The Odd Couple: The Communist Chinese Government and Capitalism

THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM MARKED AN IDEOLOGICAL VICTORY, BUT SOME WONDER IF CHINA NOW HAS A COMPETING AUTOCRATIC MODEL

To many observers, the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, symbolized the triumph of liberal democracy and free markets over their last serious ideological rival. Two decades and one financial crisis later, a new debate is growing over whether that assessment was premature.

Some Western “thinkers” [quotation marks mine] now argue that democracy is in a new competition with unexpectedly robust authoritarian regimes over which form of government can better deliver prosperity, security and national strength.

It never ceases to amaze me how the economically-ignorant of the world continue to have not even the most basic understanding of how an economy grows—and how it doesn’t. Because the totalitarian government of China finally got its boot off the back of its atrocious command market economy a few decades ago, the economically-ignorant of the world continue to believe that it is the Chinese government that is responsible for China’s booming economy. That would be like me taking my hands off of your neck after almost strangling you to death and then someone observing, “Hey, you’re breathing well again. Look at what that terrific David Kramer is doing for you!”

This story reminds me of a classic scene from the television show The Odd Couple:

Economies, like pregnant dogs, do not need any help.