10:23 PM on October 11, 2011 To be honest, I'd never heard of Loretta Napoleoni, but after reading Neil Reynold's trashing of her book I think I'll read it.
Notwithstanding some pretty fierce competition, Reynolds still remains the Globe's undisputed champion of crude pro-business propaganda and all-around economic illiteracy. Every time he inveighs against Keynesian economics I rejoice, confident in the damage this super-annuated blunderbuss does to his own cause.
Does MSM coverage of China always require ideological blinkers? Would a little rigorous and objective observation and analysis be too much to ask?
7:31 AM on October 12, 2011
China's economic growth over the past 30 years has been nothing short of astounding but let's not make the mistake of assuming that the future looks like the past. China has been allowed to make progress at the expense of the west through currency manipulation, the participation of subsidized state owned enterprises in the global market economy, environmental atrocities, gross violations of human rights etc. We are far too forgiving of China and as unpleasant as it might be in the short term, the West should be putting the screws to China order to ensure a level playing field.
And regardless of what the West does, China will have its own day of reckoning when a critical mass of the citizenry start to demand greater freedom and the ability to criticize and hold accountable their leadership. History has proven that stories of dictatorships seldom have a happy ending.
12:30 AM on October 12, 2011
My goodness, what a poorly compiled and jumbled piece of writing. It's been ages since I last had to go back and forth to see if the writer was pro or con the statements on the page. Talk about waffling and playing it down the middle, and rather awkwardly too!
11:41 PM on October 11, 2011
I missed a link. This is an article titled, "China, Freedom and Democracy", discussing China's system compared to the Western multi-party system.
Read it and ask yourself which government system is more functional and more intelligently designed.
http://www.bearcanada.com/china/freedemocracy.html
On the subject of government, readers might want to ask themselves what is the source of this pathological tendency to meddle in the affairs of other countries? What is the source of this Christian Charity that tells us Westerners we must either convert or kill everything that is different from us?
10:14 PM on October 11, 2011
The fact that China and Russia have shown that western-style liberal democracy isn't necessarily the endpoint to history is causing the heads of people like Reynolds and MacKinnon to explode. Don't know why they're taking it so hard. They don't even live there.
9:42 PM on October 11, 2011
There is a quaint, naive aspect to all the "nationalist" competition in this kind of article.
In practical fact, the urban technological and political class in the Beijing / Shanghai corridor has much more in common with the same classes Sydney, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, London City, Silicon Valley, or Manhattan, than with the ethnic hinterlands of China or any of the other so-called "nations" that harbour our productive centres.
There is a brand new and exclusive global territory, that I am provisionally (with due deference to Superman) calling "Metropolis" where the people that count went to the same global universities, know each other, and are building the new global economy. Unlike conspiracy theorists, I think this new global consortium is a very good thing.
Whining about forgotten "national" backwaters and counting "GDP" on the basis of stupid geographical conventions based on 19th Century empires and the outcome of 20th Century wars, is goofy. The world consists of a pan-global urban Metropolis and a lot of contributory farm, energy, and mining zones, and foreseeably people are either part of it of they are going to die poor.
9:05 PM on October 11, 2011
I remember when Japan was the bright light and my dad remembers when everyone was jumping on the Germany 1935 bandwagon. I also remember the same comments circa 1982 about the USSR. Just don't ask a Pole about how they liked the USSR. I think Singapore is the model China is working towards. A Corporate dictatorship.
8:02 PM on October 11, 2011
"To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." -- Teddy Roosevelt
As true for those of you in China as it is for those of us in America, and of course for those infallible deities who grace the Olympian heights of Canada.
10:27 AM on October 12, 2011
It takes one to know one!
10:01 AM on October 12, 2011
I find laughable Ms. Napoleoni's thesis that China today is evidence that Marx "won." Mao was not a true Communist (well, maybe he was for the first three minutes of the Communist revolution); he was a tyrant, a brutal dictator who created a cult of personality. China's post-Mao governments have been Communist in name only; essentially it's an ongoing dictatorship. That dictatorship was forced to introduce economic reforms to maintain power.
Hitler may have been leader of the National Socialist party, but he was as far from being a socialist as one can be; he was, in fact, a fascist, like his war partner Mussolini. His party name was a big lie. Gee, Hitler lied - imagine that!
I would think Ms. Napoleoni, as a socialist, would be ashamed to call Mao a Communist. The so-called Communist regimes - in the USSR, China, and Cambodia - in fact failed to implement Communism, and instead quickly evolved into dictatorships. They gave true Communism a bad name.
11:29 PM on October 11, 2011
China's success is plain for all to see.
But then, some people are blind - like Mr.Neil?
11:34 PM on October 11, 2011
Why would the G&M publish such trash?
The Globe editors know there never was any "Tiananmen Square Massacre" - that no students died there in 1989. The recent Wikileaks cables confirmed what the Chinese government has claimed all along - that the student protest ended peacefully.
Western governments, and all mainstream media have always known this.
Here is a documented editorial. Read this. If the Globe and Neil Reynolds don't stop this slander, there will one day be a hell of a lawsuit that will shut everyone up.
http://www.bearcanada.com/china/letstalkabouttam.html
Since China is a "dictatorship", would Mr. Reynolds care to tell us the "dictator's" name? What a stupid, bigoted claim. China has a central government with thousands of officials, none of whom have the power - as Harper or Obama do - to take their country wherever they want, even if 0% of the population want to go there.
China's government is more "democratic" than Canada's, in spite of all the stupid rhetoric to the contrary. The fact that China does not have a multi-party system is what makes it so functional. If you believe the US or Canada style multi-party system makes for good government, you need to grow up.
Next, China's "vacant homes". It's time bigoted idiots like Reynolds checked their facts. China's total new housing stock in the past decade is 70 million. So Reynolds wants us to believe all the new homes built in the past 10 years are "vacant"? That's rubbish on the face of it.
It's time this urban legend was put to bed. The figure usually circulated is 75 million vacant homes, and I'll tell you where the story began.
Some foreigner in Shanghai decided to estimate local vacancies, so he did a walking tour of three residential districts in Pudong in the early evening, and counted all windows that appeared to have no lights. He classed those as "vacant", then extrapolated for the entire housing stock in Shanghai and extrapolated again for all of China. That's the origin of the 75 million vacant homes.
The man apparently didn't know that Shanghainese work late, and in the early evening all windows are dark. China does have vacant homes, but they have all been sold - purchased as savings and investment since China hasn't as many of these choices as the West. And there is nothing unstable about this.
What is behind this pathological fixation on a country's system of government? Does Mr. Reynolds know how to read? In the last Edelman and Pew Research polls, 88% of Chinese trusted their government and were happy with their system - compared to 23% for the US.
Here’s the article. Read it:
http://www.bearcanada.com/china/chinaleads.html
And since neither the Globe nor Reynolds appears to know even a single true fact about China's government system, here is an article that readers should see. I won't recommend it to Reynolds, since anyone that racist wouldn't care to become informed.
And shame on the Globe for publishing
11:03 PM on October 11, 2011
Yawn. More anti-China racism from the G&M. No surprise.
7:32 AM on October 12, 2011
Per-capita GDP comparisons completely miss the point. Capitalism is about building wealth for the owners, not the whole population.
The Chinese government still calls itself communist, but their system is essentially state-managed capitalism. Theirs is much more successful than the state monopoly capitalism of the old Soviet Union.
We know capitalists love to be free of democratic constraints such as regulations governing working conditions, health and safety, environmental protection, human rights, etc. That's why capitalist Western powers have no objection to dictatorships that allow global capitalists the freedom to profit. On the other hand, a democratically elected leader such as Chavez quickly becomes a pariah for attempts to limit exploitation of his people.
Democracy -- society governed by and for the majority -- does not exist anywhere, yet.
7:33 AM on October 12, 2011
Is Ms. Napoleoni on crack?
GDP per Capita in purchasing power:
U.S. $46,860
Canada $39,171
Russia $15,612
China $7,544
UN Development Index ranking Quality of Life....
#1 Norway
#2 Australia
#3 New Zealand
#4 United States
#5 Ireland
#6 Lietchenstein
#7 Netherlands
#8 Canada
#9 Sweden
#10 Germany
#67 Russia
#91 China
Furthermore, Russia's economy is mainly supported by oil. Take away that and you don't have much. The Russian male life expectancy is 62.8 years versus 78 years for Canada. Russia's population is on a decline.
China may look good making resource acquisitions but take away state owned resource monopolies and you don't have much. Much of it's manufacturing is done by foreign MNCs. Can anyone name five global brands directly from the PRC? Not that great for a country of one billion people.
Maybe you can make an argument for South Korea or Singapore to be better models but not the current Chinese or Russian governments for sure.
6:40 AM on October 12, 2011
Happy 100th anniversary Taiwan. 100 years of independence from China.
2:23 AM on October 12, 2011
Interesting article, but I think that,ultimately, it comes across more as rhetoric - and slightly desperate rhetoric - than real argument.
The protestors in Tiananment wanted "democracy" but what they meant by that was never clear. Indeed, some meant what Mr. Reynolds indicates - others were protesting for a return to full communism. Like many other popular movements, the Tiananmen protests encompassed a wide variety of opinion, some of it quite contradictory.
In addition, in retrospect, there is little doubt that China was not ready for any form of democracy at that time. The experience of the Soviet Union's collapse and the resultant devastation bears out and, at least, offers an argument in favour of the communist leadership's decision to put stability ahead of all other considerations. Given China's history, this is hardly surprising.
The book's central premise is also quite defensible. It is evident that China does do capitalism better than the West. Whether or not this is a good thing is too early to tell. The costs to the environment, the terrible inequities that have developed in the country, the loss of workers' rights -all these things do undercut the argument that "Marx won". But it is also evident that there are huge problems with American-style capitalism and Western democracy in general. We have little to crow about.
Indeed, in the end, the article reads more like an effort to hold on to past glory and deny the obvious and inevitable - the move of power and influence away from the West and back to Asia.
12:27 AM on October 12, 2011
Hey, if I say something pro-communist and something nasty about the West (especially the United States, will I get a lot more votes?
Just voted for myself. There's 1!
9:28 PM on October 11, 2011
Just think how great the American industrial engine could run if they:
Manipulated their currency value
Didn't have to worry about inconvenient environmental regulations
Submitted their population to wage controls at slave labor prices
Controlled the media absolutely
Crushed political uprising at first hint
Didn't have to worry about pesky elections
Could make the economic numbers say exactly what they wanted them to say
Insisted on 50%+1 ownership of any company that wanted to do business within their borders
Didn't have to worry about ruinous pension plans, social security or medicare
Could eliminate any internal opoosition by shooting them
Didn't have to worry about priracy laws and could just steal every good idea that came along
Didn't have to worry about WTO laws
and the list goes on and on but I think you get the picture.
7:29 AM on October 12, 2011
China's biggest customer is Europe. A European slowdown could be the tipping point that sends China (and in turn, Canada) into deep trouble.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/294309-the-less-obvious-ways-to-profit-from-a-greek-default
5:12 AM on October 12, 2011
Rather disappointing that a meandering pointless story like this should get past the Editor and be published. There is lots of analysis to be done on China and the socio economic trade-offs that have been made and the strength/sustainability of its growth- just too bad that the writer didn't do any of it.
3:14 AM on October 12, 2011
Hey, everyone,
Welcome to 'Gold Mountain' (i.e. Canada)! There is multiculturalism and Richmond - space for us all.
5:47 AM on October 12, 2011
Good grief, 200-300 million Chinese living on less than $1.25 a day, and China is beating us at capitalism? How about 300m Americans with an annual GDP of $47k per person? Or an EU with an annual GDP of $33k per person (obviously pulled down by some of the EU's poorer countries)? China at $4.4k is not even a middle income country, yet. Less than the poorest US state or weakest EU country. And please save me the GDP at PPP arguments. You cannot monetize PPP GDP.
China has 200-300m middle class consumers, 200-300m poor people, a few very rich entrepreneurs, and whole bunch of citizens stuck somewhere between poor and middle class. They are not beating us at anything. They are copying our best habits, while learning from our mistakes. The fact is we are becoming more socialist, while they become more capitalist, so there will be some convergence in the middle. Higher living standards in China and lower living standards in the west. But it will still be 50-years before China is even a middle income country.
7:51 PM on October 11, 2011
"Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim
Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square when China put down student pro-democracy demonstrations 22 years ago. "
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-5061672-503543.html
12:28 AM on October 12, 2011
This writer seems to assume that the game is over. Without the west buying all of the crap that China produces what do the Commies do? Less growth, fewer jobs, more upset peasants with nothing to lose. That what the Chinese Corporatocracy is afraid of.
They would have to increase the standard of living of everyone else in China and if there is anything that will ruin the golden goose tor the rich in China it is rising living standards for the factory drones.
9:14 PM on October 11, 2011
This article is upside down.
"The success of Chinese Communist-run capitalism is an ominous sign that the marriage between capitalism and democracy is approaching a divorce." - Slavoj Zizek
8:08 PM on October 11, 2011
They are dead though - or did I miss something, and I don't mean the fantasy drivel from the aluminum lined headgear freaks.
12:54 AM on October 12, 2011
It's all C's in China!
The Cunning Confucian Capitalistic Communist Chinese regime rule by Coercion, Control and Corruption.
Consumption and Cash is the Crown and Content of everything and the Climax and Culmination of Civilization and Culture.
Who cares about the D's:
Dumb Democratic Dissidents Demonstrating and causing Disturbances?
Down with Dogs, Dissent Democracy and Dylan-types!
So C's beat the D's clearly, but what about Deng and Dim-sum?
10:15 PM on October 11, 2011
China is a taker in the modern world.
They have nothing to offer except a vast pool of cheap labour.
The westrn democracies created the modern china, they were all dirt poor before the west lifted them up.
We'll see just what China brings to the table besides cheap consumer goods. I'm not holding my breath.
5 replies 5 replies
8:00 PM on October 11, 2011
Hmm, has the standard of living for the average Chinese citizen been improving or declining? That would be the ultimate measure.
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