Commentary 2

By Rowan Callick, The American

From Vietnam to Syria, from Burma to Venezuela, and all across Africa, leaders of developing countries are admiring and emulating what might be called the China Model. It has two components. The first is to copy successful elements of liberal economic policy by opening up much of the economy to foreign and domestic investment, allowing labor flexibility, keeping the tax and regulatory burden low, and creating a first-class infrastructure through a combination of private sector and state spending. The second part is to permit the ruling party to retain a firm grip on government, the courts, the army, the internal security apparatus, and the free flow of information. A shorthand way to describe the model is: economic freedom plus political repression. link to full article

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Readers' comments

By: Mike Zemack on November 15, 2007
at 9:01 pm

The essential principle of Capitalism is the abolition of force from human relationships, with people dealing with each other by voluntary association and trade to mutual advantage. Authoritarianism is rule by brute force. The two cannot co-exist, longer term, except as a transition to a system of full politico-economic freedom. Economic freedom by permission is a contradiction in terms. The China Model seems to “work” because economic freedom is a pre-condition to political freedom, but only a precondition. One can view the trend toward “economic freedom plus political repression” positively, but only if it is part of an evolution toward limited constitutional government. Ultimately, this lethal contradiction must be resolved by a turn to individual rights and the rule of objective law rather than men, or collapse into despotism and economic destitution. The China Model is a pipe dream of parasitic little dictators like Hugo Chavez who fantasize about absolute rule over the wealth created by free people. But, alas, free minds and free markets are corollaries that won’t submit to the power-lusting whims of the Chavez’s of the world.