To Market, to Market

The moment that finally pushed me off my lazy butt to write this was Donald's Trump escalation of his trade war with China.  There are so many short-sighted notions floating around in American politics these days that I have been thinking about it for a while, even if I don't expect my sharing a viewpoint will cure the human urge for ideologies. Be warned: this little essay is a celebration of market capitalism, of freedom, of laissez faire, of open borders and of the open minds that come with them. It is an assertion that human progress, i.e., greater wealth and health and freedom for folks, has been the result of trade and economic growth and not of governmental programs. Do not expect to find here an embrace of the Green New Deal as a solution for global warming, especially since I am convinced that FDR's New Deal prolonged the great depression.

If you have not been totally triggered by my spoilers to stop reading, I want to consider the recent history of China as an example of the liberating effects of the market, and to consider how Donald Trump's trade war on China is in fact a war on the Chinese people and  support for the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese Communist Party is an interesting development, being much more Chinese, I would suggest, than communist.  The long political history of China is a series of totalitarian despotic regimes being replaced by other totalitarian despotic regimes. With regime change, property was usually redistributed to the followers of the new leaders. Mongol, Ming, or Mao, the pattern was the same. When Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949, the ideological justification for state despotism may have been new, but he became as much a Son of Heaven as any Sung emperor. The property of the opponents of the new regime were claimed in the name of the people, but the Mercedes 600's were owned by Mao and his party officials. When the golden age of Communism did not seem to have arrived, the blame was not taken by the party with their series of plans and purges. Rather there needed to be a Cultural Revolution to root out all remnants of traditional or capitalist ideas in China. There was a ten year reign of terror which continued even after the Revolution was officially over.

In 1976, Chairman Mao died. In 1978, at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee--why do revolutionaries always have such grandiose names for their little gangs?--Deng Xiaoping called for something which might well be followed by all politicians: to seek truth from facts and abandon ideological dogma. In the midst of the failure of Chinese Communism as envisioned in Mao's Little Red Book came the visit of Richard Nixon, making a Chinese role in the world market a real possibilities. I was living in Chicago when the main import from China--Taiwan, officially--was fire crackers. Soon one could buy bamboo steamers. Not very long after that in the measure of Chinese history one could buy iPhones.

With the coming of a market economy to China, there have finally been real advances in the standard of living for ordinary Chinese citizens. Intellectuals are no longer sent to slave gangs.  Girl babies are no longer abandoned. Please understand, I am not claiming that China is some kind of Adam Smithian Utopia. The Communist Party is still in charge, and its leader, Xi Jinping,is still by most standards a despot, even if he does often seem more enlightened than the US president who wishes to be a despot, Huawei may be owned by its employees' labor union, but it certainly operates within strict government limits. But, and this is I think the most important 'but', operation in the world market is the most important factor allowing China to become less despotic. Indeed, compared to most political parties, The Chinese Communists have been amazingly self-critical and self-correcting since the death of Mao, (Perhaps a bit of traditional Confucianism continues despite the Cultural Revolution.)

Donald Trump's trade policies, a policy of tariffs and wars, unfortunately will almost certainly push China back to a more isolated position, but also into a more aggressive position. The One Belt, Road Program will become more important than ever.  Trump's regressive Fortress America does little to encourage anyone choosing to trade with the United States.

Indeed, not only is Trump's trade war a war on the Chinese people, pushing them back into the arms of the Party, it is a war on the American people, increasing their cost of living and narrowing their choices. Unfortunately, the democrats seem to have no vision of the benefits of free trade, either.  I don't think any of them support my right to spend my money on whatever I can afford wherever it was made, which is what I would suggest is the essence of globilization. We are far too often motivated by fear and envy. We put up signs saying 'Buy Local' on stores that depend on a world-wide market system for their operation. We think that if someone else is doing well, it must be because he has cheated me, even though by any reasonable standard I am living like a king.

I remain an optimist, because of truth from facts not from ideology. Over the long course of human history, our technological advances and larger and larger communities have made possible better standards of living for more and more of us. But I think it is foolish to fight against advantages, and trade with China is a great advantage to the US and to China. Of course China tries to spin it in their interest. But if you own Apple stock or own a modern television, it should be obvious that it is in your interest, too. It's Adam Smith's much-maligned but no less active 'invisible hand'. Besides, think how Chinese companies can benefit while they have no reason to respect the intellectual property of the enemy.