Where Anything Is Possible
China continues to be governed by a nominally communist self-perpetuating autocracy. Unalienable rights? In China you get whatever the government gives you, and you'll like it.
Nevertheless, in the matter of day-to-day economic life, it is freer here than in the United States of Obama.
At a fabulous Szechuan restaurant in Shanghai last night my host, a prominent venture capitalist, captured the mood: "In China, anything is possible." Tonight at dinner in Beijing I heard the tale of a billionaire who started with a few thousand dollars and built a successful energy conglomerate in less than ten years. During the run-up to the successful IPO--remember when we allowed those in the United States?-- he awarded his driver of many years shares that wound up worth $20 million. The new blue collar millionaire still drives the limo but now also moonlights as a venture capitalist, investing with friends trying their hand at rural real estate development.
Taxes are low, regulations are loose or at least negotiable. Individuals are accumulating and deploying capital to realize crazy dreams no bureaucrat would countenance. Most absurdly, by the light of recent US political history, there is a consensus that industrial development is valuable to society, even when it produces millionaires and billionaires by the gross.
Did I mention that these people are Communists?
The last time I felt such a frisson of Keynesian animal spirits it was Morning in America. Alas, Mr. Reagan is no longer standing athwart history. Instead, the Marxists he defeated have lately passed the torch of socialist inevitability to Mr. Obama; they themselves are busy getting out the way of the creative impulses of 1.3 billion people, who paradoxically find themselves less repressed and directed than at any time in living memory.
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Aug '10
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
The first thing I learned when I met my in-laws was that there were cultural imperatives that prevented the Chinese from truly being Communist. This is not to say that they aren't authoritarian.
Chinese people don't give one another gifts, they give red packets containing money. How can you be Communist if your primary method of gift giving is the exchange of currency?
Jun '12
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
I wouldn't get all dewy eyed for China. It has a terrible (horrific, even) human rights record and by objective standards it is still a fundamentally repressive place to live. According to the Heritage Foundations's Index of Economic Freedom it ranks 138 as of 2012. http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
Apr '11
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
China is no utopia, but I'd rather live in authoritarian boom than managed decline. That 20% tax rate looks better every day.
Mar '11
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
You mean, other than the people being tortured in prison?
This sounds a little like Tom Friedman's usual column?
Anita Dunn would approve - though she would make more regulations to reduce the risk of people making too much money, like in the US.
May '11
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Where do patent infringement, copyright theft, and shoddy even dangerous products fit in?
Mar '12
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
And what about forced abortions, organ harvesting from prisoners, rampant corruption, and terrible pollution fit in?
Apr '11
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
David Williamson
You mean, other than the people being tortured in prison?
This sounds a little like Tom Friedman's usual column
With George's last sentence, I don't think his point was that things are good in China, just that things seem comparatively better than in the past. We're talking about a people who lived through the cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward.
Edited on June 27, 2012 at 9:05pmMay '10
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Roughly where they did here in the US 130 years ago. And the US patent system is way too protectionist.
George is saying what I've been arguing here for several years. No one who has spent any time in an Eastern big city in China can fool himself into thinking that this is a Communist country.
Crony capitalism (with Chinese characteristics) under sometimes despotic sclerotic authoritarian rule? Absolutely. But San Francisco is more communist than Shanghai.
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Keith Doherty With George's last sentence, I don't think his point was that things are good in China, just that things seem comparatively better than in the past. We're talking about a people who lived through the cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward. · 3 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
Keith, that is exactly my point. Things are bad here if you wish to assert many God-given natural rights. But in the matters of economic freedom and material progress, things are less bad than before, better in some respects than in the US.
People respond to trends, and the trend here remains positive. Consider that last year former Chongqing mayor Bo Xilai was agitating for a Maoist restoration, while now he is cashiered and his wife accused of murder.
In the US, you are free to protest the government or live an alternative lifestyle but largely prohibited from starting a manufacturing enterprise--try negotiating with Lisa Jackson and see how far you get. Raising capital in US public markets is also now virtually impossible for less than a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Here the situation is largely reversed.
Edited on June 28, 2012 at 12:45amRe: Where Anything Is Possible
David Williamson This sounds a little like Tom Friedman's usual column?
6 hours ago
David, I don't want to "Be China For a Day." But could we return to being America for a while?
China maintains its statist authoritarian ways in a great many areas, but in service to economic development the government has relaxed control over entrepreneurial activity in many respects. By embracing quasi-free market capitalism is China emulating the United States, not the other way around. Meanwhile, at home under the Obama administration, the government is exerting itself across many departments to micromanage and control individual economic activity, with predictable adverse results.
Dec '10
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Long before Lisa Jackson, this was a serious issue.
By the early 1990s, I was incapable of purchasing either monofilament line, or netting (plastic), not made in China. For any price. Even though I am employed to keep entities in compliance with environmental standards, I have to use materials made in a place where the wastes are tossed in the ditch out back, to keep my clients in compliance.
There is no way for American firms to compete against foreign competitors, when American firms are required to meet even reasonable standards for environmental compliance.
Sure, the Jackson/Obama/Browner alliance is a bad situation, made almost comical. But there is no such thing as fair competition when we fish and swim in our creeks, while they poop and dump in theirs.
I know George isn't advocating for some Wild West approach, and rather advocates a more rational approach. However, with respect to manufacturing, even a more rational approach will never be able to compete with business domiciled in old Dodge City.
May '10
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Your host was more or less correct, but incomplete. With thanks to Dr. Sinclair, my Imperial China and Modern China professor, guide and guru, I offer the following revision: "In China, anything is possible. Until it isn't." Caveat emptor.
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Excellent addendum, Matthew. Consider my headline revised.
May '10
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
The land of opportunity! Here I come!
Oh, wait. A shortage of women? Nevermind.
I hear Russia's nice this time of year.
Apr '12
Re: Where Anything Is Possible
Canadian entrepreneurs who do business in China talk about the 'can do' attitude they say Americans used to have but now there are so many restrictions and taxes. They also say the Americans try to keep more for themselves rather than partner. So in the tight circle of entrepreneur to entrepreneur, it seems to be great. Once the circle widens, the CFOs who are trying to make sense of Chinese revenue seem to have a common theme of distrust. Milton Friedman said Hong Kong was the place of pure capitalism. My Hong Kong immigrant business colleagues hate China. They left Hong Kong in the 1990's, displaced by the threat of China. They know about the killing of business owners and property owners and those thugs are now property owners and wealthy. Quite something to listen to these Hong Kong people and see their disgust. Animal Farm, it is my turn at the table...