Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 September 22

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September 22

Communism and Economic Inequality in China

China has high economic inequality. But isn't China a communist country?

Desklin (talk) 05:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Supposedly. Why China has made neoliberal reforms is up for debate, but what isn't is the fact that they have made them. China is capitalist, in all but name. →Σσς. (Sigma) 06:08, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Communism does not equal economic equality. The Bolshevik leaders stepped into the shoes of the Tsars and the oligarchs seem to have taken over where they left off. 92.25.66.15 (talk) 09:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Animal Farm is a nice allegory for this process; and a rather prescient commentary on what has happened in China, interesting since it was written 70 years ago about an entirely different Communist country. --Jayron32 11:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

China's economic system is actually far closer to merchantilism than communinism or capitalism. Some commentators have used the term "neo-merchantilism" to characterize it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Oil production in Hong Kong

List of countries by oil production says that Hong Kong produces 100 barrels of oil per day. Is this really true? I'm find it hard to believe due to its small size and heavy urbanization. Where is the oil well located? Is it possibly an off-shore rig? 731Butai (talk) 13:29, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Petroleum industry in China might have some pointers. Bear in mind that "Hong Kong" will include islands such as Lantau and the mainland New Territories, and may also include a sizeable offshore area within China's zone.

When I lived there (in the 1960's) much of the central and south parts of Victoria Island (as it then was) were not heavily urbanized, but I gather much has changed! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

The Los Angeles area has tons of functioning oil wells (for instance, see a quick Google search.) "Simple" oil wells don't take up much space. As a Southern Californian, I can tell you that probably the majority of people here don't know about L.A.'s ongoing oil production, because most of the wells are camouflaged inside buildings or other structures. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 16:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

And that's just one of six gigantic invisible things. And those six are just some of those some of us are aware of. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:58, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

100 barrels a day is an extremely small amount – in the United States, a single on-shore well is expected to produce several times that (the only new US wells extracting less than 100 a day are gas wells that happen to suck a bit of oil up accidentally). The Hong Kong Geological Survey doesn't mention oil as one of Hong Kong's natural resources, so I guess it's some sort of rounding error (Hong Kong is about 0.01% of the area of China – if you were to try to estimate its oil production by assuming that it produced 0.01% of China's oil, you'd get an answer in the hundreds). Smurrayinchester 13:09, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

The geology of Hong Kong is dominated by igneous and metamorphic rocks (see also for the regional geological setting). The small amount of later sedimentary rocks (the sort of things you need to make a petroleum system) were deposited under arid continental conditions and are unlikely to contain any source rocks - therefore no oil or gas. Mikenorton (talk) 17:45, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Popular Culture (1960's Britain)

If we were to look at the types of popular culture going around in Britain during the 1960's (i.e Beatles, Avengers.. etc), how could we describe the 'image' that Britain was exporting to America and the rest of the world? What is the best way to describe this exported sub-culture? --Klefögg (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Mod culture was a peculiarly British culture of the time. --Jayron32 17:42, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

The British Invasion brought a lot of Britpop something like Britpop. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Damon Albarn and Liam Gallagher were babes at the time. You've confused your British Music terms. Britpop refers specifically to the style of music coming out of Britain in the 1990s. The 1960s British music associated with the British Invasion was Merseybeat (Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, DC5, etc.), British blues (Cream, Fleetwood Mac (Mark I), Traffic) and British R&B (Yardbirds, Animals, The Who). Of those, Merseybeat is probably the most distinctly British. --Jayron32 17:58, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I tried to strike it before anyone could read it, but you're right. Blackmore's Night always struck me as distinctly British, but more in the 1460s style. What's old is always new again, though.

Liam McGeary recently came ashore and laid waste to "The Hardcore Kid" Emanuel Newton and "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy" Tito Ortiz. Whole different scene, of course, but still rock 'n' roll to me. Also loosely related to the Irish Invasion, a proxy war between Sinead O'Connor and Aaron Lewis, which didn't go well for the Californian, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Fop? Bus stop (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Shagadelic, baby? I'd say yeah. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:53, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Mods_and_rockers might have some interesting reading. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

The Outsiders and Rumble Fish might, too. I've only seen the movies, but those gangs look familiar. Stewart Copeland (who attended Millfield in the sixties) apparently tried to merge the blue-collar physical realm with the high-falootin' art world using a pseudomusical device Wikipedia doesn't acknowledge. I forget what that sounded like, but probably some sort of British new wave meets British New Wave deal. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

People were forever talking about "Swinging London" and Carnaby Street, usually in the same breath. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes I think "Swinging London" is the thing the author is probably looking for, and I'd reference the song "England Swings" by Roger Miller in support of that: it itemises everything that characterised England in the eyes of the US at that time. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

That article seems to take the song as a national affront of some sort. England Swings is a harmless little piece of purely commercial fluff, not very interesting but pleasant enough to listen to. As a Roger Miller fan, it's certainly not the song I'd really want people to remember him by, not when he did haunting and meaningful songs like King of the Road (which he wrote) and Me and Bobby McGee (which he was the first to record, even though Kris Kristofferson wrote it and did the definitive version). For that matter, Dang Me and Chug-a-Lug are works of art compared to England Swings. But there's no need to get so defensive about it. --Trovatore (talk) 19:28, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

How much of that song's imagery is no longer true? "Trying to mock / The way they talk / Fun, but all in vain" seems reasonable to say. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

As a Brit who lived through the sixties, I'll just make the (probably obvious) point that the sort of imagery in "Swinging London" (and the excruciatingly embarrassing and awful "England Swings") bore no relation to the sort of lives actually lived by anyone in England outside, perhaps, a few hundred people in a couple of square miles in inner London. Yes, the rest of us liked the Beatles, the Avengers, James Bond, and so forth, as entertainment (just as we liked, say, the Beverly Hillbillies)... but almost no-one in the rest of England actually lived like they did. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:46, 24 September 2015 (UTC)