{"id":51,"date":"2007-05-20T00:13:27","date_gmt":"2007-05-20T08:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=51"},"modified":"2007-05-20T00:13:27","modified_gmt":"2007-05-20T08:13:27","slug":"wapo-economic-freedom-doesnt-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wapo-economic-freedom-doesnt-count\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo: Economic freedom doesn’t count"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s lesson is that China represents “A Shining Model of Wealth Without Liberty<\/a>.” Here is author James Mann’s breathless warning: <\/p>\n

This all adds up to a startling new challenge to the future of liberal democracy. And the result is ominous for the cause of freedom around the world. China’s single-party state offers continuing hope not only to such largely isolated dictatorships as Burma, Zimbabwe, Syria and North Korea but also to some key U.S. friends who themselves resist calls for democracy (say, Egypt or Pakistan) and to our neighbors in Cuba and Venezuela.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s his story–a snapshot comparison between nations that pretty cleanly ignores any trends, such as the growing difference between China and the other dictatorships cited by the author, or the increasing similarities between China and the Western countries it is catching up with. All Mann sees is the politics. Sure, he notes that, “The ruling party allows urban elites the freedom to wear and buy what they want, to see the world, to have affairs, to invest and to profit mightily.” But he sees this freedom merely as a sop<\/em> by the party to bribe the elites into complacency, rather than a possible source<\/em> of their growing national wealth.<\/p>\n

Here is another view<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Everyone said the fall of the Berlin Wall would herald the spread of democracy around the world. I think the experts and pundits got it wrong. Democracy has made inroads, to be sure. But what really took off was the spread of capitalism. It was the opening of markets that has made the most difference to the most people, lifting millions out of poverty.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was Stanley O’Neal, CEO of that petty bourgeois institution, Merrill Lynch.<\/p>\n

Which view do you think holds more merit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s lesson is that China represents “A Shining Model of Wealth Without Liberty.” Here is author James Mann’s breathless warning: This all adds up to a startling new challenge to the future of liberal democracy. And the result is ominous for the cause of freedom around the world. China’s single-party state offers continuing hope not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectivist-instinct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}