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RocketButters t1_j5ohi6y wrote

Compared to the US what period in time is China in economically?

I felt like there are a lot of parallels between China and the US. China is a country currently shifting away from being a low-quality producer and becoming a country with an exploding middle class, growing domestic brands, and a ton of innovation. At what point in US history were we similar to that?

Would this be like a roaring 20s or is there a period in the US that more closely parallels?

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bangdazap t1_j5px52x wrote

1940s-50s maybe? That was a "golden age" of the American middle/working class of sorts, but then the US was the last man standing industrially in a world ravaged by war, China today has to contend with more aggressive competitors.

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PantsTime t1_j639xyh wrote

There is no parallel (obviously, I sure you're aware) because the rise of the US was so dependant on the wars in Europe and massive wealth transfers from nations involved in mutual destruction.

Certainly the early 20th Century was when the US went from being mainly resource-based, to seeing a real explosion of manufacturing. This was accelerated by its self sufficiency, indigenous focus on industrial methods, markets, and ability to borrow ideas from Europe and people from everywhere.

China has industrialised so much more quickly but factories and manufactured goods are no longer the valuable and exclusive items they were: high tech manufacture has appeared and surpassed making consumer goods. Capital is now global so the conflicts of 100 years ago are, to an extent, obsolete.

Keeping the wealth from all this production within a country was not much of a concern 100 years ago: today, all the profit can flow out of a nation very easily.

So, if "China" makes an iPhone but the end user and profit takers are in the US, and the manufacture is done as cheaply as possible with equipment that can be removed, how "Chinese" is it?

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