Stephen Kotkin

You can't be half pregnant.

So you can't open up politically.

So how are you going to reintroduce the dynamism?

How are you going to get the GDP growth?

How are you going to get the job creation?

How are you going to get the societal buy-in?

Because if you go too far in that direction, that could threaten the regime.

And if you don't go far... So tech, we got tech.

The tech can make our dictatorship function better.

Not just our economy, our productivity, our job creation.

managing through the demographic crisis, not just the economic and social benefits from tech that tech could deliver, but tech could maybe even make our communist dictatorship immune from challenges because of the surveillances all encompassing, because of our ability to spot things before they happen.

And so you can see where they would be so seduced, so tempted that tech is the solution.

Here's the problem with that argument.

First, it didn't work the last time.

That doesn't mean it won't work this time, but the track record, even though it's a small number of cases, is not good.

But the other problem is political legitimacy.

You can't get political legitimacy.

You might have thought that, oh, geez, if the GDP grows, that'll give us the legitimacy.

Then the GDP stops growing and you no longer have the economic benefits to claim that that's why you're in power.

They're dead and the system is gone.