
What Chinese corner-cutting reveals about modernity - bilifuduo
https://aeon.co/essays/what-chinese-corner-cutting-reveals-about-modernity
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smallnamespace
Corner cutting as a behavior can only persist because of high competition and
information asymmetry: if buyers can't tell quality from crap, then honest
sellers get out-competed and driven out of the market.

China is a very, very competitive market with relatively low barriers to
entry. Any successful product instantly attracts legions of competitors and
copycats.

Technological changes can make the information asymmetry much worse. If buyers
have had a long time to familiarize themselves with a product, they're more
likely to tell good from bad, in the process weeding out bad producers. If
it's a new product, they never got that chance. I'll bet a lot of these
apartment buildings are sold to first-time owners.

Classic paper, in the context of used cars:

[https://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730g83/artiklar/1.328833/AkerlofM...](https://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730g83/artiklar/1.328833/AkerlofMarketforLemons.pdf)

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skynetv2
you can replace Chinese related names and places with Indian names and places
and it would read just the same. I've seen it through out my life and now I
can see it even more clearly after being exposed to living in the US.

"Chalta Hai" would be the Indian "Cha buduo". And it has caused as many, if
not more, casualties in property & life.

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swuecho
It is all about rich or poor.

If the author do some research on the relative rich people in China, the
result should be different.

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devnonymous
I would disagree that it is about being rich or poor. If you take a look at
the state of public infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, transport) in
India, the amount of funds being spent do not match the quality. The only
place where perhaps you can see the 'chalta hai' attitude not evident is where
there are strong and enforced regulations. All of the rest is a little bit of
shit all the time because of the chalta hai attitude and corruption.

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swuecho
check the home of rich people and poor.

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devnonymous
Ok, I don't think you get the point. The home of rich people will have a
backup electric supply, water tank and other such conveniences to offset what
should have been a basic good infrastructure provided by the government to
begin with. The attitude of acceptance of crappy infrastructure is the chalta
hai attitude that the article speaks about.

It's the same acceptance of crappy roads, crappy Internet, crappy service,
crappy foo... that is consumed without expecting better. The rich also just
accept it because they can afford to spend on backup options like a different
phone line, multiple service providers etc. However the acceptance of good
enough is independent of wealth in India.

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Animats
That's going to get fixed.[1] Li Keqiang doesn't like China's quality
problems.

Japan had that problem around 1970. It got fixed.

[1] [https://www.marketplace.org/2015/12/10/world/why-cant-
china-...](https://www.marketplace.org/2015/12/10/world/why-cant-china-make-
good-ballpoint-pen)

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smallnamespace
From the article:

'“We click the pens that’ll be sold in China only once, because Chinese
consumers are more price-conscious,” explains Huang. “The pens that’ll be
exported to Japan? We click them twice. They’ll pay twenty cents more for a
better pen.”'

As Chinese consumers get richer, their tastes will get more discriminating,
and you should expect quality to improve.

