>>> Brad De Long writes
Re:
Think what we know about China.
The Great Leap Forward (Roderick MacFarquhar says what, 50 million dead?), the Cultural Revolution (50 million imprisoned or exiled?), agricultural collectivization (am I right in remembering that the Chinese advisors to Ho Chi Minh during the collectivization of agriculture in North Vietnam complained to Ho that his people weren't tought enough: that they had a quota to shoot at least one ex-landlord in every village, and that in order to make the proper impression you needed to shoot at least five?)--all in all, the first two-and-a-half decades of PRC rule appear close to the nadir (next to life under Hitler and Stalin) of human existence...
My bet is that medieval theocracy was preferable, especially since the PRC functionaries tended not to speak Tibetan...
On the other hand, I can't help but feel that China's future has at least a good chance of being *better* than medieval theocracy... ___________
Sounds like the nadir of landlord existence. The nadir of human existence would be more coincident with the thousands of years of peasant and slave suffering at the hands of landlords, including the European chattel slavery and colonialism of recent centuries. Is Roderick MacFarquar Chinese ? My guess is life black slaves under white slavery/capitalism was as bad as any you name and worse than some.
Charles Brown