On Aug 18, 2011, at 11:12 AM, // ravi wrote:
> On Aug 18, 2011, at 8:15 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>>
>> Which raises the question as to why China was able to adapt
>> and thrive, whereas the Soviet Union collapsed.
>
> Population, I would think? If you call what is happening in China thriving, that is.
I saw Stanley Fischer give a thinly attended press conference at the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in the early 1990s - can't remember what year exactly. Fischer said that Russia was beginning its economic reforms with a very weak state, while China began its with the state still firmly in control. I thought that was interesting, coming from a prominent neoliberal theorist-practitioner like Fischer (now governor of the Bank of Israel).
Doug