China and Chaos
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development. Copyright © 2002 Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (200209) 45:3; 70–75; 027171. NB When citing this article please use both volume and issue numbers.
Local/Global Encounters
China and Chaos1 J O H N E . C O U LT E R
ABSTRACT John E. Coulter illustrates how economic development theory assumes a natural surrounding that is free to take from and dump into. As the last player on the planet to promote a development on a massive scale, China finds the surroundings constrained. A new approach, drawing on Chinese traditional ideas of nature, and some of the building blocks of modern science, may present a better understanding for harmonizing economic development and environmental conservation. KEYWORDS economic development; entropy; nature; science
Introduction China is so huge, so crowded, so old and so complex, that the conventions of analysis developed in western countries do not apply very well. Max Weber wrote that for any social science theory to be proven, it must be acknowledged as correct, ‘even by a Chinese’ (Weber, 1949: 58). Western experts bring their expertise in economics, political science, environment management and many social sciences to apply analytically to trends in modern China, and have great difficulty in sounding comprehensive, or even providing adequate comment that could be constructive to future directions. How can the myriad anecdotal evidence and the macro-data be assimilated into a theoretical structure that can be useful? Experts in specific disciplines who disclaim responsibility for cognisance of issues outside their field cannot offer a comprehensive overview of what is happening in China, and unless wellmanaged, their advice can be dangerous. For those who attempt to survey China as a whole, there are observations that the economy is ‘overheating’, or now has the ‘lid back on’, or that social and political order could ‘degenerate into chaos’. This is difficult to expand into a useful discourse. China at times in its long history has been portrayed as a model of order, of harmonious relationships, and propriety that extended from the emperor out to nomads on the fringe. When this broke down, feudalism degraded into chaos. Theodore White’s Thunder out of China (1980) or Edgar Snow’s Journey to the
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Coulter: China and Chaos Beginning (1972) provide anecdotes of anarchy in the first half of the 20th century – mass banditry, riots, and famine. Reading their introductions to China, the preludes to disaster seem ordinary enough. But what are the signs when this trend is recurring? Is there any instrument like the ancient Chinese earthquake monitor that can sense incipient disaster? Do the signals lie in the realm of social sciences, something out of the Dark Ages, or perhaps a model from straight physics? The rise of the entropy law There is a general theory that does cover this issue. It is the second law of thermodynamics, abs
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