the advice — read a lot more books, talk to more people, get out of his bubble — he would be a better pundit and person. In that sense, Noah is his own nemesis, and Robert, his physician.
I totally agree...
So many rich themes in there Robert, all of them fresh and timeous. It is so good, I will keep this post for the links allowing me to re-read your posts. One point you might explain is your use of 'involution'. I seem to recall from my early readings that anthropologist Clifford Geertz described “involution” as when population growth is coupled with a decrease in per capita wealth in agrarian societies. Another common sociological meaning to describe a shift from one pole to the other of a continuum—from religious to secular ways of thinking, for example. Would the latter be closer to your thinking?
There are some additional things I'd love for you to touch on. Both in terms of educating myself either by correcting my misconceptions or by filling in more detail as all I have is just the gist. In terms of governance and expectations of government, my observations of Chinese society in history are:
-- The emperor did not make arbitrary decisions based on whim. I am reading a book on taxation in the Ming and Qing dynasty, and the description of debates among the officials both with each other and also with the emperors via official internal court memos in both dynasties is very revealing. There was actual debate. It was not the emperor simply issuing edicts willy-nilly. When the current PRC government says that there is actual debate and discussion before a decision is made, this seems to be both based on fact and based on a historically learnt norm.
-- Emperors generally acted within a framework of seeking to act for the good of the people. Tax rates in imperial China were lower, and could be much much lower, than in countries in Europe in the early modern to modern era. The prevailing Confucian ethos was that taxation was stealing profit from the poor, so taxes were generally kept low. An interesting thing about the debates on taxes in the Ming and Qing dynasty was the emperors actually rejecting calls for raising taxes because this was not just and would burden the common people.
-- The Chinese people expect the central government to act in their interests. They actually believe that the purpose of government is to produce prosperous and peaceful lives for people. This seems to be something that has been forgotten in Western political system where lip service to rights is all that is needed. The prevailing conception that authoritarianism equals government deliberately grinding down the people into misery and poverty is actually contrary to good governance in China in both theory and actual practice. Misery and poverty were more likely to result when central government was weak and the people would be preyed upon then by those in the middle of the power structure.
-- Taxes collected in imperial times were largely used for infrastructure, disaster relief and defence, as well as general administration. Infrastructure was a big component as the problem of flooding of the Yellow River was a constant problem that required a vast and complex network of levees, dams and spillways to be maintained. This is a far cry from the Western tradition where kings raised taxes to wage wars to seize territory that they considered theirs (due to the very complex dynastic politics where all the European monarchs were related to each other in some way and there were often competing claims to territories based on hereditary disputes). That China remains committed to infrastructure seems quite self evident in current times.
-- Villages were largely independent, and local powers were the ones that largely decided things within the villages. Government officials were a second power structure that had to work alongside the local village elite powers to get anything done. It was not, and remains the case that it is not, the case that the emperor made edicts that were servilely followed all the way from the top down. An interesting point that underlines this is that regions that fell into arrears in paying their taxes were left unmolested. In times of bad harvest, especially, failure to pay would not only be overlooked but the obligation to pay would be remitted. In British colonial India, on the other hand, villages would be severely punished or razed to the ground by the British army for failing to pay the full amount. Another interesting point on imperial mortgage laws is that limits on redemption of mortgage property issued by the central government were routinely ignored at the village level as these limits were contrary to local customary law. This is very far from the idea that people abjectly and servilely followed imperial edicts. From what I understand, this bifurcation of power between local power and central power continues to this very day.
-- The constant problem of underfunding central government structures seems to be a constant feature that results in provincial government bodies having to engage in corruption even just to fund themselves and their services to the people (this did not exclude, of course, self-enrichment but there would be a limit beyond which they would risk complaints to the imperial court and consequent punishment). Again, this is something that is both expected by the people and when practised within limits, actually tolerated. I think this too is prevalent now in China.
I'd love more information on all of the above points. I think most people, especially a Western audience, have a very very different conception of how things work in China both in the past and now. And many of the above will be new to them.
Memories from many years ago... Being in a circle of British friends, who chatted that the term schizophrenia is used inappropriately. What people mean by that term, they observed, is far more accurately called 'cognitive dissonance.'
Judge for yourself.