The expansion of China’s economy over the last three decades is another example of growth
produced by extractive institutions, but with a major difference. The onset of technology without
borders has meant that the extent and pace of growth under extractive institutions can be greater today
than it was in the 19th century, when Germany and Russia went through a process of catch‐up. Though
the two countries reached higher growth rates than the leading economies of the time, the U.S. and the
U.K., their expansions ended quickly, and had been only made possible by deep‐rooted changes in the
structure of society — changes that ultimately destabilized and upended the regimes in those nations.
By contrast, China has been able to achieve rapid catch‐up growth for over three decades, with much
more limited threats to its extractive institutions, partly because the nature of technology has changed.
In Germany and Russia at the end of the 19th century (or in Japan and South Korea during the second
half of the 20th century) catch‐up growth involved developing industries, building a domestic market,
and undergoing a process of structural, social, and institutional changes — including rapid urbanization
and the social and political demands coming with industrialization. But unlike China, their growth wasn't
built on simply importing technology to produce goods for the world market. In contrast, today, instead
of having to develop an entire industry, an emerging market economy can just house some of an
industry’s tasks, such as assembly and operation. This has enabled China to grow rapidly by leveraging
its cheap and abundant labor force, while also mollifying the internal demands for political changes that
earlier societies undergoing catch‐up growth had to contend with.
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