Paying Attention to China
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m paying a lot of attention to China. I find myself continually surprised at both the enormity of the horrible conditions that were once widespread but have now diminished substantially, to the enormity of what quasi-private capital investment is doing over there. It is truly astounding and I don’t think I’ve yet seen an estimate of the potential worldwide beneficial side-effects that even comes close.
Sure I’d love to see their political class put out to pasture (as I would over here) but it’s good that people aren’t still starving over there (where once 30 million people starved to death, China is now a net exporter of food). It’s good that China has allowed the organic development of thousands of millionaires over the last decade, millions of middle class, and allows the pursuit of tens of thousands of self-financed small entrepreneurial ventures every year.
Yea, it sucks that people ultimately have to get permission to produce values, but they increasingly think that over here, too. If I knew a way around it that didn’t involve tossing my potential away, I’d love to undertake it. The only way I know to deal with it is to continually strive to make it less burdensome. I do that by making more money and hiring more people to take care of all the crap. The goal is to reach escape velocity, such that the most burdensome it can practically get is as the almost inconsequential inconvenience and annoyance of a parking ticket today.
Anyway, Greg Rehmke has a very good summary of some of these elements and links to a very interesting National Geographic piece.
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I agree that in general, China is much improved, and still improving. But their being a net exporter of food does not mean that people aren't starving. It's not a free market, and the two are not necessarily related. Also, a lot of those millionaires are so because they benefit from rampant initiations of force.
It's certainly getting freer than it was, and that is providing a worldwide benefit, but they still have a long, long way to go, not just in human rights, but in economic freedom as well.
You can have markets, but that doesn't always mean *free* markets. I do think that they are approaching – maybe decades away, but approaching it – a time when they will have to choose between letting the markets really go free and continuing their economic advance, or reining them in and suffering a serious decline. When that choice becomes inescapable, there will probably be blood.
Kyle:
I agree with all of that. My attention is focussed more on the change and rate of change, less so than the absolute level of freedom.
It's not a "free" country. Neither are we, there are relative differences and more free is certainly better than less.
It's certainly worth paying attention to, and it's hard to estimate the impact of a billion people (or whatever the figure is waking to some degree of opportunity.
We'll see.
The Soviet Union was exporting wheat as Ukraine starved, Rich.
No bullshit: you've got your head completely up your ass about China.
You're not the only one, though.
Billy:
I don't think so. Now, I don't know whether the affect is going to end up good or bad, but there's going to be a tremendous effect.
You don't make that many people high net value producers in one short time span without tremendous consequences that are going to shake the world. Just demand pressure on commodities (all the building) is going to be huge and prices are likely going up across the board.
Just how this all shakes out I certainly don't know and haven't figured out. I'm not bright eyed and bushy tailed whatsoever, but anyone's a fool if he's not paying serious attention to this, regardless of which way you think it will ultimately turn.
I don't mind the more pessimist side, but for God sake's deal with _all_ the facts in real and relevant _context_ and draw necessary distinctions. The Ukraine likely couldn't feed Russia, much less the entire Soviet Union. China is feeding itself, and others. I think it's not a great comparison.
But you're not the only one.
"…there's going to be a tremendous effect."
I don't dispute that.
"China is feeding itself, and others."
I don't believe that for one second.
"I don't believe that for one second."
If the question is whether China would sacrifice it's own for the sake of export revenue, I would acknowledge that given its history, one certainly must be open to the possibility.
Are people actually starving? I don't know, but I think we'd hear about it (and maybe I'll look). Is there continued poverty? Sure, just like in America. Is there undernourishment? Sure, just like in America. Do the political policies of the privileged political class bring them wealth at the expense of those that bear the negative externalities? Sure, just like in America.
I'm not morally equating the two, but I'd point out that at a principled level, both turn the same: the state as god and virtually any force is ultimately justifiable. I note a difference on a practical level, though. It's hard to dispute, given the facts, that individual Chinese are not gaining freedoms in leaps and bounds they never dreamed they would have. It's not freedom (just like in America) but you would be hard pressed to make a case that what has happened is not good for them, at least in the case of several hundred million. At the same time, the perception of many in America, including me and probably you, is that we have less freedom, getting lesser. So, we have the irony of individual Chinese gradually having more freedom (it was the only way to go) and us having less.
I have a comment about where I think that leads in my latest post.
This is from 2004, but it seems clear to me that things have changed dramatically (it imports and exports according to a quasi international supply and demand). The Chinese government will, of course, maintain a quasi-collectivist system to set prices and productions (like in America):
worldproutassembly.org/archives/2005/04/famine_to_feast.html
We're talking about a regime that has, among many other things, been killing people in order to sell their organs, and you guys are concerned that the fucking trains are running on time.
Let me tell you something, Rich:
I've read the comments from those two morons in that other post, and I am not disposed to listen to lectures about "vice".
Billy:
I wasn't aware that organ allegation was substantiated. And America (with participation by its founding fathers) brutally ripped Africans from their families and homes and those who survived the terrible journey were put to slavery.
I really am at a loss to draw distinctions between two such evils.
If "having the trains run on time" is something akin to enslaving or killing less people, clubbing less people and instead handing them a license to operate a business, and all that translates to more material prosperity and less brutal torment for more people then I must in part welcome it.
Sorry, Billy, but fewer dead people and more people that have some chance at a life with some enjoyment and leisure and happiness is a positive development, no matter how you slice it. It is important for those people fortunate enough for the opportunity to live better and I think it ought to be acknowledged. I see no point in denying a positive trend.
I think you ought to be more careful about dismissing "trains running on time." It is very important (metaphorically) that they do. Otherwise, people starve and die. I'm not claiming that it renders real freedom moot, or satisfies the requirement, but it is an important element to human prosperity and happiness. Its importance should never be downplayed, dismissed or scoffed at as I think you are prone to do.
I really am at a loss to draw distinctions between two such evils.
One happened centuries ago, and all the people who did it are dead. The other happens today, and the people who do it are the very same people who we are discussing.
The allegations are not substantiated if substantiation means an official declaration that they are true. The indirect evidence that is available supports them, but does fall short of proving them.
The remainder of your post I more or less agree with, with the added observation that people seldom launch unprovoked, aggressive attacks against those they are trading with. Chinese citizens aside, the rest of the world is safer with China pursuing it's present course.
The worries about them following that course only in order to build up the military capability to threaten the rest of the world should not be dismissed, but I think they are learning a lesson daily that trade is a more effective means of conquest.
"And America (with participation by its founding fathers) brutally ripped Africans from their families and homes…"
Excuse me: individuals did that, and…
I really am at a loss to draw distinctions between two such evils.
…one obvious distinction is that, for more than a century and a half, running into the 21st century, now, nobody gets to do it anymore.
Jesus, man.
Billy:
Yes, individuals did that. Is that a distinction from the alleged human organ trade in China? Should I have said American "regime," as you used the same word?
My point, of course, is that such evil didn't by necessity invalidate the good that came and has come out of America. The good didn't justify the evil, but the evil didn't make the good impossible.
I could do with just a bit of benefit of the doubt here, man.
Now, America was founded on ideas, and unfortunately those ideas are so horribly undercut by the aforementioned travesty. Given that it was a hypocritical travesty (and yea, I know how it's explained away in dozens of bullshit ways), it seems to me that we ought to at least entertain the possibility that China is going to have it's rough spots too.
They're light years from perfect. So were those who founded America.
Part II of my series is up, and that explains more. I'm not looking for paradise here, or anything of the kind.