I was specifically responding to the claim that crony capitalism is not representative of capitalism and made a counterpoint of how you could defend almost any system that way.
Nonetheless, it's pretty well accepted that China is more capitalist today than ever, that's not really controversial.
My guess is that few people see examples of larger capitalist countries that are not cronyist, state capitalist. The US, UK, France, Germany etc certainly aren't examples.
It's easier to leave a small country. The distance from any city in it to another country is lower. You can hop in a boat in Singapore or Hong Kong, but that is much harder to in East Turkestan.
Then there is the likelihood of colonization or invasion in general and the ability of ideas to spread. Competition between governments is more intense.
It may be Europe got its technological advantage and property rights evolved more quickly there because of more competition between countries. But in the center of a large continent, change is slower.
This is why people often talk past one another when they say "capitalism". Because it just one thing to one person and cronyism to another. Where both capitalism and socialism, big surprise, are very broad terms.
That's true, and tribalism plays into it as well: virtually everything is fine where I'm from, it's just those people that pervert the system and have their princelings or revolving doors between government and big business.
Staying clear of the boundaries of one's bubble make it easy, too.
Authoritarian regime... actually much like Singapore. Let’s not forget South Korea was literally a dictatorship up until 80s.
Only difference was China was a lot poorer so people shit on it all the time and find them less relatable and respectable. And also it isn’t under the US’s thumb.
Let's not forget that the chinese communist party is currently performing three different genocides simultaneously: genocide against tibetans, genocide against uyghurs, and genocide against falun gong practitioners. So it's on a different level when compared to most other authoritarian regimes.
