I play an RTS game called Age of Empires 2, and even if a civilization was an age behind in tech it could still outboom and out-economy another civ if the population ratio was 1 billion : 300 Million. Like it wouldn’t even be a contest. I don’t understand why China or India wouldn’t just spam students into fields like STEM majors and then economically prosper from there? Food is very relatively cheap to grow and we have all the knowledge in the world on the internet. And functional computers can be very cheap nowadays, those billion-population countries could keep spamming startups and enterprises until stuff sticks.
In: Economics
It’s an interesting question, and the obvious answer is that right now that is exactly what China is doing. Their EV’s are a prime example. It will be like Japanese cars in the 80s, except about 3 times larger. The reason they didn’t do it before is that they were still developing a political system that gave them the stability to do these kind of things. And India lags in that department, that’s why it still lags. It’s also important to remember though that US dominance rose from many factors, not least being that their main competitors were financially ruined in WW2, including almost all their means of production. Coupled with that the free trade agreement across nations and the US dollar being the reserve currency, means the population of a country only becomes one factor in many.
They do that and china does have a biger PPP GDP than the US. A big problem is brain drain where the chinese and indians with the best education just go to other countries for the higher salary. Like Googles CEO is called Sundar Pichai and he contributes to the american GDP.
Europe and America has a 200 year head start in industrialization, China has only been really industrialize for 40 years, India a fraction of that. So when you have multi-generations head start, it will take a long long time to reach parity.
China is producing a lot STEM talent and it shows with their scientific publication productivity, patents, and EV/solar breakthroughs, but it’s still going to take some time given the early head start by West.
After Germany was utterly destroyed in WW2, they rebuilt into Europe’s largest economy in record time. One major reason was of course the massive amounts of money the US pumped into the German economy. Another reason however was that Germany already had a lot of advantages, a centuries old administrative system, clear rules and regulations for even the most mundane things (a lot of them proven over time) and centuries of expertise in science and engineering. All of these are due to the head start Germany had in industrialization, education and administration. While the buildings might be destroyed, a lot of the knowledge pool stays. For a country to become economically succesful, this knowledge pool has to be built over time. China is in the process of doing that but 50 years ago they barely had any following centuries of stale absolute monarchism. It’s simply a very long process and the “West” has had a headstart.
For China their political system has held them back. The CCP as recently as last year placed restrictions on video games that wiped out over 80 billion worth of value from that sector in their economy.
Their insistence that foreign companies have to form joint ventures with Chinese companies also reduces investment both because of concerns about IP theft and because of forced shared revenue.
India is also a mess politically with the addition of a lot of religious struggles, tons of poverty, and a large part of the population still holding onto outdated beliefs and the outlawed caste system.
As someone else mentioned, the best and brightest from each often immigrate to western nations where they can have greater personal success and a higher quality of life.
let me put it to you in video games terms
10x the population doesn’t equal 10x the resources
10x the population produce 10x less stability so they need 10x the governance
10x the governance Hinder innovations and progress because it favor stability and assurance over risks and uncertainty
to gave you example from my own life a friend of mine made an innovation in biotech , here in egypt pop (112mill) it got laughed out of the collages because using fish parts to help patients breath is Ludacris and got threaten by the goverment and his crime non offically is “too smart for his own good” , he travel to EU insteed of threats he get a doctorate, showered with praise and published in various news article and get a patented and monetarily rewarded for his work
what make USA great thats its Literally capitalist to its core , meanwhile all other countries while Claiming they are capitalists they are infact filled with communist
idealism thats just a mask for the natural corruption that happen when you have 10x the government
Population in of itself isn’t really a resource. It is, but think about everything else that has to exist to make it not a liability. 40 years ago 95% of China fell below the extreme poverty line.
It’s hard to do anything when everyone is broke and starving to death.
But to your point, China _has_ done what you’re talking about. Not simply through mass population but through specialization. Some time ago China specifically created pipelines to become the foremost resource for tool and die makers. School and industry in concert. China manufactures everything today because they decided they wanted to and didn’t care about personal ambitions.
Also food and tech only seems cheap because you’re not poor.
The answer is Capital. Developed countries have significantly more capital.
What is capital? That is a deep question, but for the purposes of this question let’s use a simple definition : machines that allow you to generate wealth.
Countries like the USA have significantly more capital than countries like China. More tractors, factories, steel foundries and more. An industrial machine staffed by one person can produce more than 100 people without industrial machines. The USA has much much more of these industrial machines and that at its core underlines the difference in wealth.
TLDR: You don’t need a billion people when you have machines that can do the work of a billion people.
It is called the world reserve currency which all debt is denominated in.
ie. If you are playing Ages of Empire and use a cheat code to create infinite gold as a resource for yourself, how much less likely are you to lose?
Latest Answers