So while our beloved government here takes the surplus from social security and invests it in...
loaning money to other divisions in the government for what amounts to wealth transfers...
The Chinese take their trillion dollar surplus and buy a large chunk of a private equity firm.
"Communist" China is now officially more capitalist than the US.
4 comments:
Government ownership of the means of production isn't exactly a capitalist idea.
Shhh! Don't tell him; it'll RUIN his day!
On the other hand, I saw the results of a survey a while ago that showed the Chinese were far more likely than Americans to suggest that free markets were the solution to a wide range of problems. The Europeans polled were almost entirely opposed to any sort of economic freedom, while Americans tended to favor regulated markets.
So while I agree that China is more ideologically supportive of capitalism, they've still got a way to go (recognizing private property as a right rather than a government-granted priviledge, for instance) before they can really be considered a capitalist country. I'm sure they'll continue to move towards that, though.
The Chinese government buying shares of private companies isn't really a sign of capitalism, but that doesn't mean that China won't be more capitalist than the US in 20 years.
The irony is recognized. The nation that was founded on explicitly Smithian principles (the United States), albeit one that has not always conducted its foreign trade in such a manner, is preaching the gospel not of wealth, but of mercantilism at best and outright socialism at worst.
Meanwhile, a colossus of communism/totalitarianism is heaving its bulk towards some expression of economic freedoms, but seems to wish to restrain the political changes that this carries. The implications will be interesting, to say the least.
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