Free society and Free markets don't have to go hand in hand

In Sweden right now. Stopped in Beijing on the way. It was an interesting experience, and I thought I should write something about it, as much commentary about China circulating as there already is.

China recently passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world, and people have been talking about its inevitable rise to the status of an economic superpower for years now. But it wasn't until I saw one of their major cities entering this new era that the reality of it really hit me. I've been to a number of second world countries that were supposedly on the verge of breaking through with a booming modern economy, only to be held back by the usual string of corruption, nepotism and political instability. But China already seems to have crossed a critical threshold. They may be fudging the numbers, and they may be experiencing a bubble and see a crash, but even with those things considered, its clear that China will have major influence in the world our children grow up in.

It's important to remember that for all the cell phones and sodas you see there now, China is not a free society. The government is not democratically elected, and they will disappear anyone that threatens them. They censor the internet. They forbid discussion of politics. In these respects, they are everything that the western world, particularly the United States, has prided itself in not being.

This is an interesting turn of events, because throughout the second half of the 20th century, the struggle between capitalism and communism was framed as a struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was billed as a triumph of freedom. But what it really was was a triumph of capitalism. Regardless of what anyone may have thought about the US, their economic system had indisputably generated more wealth than either China or the USSR could manage playing by their own sets of rules. Philosophical debates over how a government should try to provide for people aside, it had become hard to argue that East Germany was better off than West Germany by any practical measure.

The point is, wealth plays a large role in determining how happy people are with a state. In government simulations, it is wealth (more specifically, food) that plays the key role in whether or not the North Korean military will remain loyal to Kim Jong Il, or if they will finally overthrow him. Depressions are a threat to whoever is in office, but people tend to be much more forgiving if they are doing well. Free speech is a noble thing to yearn for, but it takes backseat to feeding your children on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Totalitarianism looked pretty bad when it couldn't deliver. In previous decades it seemed just that such states were unable to keep themselves from collapsing economically. When the USSR fell, it felt like Karma for its misguided ideals.

But what happens when totalitarianism makes one exception by easing up on control of the free markets, and lets everybody have a cell phone? What happens when you can get a good job in an otherwise totalitarian state, and buy a nice car?

Already, some American conservatives are starting to look toward China approvingly. One blogger I know noted with admiration how when China needed to build its Olympic stadiums, it just razed the houses in the way, without the years of paperwork, payouts and BS bureaucratic hassle that it would have taken in the states. Another liked the way Chinese police dealt with an emotionally distraught man who took a hostage. They just shot him in the back of the head, without trying to talk him down or worrying about any of that due process crap. Its sad, because now that China is poised to not only rival but eventually even surpass the US economically, those policies are the only thing that distinguish the US from China.

And its going to be a lot harder to preserve those ideals this century. Because unlike in the last one, we won't have all the cars, electronics, Big Macs and sodas to persuade people they're worth fighting for. Because all of those things are now already available in, if not made, in China.