Don't Be Fooled: The Chinese Communist Party Has Taken Capitalism to a Whole New Level
by John Lawrence
In 2021, Forbes listed Beijing with the most billionaires at 100 people, followed by New York City with 99 billionaires, and Hong Kong in third place with 80 billionaires. Does this sound like communism? But it is not traditional capitalism either. China has eliminated poverty among its 1.5 billion people while traditionally capitalist countries like the US tolerate large rates of poverty and homelessness. In the US in 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty, approximately 3.3 million more than in 2019. There were also 580 million people homeless living on the streets in unsanitary conditions. This is the price we've been taught that Americans have to pay in order for us to live in a free capitalist country. So what is the difference between the US version of capitalism and the Chinese version? It is basically that the Chinese central government directs the tools of capitalism while in the US there is little or no government direction. Whatever any individual can devise as a way to make money is acceptable. In China the government directs capitalist entrepreneurialism and energy. So Chinese society is much more unified; American society is much more diverse.
Stability and cohesiveness is very important to the Chinese government and Chinese society in general. That's why dissidents are cracked down upon. Their attitude is why risk the great progress Chinese society has made and is making in order that a few people can speak freely and perhaps create a dissident movement which could bring it all down around their ears. Hence the crackdown in Hong Long. Hence the crackdown on the Uighurs. Xi fears that what happened to the Soviet Union could happen to China. It could fall apart. The US tolerates unlimited amounts of free speech with the result that the US is a very unstable society as witnessed by the January 6 insurrection. The US came very close to a ooup d'etat and an overthrow of the elected government. The US definition of freedom is leading to a society which maximizes freedom at the expense of stability and cohesiveness while the Chinese limit freedom in the interests of stability and cohesiveness. Which model is better? The world is watching.
Perhaps there is a middle ground between Chinese authoritarianism and US anarchy. Is this the social welfare democracies of Scandinavia? Perhaps. While the US has divided itself into 2 tribes at total odds with each other, China has become not only very prosperous but they are all, for the most part, on the same page. They are unified while the US is divided. Perhaps China has overdone the limitation of individual freedom, but most Chinese would probably trade off some loss of freedom for the huge increase in prosperity that the average Chinese is experiencing. Would Americans trade off some loss of freedom in order to get out of the malaise they are experiencing? Even though there are more rich Chinese than rich Americans at least in terms of the relative numbers of billionaires, there are no poor Chinese while the economic divide in the US grows bigger with every passing day.
The question Americans have to ask themselves is is a society teetering on the brink of collapse worth the American definition of freedom or could perhaps a slightly less free society, say one with a corresponding ethic of social responsibility, lead to a better society in terms of a better and more humane quality of life for the greatest number of citizens? Has America taken the concept of individual freedom too far at the expense of social cohesiveness?
