Europe, and to a certain extent the, US seem to be doing fine, thank you very much -- without need for artificial scarcity or dictatorships.

Europe in particular, isn't, for the most part a "Failure of capitalism" -- people are living well enough, much better than in China for instance.

The problem here is that even though by most humane standards the average european or american could be better off than the average chinese, perhaps exactly because of this China will achieve more competitively. Maybe optimum standards of living doesn't coincide with optimum productivity. What then?

That's a problem for the US in particular because its core justification, so to speak, [for the American social-political-economic system] was this entire premise: 'More productive, more competitive, means ultimately means better in every way'. 'The US was more productive than the USSR, therefore Socialism is bad'; 'We win in competition therefore we have the greater future'. But if China, as a an authoritarian surveillance state is more productive than the US, how to sustain this thesis?

And how to deal with China if they may be bound to outgrow their peers in the future? What if they start spreading this cultural modus operandi justified precisely by economic productivity?

For me the answer is obvious: this thesis must be abandoned. There are two ways to deal with an enemy that is willing to sacrifice humanity in the name of slightly better performance.

(1) Through international law: make agreements and regulations demanding standards of living, democratic minima, etc. that apply globally.

(2) Though conflict/direct competition. If an authoritarian hegemony is expanding and threatening our core values, and there is no other way to stop, then you should do the necessary to stop them, degrading temporarily the standards of living to outpace them and override their doctrine in the expectation to restore to a more humane program afterwards. I don't condone the practices of the USSR (it was a very authoritarian and problematic regime on its own), but this is mostly their rationale through the Cold War; this aspect of their ideal at least seems very reasonable to me.

Let's hope that either

(a) China's approach ultimately doesn't actually show to be as effective as it seems;

(b) They fail to expand their regime/doctrine and collapse from internal democratic pressure (unlikely as control/surveillance technology expands);

(c) International treaties control the situation and enforce better human rights

Before the West needs to enter a conflict.

Note how this goes against Nature: we'd be refusing to let the most 'fit' nation out-compete and dominate others through some global coordination, and try to enter a suboptimal (in the competitive sense) quasi-steady-state. It isn't clear we can achieve this, but this would a most beautiful achievement of humanity. Finally taking destiny into our own hands free from the current make of A Blind Watchmaker. Being blind, those Watchmaker very often fail to prevent disasters stemming from their work, another significant sign of its troubles: with our inability, but also necessity, to achieve global coordination in sacrificing maximum naive development speed (but helping humanity's environment in the long run).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17572185