Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The West Mimics Mao, Takes a Green Leap Forward. The green scramble to transform energy is reminiscent of China’s forced industrialization.
Wall Street Journal ^ | September 21, 2022 | Helen Raleigh

Posted on 09/21/2022 7:56:03 PM PDT by karpov

The green movement’s rush to transform the energy economy while ignoring the laws of nature and economics calls to mind China’s ruinous Great Leap Forward. By 1957, Mao Zedong had grown impatient with his country’s slow industrial development relative to the West. He sought to transform China quickly from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse through forced industrialization and agricultural collectivization.

Steel production was a priority of the Great Leap Forward. Mao wanted China to surpass the U.K. in steel output within 15 years. Across the country, including in the village where my father lived, people tried to contribute to this goal by building small backyard furnaces. Each village had a production quota to meet, so everyone—including children and the elderly—pitched in. Using everything they could find to keep the furnaces burning, villagers melted down farming tools and cooking pots. These efforts yielded only pig iron, which had to be decarbonized to make steel. That was a process a backyard furnace couldn’t handle. The effort and resources were wasted.

The steel campaign diverted manpower from farming, even as the government ordered farmers to meet unrealistic quotas. Local party officials initially compelled farmers to experiment with ineffective and sometimes harmful techniques, such as deep plowing and sowing seeds much closer than usual. When these radical methods failed to increase yield and depleted the soil, local leaders had no choice but to lie to their political superiors about how much had been produced (a practice referred to as “launching a Sputnik”). Based on these false production figures, the state demanded villages sell more grain than they could spare. In a vicious circle, the more the local officials lied about their output, the higher the central government set the quotas.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: china; energy; greenmovement; mao; tyranny
full article
1 posted on 09/21/2022 7:56:03 PM PDT by karpov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: karpov
Brought to you by:

The Watermelon Party:

”Green” on the outside
but RED on the inside!

2 posted on 09/21/2022 7:58:50 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

later


3 posted on 09/21/2022 7:59:44 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Covid Is All About Mail In Ballots)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

It’s also like China’s anti-bird campaign. When anti-proletarian birds were found guilty of stealing grain, an all-out campaign of eradication was decreed. Hundreds of millions of birds were killed. And then the insects, seeing the coast was clear, had a field day.


4 posted on 09/21/2022 8:09:24 PM PDT by Blurb2350 (posted from my 1500-watt blow dryer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

The “Green Leap Forward” well sums it up.

Let the mockery begin to nail it in time.


5 posted on 09/21/2022 8:17:59 PM PDT by Paladin2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Blurb2350

“field day”

I see what you did there.

Well done.


6 posted on 09/21/2022 8:19:04 PM PDT by Paladin2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: lightman

No matter what progressives do ,it’s always for the same reason....WIPE OUT 7 BILLION OF THE POPULATION WORLDWIDE......


7 posted on 09/21/2022 8:58:07 PM PDT by Hambone 1934 (Dems love playing Nazis.....The republicans love helping them)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Hambone 1934

At the core, “progressives” are really Scrooges who would like nothing more than to “reduce the surplus population”.

While they court their votes, they secretly despise the “huddled masses”...especially when they begin to intrude on their favorite venues other than as servers.


8 posted on 09/21/2022 9:05:12 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Hambone 1934; lightman

You are both so right! I have told my wife for decades now that under the mask, those on the left love death. Every single policy, every single slogan, leads to the same thing: death. They may manage to mask it from most, but it’s still there underneath the veneer.

It’s like the Thugee who worshiped Kali, one of the many false deities of death. I suppose that people tend to worship that of which they are most afraid and upon which they become fixated. God help them, although it’s hard to imagine that He would do more than He already has done: sent the Light of the World.


9 posted on 09/22/2022 12:58:15 AM PDT by mywholebodyisaweapon ("Carthago Delenda Est")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: karpov

Green Leap Forward

i like it


10 posted on 09/22/2022 3:08:57 AM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

Thank you for making the full article available.
It was a good read and makes sense. What a time of
insanity it must have been in China during those days.


11 posted on 09/22/2022 6:27:09 AM PDT by super7man (Madam Defarge, knitting, knitting, always knitting.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson